RUTHFULLY YOURS

Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.

What I found in these commentaries was deeply disturbing.  It was a full and complete endorsement of the ‘second story’ as described above, from the mouths of the most revered commentators of Islamic tradition.   Virtually without exception these scholars have regarded dhimmi status as a punitive measure.  Again and again they spoke of dhimmis owing a blood debt which had to be redeemed annually in a humiliating ritual involving a blow in the neck, and sometimes also a ritual strangling.  The theology and political ideology projected by these commentaries, from the distant past through to the present day, came through with startling consistency and force.

The commentaries completely vindicated – from a theological perspective – the analysis of Bat Ye’or, and also the sources she had collected.  It was all the more noteworthy that she had made comparatively little use of Quranic commentaries in her research.

A summary of what I found in these commentaries is reported in the sixth and seventh chapters of The Third Choice.  I also explain there how the ideology of the dhimma pact, as expressed by Islam’s greatest commentators, continues to exercise a powerful guiding ideological hand for the persecution of non-Muslims in Islamic societies today.

I am painfully aware that one can find unpleasant, indeed evil, statements in the writings of theologians regarded as great by Christian tradition.  One’s mind turns to Martin Luther or John Chrysostom on the Jews.  Their statements are utterly repugnant.  If you ‘cherry-picked’ your way through 2000 years of Christian theology, it would be possible to compile a house of horrors of objectionable statements by eminent Christians.  But what I submit is that it is not possible to find any verse or passage of the Bible which has given rise to such sustained and exceptionless contempt for a category of fellow human beings as has Sura 9:29 in the tradition of Islamic commentaries.

A well-intentioned Christian scholar who approaches Islam while looking at it through the frame of the Christian theological tradition would find it impossible to imagine the character and force of Islamic commentary on this verse.

Here I offer just one of the 69 commentaries on Sura 9:29, in translation.  This is the commentary Tafsir al-Bahr al-Madid fi Tafsir al-Qur’an al-Magid of Ibn Ajibah, who Wikipedia describes as an “18th-century Moroccan saint in the Darqawa Sufi Islamic lineage.”

Although this commentary is quite typical in its approach to explaining Sura 9:29, what is noteworthy is the psychological analysis it gives of the intended outcome of the dhimma system, namely the ‘death’ of the dhimmi‘s soul.

NB: the bold text in curly braces is translation from the Qur’an. Material in square brackets is my interpolations.  Indented material is my explanation.

Commentary of Ibn Ajibah on Sura 9:29. (The original Arabic can be found here.)

The Arabic word for ‘fight’ actually means ‘fight to kill’: see my post here

I.e. Christians and Jews ‘associate’ others with Allah, and so cannot be considered to have true belief in him.

It may seem strange to Christians to be told that they do not believe in ‘last day’ (i.e. in the physical resurrection of the dead).  But this text is not written for Christians to read.   Ibn Ajibah’s point here is that the non-Muslims’ beliefs are invalid.

Christians and Jews do not follow Mudhammad’s guidance, of which Ibn Ajibah gives some examples such as eating pork and using alcohol.

Thus Ibn Ajibah explains the justification for fighting (to kill) Christians and Jews:  it is because they reject Islam, which has abrogated their religions, making them invalid.

Here Ibn Ajibah references the example of Muhammad, who went to fight Christians at Tabuk.  This is regarded as the context in which Sura 9:29 was revealed.  The Christians accepted to pay tribute, and so were spared the sword.  Ibn Ajibah is pointing out that Muhammad’s actions agree with Sura 9:29.

Here Ibn Ajibah gives a neat summary of who is included in the phrase ‘people of the book’, noting disagreements between the schools.

Ibn Abbas was a cousin and companion of Muhammad: he is a significant early authority on Qur’anic interpretation.  Many commentaries cite Ibn Abbas in to justify striking the dhimmi on the neck in the tribute collection ritual

It is a standard feature of Qur’anic commentaries to describe the tax collection ritual for dhimmis in terms of a ritual beheading, in which the non-Muslim is struck on the side or the back of the neck.

The first verb for ‘strike’ (w.j.’) means to strike with a hand or a knife.  At this point the phrasing is ambiguous: it could mean ‘he should be beheaded’.  The ambiguity is cleared up with the second verb for strike (s.f.‘), which specifically refers to striking with the hand. (Arabic lexicographers have disagreed over whether this means with a fist or an open hand.)

Ibn Ajibah first characterizes the dhimmi as an arrogant upstart (marid), someone who has exalted himself from his proper position (by rejecting Allah). Lane defines this as: ‘he went to such an extreme as thereby to pass from out of the general state [or category] of that species [to which he belonged].’  The word marid thus implies that the dhimmi has audaciously and insolently exalted himself above his proper station in life, for which he is to be rightfully humbled under the dominance of Muslims.

Ibn Ajibah is explaining the purpose and meaning of the jizya payment ritual, including the blow on the neck.  This ritual, he says, represents the death of the dhimmi‘s soul.

The purpose of this soul suicide is to ensure that the dhimmi will give everything to the Muslims that he is supposed to as a grateful service.  Ibn Ajibah makes the point that protection of the dhimmi by Muslims (including from jihad attack) is only to be provided if the dhimmi has put his soul to death by this means (i.e. he is utterly submissive).

This is the reason for fighting Christians and Jews:  it is because their belief is corrupt.

Multiple by 69 times, and the reader will have quite a good idea of what Muslim commentators have to say about Islam’s policy on the treatment of non-believers in an Islamic state, at least according to the commentaries included in the Great Tafsirs Project of the Aal al-Bayt Institute.

It is of course possible for individual Muslims to take a different view about the dhimma system.  But my point is that the tradition of Qur’anic interpretation – which is tremendously important in stabilizing Islam and establishing its whole ideological framework – leaves little or no room for regarding the dhimma system as a blessing for non-Muslims.

This lack of a genuine tradition of benevolence or grace in dealing with non-Muslims is one of the key ideological problems confronting Islam – and non-Islam – today.  It will simply not do to sweep it under the carpet by a thousand sleights of hand which ignore or gloss over more than a thousand years of Qur’anic interpretation.  The issue is too deep-seated and enduring to be dealt with so dismissively.

Nor will it do to simply wave one’s hands and shout as loud as one can that anyone can find bad things in a religious tradition.  The problem of the dhimma system is of a completely different order of magnitude from anything inter-religious polemics could conjure up.