For several years, Robert Azzi has been touring towns in New Hampshire, offering “Ask A Muslim-Anything” events to benighted Infidels. Having retired from his professional life as a photographer who specialized in taking photographs in the Middle East, and especially in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he now dedicates time to explaining Islam to non-Muslims. In a spirit of ostentatious openness, he urges his audiences to ask anything about his, Robert Azzi’s, understanding of Islam, as he attempts to clear up misconceptions and undo stereotypes. He appears in meeting halls, libraries, schools, churches, wherever he can engage a space.
If you live in New Hampshire, and have a chance, go to one of these events, but go prepared. Even better would be to go not just prepared, but with a small group of the like-minded (two or three others), who will ask similar difficult questions. In that way you will not appear to be a lone and hostile crank, easily dismissed, but instead one of an inquiring group of genuinely interested Infidels, seeking enlightenment. If you and the others could meet in advance, you could prepare your questions on notecards, and your responses to Azzi’s likely answers, along with textual support — from the Qur’an and Hadith — for your position.
Here, after a first question about Khashoggi, are some of those not-impossible questions:
1. “Mr. Azzi, I have a question about Jamal Khashoggi. What do you think should be the reaction of the United States to his killing?”
Azzi will look a bit perturbed; it’s not a question he was expecting. But manfully, he’ll cautiously offer criticism of the Saudis, with whom he’s worked for a long time, and will make sure that Islam does not become part of the discussion.
“Well, that is not a question about Islam, of course, but about how governments deal with their opponents. And we all know that Kim Jong-il had his half-brother killed in Kuala Lumpur, and Vladimir Putin tried to poison Russian double agents in England. And I suppose the Israelis are the most active in assassinating people abroad. As for the killing of Khashoggi, of course it should be condemned. No question. Our government has rightly deplored the killing. But I find it hard to believe that the Crown Prince was involved. I’ve known him since he was a boy. I’m sure this was an attempted rendition gone wrong. The Saudis don’t like dissent, and they do jail people, but in all their decades of rule I don’t know of a single assassination abroad ordered by a Saudi ruler. I think it was a rogue operation, and those responsible will pay for it. I think we’ve already delivered a message loud and clear, to the Saudis, of our disapproval. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to the subject of Islam. Yes, in the back.”
2. “What are the duties of non-Muslims in a traditional Muslim society? In other words, what do dhimmis have to do to be allowed to both stay alive and to practice their religion?”
This questioner’s use of the word “dhimmi” is telling. Azzi now realizes he is dealing with someone who understands the dhimmi condition, and if he doesn’t answer more or less truthfully, he will be taken, rightly, to task.
He is likely to reply that dhimmis had mainly to pay the jizyah, which was only fair because they did not have to pay, as Muslims did, the zakat, and besides, they did receive protection from the Muslim government. Paying the jizyah, he may add, was a much better outcome for the Jews, who in medieval Christendom were often killed.
“Protection against whom?” you will ask. Robert Azzi, can only respond: “Against anyone, Christians, Muslims, Jews. The jizyah payment protected dhimmis against anyone.”
Questioner #2: “Isn’t it really meant as protection against attacks by Muslims themselves?”
Azzi: “Some people say that. I think the picture is quite a bit more complicated.”
You will then ask Azzi what, besides payment of the jizyah, were the other onerous conditions placed on non-Muslims. He will be forced — but only because he suspects, rightly, that you already know — to detail them, so he might begrudgingly have to admit to at least some of the following: the requirement that dhimmis not build new, nor repair old, houses of worship, that they ride donkeys, not horses; that they move out of the way of Muslims on roads and pathways; that they not be allowed to testify against Muslims in court, that they wear identifying marks on their clothes and dwellings, and so on. You will thus have gotten him to acknowledge that there was much more to being a dhimmi than the payment of jizyah.
Most of his audience of unwary Infidels will until now not have have heard anything about the dhimmi condition in Muslim societies, or about the payment of the jizyah. This new information will disturb their equanimity.