Persecution of Muslims

Conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims made the persecution of both Muslims and non-Muslims a recurring phenomenon during the history of Islam. Persecution may refer to unwarranted arrest, imprisonment, beating, torture, or execution. It also may refer to the confiscation or destruction of property, or incitement to hate Muslims. Persecution can extend beyond those who perceive themselves as Muslims to include those who are perceived by others as Muslims, or to Muslims which are considered by fellow Muslims as non-Muslims.

Pagan Arab persecution of Muslims

Main article: Persecution of Muslims by the Meccans

In the early days of Islam at Mecca, the new Muslims were often subjected to abuse and persecution. Some were killed, such as Sumayyah bint Khabbab, the seventh convert to Islam, who was tortured first by Abu Jahl. Muhammad was protected somewhat by the influence of his family, but even he was subjected to such abuse; while he was praying near the Kaaba, Abu Lahab threw the entrails of a sacrificed camel over him, and Abu Lahab's wife Umm Jamil would regularly dump filth outside his door. And if free Muslims were attacked, slaves who converted were subject to far worse. The master of the Ethiopian Bilal ibn Rabah (who would become the first muezzin) would take him out into the desert in the boiling heat of midday and place a heavy rock on his chest, demanding that he forswear his religion and pray to the polytheists' gods and goddesses, until Abu Bakr bought him and freed him. This persecution ultimately provoked the hijra.

Persecution of minority/sectarian Muslim groups by other Muslim groups

See takfir, Ahmadiyya, Shia, Kharijite, Mu'tazili, Alawites, Druze.

Persecution of and by Mutazilites

In medieval Iraq, the Mu'tazili theological movement was made a state doctine in 832, igniting the Mihna(ordeal) a struggle over the application of Greek logical proofs to the Qu'ran; people who would not assent to Mu'tazili claims that the Qur'an was created rather than eternal were sometimes persecuted. The most famous victims of the Mihna were Ahmad Ibn Hanbal who was imprisoned and tortured, and the judge Ahmad Ibn Nasr al-Khuza'i who was crucified.

However, it lost official support soon afterwards. This coincided with the loss of the scientific edge of the Islamic world and the rise to prominence of a more dogmatic approach to Islam, of which Al-Ghazali was a staunch defender. Sunni and shi'a Islam became the mainstream schools of Islam. As a consequence, the tables turned and most scholars and scientists like Ibn Rushd and Avicenna with Mutazilite views were the victims of persecution themselves in the centuries to follow.

Sunni-Shi'a conflicts and persecutions

At various times many Shi'a groups have faced persecution.

While the dominant strand in modern Sunni dogma regards Shiism as a valid madhhab, following Al Azhar, some Sunnis both now and in the past have regarded it as beyond the pale, and attacked its adherents. In modern times, notable examples include the bombing campaigns by the Sunni Sipah-e-Sahaba and Shia Tehrik-e-Jafria, two small extremist groups, against Shia or Sunni mosques in Pakistan, the persecution of Hazara under the Taliban, and the bloody attacks linked with Zarqawi and his followers against Shia in Iraq.

Persecution of Ahmadiyyas

The Ahmadiyya see themselves as Muslim, but are seen by many other Muslims as non-Muslim and "heretics". Armed groups, led by the umbrella organization Khatme Nabuwat ("Finality of Prophethood"), have launched violent attacks against their mosques in Bangladesh.

In addition, the radical Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan have attacked the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Over the course of the 1970s, the Jamaat-e-Islami started a widespread anti-Ahmadiyya movement in Pakistan. Their leader, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, condemned them as heretics in his book the Qadiani Problem (Qadiani is a derogatory term for Ahmadiyya).

They engaged in massacres against them which resulted in 2,000 Ahmadiyya deaths in Pakistani Punjab. Eventually, martial law had to be established and Governor general Ghulam Mohamed dismissed the federal cabinet. This anti-Ahmadiyya movement led Pakistani prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to declare the Ahmadiyyas as "non-Muslims".

In 1984, the Government of Pakistan, under General Zia-ul-Haq, passed Ordinance XX, which banned proselytizing by Ahmadis and also banned calling Ahmadis as Muslims. According to this ordinance, any Ahmadi who refers to oneself as a Muslim by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, directly or indirectly, or makes the call for prayer as other Muslims do, is punishable by imprisonment of up to 3 years. Because of these difficulties, Mirza Tahir Ahmad migrated to London, UK.

Alawites

The Alawites are a secretive group that seems to believe in the divine nature of Ali. They have been persecuted in the past and survive in the remoter and more mountainous parts of Syria. The ruling Ba'ath party is dominated by Alawi and have sought fatwas from Shiite clergy in Lebanon that they are, in fact, Muslims.

Persecution by Takfiris

Certain small groups - the Kharijites of early medieval times, and Takfir wal Hijra and the GIA today - follow takfirist doctrines, regarding almost all other Muslims as infidels whose blood may legitimately be shed. As a result, they have killed large numbers of Muslims; the GIA, for example, proudly boasted of having committed the Bentalha massacre.

Persecution of Ajlaf and Arzal Muslims in South Asia

Despite Islam's egalitarian tenets, units of social stratification, termed as "castes" by many, have developed among Muslims in some parts of South Asia. Various theories have been put forward regarding the development of castes among Indian muslims. Some sources state that the castes among Muslims developed as the result of close contact with Hindu culture and Hindu converts to Islam, while others feel that these developed based on the claims of descent from the prophet Mohamed.

Sections of the ulema (scholars of Islamic jurisprudence) provide religious legitimacy to caste with the help of the concept of kafa'a. A classical example of scholarly declaration of the Muslim caste system is the Fatawa-i Jahandari, written by the fourteenth century Turkish scholar, Ziauddin Barani, a member of the court of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, of the Tughlaq dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. Barani was known for his intensely casteist views, and regarded the Ashraf Muslims as racially superior to the Ajlaf Muslims. He divided the Muslims into grades and sub-grades. In his scheme, all high positions and privileges were to be a monopoly of the high born Turks, not the Indian Muslims. Even in his interpretation of the Koranic verse "Indeed, the pious amongst you are most honored by Allah", he considered piety to be associated with noble birth. Barrani was specific in his recommendation that the "sons of Mohamed" [i.e. Ashrafs] "be given a higher social status than the low-born [i.e. Ajlaf].His most significant contribution in the fatwa was his analysis of the castes with respect to Islam. His assertion was that castes would be mandated through state laws or "Zawabi" and would carry precedence over Sharia law whenever they were in conflict. In the Fatwa-i-Jahandari (advice XXI), he wrote about the "qualities of the high-born" as being "virtuous" and the "low-born" being the "custodian of vices". Every act which is "contaminated with meanness and based on ignominity, comes elegantly [from the Ajlaf]". Barani had a clear disdain for the Ajlaf and strongly recommended that they be denied education, lest they usurp the Ashraf masters. He sought appropriate religious sanction to that effect. Barrani also developed an elaborate system of promotion and demotion of Imperial officers ("Wazirs") that was primarily on the basis of their caste.

In addition to the Ashraf/Ajlaf divide, there is also the Arzal caste among Muslims, who were regarded by anti-Caste activists like Babasaheb Ambedkar as the equivalent of untouchables. The term "Arzal" stands for "degraded" and the Arzal castes are further subdivided into Bhanar, Halalkhor, Hijra, Kasbi, Lalbegi, Maugta, Mehtar etc. The Arzal group was recorded in the 1901 census in India and are also called Dalit Muslims “with whom no other Muhammadan would associate, and who are forbidden to enter the mosque or to use the public burial ground”.They are relegated to "menial" professions such as scavenging and carrying night soil.

Recent Persecution of Sunnis by Shia in Iraq

There has been a rise in Sunni-Shia conflict recently in Iraq, so many expert say because of the Shia domination in the Iraqi government, there has been a systematic persecution of Sunnis in Baghdad and other area, in the recent documentary "Death Squads" shown on Channel 4 in the UK, a graphical photos showing dead bodies where electric drills used to torture and kill the victim. It is widely spread now in Iraq that Names such as: Omar, Abu Bakr, and Othman are considered to be a target by the Shia Militia because they imply that the person is a Sunni.

Christian persecution of Muslims

Persecution of Muslims during the Crusades

Main article: Crusades

The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II in the stated effort to regain control of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslims caputured from the Byzantines in 638 and partly in part response to the Investiture Controversy which was the most significant conflict between secular and religious powers in medieval Europe. It began as a dispute between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Gregorian Papacy and gave rise to the political concept of Christendom as a union of all peoples and sovereigns under the direction of the pope; as both sides tried to marshal public opinion in their favor, people became personally engaged in a dramatic religious controversy.

On May 7, 1099 the crusaders reached Jerusalem, which had been recaptured from the Seljuks by the Fatimids of Egypt only the year before. On July 15, the crusaders were able to end the siege by breaking down sections of the walls and entering the city. Over the course of that afternoon, evening and next morning, the crusaders murdered almost every inhabitant of Jerusalem. Muslims, Jews, and even eastern Christians were all massacred. Although many Muslims sought shelter atop the Temple Mount inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the crusaders spared few lives. According to the anonymous Gesta Francorum, in what some believe to be one of the most valuable contemporary sources of the First Crusade, "...the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles..." Other accounts of blood flowing up to the bridles of horses are reminiscent of a passage from the Book of Revelation (14:20). Tancred claimed the Temple quarter for himself and offered protection to some of the Muslims there, but he was unable to prevent their deaths at the hands of his fellow crusaders. According to Fulcher of Chartres: "Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared."

It is to be noted that this incident was not triggered by a religious issue. Jerusalem was taken by an assault instead of surrendering, and during the Middle Ages it was customary to loot and pillage the town and slay its inhabitants for three days and three nights in such incidents. The same occurred in many other instances, such as in Constantinople both 1204 and 1453; in both instances the town was taken by assault. The Saljuqs had similarly pillaged Jerusalem 1096.

Persecution of Muslims in Sicily

Muslim populations did not survive the reconquests of Christendom in Sicily, Spain or Portugal due either expulsions or forced conversions.

Russian Empire

The period the conquest of Kazan in 1552 to the ascension of Catherine the Great in 1762, was one of a systematic repression of Muslims by policies of exclusion and discrimination as well as the destruction of Muslim culture by destruction of outward manifestations of Islam such as mosques. While total expulsion as in other Christian nations such as Spain, Portugal and Sicily was not feasible to achieve a homogenous Russian Orthodox population other policies such as land grants, promotion of migration of other Russian and non-Muslim populations into Muslim lands displaced many Muslims from their making them minorities in their ancestral lands such as the Crimea and the Caucasus the Volga-Ural region to other parts such as Ottoman Turkey, and almost annihilating the Cherkess. In the 16th century this led to an uprising against the Tsar Feodor by the Tatar aristocracy and their subsequent expulsion. The trend of Russification has continued at different paces in the rest of Tsarist and Soviet periods, so that today there are more Tatars living outside the Republic of Tatarstan than inside it.

Muslim casualties of the Civil War in Lebanon

The Lebanese Civil War saw a great number of massacres of Muslims, yet very few of Christians. Among the earliest were the Karantina Massacre and the Tel al-Zaatar Massacre in 1976, against Palestinian refugees; the later Sabra and Shatila Massacre in 1982, with at least 800 killed, is perhaps the best known. These murders combined sectarian, political, and ideological, and retaliation reasons.

Mongol persecution of Muslims

Following the brutal Mongol invasion of Central Asia under Hulagu Khan and after the Battle of Baghdad (1258) Mongol rule extended across the breadth of almost all Muslim lands in Asia. The caliphate was destroyed and Islamic culture suffered much devastation and was replaced by Buddhism as the official religion of the land. It must be remembered that despite Islam's decline at the hand of the Mongol invaders, their actions should not qualify as persecution rooted in religious hatred or intolerance. The Mongol destruction of Muslim lands can be seen rather as employed military tactics for purposes of conquest through psychological warfare. The seventh ruler of the Ilkhanate dynasty Mahmud Ghazan converted to Islam and thus began the gradual trend of the decline of Buddhism in the region and the renaissance of Islam.

See also Battle of Baghdad (1258)

Persecution of Muslims in the modern West

Discrimination and persecution in the former Yugoslavia

Main article: Bosnian War

Main article: Bosnian Genocide

Main article: Srebrenica massacre

Employment bias in the United Kingdom

A BBC survey taken in the summer of 2004 found that employment applicants with Muslim names were far less likely to be called for an interview than applicants whose names did not appear to be Muslim. This study was taken by using fictitious applications to jobs using candidate descriptions that were similar in qualification and education, but under different names. The survey found that while a quarter of 'non-Muslim applicants' were invited to an interview, only 9% of the applications with Muslim names were responded to with invitations.

Persecution of Muslims in the United States

An increase in the number of hate crimes against Muslims have been recorded and investigated since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. As of February 2003, over 414 hate crimes against Muslims or people considered to resemble Muslims have been filed and investigated by the FBI.

Persecution of Muslims in Europe

Ziauddin Sardar writes in The New Statesman that Islamophobia is a widespread European phenomenon, so widespread that he asks whether Muslims will be the victims of the next pogroms. He writes that each country has its extremes, citing Jean-Marie Le Pen in France; Pim Fortuyn, who was assassinated in Holland; and Philippe Van der Sande of Vlaams Blok, a Flemish nationalist party founded in Belgium. Filip Dewinter, the leader of the nationalist Flemish "Vlaams Belang" has said his party is "Islamophobic." He said: "Yes, we are afraid of Islam. The Islamisation of Europe is a frightening thing."

The clash between European liberal culture and that culture's perception of Islam gives rise to allegations of Islamophobia in a number of areas. Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's statement that Western civilization is "superior" to Islam was regarded as an example of Islamophobic. In Germany, the state of Baden-Württemberg requires citizenship applicants from the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to answer questions about their attitudes on homosexuality and domestic violence. Clothing has become a flashpoint. France, which has a strong secular tradition separating church and state, was accused of Islamophobia when girls who wear muslim headscarfs were expelled from school under a new law. In January 2006, the Dutch parliament voted in favour of a proposal to ban the burqa in public, which led to similar accusations.

Sardar argues that Europe is "post-colonial, but ambivalent." Minorities are regarded as acceptable as an underclass of menial workers, but if they want to be upwardly mobile, as Sardar says young Muslims do, the prejudice rises to the surface. Wolfram Richter, professor of economics at Dortmund University, told Sardar: "I am afraid we have not learned from our history. My main fear is that what we did to Jews we may now do to Muslims. The next holocaust would be against Muslims."

EUMC report

The largest monitoring project to be commissioned into Islamophobia was undertaken following 9/11 by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). Their May 2002 report "Summary report on Islamophobia in the EU after 11 September 2001", written Dr. Chris Allen and Jorgen S. Nielsen of the University of Birmingham, was based on 75 reports – 15 from each EU member nation.

The report highlighted the regularity with which ordinary Muslims became targets for abusive and sometimes violent retaliatory attacks after 9/11. Despite localized differences within each member nation, the recurrence of attacks on recognizable and visible traits of Islam and Muslims was the report's most significant finding. The attacks took the form of verbal abuse; blaming all Muslims for terrorist attacks; women having their hijab torn from their heads; male and female Muslims being spat at; children being called "Usama"; and random assaults, which left victims hospitalized, and on one occasion, left a victim paralysed.

The report also discussed the representation of Muslims in the media. Inherent negativity, stereotypical images, fantastical representations, and exaggerated caricatures were all identified. The report concluded that "a greater receptivity towards anti-Muslim and other xenophobic ideas and sentiments has, and may well continue, to become more tolerated."

Recent immigration from Middle Eastern/North African countries has seen a rise in the Muslim population of Europe, particularly United Kingdom and France. There have been reports of discrimination against Muslims and Muslim communities in many European countries.

Communist persecution of Muslims

Discrimination and persecution in the former Soviet Union and in former East Bloc nations

Main article: Islam in the Soviet Union

The USSR was hostile to all forms of religion, which was "opium to the masses" according to Karl Marx. It did also, despite internationalist propaganda, favor Slavic people over the Muslim Turkic or Caucasian nations. Crimean Tatars and Chechens were relocated during World War II, because of Stalin's fear that they will collaborate with the Germans. A quarter of entire Chechen population died in the gulag.

Slavic colonists were brought in the predominantly Muslim regions of the Soviet Union. Many mosques were closed and teaching of the Quran in schools was forbidden. Use of the Arabic script for Turkic languages was also outlawed in order to tie the conquered peoples closer to Russians and alienate them from Muslims outside USSR.

In Albania Enver Hoxha conducted a campaign to extinguish all forms of religion , a majority Muslim country, in 1967, closing all religious buildings and declaring the state atheist. See Communist and post-Communist Albania.

In Bulgaria, communist authorities attempted to build a united Bulgarian nation. The Muslim minorities such as Turks and Pomaks were persecuted and forced to became Bulgarians.

In Uzbekistan, the secular post-communist government of Islom Karimov has repressed observant Muslims, who are called fundamentalists and continue to be subjects to harassment, imprisonment, and torture. The most violent action against Islam in this country was the Andijan Massacre.

Persecution of Muslims in China

Before the 15th century, Muslims in China were well integrated and respected by the rest of the Chinese population; indeed, the Admiral of the Chinese Treasure Fleet, Zheng He was a devout Muslim. However, with the rise of the Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911 CE), the Manchus "employed tactics of divide-and- conquer to keep the Muslims, Han, Tibetans, and Mongolians in struggles against one another", and were responsible for the anti-Muslim sentiment throughout China.

After the fall of the Manchu Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China by Sun Yat Sen, policies were developed to improve relationships between the Han, Hui (Muslim), Man (Manchu), Meng (Mongol), and the Tsang (Tibetan) people.

After the Chinese invasion of Tibet, Tibetan Muslims fled to India, and were granted Indian citizenship by the Indian Government, which considered the Tibetan Muslims Kashmiris, and thus Indian citizens, unlike the other Tibetan refugees, who carry Refugee Satus Certificates.

During the Cultural Revolution, many Muslims, along with other Chinese, were persecuted. Muslim imams were paraded around with paint splashed on their persons, and 1,600 Muslims were massacred by the People's Liberation Army (the Shadian Incident) in 1975. Even though religious freedom was declared in 1978, there are still many claims of persecution of Muslims by the communist government.

Persecution in Myanmar

Main articles: Persecution of Muslims in Myanmar and Rohingya people

Myanmar has a Buddhist majority. The Muslim minority in Myanmar consists of descendants of Muslim immigrants from India and China (Chinese Muslims in Burma came from Yunnan province), as well as descendants of the earliest Arab/Persian settlers. Indian Muslims were brought to Burma by the British to aid them in clerical work and business. After independence, many Muslims retained their previous positions and achieved prominence in business and politics.When General Ne Win swept to power on a wave of nationalism in 1962, the status of Muslims changed for the worse. Muslims were expelled from the army and were rapidly marginalized.

Muslims are stereotyped in the society as "cattle killers" (referring to the cattle sacrifice festival of Eid Al Adha in Islam). The generic racist slur of "Kala" (black) used against perceived "foreigners" has especially negative connotations when referring to Burmese Muslims. The more pious Muslims communities who segregate themselves from the Buddhist majority face greater difficulties than those who integrate more at the cost of observance to Islamic personal laws.

Muslims in Myanmar are affected by the actions of Islamic Fundamentalists in other countries. Violence in Indonesia perpetrated by Islamists is used as a pretext to commit violence against Muslim minorities in Burma. The anti-Buddhist actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan (the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan) was also used as a pretext to commit violence against Muslims in Myanmar by Buddhist mobs.Human Rights Watch reports that there was mounting tension between the Buddhist and Muslim communities in Taungoo for weeks before it erupted into violence in the middle of May 2001. Buddhist monks demanded that the Hantha Mosque in Taungoo be destroyed in "retaliation" for the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Mobs of Buddhists, led by Monks, vandalized Muslim owned businesses and property and attacked and killed Muslims in Muslim communities. This was followed by retaliation by Muslims against Buddhists. Human Rights Watch also alleges that Burmese military intelligence agents disguised as monks, led the mobs.

The dictatorial government, which operates a pervasive internal security apparatus, generally infiltrates or monitors the meetings and activities of virtually all organizations, including religious organizations.Religious freedom for Muslims is reduced.Monitoring and control of Islam undermines the free exchange of thoughts and ideas associated with religious activities.

It is widely feared that persecution of Muslims in Myanmar could foment Islamic Fundamentalism in the country. Many Muslims have joined armed resistance groups who are fighting for greater freedoms in Myanmar but are not Islamic Fundamentalists as such.

Persecution in India

There were widespread riots during the Partition of India, in which British India was split to create the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, in 1947, with attacks on Muslim minorities by Hindu mobs, and vice versa on Hindu minorities by Muslim mobs.

In 1992, the Babri Mosque was demolished by the Sangh Parivar family of organizations on the basis of their controversial assertions that a Hindu temple existed at the site before the Mosque. the demolition was followed by anti-Muslim riots in Mumbai allegedly perpetrated by the nativist Shiv Sena party.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, has allegedly been linked with violence perpetrated against Muslims, and in the 2002 Gujarat violence which started after a Muslim Mob allegedly killed 65 Hindus at the Godhra railway station in Gujarat. Another major incident was at Naroda Patia, where a Hindu mob, massacred more than 100 Muslims. In another incidence of Best Bakery, in the city of Baroda, a complete family of 12 was massacred and burnt. The Gujarat riots officially led to the death of 1044 people, 754 Muslims and 290 Hindus.Human Rights Watch puts the death toll at higher figures, with 2000 deaths, mostly Muslim, but with retaliatory attacks on Hindus by Muslim mobs as well.

Also, Hindu mobs have attacked Muslim villages after Muslims had slaughtered cows, which are sacred to Hindus. In 2005, this caused the destruction of 40 homes and the loss of 3 lives.

See also

• Persecution of Muslims
• Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
• Bagram torture and prisoner abuse
• Desecration of the Qur'an at Guantánamo Bay
• History of Islam
• Historical persecution by Christians
• Historical persecution by Muslims
• Islamophobia
• Crypto-Islam
• Naguib Mahfouz
• Nasr Abu Zayd
• Persecution of Christians
• Persecution of Jews
• Persecution of Hindus
• Rashad Khalifa
• Religious intolerance
• Religious persecution
• Religious pluralism

External links

• Persecution of Muslims in Mecca Before Hijra
• Persecution of Muslims in Europe