It is an understatement to say that it was criticized, coming as it did from a non-academic historian publishing among specialists of Islam who, at a time when the Shoah was asserting itself in Western memory, generally emphasized that Islam, by contrast, had made room for its minorities, and that medieval Andalusia was continually cited as an example of a glorious “convivencia”—an image that contemporary historians have since greatly nuanced.
Giselle Littman, who adopted the pseudonym Bat Ye’or, daughter of the Nile, was born in Egypt and was expelled from it along with the entire Jewish community of that country. She suspected that the argument of the struggle against Zionism, when applied to an entire community, in fact concealed a more diffuse hostility toward Judaism.
While Bat Ye’or coined the word and the concept of dhimmitude, the term dhimmi was already widely used. It designates someone whose status falls under the dhimma, a pact of alliance. This word appears in the ninth surah, known as Tawba, one of the very last, at a time when Muhammad had secured his power. It is written in the Qur’an itself that later revelations may correct earlier ones, which underscores the importance of Surah Tawba—repentance, teshuva in Hebrew. But contrary to what is often claimed, the word dhimma in this surah refers neither to Jews nor to Christians, but to the “hypocrites”—those supposed allies of Muhammad who, having failed to support him during an expedition against the Byzantines, had broken the pact that bound them to him.
It is further on in the same surah, though without the word dhimma, that the obligation appears for the “People of the Book” to pay a specific tax, the jizya, attesting to the dominant character of Islam over other monotheisms—a milder measure than the alternative imposed on polytheists: conversion or death. A century later, a little-known caliph named Omar, hostile to Christians and Jews, gave the name dhimma to this obligation specific to non-Muslims living in Islamic lands, accompanied by various prohibitions. It was claimed that this constituted a pact of protection.
The dhimma was applied with varying degrees of rigor depending on place and period across the vast Islamic world. Many historians emphasize that the jizya was often light, that the protection of minorities was real—particularly in the Ottoman Empire, where these communities administered their own civil affairs—and that, ultimately, the dhimma tax replaced a duty to fight that applied only to Muslims.
In fact, much can be said against this irenic vision of Islamic domination, as evidenced by forced conversions, religious restrictions, the persecutions of the Almohads, or those of the Safavids of Iran. Bat Ye’or, using sources little exploited before her, showed a situation of minorities in Islamic lands that was far from idyllic.
During the 19th century, in a series of legal and administrative reforms known as the Tanzimat, the sultans abolished the practice of the dhimma in the Turkish Empire—a measure that theoretically transformed non-Muslims into citizens like the others. Theoretically…
As is well known, today there are almost no Jews left in Muslim lands, and the reprisals carried out against Iranian Jews following the Twelve-Day War show how fragile their situation is. Christian minorities have been—and still are—subject to persecution in several Muslim countries, amid general silence. The claim of the intrinsic superiority of Islam over other religions is undeniably one of the easiest levers to activate in the spread of this violence.
In the ninth surah, it is specified that when monotheists pay their tax, they must do so in a state of humiliation. The term used is ṣāghirūn. Much of what the dhimma represents derives from the interpretation of this word. The adjective ṣaghīr, very common, belongs to the semantic field of smallness.
Most contemporary Muslim exegetes, including Qaradawi and al-Azhar Mosque, write that the dhimma—originally linked to the breaking of an alliance pact by the hypocrites—refers to a situation of war that characterized early Islam and no longer applies today.
But there is an ambiguity here: what the dhimma became historically stemmed from a different situation, that of domination, which for many centuries characterized Islam’s relationship to its minorities, which still exists in some parts of the world, and which some Islamists dream of restoring. Such a situation leaves traces in mentalities.
After the official disappearance of the dhimma in the Turkish Empire, there were many reactions of dissatisfaction, which were taken up and amplified by 20th-century religious reformers such as Rashid Rida, and then his disciple Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Calling into question a feeling of superiority considered natural and legitimate is very difficult to accept and is often itself experienced as a humiliation—whereas in the sacred text, it is the Muslim’s privilege to inflict humiliation upon others. When this is compounded by the success of one who should be inferior, and even more so by defeat in battle against him, resentment becomes extremely strong.
These emotional reactions, which are by no means limited to Islam, leave little trace in archives. Yet they play a major role in human history.
As for dhimmitude, a state of resignation in the face of a situation that could not be changed, it long characterized Jewish populations in Christian lands as well as in Islamic lands.
This resignation was an effective survival strategy, but it came at the cost of internalized humiliation. Zionism was, in a sense, a revolt against dhimmitude in the Christian world. This revolt succeeded, and few Jews would wish to return to the previous condition. As for the attitude of resigned submission that can be observed here and there in the Christian world trying not to see the war being waged against it, I am not surprised that the term dhimmitude is often applied to it—even if the explanations are obviously far more complex.
Dr. Richard Prasquier
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