Among the charactistics of dhimmitude is a total lack of the rights of citizen; dhimmi are not permitted jobs within the civil service, their children cannot attend college, they are not permitted on juries and the legal weight of their testimony in court is no better (and sometimes considerably less) than that of Islamic women. Almost invariably they cannot vote -- a rather pointless loss since no dhimmis could be candidates -- if they are permitted in the army they remain privates forever, and they are not permitted passports. A dhimmi in any sort of business cannot be boss of Moslems, only of other dhimmi. In most Islamic countries they are not permitted to own land or even have bank accounts.
As for religious rights, in Saudi Arabia (and presumably elsewhere in the Moslem world), although dhimmi are allowed to have their own (unfunded and unequipped) schools, they are required to use government-issued textbooks that explicitly and repeatedly teach the supremacy of Islam and the defects of Christianity and Judaism (Christians and Jews are virtually the only dhimmi communities -- Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Bahai, etc. are regarded as idol worshippers and are entitled to even less, frequently being constantly and even violently oppressed). In Saudi Arabia, Christians cannot even be buried within Saudi Arabia, their remains must be shipped out of the country.
The churches and synagogues permitted must be un-advertised on the outside - no crosses or stained glass must be visible to people on the street nor may the prayers, sermon or choir be audible outside the walls. The building must be small - smaller than a mosque and subsequent expansion, even because of a growing congregation, is strenuously discouraged. For this reason churches built in what is now Israel (or Palestine) under the Moslem Empire (such as the Church of the Nativity), actually go immediately down to a basement level - the only way to fit a pulpit and other furnishings without a tall roof. Frequently mosques or other Moslem buildings are built right next to churches, sometimes utilizing the church's walls, and sometimes such Moslem buildings are built on both sides of the church -- to assure that the church will never be able to expand.
Among other restrictions is that the dhimmi communities are forbidden to complain about their situation, even to their co-religionists in other countries, so you don't hear about Arabic Christians asking the European countries to intercede for them or otherwise help. Church services are attended by secret (and sometimes not-so-secret) police to assure that the sermons don't criticize the order of things -- nor even suggest that the Church's teachings are superior (or even equal) to those of Islam. About the only time that Church services become visible to outside world is on a very few major holidays - probably only Christmas and Easter - and only in cities of interest to foreign Christians, such as Bethlehem; otherwise the Churches are not to do anything in public. And, throughout the Moslem world, the death penalty for anyone who tries to convert a Moslem to Christianity, or even engage in a serious discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of Moslem superstition. Altho Moslem men may marry dhimmi wives - but not the other way around - these wives have more personal religious rights if they DON'T convert to their husband's religion; as long as the wives remain Christian or Jewish they are permitted a lack of enthusiasm for Islam but once they convert they are no longer allowed to express any doubts or disagreement with Islamic doctrines.
About six years ago, when the Israelis turned Bethlehem over to the PLO, Arafat immediately re-imposed dhimmitude on the Christians there - instantly firing dozens of them from civil service or management jobs. The Christians (virtually all of them Arabic) staged a protest march, which was called "the Christian Intifada" - and PLO police fired into the crowd!
Islam is a blight on the world.
This is most often translated the House of Peace and the house of War. So when Islam is called the religion of Peace, you can better understand their use of the term. It is the religion of domination and slavery. When you are a slave in chains, then, you have peace. Until then, you are nothing but a target.
Often, greedy rulers required them to pay an avania, or protection money. This was simply a sum of money extorted from the Jewish or Christian communities, under the threat of persecution. This practice of having to pay for their own protection soon became the norm for dhimmi communities in Muslim lands.
You do not have to look far back in history to see this in action. In the town of Bethlehem, which was given to Arafat in the Oslo Accords, (in the name of peace) The Syrian Orthodox Christian Church was given $20,000 dollars by a Church in England to build a school house. Arafat’s thugs demanded $15,000 of it for protection taxes. When the architect refused, he was machine gunned down on his front porch after a church meeting, (along with a few other parishioners) and then rammed with the gunman’s car. When the Christians standing there ran after the gunman, who they all recognized as a local "youth" in the local UN camp, they were driven off by Palestinian Police gunfire. Not a one of the FOURTY eye witnesses were allowed to testify in court as they were all dhimmi's and were not allowed to testify against a Moslem. The thug walked...
To this day I wonder why Clintoon and the Democraps ever thought that forcing a Christian city to be given over to the Islamic Arabs had anything to do with peace. Bethlehem, which was 80% Christian, is now less than 20%, and they were not bought out by the Moslems.
The Lucifer Principle
Book excerpt by Howard Bloom
Some readers will be outraged by my presumption. How dare I regard any group as barbaric? What appalling ethnocentrism! there are no barbarians. There are simply cultures we haven't taken the time to understand. Cultures to whom we haven't given sufficient aid.
Cultures in need of development. Beneath the skin, all men and women are the same. They have the same needs, the same emotions, and the same ideals. If you simply took those folks you speak of so contemptuously out for a cup of coffee, you would discover that they are just like you and me.
But there are barbarians--people whose cultures glorify the act of murder and elevate violence to a holy deed. These cultures portray the extinction of other human beings as a validation of manliness, a heroic gesture in the name of truth, or simply a good way to get ahead in the world. Islamic societies tend to be high on this list.
Holiness, righteousness, and even day-to-day propriety in Islamic cultures are based on the example of Mohammed. Though Islamic literature praises Mohammed as a man of peace, he was anything but. In A.D. 624, the Prophet announced the concept of the jihad-the holy war. He said in the blessed book the Koran, "Kill those who join other gods with God (e.g., Christians) wherever you shall find them, and seize them and slay them, and lay in wait for them with every kind of ambush." In the next nine years, the man of peace ordered at least 27 military campaigns, personally leading nine of them.
It is not surprising that Moslem jurists would later declare that there are two worlds; the world of Islam, Dar al-Islam, and the non-Islamic World, Dar al-Harb. These two territorial spheres, explained the Moslem scholars, are in a state of perpetual war. According to the Koran, any leader who fails to "make wide slaughter" in the land of the infidel is committing a sin. A statesman is only allowed the temporary expedient of peace if his forces are not yet strong enough to win. This may explain why Elias Canetti, in his Nobel Prize-winning book "Crowds and Power," calls Islam a killer religion, literally a religion of war.
In the West, we think of scholars as meek little men with glasses, leading peace marches. In the lands of Islam, famous scholars often spent years studying every nuance of their Koran, then rounded up an army, and went out to make war in the name of Allah.
In the thirties, one of them labored diligently to become an Islamic scholar. He poured over the Koran for years. As he demonstrated his superior knowledge of Allah’s pronouncements, he rose in the ranks of Iranian holy men. Finally, he achieved the penultimate title - ayotollah (roughly equivalent of a Catholic cardinal). His name was Ruhollah Khomeini, and he wrote books, pamphlets, and even taped and distributed his speeches to inspire the citizens of Iran with sacred virtue. The ayotollah’s words roused Iranians to overthrow the shah and usher in a government based on strict Islamic doctrine.
What did the ayatollah’s pronouncement say? Among other things, that infidels are like dogs. Their existence is an affront to Allah. Here’s how the ayatollah himself put it:
"Moslems have no alternative...to an armed holy war against profane governments...Holy war means the conquest of all non-Moslem territories...It will...be the duty of every able bodied adult male to volunteer for this war of conquest, the final aim of which is to put the Koranic law in power from one end of the earth to the other.
"The leaders of the USSR and of England and the president of the United States are ... infidels ... Every part of the body of a non-Moslem individual is impure, even the hair on his head and his body, his nails, and all the secretion of his body. Any man or woman who denies the existence of God, or believes in His partners (the Christian Trinity), or else does not believe in His Prophet Mohammed, is impure (in the same way as are excrement, urine, dog, and wine).
Concluded the ayatollah (Ruhollah Khomeini), "Islam does not allow peace between...a Moslem and an infidel."
(From here, only excerpts are posted because of its length)
For six hundred years after the fall of the Crusader states, Islamic forces returned to the attack, capturing Greece and chunks of eastern Europe, raiding towns in Sicily and the Italian coasts for goods and slaves, preying on Mediterranean shipping, chaining Europeans like Miguel Cervantes to the oars of their galleys, and until 1826 forcing the Christian citizens of Yugoslavia and Albanian to give up their children to Moslem overlords (who brought up the males on the Koran, then turned them into soldiers known as Janissaries).
. . . The ground is ripe for worldwide Islamic fundamentalist expansion. Mohammedanism is currently the fastest-growing religion on the planet. There are a billion Moslems and that number is increasing daily.
. . . Allah is rapidly equipping Khomeini’s followers with a sword to carry out their master’s wishes. He has offered Islam the fire in which the Koran says those who follow false faiths are destined to burn: nuclear weaponry. He has also provided the long-range missiles needed to use it. According to the late imam’s logic, there may be only one just and righteous thing to do; employ this technology to wipe out recalcitrant heathens like you and me.