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Protected Person Act a la Islam: (Original Version!)

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pact-umar.html

The Status of Non-Muslims Under Muslim Rule
After the rapid expansion of the Muslim dominion in the 7th century, Muslims leaders were required to work out a way of dealing with Non-Muslims, who remained in the majority in many areas for centuries. The solution was to develop the notion of the "dhimma", or "protected person". The Dhimmi were required to pay an extra tax, but usually they were unmolested. This compares well with the treatment meted out to non-Christians in Christian Europe. The Pact of Umar is supposed to have been the peace accord offered by the Caliph Umar to the Christians of Syria, a "pact" which formed the patter of later interaction.

We heard from 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ghanam [died 78/697] as follows: When Umar ibn al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him, accorded a peace to the Christians of Syria, we wrote to him as follows:

In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate. This is a letter to the servant of God Umar [ibn al-Khattab], Commander of the Faithful, from the Christians of such-and-such a city. When you came against us, we asked you for safe-conduct (aman) for ourselves, our descendants, our property, and the people of our community, and we undertook the following obligations toward you:

We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks' cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims.

We shall keep our gates wide open for passersby and travelers. We shall give board and lodging to all Muslims who pass our way for three days.

We shall not give shelter in our churches or in our dwellings to any spy, nor bide him from the Muslims.

We shall not teach the Qur'an to our children.

We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it. We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it.

We shall show respect toward the Muslims, and we shall rise from our seats when they wish to sit.

We shall not seek to resemble the Muslims by imitating any of their garments, the qalansuwa, the turban, footwear, or the parting of the hair. We shall not speak as they do, nor shall we adopt their kunyas.

We shall not mount on saddles, nor shall we gird swords nor bear any kind of arms nor carry them on our- persons.

We shall not engrave Arabic inscriptions on our seals.

We shall not sell fermented drinks.

We shall clip the fronts of our heads.

We shall always dress in the same way wherever we may be, and we shall bind the zunar round our waists

We shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the Muslims. We shall use only clappers in our churches very softly. We shall not raise our voices when following our dead. We shall not show lights on any of the roads of the Muslims or in their markets. We shall not bury our dead near the Muslims.

We shall not take slaves who have beenallotted to Muslims.

We shall not build houses overtopping the houses of the Muslims.

(When I brought the letter to Umar, may God be pleased with him, he added, "We shall not strike a Muslim.")

We accept these conditions for ourselves and for the people of our community, and in return we receive safe-conduct.

If we in any way violate these undertakings for which we ourselves stand surety, we forfeit our covenant [dhimma], and we become liable to the penalties for contumacy and sedition.

Umar ibn al-Khittab replied: Sign what they ask, but add two clauses and impose them in addition to those which they have undertaken. They are: "They shall not buy anyone made prisoner by the Muslims," and "Whoever strikes a Muslim with deliberate intent shall forfeit the protection of this pact."

from Al-Turtushi, Siraj al-Muluk, pp. 229-230.

Referencing my prior posting Point number 1)...history of mainstream muslim aggression...(apologies to those with the attention span of a five year old. This is a somewhat lengthy account. Please note the writing is NOT MINE...)

The very first Muslim attack on India had taken place nearly 500 years earlier in Sindh in the year 715 C.E. These Muslim invaders were Arabs led by Mohammad Bin Qasim. They had displaced Raja Dabir who ruled Sindh from his capital Deval (near modern Karachi). The actual reason for this invasion was that Raja Dabir was aiding the Iranian (Zoroastrian) princes in trying to overthrow the Arab Rule in Persia. This seems to be a fact as many Sassanian nobles from Iran had taken refuge in Sindh and were plotting for the liberation of their country from the Arab yoke.

But the pretext given by Arab historians for the Arab invasion of Sindh is that Raja Dabir's navy had detained an Arab merchant ship. To avenge this detention of a merchant ship, the Arabs overran the entire kingdom of Raja Dabir as also the neighbouring kingdom of Mulasthana (Multan).

They even unsuccessfully tried to attack Malwa (Malibah in Arab records)!

The second surge of the Muslim aggression began in 980 C.E. and lasted till 1020 C.E. This was the time when the Shahi Kings of Punjab grappled with the invaders. By the year 1020 C.E. Muslim rule had been established in Afghanistan, Paktoonistan (NWFP) and West Punjab. These Muslim invasions were led by Mahmud of Ghazni. The Rajputs ruling North India resisted further Muslim aggression.

The third wave of a successful Muslim invasion led by Mahmud Shabuddin Ghori (or Ghauri) took place between 1191 C.E. and 1255 C.E. This was the time the Muslims extended their occupation to Delhi. The lead role in resisting this invasion was played by Prithviraj Chouhan. This Muslim surge brought East Punjab, the Ganges Valley (Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) and Bengal under Muslim Occupation. This invasion reached up to Bengal where the last Hindu kingdom ruled by Laxman Sena was overrunn by the Muslims.

But the Muslims were checked and repelled when they tried to invade Orissa, where the Hindu King Narasimha Deva defeated Tugan Khan who invaded Orissa from Bengal. To commemorate this victory, Narasimha Deva erected the Sun Temple at Konark.

The next surge of the Muslim Invasion was launched from Delhi by Allah-ud-din Khilji in the year 1310 and was led by his general Malik Kafur. This invasion trampled the Hindu Kingdoms of the Yadavas of Devgiri in Maharashtra, the Kakatiyas of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh, the Hoysala of Belur-Halebid in Karnataka and the Pandyas of Madurai in Tamil Nadu. This invasion lasted till the year 1328 and with this invasion, except Orissa and Assam, the whole of India passed under Muslim Occupation.

Thus the struggle of the Hindus to resist the Muslim aggression into India was spread over a period of 600 years from 715 C.E. up to 1328 C.E.The Muslims could not subjgate India with ease. And even after subjugating different parts of the country, they were never able to rule it enitrely. The next 400 years from 1328 up to 1720 was marked by a valiant and ceaseless struggle for independence by Hindus to deliver India from Muslim tyranny.

The very first act of the Muslim invaders was to pillage the well endowed Hindu temples at Somnath, Thanesar, Mathura, Kannauj; and other places. By this, with one stroke, the riches concentrated in the hands of these temples through many centuries of grants from Hindu rulers, fell into the hands of the Muslim invaders from Ghazni and Ghori.

The Muslims aimed to totally destroy the Superstructure associated with the Hindu period. The term Superstructure** which the Muslims aimed at destroying included a wide spectrum of aspects of social life including Indian religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism), language (Sanskrit and its various vernaculars), universities (like Nalanda), traditions of learning (ashramas, gurukulas), architectural symbols (temples, Chaityas, Viharas, Stupas), etc. The policy during the 700 years of Muslim occupation of India was to totally replace the superstructure of the Hindu period with a typical Muslim one.

Towards this end the Muslim invaders undertook the desecration of places of worship, destruction of universities like Nalanda, the wholesale slaughter of the monks and priests to wipe out the intellectual bedrock of the people they overran. Such were the tyrannical polices which the Muslim rulers followed since their rule was established in 1194 C.E.

Contrasts between non-Muslim Invasions and the Muslim Aggression of India

Though the new rulers built upon the same feudal economic foundations of the Hindu period, they aimed at total destruction of the super-structure as it then existed. In the early days of their reign the Muslim rulers unleashed a reign of terror the kind of which India had never experienced before in its history.

Before, the Muslims, India had been invaded by the Greeks (Yavanas), Huns (Hunas), Shakas and Kushanas, but what contrasted their invasions from that of the Muslims was that, after their initial collision with Indian society, the previous invaders were completely absorbed into the existing Indian society.

But the barrack-like lifestyle of the Muslims along with an attitude of contempt for everything associated with this country was to leave a split in India's national character when a significant part of the Indian population went over to the invaders by giving up their ancestral faith and embracing Islam.

But the fierce conflict that featured the early days of the Muslim occupation of India, was in its hidden essence a conflict for domination, of which religion was only one aspect. This struggle was primarily between the Muslim nobility (Amirs) led by the Muslim Monarch (Sultan) on one side with the Hindu nobility and general Hindu population on the other.

To quote D.D. Kosambi , a contemporary historian, "The monarch's regulations were so strictly carried out that the Khuts, Mukaddims or Chaudhuris (Hindu noblemen and village headmen) were not able to ride on horse-back, they were not allowed to carry weapons or even to indulge in betel. These classes were brought to such a state of obedience that one revenue officer would string twenty Khuts, Mukaddims or Chaudhuris together by the neck and enforce payment by blows.

(D.D. Kosambi Introduction to the Study of Indian History)

The Lower Castes (Classes) Bore the Worst Burden - Religious Persecution in Addition to the Existing Economic Exploitation

The tactics of the Muslim monarchy were aimed at breaking the hold of the erstwhile Hindu feudal nobility on the society and the economy. At its core, the Hindu-Muslim struggle was a brutal effort of a new ruling class of the Muslim conquerors in expropriating an older and established ruling class of its accumulated surplus along with the right to appropriate in the future.

The exploited classes of the former Hindu social structure did not experience any change in their economic position, but they now bore the additional burden of repression on religious grounds, the payment of Jazia (penalty tax which the Hindus had to pay for refusing to convert to Islam), the waves of forced conversions, where they, like their more fortunate noblemen and upper caste fellow countrymen, were made to submit to 'Islam' at the point of the Sword, the destruction of their places of worship, and the arbitrary humiliation of the honour of their womenfolk, in addition to the discrimination in legal matters and a general status of being second class citizens. It was for these tyrannical policies that the Muslims were looked upon by all Indians as Mlechha (commonly pronounced as Mlench) - which in Sanskrit means "barbarian".

But in all frankness, it should be said that despite Muslim tyranny, the lower castes of the Vaishyas and Shudras continued to be a tillers of the land with an obligation to part with a share of the crop to the state - whether Hindu or Muslim. Under Muslim rule their economic position did not change, but their social position became worse.

In addition to being economically exploited, as they were earlier during the Hindu period, they were now also socially tyrannized along with the rest of their countrymen, by their new intolerant rulers - the Muslims.

Even the brief revival of slavery that took place under the Delhi Sultanate was in no way comparable to the institution which existed in the ancient Greco-Roman world. The Mohammedan rulers enslaved the subjugated native population in the form of domestic servants at their palaces. This institution of domestic slavery did not represent a productive organisation as it was in the world of antiquity. During the Sultanate, whenever the slaves under the Mohammedan feudal chieftain became too numerous the heads of these favoured servants were cut off without mercy and were made into heaps in front of the darbar" (court).

This showed the low importance given to both human life and to the practice of slavery in the productive process. Had slavery occupied an important place in day-to-day production, such a massacre without impunity could never have taken place. Apart from the low importance attached to slavery, the massacres also reflect the ruthless mentality of the Islamic Sultans of Delhi.

After Mahumd Ghori's victory over Prithiviraj in 1192 and over Jaichandra in 1194, he left his Governor Kutub-ud-din Aibak to rule the conquered territories. After Ghori's death Kutub-ud-din set up an independent kingdom in 1206 and his dynasty is called the Slave Dynasty - after the background of Kutub-ud-din as a slave of Mahmud Ghori. The Slave Dynasty was succeeded by the following Muslim Dynasties viz. the Sayyeds, the Khiljis the Tughlaks and the Lodis. Between them they ruled Delhi and UP from 1206 C.E. up to 1527 C.E.

Ibrahim Lodi, the last ruler of the Lodi line was defeated and killed by Babar who invaded India in 1527.

(excerpted from www.hindubooks.org/budheer_birodkar/hindu_history/...)

(my writing follows...)

So that is a well-catalogued 700 year plus history of primarily Arab muslims bringing uniquely ruthless conquest, religious intolerance, economic and cultural destruction to India. (unless you wish to dispute the veracity of the historical accounts)

A.A.C.