Listen, read, and learn:
When Umar ibn al-Khattab, may God be pleased with him, accorded a peace to the Christians of Syria, we wrote to him as follows:
In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate. This is a letter to the servant of God Umar [ibn al-Khattab], Commander of the Faithful, from the Christians of such-and-such a city. When you came against us, we asked you for safe-conduct (aman) for ourselves, our descendants, our property, and the people of our community, and we undertook the following obligations toward you:
We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks’ cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims.
We shall keep our gates wide open for passersby and travelers. We shall give board and lodging to all Muslims who pass our way for three days.
We shall not give shelter in our churches or in our dwellings to any spy, nor bide him from the Muslims.
We shall not teach the Qur’an to our children.
We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it. We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it.
We shall show respect toward the Muslims, and we shall rise from our seats when they wish to sit.
We shall not seek to resemble the Muslims by imitating any of their garments, the qalansuwa, the turban, footwear, or the parting of the hair. We shall not speak as they do, nor shall we adopt their kunyas.
We shall not mount on saddles, nor shall we gird swords nor bear any kind of arms nor carry them on our- persons.
We shall not engrave Arabic inscriptions on our seals.
We shall not sell fermented drinks.
We shall clip the fronts of our heads.
We shall always dress in the same way wherever we may be, and we shall bind the zunar round our waists
We shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the Muslims. We shall use only clappers in our churches very softly. We shall not raise our voices when following our dead. We shall not show lights on any of the roads of the Muslims or in their markets. We shall not bury our dead near the Muslims.
We shall not take slaves who have been allotted to Muslims.
We shall not build houses over topping the houses of the Muslims.
(When I brought the letter to Umar, may God be pleased with him, he added, “We shall not strike a Muslim.”)
We accept these conditions for ourselves and for the people of our community, and in return we receive safe-conduct.
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.
Umar ibn al-Khittab replied: Sign what they ask, but add two clauses and impose them in addition to those which they have undertaken. They are: “They shall not buy anyone made prisoner by the Muslims,” and “Whoever strikes a Muslim with deliberate intent shall forfeit the protection of this pact.”
from Al-Turtushi, Siraj al-Muluk, pp. 229-230.
Copied from the Medieval Sourcebook
Video by Ahmadsquran3
I never heard of this before. I bet the jihadis use this in their reasoning like the jihadi pirates or Al Queda. I think this “hunda” did not work out very well for the non muslims in Syria,
I like the points the creator of the video made at the end.
You should check out the author’s YouTube site. I love it! Everything you ever needed to know about islam. all backed by islamic texts and sources. The guy is brilliant.
http://www.youtube.com/user/AhmadsQuran3
That guy so far seems to know what he is talking about but I already know too much about Islam.
You can never know too much about an enemy. And, no offense intended, avid, if you didn’t know about the Pact of Umar, there is much more about islam you (and others) need to know.
Ahmadsquran3 does know what he’s talking about. Out of more than 180 chapters, not even ONE has been disproven. It is a great starting place for anyone who wants to learn the truth about islam.
The pact of Umar enslaved Eastern Romans in Syria to Islamic subjection. The population was abused, the women taken and now Syria is Arab. At the time of the Islamic Jihad against the Roman Empire, Syria was Greek and Aramaic. Now it is Arab. This was a pact of slavery.
True, Rodan.
When you hear a muslim talk about how Christians were well-treated in islamic societies, this pact is what they are referring to. It is voluntary slavery in order to survive. Even those who dutifully obeyed the pact were at the mercy of the same violent hordes we see in muslim countries even to this day.
I think knowing they want to kill me is enough. Spencer’s :Islam: What the west needs too know” is also good in my opinion: As a student of history those video are great. Rodan are you saying the pact was a form of “Stealth Jihad” that brought down many countries?
Avid – That’s true!
Anything by Robert Spencer is a must read.
Another ‘wonderful’ and tolerant tradition (many modern professors claim the dhimma exemplifies Islamic tolerance) in fairly recent Islamic history is the janissary (also devshirme or millet) system in Ottoman Turkey. If you wonder how the Serbs got their bad attitude concerning Islam, look no further.
If the dhimma is tolerant, Mafia protection money is security.
In many areas at a earlier time protection money to the mafia was security. I agree with you but I do not think that is the best analogy.
avideditor ,
No it was after the Jihadi armies defeated the Roman army at Yarmuk. The Romans were made slave in their own land. Avid this was a form of slavery.
Chip “Beagle”,
My girl is a Bosnian Serb, her dad fought AL-Qaeda in the Bosnia in 92-95. I know all about what the Jihadists did. The media lies about the Serbs. I stand by Serbia!
Protection money is security only in the sense it protects you from your alleged protectors. You might be thinking of godfathers actually helping people with certain problems. That’s not protection money.
So it is a good analogy. If you don’t pay the dhimma, or violate any of its terms, your pact of “security” ends and the Muslims in charge can kill you. But not just you, any non-Muslim living in that area under that dhimma.
I agree, Chip “Beagle” – if one violates the pact (”If we in any way…”), the entire pact is forfeit.
But notice, this isn’t really a pact. A pact implies an agreement benefiting both side. This is submission. The muslims give absolutely nothing except to promise not to physically harm them. If muslims violated this agree, nothing comes of it. Dhimmi must continue to comply if they want to live. Yet if the dhimmis fail their end in “any way”, muslims are free to do as they please.
It is a protection racket benefiting only one side.