Persecution of Muslims

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Muslims have experienced persecution throughout their history. This can occur in the form of arrest, imprisonment, beating, torture, and execution. It may also refer to the confiscation or destruction of property, and verbal or written incitement to hatred. Persecution can extend beyond those who perceive themselves as Muslims to include those who are perceived by others as Muslims.

Pagan Arab persecution of Muslims

In the early days of Islam at Mecca, the new Muslims were often subjected to abuse and persecution. Some were killed, such as Sumaya bint Khabbat, the seventh convert to Islam, who was tortured first by Abu Jahl. Muhammad was protected somewhat by the influence of his family, but even he was subjected to such abuse; while he was praying near the Kaaba, Abu Lahab threw the entrails of a sacrificed goat over him, and Abu Lahab's wife Umm Jamil would regularly dump filth outside his door. And if free Muslims were attacked, slaves who converted were subject to far worse. The master of the Ethiopian Bilal ibn Rabah (who would become the first muezzin) would take him out into the desert in the boiling heat of midday and place a heavy rock on his chest, demanding that he forswear his religion and pray to the polytheists' gods and goddesses, until Abu Bakr bought him and freed him. This persecution ultimately provoked the hijra.

Muslim persecution of Muslims

See takfir, Ahmadiyya, Shia, Kharijite, Mu'tazili.

Christian persecution of Muslims

Persecutions of Muslims during Crusades

Main article: Crusade

The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II to regain control of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Christian Holy Land from Muslims. On May 7, 1099 the crusaders reached Jerusalem, which had been recaptured from the Seljuks by the Fatimids of Egypt only the year before. Many Crusaders wept on seeing the city they had journeyed so long to reach. On July 15, the crusaders were able to end the siege by breaking down sections of the walls and entering the city.

Over the course of that afternoon, evening and next morning, the crusaders murdered almost every inhabitant of Jerusalem. Muslims, Jews, and even eastern Christians were all massacred. Although many Muslims sought shelter in Solomon's Temple (known today as Al-Aqsa Mosque), the crusaders spared few lives. According to the anonymous Gesta Francorum, in what some believe to be an exaggerated account of the massacre which subsequently took place there, "...the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles..."[1] (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/cde-jlem.html#gesta2). Other accounts of blood flowing up to the bridles of horses are reminiscent of a passage from the Book of Revelation (14:20). Tancred claimed the Temple quarter for himself and offered protection to some of the Muslims there, but he was unable to prevent their deaths at the hands of his fellow crusaders. According to Fulcher of Chartres: "Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared."[2] (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/cde-jlem.html#fulcher1)

Persecution of Muslims in medieval Spain

The treaty that confirmed Spain's conquest of Granada in 1492 officially guaranteed Granada's Muslims freedom of religion. This promise, however, was rapidly broken; in 1499, Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros ordered the burning of all Arabic manuscripts in Granada except those dealing with medicine, and began a program of forced mass baptisms, resulting in the First Rebellion of the Alpujarras. By 1500 he reported that "There is now no one in the city who is not a Christian, and all the mosques are churches".

The new "Christian" conversos continued to practice Islam in secret, as far as they were able, supported by the fatwas of muftis such as Ahmad ibn Abi Juma`a, the Chief Mufti of Oran, who declared it permissible to act as a non-Muslim outwardly (even to the extent of eating pork and denying the Prophet) if the alternative was death (see taqiyya.) A major task of the Spanish Inquisition was to track down and punish such people for the crime of remaining Muslim.

In 1567, Philip II renewed an edict banning the practice of Islam, Moorish costumes and customs, and the use of Arabic. This sparked the Second Rebellion of the Alpujarras, which was brutally suppressed by Don John; in its aftermath, some 80,000 Moriscos were forcibly relocated to be dispersed among other parts of Spain. But despite all, many still remained secret Muslims.

On September 11, 1609, the town criers of Valencia announced that the King had ordered the expulsion of all Moriscos in an order signed secretly on April 4 of that year. The first boat left Denia for Oran on October 3. Over the next year, similar orders were issued in the other kingdoms - Aragon, Castile, Andalusia, and Extremadura. Most ended up as exiles in the port cities of the Maghreb, where their families and many aspects of their culture continue to this day. Somewhere between 300,000 and 600,000 Moriscos (in a Spain whose population was only seven and a half million!) were deported[3] (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1373/is_4_52/ai_84804714/pg_2). Valencia lost a third of its population.

Children were to remain in Spain as their parents were exiled; the edict stipulated that all children under five were to be kept behind and given to priests or Christian families. This policy proved impossible to implement fully, but was still imposed on an estimated 14,000 children. In July 1610, the Church recommended that all remaining Morisco children under seven in Valencia should be given as slaves to Old Christians.

Persecution of Muslims in Lebanon

The Lebanese Civil War saw a number of massacres of Muslims - and indeed of Christians. Among the earliest were the Karantina Massacre and the Tel el-Zaatar Massacre in 1976, against Palestinian refugees; the later Sabra and Shatila Massacre in 1982, with at least 800 killed, is perhaps the best known. These murders combined sectarian, political, and ideological reasons.

Secular Western persecution of Muslims

Discrimination and persecution in Israel

See: Baruch Goldstein, Nakba, Kach, Kahanism

Discrimination and persecution in Europe

See History of Bosnia and Herzegovina#19th and 20th century, ethnic cleansing

Discrimination in United States of America

Communist Persecution of Muslims

Discrimination and persecution in Soviet Union and East Bloc nations

See Pomak, Bulgaria.

Enver Hoxha conducted a campaign to extinguish all forms of religion in Albania, a majority Muslim country, in 1967, closing all religious buildings and declaring the state atheist. See Communist and post-Communist Albania.

Persecution of Muslims in China

Qing Dynasty

People's Republic of China

Hindu Persecution of Muslims

See also Ethnic conflict in India.

The Sangh Parivar family of organisations have allegedly been involved in encouraging negative stereotyping of Muslims, and in the 2002 Gujarat violence they were allegedly responsible for encouraging attacks against Muslims in the state of Gujarat. The 2002 riots arose after 59 Hindu pilgrims, including 14 children returning from Ayodhya were killed from a firebombing of the train carrying them by an alleged Muslim mob in Godhra. Subsequent riots led to death of 1000 people, mostly Muslim.

Increased persecution of Muslims following September 11, 2001

On September 11, 2001, the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks occurred against The Pentagon and the World Trade Center towers in the United States. Some people explained these attacks as a battle between Muslims and the West (see also Samuel Huntingdon.) For example, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, Osama bin Laden, claimed that these attacks were a defence of Muslims against US military presence on terrorities where many Muslims live. In contrast, others either claimed directly or suggested indirectly that the attacks were the responsibility of Muslims wishing to attack democracy and freedom.

Independently of the truth or falsity of these stereotypes, the belief in them might be a factor contributing to an increase in persecution of Muslims in the USA, in the European Union and elsewhere in the world during the following few years.

References

External Links

Religious Tolerance (http://www.religioustolerance.org)
Muslim Response To persecution (http://www.bismikaallahuma.org/History/persecution.html)

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Categories: Religious persecution | Islam