Are Ahmadiyyas attempting to re-interpret Islamic history?
One of the four ways to wage Jihad – to struggle or battle – is to fight against temptation.[1] Ahamadiyyas are working hard alongside moderate Muslims to present Islam in a favourable way to their 21st century audiences in the West. Have they lost the fight with the evil one by giving in to his deceptive ways? Let the reader come to his own conclusion by comparing Ahmadiyya views with well-established facts.
Ahmadiyya view 1
The late Ahmadi author, Malik Saif ur-Rahman, writes in “Minorities in an Islamic State (hereafter abbreviated, “MiIS:”)[2]
“These wars were fought in pure self-defence. It was only in their self-defence that the Holy Prophet sa ordered the Muslims to take up arms. No one can show that the Holy Prophet sa ever fought with the Meccans or, for that matter, with any other enemy except to defend himself. Even his critics admit that he fought because he was compelled to fight.”
Fact 1
There are numerous peaceful verses in Surahs (chapters) given during the early Meccan[3] period that call for patience when dealing with those who were against Islam.[4]
Nevertheless, several months after the arrival of the Muslims in Medina they started looting Meccan caravans[5] passing nearby. Consequently, the tribe of the Quraish from Mecca attacked the Muslims a number of times, beginning with the battle of Badr in 624. Mohammad attacked and destroyed the caravan of the Meccan Quraish returning from Damascus during the month of peace.
Muslims were then first given permission to defend themselves by fighting and killing if necessary.[6] Later this defensive Jihad was not just permitted but commanded against other Arabs who pretended to be Muslims.[7]
Once the Meccans surrendered in 630 AD, most of the pagans in the city became Muslims. However, since Jews and Christians generally did not accept the prophet of Islam, they now became enemies to be actively fought against, along with the pagan unbelievers who did not surrender.[8]
In case of differences, the teaching of Surahs given earlier was generally replaced by that found in Surahs given later. This is known as the doctrine of abrogation[9] accepted by the majority of Muslims. Since Surah 9 was written in Medina, its commands for offensive Jihad replace the tolerant teachings found in earlier Surahs mentioned above.
A summary of what it means to be a Muslim according to the Quran is found in Surah 33:21,33:
“Indeed in the Messenger of Allah (Muhammad SAW) you have a good example to follow… …and obey Allah and His Messenger…”
During 622 to 632 Muhammad either sent out or went on seventy four offensive expeditions, raids and wars.[10] These included a few negotiations, violent expeditions, small assassination hit squads, the conquest of Mecca with 10,000 jihadists, and the planned but not executed confrontation of Byzantine Christians with 30,000 holy warriors in Tabuk.
Ahmadiyya view 2
“The proud Meccans were at his mercy. He could have done whatever he wished. But he forgave them all!”[11]
Fact 2
How did Muhammad treat his enemies? The earliest Islamic biography by Ibn Ishaq tells stories of how, once he was in power in Medina, the prophet of Islam arranged for men and women who criticised him to be killed.[12] On one occasion he asked hundreds of Jewish men who stood up against him to dig their own graves. Afterwards he beheaded them. Their wives and children were sold into slavery.[13] Almost no Jews were left in Medina after 627 AD. Their main crime was that they refused to sign the ‘Treaty of Medina’ or support Muhammad in his battles against the Meccans.
Some early Muslims who changed their minds about Islam died after Muhammad gave the command to kill those who turn away from Islam.[14]
Ahmadiyya view 3
“He granted to the non-Muslims all the rights that the Muslims enjoyed. Their lives, properties and honour were made as sacred and inviolable as those of the Muslims.[15]
Fact 3
Surah 9, l-tawbah (The Repentance), verse 29
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.” (translation: Sahih International)
If the non-Muslims were truly granted “…all the rights that the Muslims enjoyed,” as Ahmadis put it, why is there a need for this clause ‘while they are humbled’ (Arabic: ‘wa hum saghirum’) in the verse above?
Here is how others translated it:
“. . . being brought low.” (Pickthall)
“. . . and feel themselves subdued.” (Yusuf Ali and Moshin Khan)
” . . . and they are in a state of subjection.” (Shakir)
“. . . and have been humbled.” (Arberry)
Here is what Ibn Kathir, one of the early classical and widely respected commentators on the Quran has to say about this verse:
“Paying Jizyah is a Sign of Kufr and Disgrace
Allah said,
﴿ حَتَّىٰ يُعۡطُواْ ٱلۡجِزۡيَةَ ﴾
(until they pay the Jizyah), if they do not choose to embrace Islam,
﴿ عَن يَدٍ۬ ﴾
(with willing submission), in defeat and subservience,
﴿ وَهُمۡ صَـٰغِرُونَ ﴾
(and feel themselves subdued.), disgraced, humiliated and belittled. Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of Dhimmah or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced and humiliated. Muslim recorded from Abu Hurayrah that the Prophet said,
« لَا تَبْدَءُوا الْيَهُودَ وَالنَّصَارَى بِالسَّلَامِ، وَإِذَا لَقِيتُمْ أَحَدَهُمْ فِي طَرِيقٍ فَاضْطَرُّوهُ إِلَى أَضْيَقِه »
(Do not initiate the Salam to the Jews and Christians, and if you meet any of them in a road, force them to its narrowest alley.) This is why the Leader of the faithful `Umar bin Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, demanded his well-known conditions be met by the Christians, these conditions that ensured their continued humiliation, degradation and disgrace . . .”[16]
Ahmadiyya view 4
“Jizyah was a tax realized from the non-Muslim citizens of a Muslim state. The one condition basic to its realization was that it was to be imposed only on those males who were able to earn and did actually earn. Those below 20 and above 50, as also women, the insane, the slaves, the disabled, the paralytic, the deaf, destitute, monks and priests, and the members of fighting forces were exempt from this tax. Even a rich man could claim relief from this tax in case of a year’s long unemployment.”[17]
Fact 4
Dr Mark Durie writes[18]: “The granting of these exemptions was controversial, and often more a matter of theory than practice.[19] Goitein introduces his study of the jizya by stating: There is no subject of Islamic social history on which the present writer had to modify his views so radically while passing from literary to documentary sources, i.e. from the study of Muslim books to that of the records of the Cairo Geniza as … the poll tax to be paid by non-Muslims.[20] He considers that the letters of dhimmi Jews ‘prove that poverty, old age, and illness did not provide any excuse for exemption’.[21]
The above mentioned records of the Cairo Geniza[22] refer to 193,000 manuscripts, the largest collection of medieval manuscripts in the world. They cover subjects of religious economic and cultural life of the North African and Eastern Mediterranean regions. The documents were composed from about 690 AD to as late as 1880.
Abu Yusuf Ya’qub, an eighth century Hanafi jurist, said,
The wali [governor of a province] is not allowed to exempt any Christian, Jew, Magian, Sabean, or Samaritan from paying the tax, and no one can obtain a partial reduction. It is illegal for one to be exempted and another not, because their lives and possessions are spared only on account of the payment of the poll tax [jizya] …[23]
Interestingly, the great majority of Ahmadi references were chosen from the much later 9th century Hadith compilers, or from their own literature written within this century. Quotes from Christian or Jewish sources are generally not made, in spite of those being the very people who felt the full burden of Dhimmitude. Why were their voices based on actual historical accounts found in the Cairo Geniza not raised?[24]
Ahmadiyya view 5
“On the other hand the Muslims were not exempt from taxes. They had to serve in the army in lieu of Jizyah and apart from voluntary contributions and emergency collections they had to pay an annual tax called Zakat which was calculated on the basis of the value of their total holdings. The Muslim citizens, therefore, were under a much greater burden, for, in addition to service in the army, they had to pay more than Dhimmi citizens.”[25]
Fact 5
Bat Yeor, widely considered to be the world’s authority on Dhimmitude wrote:
“The Syrian chronicle completed in 774 by an author known as Pseudo-Dionysius reported that during the preceding decades the jizya was beyond the capacity of many to pay. It had to be extracted by beatings, extortion, torture, rape and killings, and this caused multitudes to flee destitute from town to town after they had sold everything they owned to pay it.”[26]
The renowned Persian historian al-Baladhuri (c. 892) relates in his history of the Islamic conquests that when ‘Amr conquered Egypt he raised two million gold dinars in jizya and other annual taxes from the Christian Copts. When his successor managed to increase this to four million dinars, ‘Uthman remarked to ‘Amr: ‘After you the milk camels have yielded more milk.’ To this ‘Amr replied ‘This is because you have emaciated their young.’[27]
Dr Mark Durie wrote: “Arthur Tritton has analyzed jizya payment records from the early centuries, documented in Egyptian papyri from the period 700-720 AD, as well as data on wages and costs of commodities. While the reported jizya rates varied between 2½ to 4 dinars, amounts actually paid averaged 2½ dinars.[28] In this same period a sheep cost ½ dinar, and wages for hired laborers such as carpenters, shipbuilders and sawyers ranged between 8 and 24 dinars a year.[29] Thus, for laborers, the jizya normally amounted to the equivalent of 1-3 months wages. This compares with the zakat tax rate for Muslims of 2.5% (one 40th) of annual income, or just over one week’s wages.
Tritton also reports documentary evidence of other kinds of payments exacted from the Egyptians, including land tax (kharaj), requisitions and tribute levied on communities and monasteries, and still other contributions as well: At this time many of the Egyptians fled from their holdings. It is safe to assume that one reason for their doing so was the burden of taxation. It is obvious that there are serious discrepancies between the account given by the lawyers [i.e. in Sharia rulings] and that of the papyri. The latter prove the existence of taxes which are not even hinted at by the legal system.[30] Centuries later, Goitein reports that in the worst cases, Egyptian dhimmis could have to enslave themselves or their family to pay the jizya, or else convert and become a recipient of its benefits. Many, having sold all they had to pay it, took to wandering as beggars. In some cases men had to go into hiding because they had no means to pay the tax, and, as they could no longer earn a living, their wives and children starved.[31]
A Jewish merchant in Muslim Sicily complained about the unbearable burden of the jizya: ‘They [the Jews] were sorry and preferred death to life. Most of them are poor and destitute. For fear of the rulers, many went bankrupt, and unfortunately some fled overseas.’[32] The American James Riley reported that in Morocco in the early 19th century, Jews who could not pay the jizya were beaten and compelled to convert to Islam.[33]
Muzafer Ferro Mehmedovic, in a study of the Islamization of the Albanians, cites many reports that the unbearable burden of Ottoman taxes upon Albanian Christians compelled them to adopt Islam from the 15th to the 19th centuries. The Ottomans fixed taxation rates, including jizya quotas, upon whole communities, so that the more households converted to Islam, the greater the incentive was for the rest to follow their example: … among the means that Turks use to attract Christians to their religion is the practice of releasing those who convert to Islam from all kind of taxes, forcing those that would remain as Christians to pay instead.[34] This financial burden resulted in mass conversions and gave rise to crypto-Christianity (known as laramanë in Albanian, dipistis in Greek and dvovjerstvo in Serbian):[35] Those who have abandoned their faith regret their fall deeply by saying that they have lost the grace of God … Some declare, and they are many, that in their heart they still are Christian and the reason why they changed their names was only for the purpose of escaping Turkish taxes which they can’t pay.”[36]
Ahmadiyya view 6
“It must be pointed out that Jizyah was not a religious tax. Even before the Muslims this tax was there and people used to pay it.”[37]
Fact 6
The prophet of Islam gives a religious reason of unbelief in Allah for imposing the Jizyah tax and thereby disagrees with the Ahmadiyya view in this authentic hadith found in Sahih Muslim:
Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war … When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them …. If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.[38]
The historian al-Tabari (d. 923) too describes it clearly as a tax put on people who refuse to believe in the God of Islam by quoting the caliph ‘Umar at the time of the conquest of Syria and Palestine:
“Summon the people to God; those who respond unto your call, accept it [i.e. their conversion] from them, but those who refuse must pay the poll tax [jizya] out of humiliation and lowliness [i.e. they must surrender]. If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency.”[39]
Ahmadiyya view 7
“In the 4th year of Hijra, the Holy Prophet sa gave a signed guarantee of protection to the monks, priests and Christians of St. Catherine’s Church near Mount Sinai. In this guarantee the Prophet sa laid down: “It is the duty of Muslims to safeguard the Christian churches, monasteries and their holy places against trespass by the enemy and to protect the Christians fully from all harm and injury. They should not be unduly taxed, nor should they be forced to quit . . .”
Fact 7
That signed covenant, a guarantee of protection, is known as “Achtiname.” It was clearly identified as a forgery for the following reasons:[40]
“- The date in the document is AH 2. However it is most unlikely that Muhammad sent any letters before AH 5, and the groups to whom he first turned would have lived in the region of Medina, and not outside Arabia.
– Muhammad could have had no relationships with tribes in Sinai (to whom this was addressed) at that time: it was too early. He only made contact with these tribes several years later.
– Ibn Sa’d gives a list of Muhammad’s 47 writings, but the Achtiname is not included in this list.
– The form is quite inconsistent with features of letters of Muhammad’s time: there is the complete absence of the standard forms of address and concluding comments.
– There is oscillation in the identity of the person who is speaking in the letter: at the start Muhammad is spoken of in the third person, and then there is a switch to the first person.
– The quite confused, awkward and at times uneducated style is quite unlike Muhammad’s Arabic (many examples are listed).
– The letter sometimes addresses humanity in general, and sometimes Muhammad’s followers.
– There are features suggestive of Christian Arabic.
– There are several features unique to Egyptian Arabic (several examples are given).
– There are features of medieval Arabic – suggestive of a date centuries after Muhammad.
– The term sultan, which is found in the document, was only used to refer to rulers a few centuries after Muhammad
– The contents of the letter address abuses which only became pressing for Egyptian Christians later such as gaining permission to repair churches (prohibited under dhimmi conditions), the desire to prevent forced marriages of Muslim men with Christian women (a widespread abuse under dhimma conditions); and the desire to prevent plundering of churches to help build mosques. The Achtiname is seeking to alleviate for Christians some of the more onerous dhimma covenant provisions as well as well-known dhimma abuses – such as the abduction of women by Muslims. These were unknown to Egyptian Christians at the time of AH 2, but became commonplace in later centuries.
– The concerns of the letter are mainly not those of a monastery, which suggests that the document was composed outside a monastery. E.g. What could a concession granted to a monastery possibly have to do with Christian women marrying Muslims, which is one of the concerns of the document?
– Another example of something out of place is an exemption of Christians from military service in Islamic armies. That was unthinkable in AH 2.
– The Achtiname forbids Muslims taking building materials from churches to erect Islamic buildings, but there were no such Islamic buildings in Egypt in AH 2.
– It was impossible in AH 2 for Muslims to be granting military protection to Mount Sinai, because the influence of Muhammad’s armies did not reach that far at the time.
– Early covenants of Muhammad generally are focussed on the duties of protected groups, but in the Achtiname, the focus is on the privileges of the Christian monks and the duties of Muslims towards them. For example, no Islamic regime ever gave Christians the right to self-select the rate to tribute for themselves, as the Achtiname does.
This letter appears to address characteristic abuses of dhimmis, in terms which only make sense after the dhimma regulations were established (after Muhammad’s time). It seems to refer to a time of more intense persecution against Christians, including the general population outside the monasteries. It may have been dated, according to Moritz, in the time of the Caliph Hakim (996-1020 AD), during whose rule a severe persecution against Christians.
I suspect that it is later, namely during the period of the Turkish invasion of Egypt (early 16th C). Such a document would have been little used as a defence against Hakim, but Selim I was keen to get Christian support while fighting the Mamluks.
It is noteworthy that it is sometimes pious Muslims who clamour for this document to be authentic: this serves the purposes of the revisionist history of dhimmitude. It is entirely ironic that a forgery designed to moderate abuses of Christians is taken as a measure of Islamic tolerance.”
Ahmadiyya view 8
The Sermon which the Prophet sa gave at the time of the Last Pilgrimage to Mecca is a Masterpiece of Human Equality and Brotherhood, he said: “O Men! Your Maker is One; you are the sons and daughters of one father, therefore no attempt at dividing you into high and low is acceptable; No Arab has any superiority to a non-Arab nor has a non-Arab any superiority to an Arab; neither the Whites are superior to the Blacks nor are the Blacks superior to the Whites . . .[41]
Fact 8
How trustworthy is that above mentioned sermon in light of various differences, such as:
“In the supposed last sermon (Khutba) of Muhammad, it was reported in many of the hadith books including Muslim, Muwatta, Ibn Majah, Abu Dawud, Ahmed Ibn Hanbal. There were supposed to be about 100,000 witnesses. There are a number of differences in the records, though, concerning one particular statement:
While this might be a small problem by itself (and we generally accept that people have faulty memories), in this particular incident, we are told that there were as many as 100,000 witnesses (that is a very large number). Yet, the hadith reports were not agreed on this particular statement, which Shiites and Sunnis have argued over. This raises a larger problem of the authenticity of the hadiths, and especially when implementation of laws is concerned, where often, the number of witnesses is small.”[42]
Al Tabari offers a different version of the final sermon[43]. Which one, if any, can be trusted?[44]
Ahmadiyya view 9
It is not surprising that after such a declaration of human equality and brotherhood the Muslims were welcomed with open arms wherever they went and conquered more than half of the known world in a span of a few years.[45]
Fact 9
This stands in stark contrast with reality where at times, like for example in the Battle of Firaz, (633 AD) Arab Christians allied themselves with the Persians and Byzantines against the invaders.[46] In spite of the many troubles the inhabitants of those empires were facing, the Christians preferred being allied to them to avoid being ruled by Muslims.[47]
It is telling that from page 34 onwards to the end of page 79, more than half of the book is devoted to criticising the many abuses Dhimmis faced from fellow Muslims worldwide.
Conclusion
Comparing nine Ahmadiyya views regarding minorities in a Muslim state with verified facts enables the careful and honest reader to distinguish truth from wishful thinking. The analysis of this writer is that the airbrushed version of Islam presented by so called moderate Muslims does not match up with certain hadiths and certainly not with historical records. Those who are tempted to tame Islam, even for noble reasons, to make it more acceptable to contemporary society, are compromising the very roots of their religion. The saddest irony is that they are often on the receiving end of the worst aspects of the Islamic religion, they themselves defend steadfastly.
What does all this mean for Islam? Since the jizya actually has been oppressive, and since those who taught the opposite were so wrong, could it not be easy for the false teachers to also mislead on other aspects of their religion? How can such people be trusted for what they say on other things? Granted that a number of them are sincere they are still sincerely wrong.
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Footnotes:
[1] The other ways are promoting Islam with words and deeds, physical fighting against unbelievers and enemies of Islam https://www.britannica.com/topic/jihad
[2] https://www.alislam.org/library/books/Minorities-in-an-Islamic-State.pdf (Accessed 04/12/2018. Original Urdu title “Islam aur Ghair Muslim Ri‘aya”, present English edition 2015, page 3, hereafter referred to as “MiIS”)
[3] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/396226/Muhammad/251796/The-advent-of-the-revelation-and-the-Meccan-period
[4] Surah 73:10,1; 52:45,47,48; 109:1,2,6, etc.
[5]wikiislam.net/wiki/Concerns_with_Islam:_Immoral,_Unjustified,_and_Preemptive_Warfare_and_Violence
[6] Surah 22:39-41
[7] Surah 2:216,217, 190-194
[8] Surahs 9:1-6,11,12,14-16,19-22,28-31,38,39,41, 52,73,81-96,111,122,123; 5:36-38,54
[9] http://islamicencyclopedia.org/public/index/topicDetail/id/48 An-Nasikh -wal- Mansukh, by Ibn Khuzyamh states 113 verses are abrogated by the Sword verse (9: 5), and 9 verses are abrogated by the Fighting verse (9: 29): “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day.” See also Sahih al-Bukhari, 6:60:34,53,68 for examples of abrogation.
[10] “Muhammad at Medina”, Watt, pp. 2; 339-43
[11] “Minorities in an Islamic State by Malik Saif ur-Rahman (hereafter abbreviated, “MiIS), page 5
[12] Sirat Rasul Allah by Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, translated by A. Guillaume, 2002, pp. 364-368 and pp. 675-676: Asma and Ibn Ka’b are murdered for writing poems against Muhammad and Islam. Pp. 550-551: Muhammad gave orders to kill Al-Hawayrith and Sara for insulting him. Abdullah’s two girls were to be killed for singing songs about Muhammad. For an online version of this book see: https://archive.org/stream/TheLifeOfMohammedGuillaume/The_Life_Of_Mohammed_Guillaume#page/n255/mode/2up
[13] See Ibid., p. 464
[14] Ibid., pp. 550-551 Some of these stories and additional ones are also found in Sahih al-Bukhari: e.g:
Volume 5, Book 59, Number 369, 378, 462, 448, 582, 662 Volume 4, Book 52, Number 286, Book 56, Number 817, 826, Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57
[15] MiIS, page 7
[16] http://www.recitequran.com/en/tafsir/en.ibn-kathir/9:29 (Accessed 8th December 2018)
[17] MiIS, page 28
[18] Durie, Mark; Ye’or, Bat. The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom (Kindle Locations 3924-3932). Deror Books. Kindle Edition.
[19] Bat Ye’or reports that ‘Armenian, Syriac, and Jewish sources provide abundant proof that the jizya was exacted from children, widows, orphans, and even the dead.’ (The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam, p.78).
[20] Goitein, ‘Evidence on the Muslim poll tax from non-Muslim sources: a geniza study,’ p.278.
[21] Ibid., p.281.
[22] https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/genizah/1
[23] Abu Yusuf Ya’qub, Kitab al-Kharadj. Trans. Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam, p.322. (Excerpted from Henri Fagnan, French trans. Le Livre de l’impôt foncier (Kitâb el-Kharâdj)).
Durie, Mark; Ye’or, Bat. The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom (Kindle Locations 4701-4705). Deror Books. Kindle Edition.
[24] Bat Yeor and Dr Mark Durie, are basing their accounts on those who were actually living under Dhimmi laws. The picture that emerges from their earlier, historical accounts differs radically from later Muslim records. It shows how terribly Christians and Jews were treated in the early centuries of Islam. For more details see:
Understanding Dhimmitude, by Bat Yeor: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Dhimmitude-Bat-Yeor-ebook/dp/B00D9W8GN4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543426196&sr=8-1&keywords=Dhimmitude
Islam and Dhimmitude, by Bat Yeor: https://www.amazon.com/Islam-Dhimmitude-Where-Civilizations-Collide/dp/0838639437/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1543426342&sr=8-2&keywords=Dhimmitude
The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude, and Freedom, by Dr Mark Durie: https://www.amazon.com/Islam-Dhimmitude-Where-Civilizations-Collide/dp/0838639437/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1543426342&sr=8-2&keywords=Dhimmitude
[25] MiIS, page 30
[26] Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam, pp.74, 78, 305ff.
[27] al-Baladhuri, The Origins of the Islamic State, p.340.
[28] Tritton, The Caliphs and their Non-Muslim subjects, p.198. Cited in Durie, Mark; Ye’or, Bat. The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom (Kindle Locations 6071-6072). Deror Books. Kindle Edition.
[29] Ibid., p.199.
[30] Ibid., pp.202-3.
[31] Shlomo Dov Goitein, ‘Evidence on the Muslim poll tax from non-Muslim sources: a geniza study.’As cited in Durie, Mark; Ye’or, Bat.
[32] Jeremy Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily, p.27. As cited in Durie, Mark; Ye’or, Bat.
[33] James Riley, An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, pp.333-34. As cited in
Durie, Mark; Ye’or, Bat.
[34] Letter to Rome from Francesco Leonardi, 1638. In Mehmedovic, The Islamisation of the Albanians, p.120, citing Francesco Leonardi, ‘Pjesë nga relacioni i misionarit, Francesco Leonardit, mbi Serbinë dhe Shqipninë’, in Relacione mbi gjendjen e Shqipërisë Veriore e të mesme në shekullin XVII, Vëllimi II (1634 – 1650), Injac Zamputi (editor and translator), Shtypshkronja Mihal Duri, Tiranë, 1965, p.183. As cited in Durie, Mark; Ye’or, Bat.
[35] Mehmedovic, The Islamisation of the Albanians, p.118. For references to crypto-Christianity in 8th century Syria, see Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, pp.58-59. It had also been a problem in the early centuries of Islam that conversion deprived the state of revenue and increased the tax burden on the remaining dhimmis. Daniel Dennett argued in Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam that this was solved in the first Islamic centuries by levying land tax (kharaj) on dhimmis and converts alike. As cited in Durie, Mark; Ye’or, Bat.
[36] Letter from Gregor Mazreku, 1650. Mehmedovic, The Islamisation of the Albanians, p.120, citing Gregor Mazreku, ‘Relacion i priftit të Prizrendit, Gregor Mazrekut, mbi gjendjen në famulline e vet’, in Relacione mbi gjendjen e Shqipërisë Veriore e të mesme në shekullin XVII, Vëllimi II (1634 – 1650), Injac Zamputi (editor and translator), Shtypshkronja Mihal Duri, Tiranë, 1965, pp.441-42. As cited in Durie, Mark; Ye’or, Bat.
[37] MiIS, page 29
[38] Sahih Muslim. The Book of Jihad and Expedition. (Kitab al-Jihad wa’l-Siyar). 3:27:4294.
[39] al-Tabari, The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah and the Conquest of Syria and Palestine. The History of al-Tabari, vol. 12, p.167.
[40] https://archive.org/details/beitrgezurgesc00moriuoft (accessed 15 December 2018) “Beiträge zur Geshichte des Sinai-Klosters im Mittelalter nach Arabischen Quellen” by Prof Dr Moritz, 1918. On page 11, 2nd paragraph, Moritz says (translated from German): “The impossibility of finding this document to be authentic is clearly apparent. Date, style and contents each independently provide its inauthenticity.” The reasons are summarized by Dr Mark Durie.
[41] MiIS, pages 32-33
[42] https://www.answering-islam.org/Index/S/sermon.html (accessed 15 December 2018)
[43] Al-Tabari, Vol. 9, pp. 112-113
[44] For a detailed discussion of this problem see https://wikiislam.net/wiki/The_Farewell_Sermon
[45] MiIS, pages 33
[46] Jandora, John W. (1985). “The battle of the Yarmūk: A reconstruction”. Journal of Asian History. 19 (1): 8–21. JSTOR 41930557. “Yarmuk”. 1001 Battles That Changed the Course of World History. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-7893-2233-3.
[47] http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sasanian-dynasty ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/heraclius-0011027
