Insaanistan wrote:You realize that in most Islamic empires, dhimmis were treated well and as equals.
In al-Andalus, the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbaside Caliphate, the Ayyubid Sultanate, and the Ottoman Empire, at least on the broadest level, that wasn't really true. Clear religious and ethnic hierarchies existed in al-Andalus and the Umayyad Caliphate in particular with descendants of the Quraysh on top, Qahtanite Arabs below them, Adnanite Arabs a bit further down, Persian/Iberian/Amazigh Muslims often excluded from positions of power, Jews often managing to be less persecuted by Muslims than by Catholics, Christians near the bottom, and people who were not People of the Book at the bottom and subject to genocide and/or forced conversion. This sparked numerous non-Arab rebellions and, in one of the rare instances where a Jew did hold hereditary power as an equal to Muslim aristocrats, a pogrom occurred. Dhimmis weren't supposed to be subject to systematic persecution beyond having to pay taxes, being forbidden from holding arms, and such, but they definitely weren't equals.
Insaanistan wrote:Even when the law labeled them second class citizens, even in many of those empires they weren’t treated that way. As for the jizya, it was often less than the zakat Muslims had to pay. Minors, the elderly, the unemployed, the poor, and women all were not to pay jizya, and jizya was to be refunded to those it was collected from if the ruler failed to protect the dhimmis. But that wouldn’t fit your “iZlAm bAd” narrative, would it?
I don't think Islam is bad necessarily. I do think the social hierarchy that predominated in the medieval Dar as-Salaam was far from egalitarian or tolerant by modern standards. Modern Morocco or Turkey are probably far more equitable in how they treat religious minorities than Saladin, Hisham I, or Abd ar-Rahman III would have been.
Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2020 3:12 pm