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The persecution of Muslims has been 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.

Pagan Arab persecution of Muslims

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 goat 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.

Muslim persecution of Muslims

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

In medieval Iraq, the Mu'tazili theological movement instituted a mihna (inquisition) on gaining power, punishing those who would not assent to their claim that the Qur'an was created rather than eternal. 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.

There are questions about the orthodoxy of the more extreme Shi'a groups among many Sunni thinkers. 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. Some Shia have likewise resorted to violence against Sunnis. 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 Taleban, and the bloody attacks linked with Zarqawi and his followers against Shia in Iraq.

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

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 Shite clergy in Lebanon that they are, in fact, Muslims.

The Druze, likewise, are highly secretive and there is little reliable information on what they believe. It is often claimed they believe in reincarnation. They too have been deemed to be non-Muslims by various other, usually Sunni, Muslims and they too survive in the more remote and mountainous parts of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Plaestine.

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.

Christian persecution of Muslims

Persecutions of Muslims during Crusades

Main article: Crusade

The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II to regain control of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Christian Holy Land from Muslims. On May 7, 1099 the crusaders reached Jerusalem, which had been recaptured from the Seljuks by the Fatimids of Egypt only the year before. Many Crusaders wept on seeing the city they had journeyed so long to reach. 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 in Solomon's Temple (known today as Al-Aqsa Mosque), the crusaders spared few lives. According to the anonymous Gesta Francorum, in what some believe to be an exaggerated account of the massacre which subsequently took place there, "...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."

Persecution of Muslims in medieval Spain

The treaty that confirmed Spain's conquest of Granada in 1492 officially guaranteed Granada's Muslims freedom of religion. This promise, however, was rapidly broken; in 1499, Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros ordered the burning of all Arabic manuscripts in Granada except those dealing with medicine, and began a program of forced mass baptisms, resulting in the First Rebellion of the Alpujarras. By 1500 he reported that "There is now no one in the city who is not a Christian, and all the mosques are churches".

The new "Christian" conversos continued to practice Islam in secret, as far as they were able, supported by the fatwas of muftis such as Ahmad ibn Abi Juma`a, the Chief Mufti of Oran, who declared it permissible to act as a non-Muslim outwardly (even to the extent of eating pork and denying the Prophet) if the alternative was death (see taqiyya.) A major task of the Spanish Inquisition was to track down and punish such people for the crime of remaining Muslim.

In 1567, Philip II renewed an edict banning the practice of Islam, Moorish costumes and customs, and the use of Arabic. This sparked the Second Rebellion of the Alpujarras, which was brutally suppressed by Don John; in its aftermath, some 80,000 Moriscos were forcibly relocated to be dispersed among other parts of Spain. But despite all, many still remained secret Muslims.

On September 11, 1609, the town criers of Valencia announced that the King had ordered the expulsion of all Moriscos in an order signed secretly on April 4 of that year. The first boat left Denia for Oran on October 3. Over the next year, similar orders were issued in the other kingdoms - Aragon, Castile, Andalusia, and Extremadura. Most ended up as exiles in the port cities of the Maghreb, where their families and many aspects of their culture continue to this day. Somewhere between 300,000 and 600,000 Moriscos (in a Spain whose population was only seven and a half million!) were deported. Valencia lost a third of its population.

Children were to remain in Spain as their parents were exiled; the edict stipulated that all children under five were to be kept behind and given to priests or Christian families. This policy proved impossible to implement fully, but was still imposed on an estimated 14,000 children. In July 1610, the Church recommended that all remaining Morisco children under seven in Valencia should be given as slaves to Old Christians.

Persecution of Muslims in Lebanon

The Lebanese Civil War saw a number of massacres of Muslims - and indeed of Christians. Among the earliest were the Karantina Massacre and the Tel el-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 reasons.

Secular Western persecution of Muslims

Discrimination and persecution in Israel

See: Baruch Goldstein, Nakba, Kach, Kahanism

Discrimination and persecution in Europe

See History of Bosnia and Herzegovina#19th and 20th century, ethnic cleansing

Discrimination in United States of America

Communist Persecution of Muslims

Discrimination and persecution in Soviet Union and East Bloc nations

See Pomak, Bulgaria.

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

Persecution of Muslims in China

See also: Dungan Chinese

People's Republic of China

Hindu Persecution of Muslims

See also Ethnic conflict in India.

The Sangh Parivar family of organisations have allegedly been involved in encouraging negative stereotyping of Muslims, and in the 2002 Gujarat violence they were allegedly responsible for encouraging attacks against Muslims in the state of Gujarat. The 2002 riots arose after 59 Hindu pilgrims, including 14 children returning from Ayodhya were killed from a firebombing of the train carrying them by an alleged Muslim mob in Godhra. Subsequent riots led to death of 1000 people, including about 700 Muslim.

Increased persecution of Muslims following September 11, 2001

On September 11, 2001, the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks occurred against The Pentagon and the World Trade Center towers in the United States. Some people explained these attacks as a battle between Muslims and the West (see also Samuel Huntington.) For example, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, Osama bin Laden, claimed that these attacks were a defence of Muslims against US military presence on terrorities where many Muslims live. In contrast, others either claimed directly or suggested indirectly that the attacks were the responsibility of Muslims wishing to attack democracy and freedom.

Independently of the truth or falsity of these stereotypes, the belief in them might be a factor contributing to an increase in persecution of Muslims in the USA, in the European Union and elsewhere in the world during the following few years.

See also

• Islamophobia
• Religious intolerance
• History of Islam
• Religious pluralism
• Bagram torture and prisoner abuse
• Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
• Desecration of the Qur'an at Guantánamo Bay
• Religious persecution
• Religious persecution by Muslims
• Persecution of Christians
• Persecution of the Jews

References

External Links

• Religious Tolerance
• Muslim Response To persecution

• Religious persecution
• Islam