Myth #8 Islam is a Tolerant Religion
http://www.studytoanswer.net/myths_ch8.html#ch8-4

Dhimmitude

Many apologists will defend Islam against the charge of intolerance by pointing to the “tolerance” exhibited by the Muslims during the Middle Ages. When Islamic civilisation was at its height, so the myth is spun, Islam was wonderfully tolerant and open-minded towards other religions. While it is true that during this period Islam more often than not refrained from massacring dissenters and rivals (which is often more than can be said for the European Catholicism of the day), to say that Muslims were either tolerant or open-minded is an untidy falsehood. During this era, Jews and Christians living in Muslim lands were reduced to the position of dhimmis. Dhimmitude entailed allowing non-Muslims to remain non-Muslim, so long as certain stringent rules were adhered to, rules which were designed to humiliate the dhimmis and to "demonstrate" the superiority of Islam over the religions of the conquered peoples. Dhimmis were not allowed to engage in any outward show of their religion, such as ringing church bells, praying or reading their Scriptures in public, or disputing about religious matters with a Muslim. They were also not allowed to build any religious buildings such as churches or synagogues, nor were they allowed to repair those already existing which wore down with age. They were most often reduced to a position of economic privation and near-slavery. Dhimmis had to wear distinctive clothing that marked them as clearly non-Muslim. Further, the distinctive clothing was often meant to humiliate the wearers. At various times, Jews and Christians would be compelled to wear badges in the shapes of apes and pigs, drawn from the Quranic description of unbelievers as these animals (Surat 2:65, 5:60, 7:166).

Coupled with this position of dhimmitude was the requirement for non-Muslims to pay the jizyah, the religion tax. This was a tax levied specifically upon non-Muslims, usually Christians and Jews, which was the only life-preserving alternative to outright conversion to Islam. The jizyah was designed to “encourage” subject populations to convert to Islam, since conversion meant being relieved of a heavy financial burden. Further, the jizyah, as well as other financial burdens upon dhimmi populations (such as the kharaj, or land tax) were traditionally supported by Muslim theologians through appeal to various passages of the Qur'an, such as Surah 9:29, one of the most obvious passages in the Qur'an commanding Muslims to make war against non-Muslims and to force them into submission (and one which apologists for Islam today routinely say is "being taken out of context" by those who point to it as evidence of Muslim intolerance)5. Between the burdens of dhimmitude and jizyah, it is little wonder that Islam, which has remarkably little success making converts without coercion, came to hold the almost complete monopoly on Middle Eastern religion which we see it having today. To say that these actions, the religion tax and enforced second-class citizenry, are “tolerant” would be a gross misuse of that term for propagandistic purposes. Those who make the claim to Muslim tolerance would seem to either be ignorant of these, or else sweeping them under the rug.

In her excellent work on this subject, Bat Ye'or reproduces dozens of primary reference documents which detail the dhimmitude phenomenon firsthand. From these documents, it can easily be seen that the mythological toleration extended by the Muslims during the period of their ascendancy is complete fiction invented by modern apologists for Islam. Let us now look at a few of these firsthand accounts of Islamic "toleration".

Ibn Naqqash, a 14th century Egyptian religious teacher, recounted some of the opinions of early Muslim theologians,


"CHURCHES - It is related, according to the tradition, that the Prophet made this declaration: 'No churches are to be built in Muslim lands, and those that will have fallen into ruin shall not be repaired.' Another hadit is also quoted in his name: 'No churches under Islam.'
Umar b. al-Khattab (may Allah bless him!) commanded that every church that did not exist before the rise of Islam was to be demolished and he forbade the building of new ones. He also commanded that no cross was to be visible outside a church, otherwise it could be broken over the head of him who carried it.
Urwat b. Naj gave orders to destroy all the churches of San'a (Yemen). This is the law of the ulama of Islam.
Umar b. Abd al-Aziz went even further than this and gave orders to leave neither churches nor chapels standing anywhere, be they ancient or recent. It is customary, says Hasan al-Basri, to destroy the old and the new churches in any country.
Umar b. Abd al-Aziz also issued decrees prohibiting Christians to raise their voices while chanting in their churches, for these are the most distasteful hymns to the Most High. Moreover, he prohibited them from repairing those parts of their places of worship which fell into ruin. Concerning the latter point there are two opinions. If they resurface them on the outside, says al-Istakhari, then they must be prevented from doing so, but if they merely restore the inside, the portion that is on their side, then this can be tolerated. However, Allah is all-knowing."6
Al-Marrakushi, a Muslim historian of the Almohad reign in North Africa, recounts the following in his history,


"Toward the end of his reign, Abu Yusuf ordered the Jewish inhabitants of the Maghreb to make themselves conspicuous among the rest of the population by assuming a special attire consisting of dark blue garments, the sleeves of which were so wide as to reach to their feet and - instead of a turban - to hang over the ears a cap whose form was so ill-conceived as to be easily mistaken for a pack-saddle. This apparel became the costume of all the Jews of the Maghreb and remained obligatory until the end of the prince's reign and the beginning of that of his son Abu Abd Allah [Abu Muhammed Abd Allah al-Adil, the Just, 1224-1227]. The latter made a concession only after appeals of all kinds had been made by the Jews, who had entreated all those whom they thought might be helpful to intercede on their behalf. Abu Abd Allah obliged them to wear yellow garments and turbans, the very costume they still wear in the present year 612 [1224]. Abu Yusuf's misgivings as to the sincerity of their conversion to Islam prompted him to take this measure and impose upon them a specific dress. 'If I were sure,' said he, 'that they had really become Muslims, I would let them assimilate through marriage and other means; on the other hand, had I evidence that they had remained infidels I would have them massacred, reduce their children to slavery and confiscate their belongings for the benefit of the believers.'"7
A particularly sad example of the treatment of the Jews in Morocco during the 17th century is found in Halevy's archives, detailing in particular the Muslim contempt for Jewish womanhood,


"Needless to say it is primarily the working classes and the petty shopkeepers who are the most exposed to the arbitrary measures of the authorities. The Jewish craftsman who brings his work to the Moroccan official is paid with blows of a staff if he is not satisfied with half the price originally agreed upon. The heaviest tasks are continuously imposed upon the working population, women and children not excepted. While roaming through the bazaar in the Arab quarter, I saw long lines of young Jewish girls, bareheaded and barefooted, working in the manufacture of military uniforms, earning but 10 or 15 centimes per day. But the bodily sufferings are nothing compared to the moral vexations to which these sensitive and modest creatures are constantly exposed. In a country where no decent woman should be seen in the street without a veil, these Jewish women and girls are obliged to work unveiled in the middle of the bazaar and thereby exhibit themselves to the impudent stares of the Arab crowds.
"A Muslim himself admitted to me that this humiliating exposure has no other purpose than to force these Jewish women to convert as the only means of escaping from such intolerable treatment. Indeed, must not their spirit be exceptionally noble in order to withstand such a life of misery and untold suffering, when conversion can offer them the most precious advantages, freedom, wealth, and honors?

"The petty shopkeepers in the Mellah are not treated any better, for retail transactions are often the cause of arguments between Arabs and Jews, from which the former are certain in advance to triumph. A Muslim who buys some commodity from a Jewish shop comes back some hours later accusing the vendor of having cheated him on the weight or quantity. Since, on the one hand, the testimony of a Jew is worthless and, on the other hand, it is impossible to find Arab witnesses in the Mellah, the Muslim's word is taken and the ghetto overseer (muhtasib) sees no harm in punishing the presumed offender with a round of thrashes from his staff, which leaves him unconscious on the ground or maimed for the rest of his life. With my own eyes I saw a great number of these victims, mostly butchers, woefully dragging themselves along the ground, unable to walk upright, their backs horribly hacked to pieces and looking like one gaping wound. Black decayed flesh hung at their ankles and their feet, crooked and swollen by the violent blows, ended in a hideous blue blister which hid the atrocious remains of toenails that had been smashed by the staff. It was hideous and heartbreaking to see, and yet these wounds were already ten or fifteen days old. What had the state of these wretched people been on the day when this treatment had been inflicted upon them?

"Sometimes the cruelest punishments are meted out on these poor Jews without the slightest pretext, if only to remind them that they have masters who can do what they want with them. The main idea of the Moroccan authorities is that the Jew must not undertake nor initiate a commercial transaction without their mediation, the aim of which obviously is to receive a handsome commission. Consequently, their anger knows no bounds when such an opportunity escapes their greediness."8

Many, many more examples, and worse, could be recounted. Indeed, from first-hand accounts of the treatment of Jews and Christians in Muslim lands throughout most of the history of Islam, a picture is painted far different from our understanding of toleration. The history of Muslim dealings with the dhimmis is one of oppression, random massacres, avaricious greed and plunder, extortion under the threat of persecution, rape, systematic degradation, and slavery.