New in PJ Media:
Many Muslim countries today are rich due to an accident of geology: the discovery of oil. But before the world ran on internal combustion engines, what made the great Islamic societies wealthy and powerful? The answer is darker than the black gold that enriches many of them now.
The Qur’an commands Muslims to fight even the “people of the book” (that is, Jews, Christians, and a few other groups): “Fight against those who do not believe in Allah or the last day, and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth, even if they are among the people of the book, until they pay the jizya [a head tax] with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” (Qur’an 9:29) The subjugated people were known as dhimmis, protected people, in the Mafia sense of paying protection.
Muhammad’s second successor as spiritual, political and military leader of the Muslim community, Umar ibn al-Khattab, told the Muslims to be sure to collect the jizya, for the Muslims depended upon it: “I advise you to fulfill Allah’s Convention (made with the Dhimmis) as it is the convention of your Prophet and the source of the livelihood of your dependents (i.e. the taxes from the Dhimmis.)”
This advice has been heeded throughout Islamic history. Islam teaches no work ethic, as The Tragedy of Islam: Failure and Excuses explains in detail. It was characteristic not only of Arabs but of Muslims in general to find manual labor distasteful, and even to consider work to be a curse, something that slaves and non-Muslims ought to do, but that the Muslims, “the best of peoples” (Qur’an 3:110) should try to avoid.
The ideal Islamic state thus has Muslims living on the backs of non-Muslims, while discriminating against the non-Muslims so severely that the host cannot indefinitely continue to support the parasite. And so Islamic states inevitably go into decline and have to wage more jihad to find more non-Muslims to support them.
This can be seen clearly in the rise and decline of one of the most successful Islamic states in history, the Ottoman Empire. The last Islamic caliphate, the Ottoman Empire was once the world’s most fearsome power — but it depended upon the jizya. By the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Ottoman Empire was at its height and was striking terror in the hearts of Christians all over Europe, the tax on Jews and Christians was its largest revenue source.
This was the period during which the empire was at its political height: steadily expanding into Eastern Europe while threatening Central and Western Europe as well, and at the same time becoming a formidable naval power. The sultan Suleiman the Magnificent conquered Belgrade in 1521 and Rhodes the following year.
There is more. Read the rest here.
Cynthia says
The so called “Golden Age of Islam” mostly in Spain was a completely stolen glory. All art, science and math was generated by captive people like Jews and Christians placed highly in their society for their learning and expertise.
Many of those were under extreme duress for their family and communities.
(The Book of Esther is a prime example in Persia.)
gravenimage says
Yes–this is true everywhere. Islam takes over a society, and claims that all of its achiveivements are due to Islam. Then a couple of centuries later Islam will have crushed any innovation–as it always does.
Want another “Islamic golden age”? Just allow Islam to conquer the free West.
Anon says
Too bad this history isn’t well taught or well known. Some of the things taught about Islam in public schools are ridiculous, and the media whitewashes or ignores Islam. This is actually very important to know. Ignorance can be dangerous, and empathy can be suicidal. Mass Muslim immigration is some type of Trojan horse, and the majority of people are not even sufficiently informed.
Winston 101 says
Islam conquered Visigoth Spain from 711 – 720 A.D. Like now, a traitor held the door open to Islam.
The Golden Age of Islam was so “golden” that the Spaniards spent the next 770 bloody years,
from 722 A.D – 1492 A.D., fighting and dying, to force Islam out of their country and pushing it back into North Africa.
Let’s not make that same mistake. Their Jihad has not changed only the TYPE of Jihad.
Immigration Jihad and Birthrate Jihad are even more effective ,and so much less obvious, than Violent Jihad. Infidels object to Violent Jihad. But Immigration and Birthrate Jihad are so quiet, some Infidels even help Jihadis with their tasks.
Let’s save ourselves hundreds of years of bloody misery and suffering. Spain was not under the silly illusion that Islam was a religion – they learned the hard way it was, indeed, a Government.
A Government they hated so much they battled to defeat it for 770 years.
In reestablishing our Constitution lets not repeat Spain’s other mistakes of expelling Jews or instituting an
Inquisition.
Let’s keep it simple and secure: We are not banning a religion.
We want to bar the totalitarian Government of Islam at our Borders.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Winston
Nothing wrong w/ banning a “religion” – particularly an ideological cult masquerading as one. That is islam
Far more benign religions are relentlessly regulated by governments. Germany had (if not has) a ban on Scientology, and I doubt that L Ron Hubbard ever came remotely close to Muhammad in terms of human rights violations. There was even a case there years ago of a Jain kid being removed from her parents and then fed non-vegetarian food, which is taboo in that religion. Yet we are supposed to believe that the Germans, or other Europeans, don’t have the stomach to hurt cults like islam out of their own graciousness
gravenimage says
+1
abu taleb says
Allah promises muslims to be rich by bounty (9:28). Thus, muslims should prefer to be rich by not working honestly by robbery and extortion of other people, the non muslims of course. That is why they prefer to be parasites.
Sahih International
0:28 O you who have believed, indeed the polytheists are unclean, so let them not approach al-Masjid al-Haram after this, their [final] year. And if you fear privation, Allah will enrich you from His bounty if He wills. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Wise.
But notice that by saying “if he wills”, Allah does not guarantee to make muslims rich because Allah knows very well that Allah has no power at all to defeat non muslims.Afterall, Allah is only an imagination of those who wrote Quran.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Robert
Question for you. I’m in chapter 3 of your book right now, where you talk about islamic India. One thing you mention early in that chapter is Hajjaj ibn Yusuf instructing Mohammed ibn Qasim to be ruthless towards the Hindus
However, your other book “Did Muhammad exist?” posits that islam was put together by the Abbasids in Baghdad. Hajjaj ibn Yusuf was the governor of Baghdad, and served Caliph Muawiya in Damascus – the first caliph of the Umayyads. If what you say here is true, then islam seems to have already been pretty well codified, even though we are talking about 711 CE, when there wasn’t any contemporaneous accounts by historians of that time of either Muhammad or the qur’an. Jay Smith has been hammering this in most of his presentations
As a result of that book, I myself am left to conclude that the Arab invasion of Sind in 711, unlike subsequent invasions after 1000 CE, was not a muslim invasion. It was more of a garden variety invasion of India similar to the ones in the past by Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great, but done by Arabs solely interested in looting the place. The story of the capture of 2 princesses of Sind too seems to be apocryphal, as Mohammed ibn Qasim seems to have survived beyond the time he was supposedly executed by Hajjaj ibn Yusuf for deflowering them before sending them his way (according to that story, the 2 princesses tore apart each other’s hymen to make it look like they were no longer virgins, and told Hajjaj ibn Yusuf that they had been raped by Qasim, as a result of which Yusuf got Qasim executed. Later, this plot of the sisters was discovered and they were bricked alive)
So the question that this would beg would be – was it the Umayyads or the Abbasids that first came up w/ the idea of simply looting the people they conquered, and not doing any work themselves? And if it was the former, wouldn’t it then be a pre-islamic practice among the Arabs as well, as opposed to something invented while the rules of islam were being put together?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
One correction, having read a little further into the chapter, about the Mughal abolition of jiziya:
⮞ Although Akbar made a big show about the abolition of jizya, it did not make its way to all, or even most Hindus. It was only implemented in Hindu domains that were allied w/ him, like the Jaipur Rajputs, who in return for their alliance, were rewarded by an exemption from jizya, and allowed to build Hindu temples in Agra. But in other newly conquered Hindu territories, jizya was still imposed on Hindus
⮞ There is nothing in history about Bahadur Shah I abolishing jizya. What happened was that by revoking the above carveouts for the Rajputs, Aurangzeb alienated all of them and there was a grand Rajput coalition of 3 kingdoms against him – Mewar, Marwar and Jaipur. On top of that were the Maratha and Sikh rebellions, as well as Hindu insurrections all over the subcontinent, and on top of even that, Aurangzeb went to war w/ the shi’a sultanates of Bijapur & Golconda. As a result, the Mughals were plunged into a full scale war w/ everybody, and could hardly govern during Aurangzeb. After him, there were several internecine wars of succession among the Mughals, which culminated in Nader Shah’s ransacking of Delhi in 1761. That was the real end of Mughal rule in India, although there remained muslim fiefdoms in various provinces like Oudh, Bengal and Hyderabad
Unlike in the Ottoman case, the jizya never really went away, and what brought down the Mughal empire was them turning everyone against them – somewhat akin to Hitler opening up a second front against the Soviet Union
gravenimage says
The Islamic Ethic and the Spirit of Parasitism
…………………………………………….
Islam despises productive labor, considering it fit only for slaves, and hates reason and innovation. So of course Muslims just want to live off Infidels–Jizya, welfare, and foreign aid. It produces nothing on its own, save violence.