ISLAMISTS TARGET CHRISTIANS ‘WHEREVER THEY CAN REACH THEM’
Raymond Ibrahim
Family Security Matters
Dec 6 2010
In 2006, when Pope Benedict quoted history deemed unflattering
to Islam, Christians around the Muslim world paid the price:
anti-Christian riots ensued, churches were burned, and a nun was
murdered in Somalia. That was then. Days ago, when a Christian in Egypt
was accused of dating a Muslim woman, twenty-two Christian homes were
set ablaze to cries of “Allah Akbar.” Countless other examples of one
group of Christians in the Muslim world being “punished” in response
to other Christians exist.
In fact, the recent carnage in Baghdad, wherein Islamists stormed a
church during mass, killing over fifty Christian worshippers, was a
“response” to Egypt’s Coptic Christian church, which Islamists accuse
of kidnapping and torturing Muslim women to convert to Christianity
(even if the well documented reality in Egypt is that Muslims regularly
kidnap and force Christian women to convert to Islam).
Moreso, the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamists who perpetrated the Baghdad
church massacre have further threatened Christians around the world:
All Christian centres, organisations and institutions, leaders and
followers, are legitimate targets for the mujahedeen (holy warriors)
wherever they can reach them… Let these idolaters [Christians of the
world], and at their forefront, the hallucinating tyrant of the Vatican
[Pope Benedict], know that the killing sword will not be lifted from
the necks of their followers until they declare their innocence from
what the dog of the Egyptian Church is doing.
Of course, the clause “wherever they can reach them” is an indicator
that it is the Islamic world’s Christians who will especially be
targeted – since they are most easily reached.
This phenomenon – attacking one set of Christians, or non-Muslims
in general, in response to another – has roots in Islamic law. The
Pact of Omar, a foundational text for Islam’s treatment of dhimmis
(i.e., non-Muslims who refused to convert after their lands were
seized by Islam) makes this clear. The consequences of breaking any
of the debilitating and humiliating conditions Christians were made to
accept in order to be granted a degree of surety by the Muslim state –
including things like giving up their seats to Muslims, as a show of
“respect” – were clear: “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
[that is, they become viewed as “unprotected” infidels, and thus
exposed to the same treatment, including slavery, rapine, and death.].”
Moreover, the actions of the individual affect the entire group –
hence the “hostage” aspect (everyone is under threat to ensure that
everyone behaves). As Mark Durie points out, “Even a breach by a
single individual dhimmi could result in jihad being enacted against
the whole community. Muslim jurists have made this principle explicit,
for example, the Yemeni jurist al-Murtada wrote that ‘The agreement
will be canceled if all or some of them break it…’ and the Moroccan
al-Maghili taught ‘The fact that one individual (or one group) among
them has broken the statute is enough to invalidate it for all of
them'” (The Third Choice, p.160).
This notion, that the actions of one affect all, plays out regularly
in Egypt. According to Bishop Kyrillos, “every time there is a rumor
of a relationship between a Coptic man and a Muslim girl [which is
forbidden under Islamic law], the whole Coptic community has to pay
the price: ‘It happened in Kom Ahmar (Farshout) where 86 Coptic-owned
properties were torched, in Nag Hammadi we were killed and on top of
that, they torched 43 homes and shops and now in Al-Nawahed village
just because a girl and a boy are walking beside each other in the
street, the whole place is destroyed.”
Worse, as the world continues to shrink, the Muslim world’s indigenous
Christians become conflated with their free coreligionists in the
West: perceptions of the latter affect the treatment of the former;
race or geography is no longer important; shared religion makes them
all liable for one another. A dhimmi is a dhimmi is a dhimmi.
For example, aside from the Baghdad church massacre, Iraq’s Christians
have long been targeted “over their religious ties with the West …
Christians specifically were targeted by Church bombings and
assassination attempts owing to a perceived association with the aims
and intentions of the occupying forces.” Little wonder more than half
of Iraq’s Christian population has emigrated from the country since
the U.S. toppled Saddam’s regime.
Historical precedents to this phenomenon are aplenty. Whereas the
Copts today are cited as the reason behind the massacre of Iraqi
Christians, nearly a millennium ago, Copts were massacred when their
western coreligionists – the Crusaders – made inroads into Islam’s
domains. Again, the logic was clear: we will punish these Christians,
because we can, in response to those Christians.
It should be noted that this approach applies to all non-Muslim groups
– Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. – living amidst Muslim majorities.
Yet, because Christians are the most visible infidel minority in
the Islamic world, most modern examples relate to them. The Copts
are especially targeted because they comprise the largest Christian
bloc in the Middle East. (Centuries before the Muslim conquests,
Egypt was a bedrock of Christianity, and Alexandria arguably equal
to Rome in authority. The result is, after centuries of persecution,
there is still a viable Christian presence in Egypt – much to the
Islamists’ chagrin.)
Treating non-Muslim minorities as hostages can even have international
consequences. According to Jewish writer Vera Saeedpour, the Turkish
government pressured Israel’s policies, including by threatening
“the lives and livelihood of the 18,000 Jews” in Turkey:
In the Spring of 1982 when Jews scheduled an International Conference
on Genocide in Tel Aviv, they invited Armenians to participate. Ankara
protested. The Israeli Government moved swiftly to get organizers
to cancel insisting that the conference as planned would threaten
“the humanitarian interest of Jews.” The New York Times explained
what “humanitarian interest” meant. Organizers were told by Israeli
officials that Turkey meant to sever diplomatic relations and had
threatened “the lives and livelihood of the 18,000 Jews” in the
country. (NYT 6.3.82 and 6.4.82) To drive home the message, Ankara
even sent a delegation of Jews from Istanbul who warned that they
could be in jeopardy if the conference included Armenians. Chairman
Elie Wlesel was first quoted as saying, “I will not discriminate
against the Armenians, I will not humiliate them.” Later, citing
threats to the lives of Jews in Turkey, he resigned.
All this is a reminder that yet another aspect of Islamic doctrine
and history – to be added to jihad, taqiyya, wala wa bara, etc. – is
alive and well in the 21st century. Treating one set of non-Muslims as
hostages, to be abused as a form of retaliation to their coreligionists
– far or near, singly or collectively – is just another tactic to
assume leverage against the infidel.
This article originally appeared in Pajamas Media and the Middle East
Forum on Friday, December 3, and is reproduced with permission.
From: A. Papazian