Dhimmitude

This article is about a neologism. For the Islamic legal concept, see Dhimmi.

The word dhimmitude is a neologism, imported from the French language, and derived from the Arabic language word dhimmi. The term has at least two distinct but related meanings describing a certain position of a non-Muslim in relation to the Islamic world — notably it is a characterization of non-Muslims as submitting to Muslim authority or intimidation.

Throughout Islamic history the native non-Muslim populations living in dar al-Islam, the lands occupied by Islam, were subjected to special provisions that allowed them to privately practice their faith under restricted conditions, requiring them to pay a poll tax and often requiring them to wear distinctive clothing and to subscribe to a protocol of conduct that that gave deference to the Muslim population. According to historians such as Bat Ye'or dhimmitude is a status nefariously designed to bring about a profound psychological and social degradation of the non-muslim populations, in some ways similar to slavery. Persons and entire cultures undergo an identity transformation whose most profound characteristic is the loss of self-respect and cultural cohesion and a kind of cultural amnesia. Much of what is attributed to Islamic civilization was, in fact, the product of the dhimmis - mostly Jews and Christians whose ownership or authorship of these artifacts was expropriated by the Muslim masters. Moreover, and perhaps worst of all, dhimmitude often led to the destruction of families and even whole ethnic groups.

Today the term dhimmitude is often used to allude to the conduct of non-muslims who submit to the terms of the dhimmi by ceding their own or their subject's individual rights such as free speech to placate Islamic pressure groups.

Etymology

Dhimmi (also zimmi, Arabic ذمي, often translated as "protected") is the legal status of a free non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia — Islamic law. The word dhimmi is an adjective (but used like a noun in English). It is derived from the noun dhimma, which means "pact of liability", and denotes the legal relationship between non-Muslim subjects and the Islamic state. "Dhimmitude" adds the productive suffix "-tude" to the adjective dhimmi, thus creating a new noun with a meaning (arguably) distinct from dhimma.

The term entered English-language use after the 1996 publication of the book "The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam. From Jihad to Dhimmitude. Seventh-Twentieth Century" and the 2003 followup "Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide" by Bat Ye'or. Widely thought to have invented the word, others think she borrowed the term from the assassinated Lebanese Maronite leader Bashir Gemayel.

Associations and usage

The associations of the word "dhimmitude" vary between users:

• Bat Ye'or originally defined dhimmitude as the "specific social condition that resulted from jihad," and as the "state of fear and insecurity" of "infidels" who are required to "accept a condition of humiliation." She believes that "the dhimmi condition can only be understood in the context of jihad". Thus, "dhimmitude" is the condition and experience of those who are subject to dhimma, and is not synonymous to, but rather a subset of the dhimma phenomenon.
• It may be simply a replacement for the - compared to dhimmi - relatively little known noun dhimma and carry the same meaning. This has already widely happened in French usage (where "-tude" is a productive suffix, too)
• A more recent pejorative usage variant of "dhimmi" and "dhimmitude" divorces the words from the historical context of jihad and applies them to situations where non-Muslims in the West are allegedly championing Islamic causes above others'; "dhimmi" is synonymous with "Quisling" within this context. (E.g., the site Dhimmi Watch by Robert Spencer.}

See also

• Dhimmi
• Eurabia
• Anti Dhimmitude