Your words are incorrect
You must study Islam
by
Islamic Centers
To know true Islam
Non-Muslims have many rights in Islam. We will limit our discussion to the most important of them, such as the freedom of belief, right to work, housing, freedom of movement, and education.
Islam does not compel non-Muslims citizens living in Muslim lands to be ruled by Islamic Laws. They are exempt from paying the zakah[1]. Under Islamic Law, a Muslim who does not pay the zakah and refuses its obligation becomes an unbeliever. Also, Islamic Law requires military duty from able Muslims, but non-Muslims are exempt from it, even though it is of benefit to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In return for these two exemptions, non-Muslim citizens pay a nominal tax known as jizya. Sir Thomas Arnold wrote, ‘The jizya was so light that it did not constitute a burden on them, especially when we observe that it exempted them from compulsory military service that was an obligation for their fellow citizens, the Muslims.’[2]
Islam also permitted non-Muslims to observe their civil law in matters such as marriage and divorce. Regarding criminal justice, Muslim jurists would pass sentences on non-Muslims in issues considered sinful in their religion such as theft, but exempted them from issues they held to be permissible such as drinking wine and eating pork.[3] This is based clearly of the practice of the Prophet himself when he first came to Medina and established a ‘constitution’. He allowed for individual tribes who were not Muslims to refer to their own religious scriptures and their learned men in regards to their own personal affairs. They could though, if they opted, ask the Prophet to judge between them in their matters. God says in the Quran:
"…If they do come to you, either judge between them or decline to interfere…" (Quran 5:42)
Here we see that Prophet allowed each religion to judge in their own matters according to their own scriptures, as long as it did not stand in opposition to articles of the constitution, a pact which took into account the greater benefit of the peaceful co-existence of the society.
Umar ibn Abdulaziz, a Muslim ruler, found it hard to accept how non-Muslims continued to follow their social regulations that went against the Islamic injunctions. He wrote a letter to Hasan al-Basri[4] seeking his legal advice, saying, ‘How is it that the Rightly-Guided Caliphs before us left the People of the Covenant as they did, marrying close relatives[5], and keeping pigs and wine?’ Hasan’s responded, ‘They paid the jizya so that they could be left to practice what they believed, and you may only follow the Islamic Law, not invent something new.’[6]
The People of the Covenant had their own courts to settle their disputes, but if they wished, they could resort to Islamic courts. God commanded His Prophet:
"So if they come to you, (O Muhammad), judge between them or turn away from them. And if you turn away from them never will they harm you at all. And if you judge, judge between them with justice. Indeed, God loves those who act justly." (Quran 5:42)
Adam Metz, a Western historian, writes in the Islamic Civilization in the Fourth Century of the Hegira:
"Since the Islamic Law was specifically for Muslims, the Islamic state allowed the people of other religious affiliations to their own courts. What we know about these courts is that they were church courts and prominent spiritual leaders were the chief justices. They wrote a great number of books on canon law, and their rulings were not confined to matters of personal status. They included such problems as inheritance and much of the litigations between Christians that did not involve the state."[7]
Therefore, it can be seen that Islam did not punish non-Muslims for doing what they viewed as permissible according to their religious law, such as consuming alcohol or eating pork, even though they are forbidden in Islam. The tolerance extended by Islam towards non-Muslims is unmatched by any other religious law, secular government, or political system in existence even today. Gustav LeBon writes:
"The Arabs could have easily been blinded by their first conquests, and committed the injustices that are usually committed by conquerors. They could have mistreated their defeated opponents or forced them to embrace their religion, which they wished to spread all over the world. But the Arabs avoided that. The early caliphs, who had a political genius that was rare in proponents of new religion, realized that religions and systems are not imposed by force. So they treated the people of Syria, Egypt, Spain, and every country they took over with great kindness, as we have seen. They left their laws, regulations, and beliefs intact and only imposed on them the jizya, which was paltry when compared to what they had been paying in taxes previously, in exchange for maintaining their security. The truth is that nations had never known conquerors more tolerant than the Muslims, or a religion more tolerant than Islam."[8]
Non-Muslims have the right not to have their religious beliefs mocked. It may not be an exaggeration to state that no other religion or sect in the world is as fair as Islam to people of other faiths. For example, let us look at a verse from the Quran:
"Say, ‘Who gives you sustenance from the heavens and the earth?’ Say, ‘It is God; and it is certain that either we or you are on the right guidance or in manifest error.’" (Quran 34:24)
The second example is the treaty of Umar ibn al-Khattab with the people of Iliya of Jerusalem:
‘This is the security given by the slave of God, Umar, the Commander of the Faithful, to the people of Iliya: they are guaranteed the security if their persons, possessions, churches, crucifixes, and everyone within, whether sick or in good health, as well as everyone in their community. Their churches will not be occupied or demolished, nor will anything be taken from them: neither furnishings nor crucifixes or money. They will not be forced away from their religion, or harmed because of it. They will not be occupied by the Jewish settlers in Iliya.
As a result, since the era of the rightly-guided caliphs, Jews and Christians have held their services in freedom and security.
Muslims protected Christian churches in the lands they occupied from being harmed. In a letter to Simeon, the Archbishop of Rifardashir and leader of all the bishops of Persia, the Nestorian Patriarch Geoff III wrote:
‘The Arabs, to whom God has given power over the whole world, know how wealthy you are, for they live among you. In spite of this, they do not assail the Christian creed. To the contrary, they have sympathy with our religion, and venerate our priests and saints of our Lord, and they graciously donate to our churches and monasteries.’[1]
One of the Muslims caliphs, Abdul-Malik, took the Church of John from the Christians and made it part of a mosque. When Umar bin Abdulaziz succeeded him as the new Caliph, the Christians complained to him about what his predecessor had done to their church. Umar wrote to the governor that the portion of the mosque that was rightfully theirs be returned to them if they were unable to agree with the governor on a monetary settlement that would satisfy them.[2]
The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is known to historians to be the one of the holiest places of worship in Judaism. Some time ago, it was completely buried under rubble and heaps of debris. When the Ottoman caliph Sultan Sulayman came to know of this, he ordered his governor in Jerusalem to remove all the rubble and debris, clean the area, restore the Wailing Wall, and make it accessible for Jews to visit.[3]
Unbiased Western historians acknowledge these facts. LeBon writes:
‘The tolerance of Muhammad towards the Jews and Christians was truly grand; the founders of other religions that appeared before him, Judaism and Christianity in particular, did not prescribe such goodwill. His caliphs followed the same policy, and his tolerance has been acknowledged by skeptics and believers alike when they study the history of the Arabs in depth.’[4]
Robertson wrote:
‘The Muslims alone were able to integrate their zeal for their own religion with tolerance for followers of other religions. Even when they bore swords into battle for freedom for their religion to spread, they left those who did not desire it free to adhere to their own religious teachings.’[5]
Sir Thomas Arnold, an English Orientalist, wrote:
‘We never heard of a report of any planned attempt to compel non-Muslim minorities to accept Islam, or any organized persecution aimed at uprooting the Christian religion. If any of the caliphs had chosen any of these policies, they would have overwhelmed Christianity with the same ease with which Ferdinand and Isabella exiled Islam from Spain, or with which Louis XIV made following Protestantism a punishable crime in France, or with which the Jews were exiled from England for 350 years. A that time Eastern churches were completely isolated from the rest of the Christian world. They had no supporters in the world as they were considered heretical sects of Christianity. Their very existence to this day is the strongest evidence of the policy of Islamic government’s tolerance towards them.’[6]