Dhimmitude
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Dhimmitude —derived from the Arabic dhimmi, which refers to the status of non-Muslim subjects in an Islamic polity— is a neologism borrowed from the French language and popularized as a polemical term by the Swiss-Israeli writer Bat Ye'or in the 1980s and 1990s.
Bat Ye’or defines it as a permanent status of subjection without protection in which Jews and Christians have allegedly been held under Islamic rule since the eighth century, and that forces them to accept discriminations or "face forced conversion, slavery or death". The term gained traction among Serbian ultra-nationalists during the Balkan wars in the 1990s and is popular among self-proclaimed counter-jihadi authors. Scholars though have dismissed it as polemical.
It was formed from dhimma by analogy with servitude in order to draw an implicit comparison.
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Origin
The term was coined in 1982 by the President of Lebanon, Bachir Gemayel, in reference to perceived attempts by the country's Muslim leadership to subordinate the large Lebanese Christian minority. In a speech of September 14, 1982 given at Dayr al-Salib in Lebanon, he said: "Lebanon is our homeland and will remain a homeland for Christians… We want to continue to christen, to celebrate our rites and traditions, our faith and our creed whenever we wish… Henceforth, we refuse to live in any dhimmitude!"
The concept of "dhimmitude" was introduced into Western discourse by the writer Bat Ye'or in a French-language article published in the Italian journal La Rassegna mensile di Israel in 1983. In Bat Ye'or's use, "dhimmitude" refers to allegations of non-Muslims appeasing and surrendering to Muslims and discrimination against non-Muslims in Muslim majority regions.
Ye'or further popularized the term in her books The Decline of Eastern Christianity and the 2003 followup Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide In a 2011 interview, she claimed to have indirectly inspired Gemayel's use of the term.
Associations and usage
The associations of the word "dhimmitude" vary between users:
- Bat Ye'or defined dhimmitude as the condition and experience of those who are subject to dhimma, and thus not synonymous to, but rather a subset of the dhimma phenomenon: "dhimmitude ... represents a behavior dictated by fear (terrorism), pacifism when aggressed, rather than resistance, servility because of cowardice and vulnerability. ... By their peaceful surrender to the Islamic army, they obtained the security for their life, belongings and religion, but they had to accept a condition of inferiority, spoliation and humiliation. As they were forbidden to possess weapons and give testimony against a Muslim, they were put in a position of vulnerability and humility." conspiracy theory of Eurabia.
- A more recent pejorative usage variant of "dhimmi" and "dhimmitude" divorces the words from the historical context and applies them to situations where non-Muslims in the West and India are championing Islamic causes above others. "Dhimmi" is treated as analogous to "Quisling" within this context.
- Sidney H. Griffith states that it "has come to express the theoretical, social condition" of non-Muslims "under Muslim rule".
- According to Bassam Tibi, dhimmitude refers to non-Muslims being "allowed to retain their religious beliefs under certain restrictions". He describes that status as being inferior and a violation of religious freedom.
Criticism
Sidney H. Griffith, a historian of early Eastern Christianity, dismissed Bat Ye'or's dhimmitude as "polemical" and "lacking in historical method", while Michael Sells, a scholar of Islamic history and literature, describes the dhimmitude theory as nothing more than the "falsification" of history by an "ideologue".
Mark R. Cohen, a leading scholar of the history of Jewish communities of medieval Islam, has criticized the term as misleading and Islamophobic.
Bernard Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, states,
- "If we look at the considerable literature available about the position of Jews in the Islamic world, we find two well-established myths. One is the story of a golden age of equality, of mutual respect and cooperation, especially but not exclusively in Moorish Spain; the other is of “dhimmi”-tude, of subservience and persecution and ill treatment. Both are myths. Like many myths, both contain significant elements of truth, and the historic truth is in its usual place, somewhere in the middle between the extremes."
See also
