Bat Ye’or is the author of numerous books and articles on non-Muslims under Islam. Among her works are Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (2002), Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis (2005), and Europe, Globalization, and the Coming of the Universal Caliphate (2011). Ye’or spoke to a May 12 Middle East Forum Podcast (video). The following summarizes her comments:
The term “dhimmitude” describes the “juridical status of non-Muslim populations conquered by jihad” under Sharia (i.e., Islamic law). It establishes the conditions by which Jews and Christians, in particular, are permitted to live after submitting to Islamic rule. “Jihad,” an institution linked to dhimmitude, differs from the Western way of war in that “it is not merely about territorial gain.” Jihad is also a “theological war to impose Sharia globally and suppress all non-Muslim religions.” Sharia mandates that jihad continue until all people either convert to Islam or are compelled to live under Islam.
Sharia mandates that jihad continue until all people either convert to Islam or are compelled to live under Islam.
According to Sharia, those who refuse to become Muslim are “miscreants” without rights and can be treated cruelly. Such behavior, “normal in jihadist war,” was the case with the atrocities committed by Hamas during the October 7 invasion of Israel. Numbering in the thousands, the terror group, joined by Gazan civilians, gleefully raided and massacred Jewish communities.
Historically, jihad extended across Africa, Asia, and deep into Europe, “and continues until today.” The result was that a “civilization of dhimmitude spread across continents and last[ed] for centuries.” Non-Muslims across those continents survived under the “discriminatory legal [status] dictated by jihadist legal code and Islamic jurisprudence, both rooted in religious scriptures.” Since dhimmitude is a direct consequence of jihad, it is thus tied to “two fundamental pillars of Islamic theology and civilization, jihad and Sharia,” and is therefore difficult to reform.
Today the West is facing a “global ideological war” of jihad waged by Muslims on Judaism and Christianity, although “not all Muslims share their extremist views.” Many came to Europe to escape Sharia in their native countries and reject Islamic fundamentalism, only to find that they are threatened themselves. Muslims who choose to live under Europe’s democratic system and reject Islam or convert are finding that Europe cannot protect them.
Dhimmitude also describes the “mechanism that transformed” strong Judeo-Christian civilizations into Islamic ones. Although “dhimmitude laws apply equally to Jews and Christians,” their impact on these two groups was not the same. When Muslim conquests began in the seventh century, “Jews were still numerous in their country, Judea, Palestine, and throughout the diaspora, but they lacked a central authority.” In contrast, “Christians represented powerful kingdoms with armies, bureaucracies, national languages, culture, and state foundations.” Although Muslims were only a minority in Christian lands, “mainly Arab and later Turkish military invading tribes,” the situation two or three centuries later had “totally reversed. The Christian majority became impoverished, marginalized minorities.” In the meantime, Muslim minorities had risen to conquer kingdoms and had assumed ruling positions. Later, “Turkish and Sharia replaced the former Christian legal systems.”
Today, jihad’s cultural war against the West is aided by “an unexpected alliance” with “the anti-Christian left, the ex-communist factions, neo-Nazi[s], and the Western anti-Zionist.” The evidence of dhimmitude’s and jihad’s advance into the West is the “Islamic blasphemy law” now adopted by European societies. Today, “self-censorship dominates public discourse” because offending Islam carries the death penalty in Sharia. “This fear and suppression of freedom of speech is a defining characteristic of dhimmitude.”
Today, jihad’s cultural war against the West is aided by “an unexpected alliance” with “the anti-Christian left, the ex-communist factions, neo-Nazi[s], and the Western anti-Zionist.”
In past centuries, Jews and Christians under Sharia lived in fear because they were prohibited from bearing arms, rendering them unable to defend themselves. Whether they were falsely accused of a crime or physically assaulted by a Muslim, their testimony was not accepted in Sharia tribunals. When jihad was waged in the past under dhimmitude civilizations, its specific aim was to impose Sharia on “a miscreant state.” Today, however, jihad in the West is waged by terrorists committing random acts of killing, hostage taking, and the destruction of synagogues and churches in Europe. All of this behavior creates “insecurity in Europe” and, according to the jihadis, is “justified by [the] religious law of war against miscreants.”
Europe’s cultural and political ties with Muslim countries are a vestige of European colonial power and developed into agreements formed to enable European countries to economically benefit from Muslim countries’ wealth. The 1995 Barcelona Process was an agreement between Europe and the Arab countries to further strengthen ties. The process also encouraged Muslim immigration into Europe, but the flood of Muslim migrants and refugees in 2015 that overwhelmed Europe also brought more crime and terrorism.
The two-tier system of law that exists in many European countries today is a result of the refusal of many Muslims “to accept non-Muslim authority.” What’s more, “obedience to non-Muslim rulers” is considered “submission to infidelity” and therefore forbidden under Sharia. “Contradictory concepts of justice and peace” undermine the legitimacy of secular governance and also appear “in the international forums of the U.N.,” where Muslim countries that vote in the U.N. ascribe to Sharia norms. This is why the “principle of gender inequality” is consistent with the “Muslim declaration of human rights.” Introducing Sharia principles that are in stark contrast with “secular Western values” further weakens Western societies. In order for the West to come to terms with the Muslim world, the U.N. needs to condemn or suppress the concept of jihad.
“The collapse of the educational system” in Western institutions is another point of dhimmitude, as evidenced by the increasing difficulty teaching the Holocaust in schools. While Hitler and the Nazis are reviled in the West, Hitler admired Islam and is considered a hero in the Muslim world. During World War II, there was a collaborative military relationship between Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and Hitler. After the war, Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Iraq, and Syria “invited the Nazi criminals to come to their country,” and Nazi ideology proliferated among Muslim societies.
The Nazi influence in Egypt contributed to the formation of Palestinian Arab terrorism under an Egyptian, Yasser Arafat, who imbibed the Nazi Jew-hatred there. The “new antisemitism” of today is a “continuation of old dhimmitude and jihadist hatred towards Jews, which has merged with Nazi ideology and terminology. It is Nazi Islamism.”
Europe’s appeasement of Muslim criminality is based on its fear of seeing its relationships with Muslim countries deteriorate, but even greater is its fear of “terrorist reprisals.”
Today’s cultural rot of “wokeism” in the West, and its hatred of the “white Westerner,” parallel the Islamic directive to eliminate “jahiliyyah culture,” the Arabian past prior to the advent of Islam. It is embodied by the current “hatred against the miscreant and his jahiliyyah culture that has to be eliminated.”
Attempts to erase the teaching of the Holocaust should also be countered by teaching the history of jihad and the civilization of dhimmitude that “suppressed many people and cultures.” We should strengthen the lessons of Western values to better prepare the next generation to understand what motivates jihad and how to challenge it.
As for the challenges Europe currently faces with the “millions and millions of immigrants in Europe who have a different culture, a different way of thinking about gender,” the refusal of Muslims to abide by the “miscreant laws,” and their unwillingness to assimilate into European culture, these are all growing problems that future generations living under democratic law will have to solve. Europe’s appeasement of Muslim criminality is based on its fear of seeing its relationships with Muslim countries deteriorate, but even greater is its fear of “terrorist reprisals.”
The complex politics of Europe and its immigration policies are largely determined by the European Union (EU) and its European Parliament, despite the fact that “not all opinions are the same.” The problem is further exacerbated by the “political orientation” in Europe. The anti-Zionist and anti-Israel positions held by many are “very much linked to the terrorist movements like Hamas,” which further blinds Europe to its dilemma. Despite the policy changes in immigration and law enforcement being demanded by the European people, they realized too late that they gave away their “sovereign powers” to the EU, which has become a devil’s bargain.
