The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude : Seventh-Twentieth Century [Paperback]

Bat Ye'Or (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1996

In this study Bat Ye’or provides a lucid analysis of the dogma and strategies of jihad, offering a vast panorama of the history of Christians and Jews under the rule of Islam. This epic story sheds light on the areas of fusion, interdependence, and confrontation between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Ye'or's books on dhimmitude and jihad have an essential place in the ecumenical world. (Journal of Ecumenical Studies ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Bat Ye'or, born in Cairo, became a stateless refugee in 1957 and a British citizen in 1959. Her first book, The Jews of Egypt (French/1971; Hebrew/1974) was followed by Le Dhimmi (1980), widely acclaimed when the English edition appeared in 1985 (Hebrew/1986; Russian/1991). It remains an essential introduction to her second major work, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude (1996; German/2002). The French edition (1991) established the author's reputation as an innovative thinker in a new field of research, which has now been greatly enhanced by her third study, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (2002). All of her books are regularly reprinted. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 522 pages
• Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Pr; First English Edition edition (August 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0838636888
• ISBN-13: 978-0838636886
• Product Dimensions: 1.3 x 6.3 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,157,582 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

224 of 236 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Exposes Islamic history using Muslims' own historical texts April 7, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Despite the number of people posting here saying this book is biased, no one has come forward to refute its conclusions. Why? Because they can't. Bat Ye'or uses eye-witness accounts and Muslims' own historical writings to tell the sad story of Christians and Jews who were made accomplices in their own cultural and actual destruction by the cruel laws of Islamic sharia. This is a very important book that tells the story of a forgotten people. In the 19th century especially, their sufferings were ignored and abetted by Islam-intoxicated Westerners refusing to face up to the aims of a relentless political ideology (NOT a religion) bent on world subjugation and domination. Sadly, such Westerners still exist and still seek to ignore and disguise the sufferings of millions of people persecuted by Islamic law and tradition: the Coptic Christians; Iranian Ba'hais; Indonesian Buddhists and Christians and Southern Sudanese animists/Christians. John Esposito and Karen Armstrong should shrink with shame at the very name of the great Bat Ye'or, an Egyptian scholar who, unlike those two famous Islamic apologists, must publish under an assumed name to avoid the consequences of telling the truth about the dark side of Islam.

107 of 110 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Exposes the myth of Islamic tolerance December 30, 2002

By Al_Mansur

Format:Paperback

This book is about the Islamisation of the Middle East (primarily), North Africa, Persia and the Balkans and how Muslim apologists and their Western apologist allies have concealed the countless attrocities, oppression and forced conversions of conquered non-Muslims by "killing history" (i.e supressing the truth and reinventing history).

Before the author is accused of tarnishing Islam and the Muslim community, it must be emphasised that this book draws heavily from quotes from the Quran (the Holy Book which Muslims claim was given by God to Prophet Muhammad); the Hadith (i.e. a compilation of the sayings of Prophet Muhammad); and articles written by renowned Muslim historians, theologians and jurists ....all of which advocates war against unbelievers until finally all of the latter are subjugated and the harsh and humiliating treatment which must be meted out on unbelievers until they embrace the "One True Religion".

The process of Islamisation can be broadly divided into 2 stages :

1) JIHAD - This concept is not only embodied in the Quran but is an obligation of every able bodied Muslim man as a means to bring Islam to the unbelievers. The Prophet Muhammad fought 66 to 67 wars (all or almost all of which were offensive) during his lifetime against Jews and pagan Arabs. A number of his wives and concubines (i.e. Reihana, Safiya etc)were actually taken from Jewish tribes which he defeated or massacred (i.e. Banu Nadir, Banu Quraiza etc). In the first stage of Islamisation (i.e. the Jihad) Muslim armies conquered the whole of the Arabian peninsula and then onwards to the Middle East, North Africa and Persia by the 7th and early 8th centuries. Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians were given the choice of conversion to Islam, death or becoming a Dhimmi (i.e. tributary). Polytheists or pagans were only given 2 choices: conversion or death. Nevertheless, the Muslim Arab tribesmen in their religious zeal and greed for loot would often pillage unfortified villages and enslaved its inhabitants who were Islamised and absorbed into their tribes. [A fair few of the non-Muslim child captives after being brought up as Muslims actually became prominent military commanders who in turn conquered other non-Muslim countries for Islam!] Thus, the Muslim community would gain a number of new converts after the conquest of lands belonging to the Dar Al-Harb (i.e. which are inhabited by Non-Muslims).

2) Dhimmi - In the second stage of Islamisation (and after the Muslim conquests), the non-Muslims who have refused to convert are subjected to numerous humiliations and heavy taxes. Poll tax (known as the jizya) and land tax (known as the kharaj) are imposed. In certain cases, Christain children (such as in the Balkans) and Jewish children (in Morrocco, Yemen and Persia) were taken to be brought up as Muslims. It has been said that after a century of Muslims conquest, Egypt was still 95% Non-Muslim. Gradually, however they converted : the poor converted because the tax was too oppressive, the upper class and the rich converted to retain their privileges (both of these are supported by a few letters written in the Middle Ages by Muslims themselves)and some from the middle class converted for career advancement since at various times, non-Muslims were not permitted to hold high positions.

Massacres were very common even for Dhimmis (i.e. non-Muslims who have submitted to Muslim rule) the last of which was the massacre of the millions of Christians, primarily Armenians (and some Assyrians and Surianis) in 1915. The Islamic nature of the massacre is evidenced by those Armenians embracing Islam were spared and the women and children below 12 were taken captive (i.e. the same fate as the women and chidlren of the Jewish tribe of Banu Quraiza after its defeat by Prophet Muhammad).

Lastly, the author spends quite a bit of time debunking the myth of Islamic tolerance and discusses the reasons for apologists (both Muslim, Westerners and Arab Christians) to reinvent the history of the Islamic conquests and the treatment of the Dhimmis (i.e. Christians and Jews under Islam).

91 of 96 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Islam Unveiled March 21, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Bat Ye'or has done the world an immeasurable service with this very scholary and sobering book on Islam and its Jihad and Dhimmitude against non-Muslims. We in the West, after having endured centuries of wars of religion, have come at last to accept the idea of tolerance of other religions. Islam, however, has an opposite credo: all non-Muslims live in "dar al-harb", the world of war; and Muslims mean this literally. The reader of this work must gird his loins as he learns of the persistent genocide throughout history of non-Muslims, which evil deeds go on even to this day (eg, against the Lebanese Christians). Of course, the same goes for Jews as well as all other non-Muslim religions. We learn from history here unveiled for Western eyes for the first time that, excepting only the Arabian Peninsula itself, the rest of the Middle East was originally (ie pre-Muhammed) non-Arab and pre-dominantly Christian, with large minorities of Jews as well as Zoroastrians, et al. These non-Muslim populations were brutally murdered (often with the women and children sold as slaves) and then the lands re-populated with Arab Muslims! This includes Palestine itself. The idea, then, that Palestinians have a "right" to this land, as they claim, is ipso facto absurd. It was originally Christian and Jewish land, then systematically and violently "de-populated" through Jihads, and then re-populatedwith Arab Muslims; and this occurred in the entire Middle East! That we are only now finding out about this sordid and tragic and unforgiveable history of unrelenting racial and religiious genocide is highly disturbing. And lest we think that this has stopped, read about the Muslims exterminating the Christian Armenians, millions of them, before and during WWI. (Ye'or includes many illustrations from contemporary sources, including a mass grave of Armenians, taken in 1915. And it is this same extermination policy Muslims wish to effect today with Israel as well as now with the obdurate Christian Western nations like the US and Britain (with whatever weapons of mass destruction they can they can get their hands on). If the reader has a strong stomach for history that is backed up with scholarship of the most thorough kind, then I recommend this book unreservedly.
On a personal note, I now understand why Muslims in the West (and of course the East) have been at such pains NOT to have their history be known to us, and not to let us know above all that they, as Muslims, are and must be (as their religious duty, as cited in the Koran) at eternal war with all non-Muslims. We have been told that it is only the "fanatics" who believe such things. Alas, their histsory of 14 CONSECUTIVE centuries belies this--as does the daily rhetoric of hate that pours out of the mouths of Islamic leaders and clerics all around the world. No, the sad but demonstrably true facts are otherwise. Islam, since its inception 14 centuries ago, has proved itself to be the single greatest factor of unrest in the world through perpetual genocidal wars with all other peoples, thus giving the lie to their oft-stated claims that they are a religion of peace, compassion, etc. I defy anyone who has read this work (or her other books) to conclude otherwise than what I have written here. Neither the West in general, nor the US and GB in particular, are the sources of unrest in the world today; this "honor" belongs solely to Islam. It is a religion of hate and perpetual war against all non-Muslims--period. Such is the sad conclusion one must draw from Bat Ye'or's outstanding, and very disturbing scholary work(s). In my opinion, the world must assume a hostile stance towards Islam until and unless Islam, through religious reformation enacted into law, and begun by stopping persecution against all non-Muslims around the world, assumes a stance that not only tolerates non-Muslims, but embraces and learns from them as well. Until that (unlikely) day, this religion, the source of untold suffering throughout history, and of continuous religious and ethnic genocide, will only perpetuate its historical ways in the future (as has occurred recently in East Timor, Nigeria, et al).