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. Arafats 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 gunmans 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.
Freaking scum. Thanks for the account.
UN justice, Kosovo style