The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

"A thing without a name escapes understanding," warns preeminent Islamic scholar Bat Ye'or of jihad and dhimmitude-the Islamic institutions of, respectively, war and perpetual servitude imposed on conquered non-Muslim peoples. Both, Ye'or notes in an essay entitled "Historical Amnesia," are in the process of globalization.

This is not the benign economic globalization that most Westerners laud. Islamic jihad and dhimmitude trade in every available means-military, political, technological and intellectual. And if the towering collection of 63 essays (including Ye'or's) contained in this new book is to be believed, these specific Islamic processes are globalizing at a disturbingly rapid pace. The book, courageously assembled by Robert Spencer, provides historical and contemporary profiles of jihad and dhimmitude.

In six sections, the book delineates how Islamic ideology has affected non-Muslims both historically and in the contemporary world. The first three sections cover the myth vs. historical realities and Islamic law and practice regarding non-Muslims. The last three sections cover how the myth of Islamic tolerance has affected contemporary geopolitics, power politics at the United Nations and, finally, academic and public discourse. It is Ibn Warraq's forward and the latter 400 pages in which this book really shines. He explains:

Islam is a totalitarian ideology that aims to control the religious, social and political life of mankind in all its aspects; the life of its followers without qualification; and the life of those who follow the so-called tolerated religions to a degree that prevents their activities from getting in the way of Islam in any way. And I mean Islam, I do not accept some spurious distinction between Islam and 'Islamic fundamentalism' or Islamic terrorism'.

The September 11, 2001 murderers acted canonically. They followed Sharia, a collection of theoretical laws and ideals "that apply in any ideal Muslim community." This body of regulations, based on divine authority, according to devout Muslims "must be accepted without criticism, without doubts and questions." It sacrifices the individual's desires and good to those of the community.

That apostasy is not today mentioned in the legal codes of most Islamic countries, Warraq notes, hardly implies freedom of religion for Muslims in those states; their penal codes are filled with Islamic laws. The myth of Islamic tolerance is defied by the massacre and extermination of the Zoroastrians in Iran; the million Armenians in Turkey; the Buddhists and Hindus in India; the more than six thousand Jews in Fez, Morocco, in 1033; hundreds of Jews killed in Cordoba between 1010 and 1013; the entire Jewish community of Granada in 1066; the Jews in Marrakesh in 1232; the Jews of Tetuan, Morocco in 1790; the Jews of Baghdad in 1828; and so on ad nauseum.

Ironically, despite Islam's immutability, the myth evolved through the Western propensity to criticize its civilization. In 98 CE, Roman historian Tacitus in Germania compared the noble simplicity of the Germans with the vices of contemporary Rome. Michele do Montaigne (1533-1592) in circa 1580 painted noble savages based on dubious secondhand information in order to condemn his own civilization.

Later writers substituted Islam for savages to condemn Christendom and materialism. In 1686-89, for example, Huguenot pastor Pierre Jurieu exclaimed that Christians had spilt more blood on St. Bartholemew's Day than had the Saracens in all their persecutions of Christians. Of course, Islam had claimed millions of lives-in 1399, Taimur killed 100,000 Hindus in a single day. But during the 17th century, and later the Enlightenment, writers perpetuated the "two ideal prototypes, the noble savage and the wise and urbane Oriental," substituting Turks for Muslims, and Islamic tolerance for Turkish tolerance.

Actually, 18th century Turkey was no interfaith utopia. In 1758, a British ambassador noted that Sultan Mustafa III had non-Muslim Christians and Jews executed for wearing banned clothing. In 1770, another ambassador reported that Greeks, Armenians and Jews seen outside their homes after dark were hanged. In 1785, a third noted that Muslim mobs had dismantled churches after Christians had secretly repaired them.

"The golden age of equal rights was a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam," Bernard Lewis wrote in 1968 in the Encyclopedia of Islam. "The myth was invented in 19th century Europe as a reproach to Christians-and taken up by Muslims in our own time as a reproach to Jews...."

Until the late 19th century, Jews in North Africa, Yemen and other oriental Muslim lands, were obliged to live isolated, in special quarters, and "were constrained to wear distinctive clothing." They could not carry arms (including canes), and could not give sworn testimony in Muslim jurisdictions. Even in 1968, an Egyptian sheikh explained at Cairo's Islamic University of al-Azhar, "the Jews... are dhimmis, people of obligation, who have betrayed the covenant in conformity with which they have been accorded protection."

The International Institute of Islamic Thought was established in 1981 to Islamify Western history and thought. Western thinkers succumb to jihad and dhimmitude when we refuse to identify the Turkish perpetration of Armenian genocide, or (conversely) present Andalusia-complete with harems, eunuchs, and Christian slaves-"as a perfect model of multicultural societies for the West" to emulate in the 21st century.

Only testimony can counter the pathological trends. Thus, Walid Phares and Bat Ye'or tackle the forgotten tragedy of the Middle Eastern Christians-10 to 12 million Egyptian Copts; 1.5 Lebanese Maronites, Orthodox, Melkites and others; 7 million Anglican, Protestant and Catholic southern Sudanese Africans; 1 million Christian Syrians; 1 million Iraqi Assyrians, Nestorians, Chaldeans, and Jacobites; 500,000 Iranian Persian, Armenian and Assyrian Christians; and perhaps 100,000 Christian Arab Palestinians. Patrick Sookhdeo and Mark Durie cover the rise of anti-Christian persecutions in Nigeria, Sudan, Pakistan and Indonesia since Sept. 11, 2001.

Western failure to recognize this subservient condition, much less its historical or contemporary results, has put democratic civilization in danger. All this and much more in this book can help to turn the tide.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

I'm an expatriate American. My wife and I live in a Muslim neighborhood in the southern part of Thailand. We ourselves have never experienced a scintilla of censure or even tension from our Muslim neighbors -- among whom we shop and with whom we interact every day, on the friendliest of terms.

But from our house we can hear the daily sermons broadcast fom the local mosque (in the Thai language --- very few Muslims speak the Arabic of the Q'uran) and what we hear is very disturbing. Local Muslims are told that all of Thailand (which is 75% Bhuddist) should become an Islamic state, and that loyalty to the King and/or Prime Minister is disloyaly to Allah. This does not happen every day --- but it happens too often to ignore.

After the tsunami we found that several Muslim groups had used the disaster to evict Bhuddist beach vendors, preventing them from rebuilding their businesses. The Muslims are organized around and encouraged by firebrands from the mosque --- the Bhuddists have no such support organization, so are easy prey.

I have read nearly all of Robert Spencer's books and articles. I have followed his detailed arguments online with Muslim scholars --- he is clear, reasoned, and precise. His books are more understated and balanced than his websites, which are ardent --- sometimes strident. Overall, his writings have encouraged me to do a little research of my own -- and I believe he knows what he is talking about. Read this book if you want to know what kind of future Islam has in mind for your children.

This timely volume arrives when Western Europe is struggling to cope with the spectre of Islamic intolerance within it's own borders. In Holland , Dutch artist Theo Van Gogh was murdered by an islamic extremist for making a film deemed by muslims to be insulting of their religion. Dutch politicians who are critical of islam find themselves on muslim hitlists. The dutch are puzzled because for years the multi-culturalists told them that Islam was like all other religions i.e. tolerant of other beliefs. Now the Dutch are finding out the truth the hard way. And so at the perfect time arrives a book which shows that Islamic tolerance is reserved only for those who believe in Islam. Robert Spencer has done a wonderful job in bringing together several top experts on Islam (including former muslims)who all contribute interesting chapters on the way Islam has treated non-believers over the ages. If you ever wondered why Salman Rushdie faced an islamic death threat just for writing a book, why crosses are banned in Saudi Arabia and why muslims who convert to Christianity in Pakistan have been murdered then this is THE book to read. A must read for anyone with an enquiring mind and a vital addition to the ongoing debate about religious freedom.