[ZULU]

"Muslims were sometimes welcomed by the Christian population because those populations were considered heretics for their beliefs and under threat of death by the Catholic Church."

True. This was back in the very beginnings of Islamic expanison in the 700's and 800's.

"They weren't full citizens under Islam, but at least they were alive."

Initially, they were probably better off. But as time went on more and more restrictions were heaped on them, and, although technically regarded as "People of the Book" and permitted to practise their religion in private, unlike other faiths which were given the alternative of death or conversion, Dhimmis suffered cruel discrimination. They couldn't participate in government, they were forbidden to carry arms, they couldn't testify against a Muslim, the could be enslaved while a Muslim could not, they could not make improvements on the exterior of their churches or synagogues, they had to wear a distinguishing badge marking them as Dhimmis, they couldn't practise their religion in public, they were forbidden under pain of death from converting or attempting to convert Muslims, and were subjugated to the same periodic pograms Jews in Europe enjoyed.

In today's Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, other religions, even other forms of Islam, are simply and totally forbidden. So things have hardly improved.

But I guess living life as a slave can be preferred to death if no hope of liberty exists.

[antiRepublicrat]

Wahhabist

Say no more. If not for Muhammad Bin Saud, Sheikh Wahhab would have been silenced by the other Muslim schools at the time. The Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbali, and Shafi'i all thought his ideas on the Quran were pretty contradictory to what was actually in the Quran. They were about to prosecute him until Saud gave him protection.

It's pretty sad that the British handed the oil riches and the holy sites of Mecca and Medina to this bunch of fanatical gangsters (and therefore a lot of power), all in an effort to fight the Ottoman empire.