The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS

by Robert Spencer

  Dhimmis throughout the ages have enunciated a similar philosophy: just stay quiet, or matters will get even worse. Islamic law forbade the dhimmis to complain about their state, on pain of forfeiting their contract of “protection”; dhimmi communities, therefore, learned to put up with the most humiliating degradation in silence, for fear that if they said anything about their condition to anyone, it would only become even more precarious and dangerous.

  Even Menocal grants that the lives of the dhimmis in al-Andalus were severely restricted:

  The dhimmi, as these covenanted peoples were called, were granted religious freedom, not forced to convert to Islam. They could continue to be Jews and Christians, and, as it turned out, they could share in much of Muslim social and economic life. In return for this freedom of religious conscience the Peoples of the Book (pagans had no such privilege) were required to pay a special tax—no Muslims paid taxes—and to observe a number of restrictive regulations: Christians and Jews were prohibited from attempting to proselytize Muslims, from building new places of worship, from displaying crosses or ringing bells. In sum, they were forbidden most public displays of their religious rituals.6

  The Umayyad laws were designed to emphasize that Muslims had the dominant position in society, and that the Christians of Spain were decidedly inferior.7 It was made unpleasant, expensive, and dangerous to live daily life as a Christian, so that the victory and supremacy of Islam was readily observable and regularly reinforced. Dhimmi Christians also knew that all they had to do to end this daily discrimination and sporadic harassment and persecution was convert to Islam.

  Many did convert, because it was miserable to live as a Christian in al-Andalus. Christians could never be sure that they would not be harassed. One contemporary account tells of priests being “pelted with rocks and dung” by Muslims while on the way to a cemetery.8 The dhimmis also suffered severe economic hardship. Paul Alvarus, a ninth-century Christian in Córdoba, complained about the “unbearable tax” that Muslims levied on Christians.9

  Nor could Christians say anything about their lot, because it was proscribed by Islamic law, and criticizing Islam, Muhammad, or the Qur’an in any manner was a death-penalty offense.10 In 850, Perfectus, a Christian priest, engaged a group of Muslims in conversation about Islam; his opinion of the conquerors’ religion was not positive. For this, Perfectus was arrested and put to death. Not long thereafter, Joannes, a Christian merchant, was said to have invoked Muhammad’s name in his sales pitch. He was lashed and given a lengthy prison sentence.11 Christian and Muslim sources contain numerous records of similar incidents in the early part of the tenth century. Around 910, in one of many such episodes, a woman was executed for proclaiming that “Jesus was God and that Muhammad had lied to his followers.”12

  The Christians outside of the caliphate did not forget their oppressed brethren, and there were periodic confrontations, large and small, between those who wanted to restore Christian Spain and the warriors of jihad who continued to strike out at the resistance they were facing in conquering the northern portion of the Iberian Peninsula for Allah. In 939, the Christians under the leadership of King Ramiro II of León met the forces of jihad under the command of Abd al-Rahman III, the caliph of Córdoba, at Simancas (also known as Alhandega) in northwestern Spain.

  Abd al-Rahman was a scrupulous, doctrinaire Muslim ruler. The eleventh-century Muslim historian Ibn Hayyan of Córdoba recounted:

  God protected the people of al-Andalus, preserving their religion from calamities thanks to…the Prince of the Believers [Abd al-Rahman III]…whom [God] wanted as a Caliph…who followed in the steps of his ancestors, adhering closely to Scripture and proclaiming the Sunnah…so that no devilish heresy would arise that he would not destroy, no flag of perdition was raised that he did not humble, so that with him God kept the community of Islam together, obedient, peaceful.… He expelled innovation and gathered in his capital [Córdoba] the most perfect culture of the times, as never before existed, and he attended to matters of religion, investigating the behavior of the Muslims…and their gatherings in the mosques by means of spies whom he ordered to penetrate the most intimate secrets of the people, so that he could know every action, every thought of good and bad people, and…the explicit and hidden views of the different groups of the population.… God showered gifts upon him…because of his keeping of the law and his subjugating of men, so they sang his praise and his defense of the people’s hearts against heresy…following the true and witnessed traditions [ahadith] attributed to greatest of all Imams, Malik ibn Anas, Imam of the people of Medina.… [These traditions] are the ones that have benefited this country, and purified the people from those tendencies which [Abd al-Rahman III] punished in those who held them, and he ordered his zalmedina [Muslim judge in charge of patrolling the public spaces to enforce Sharia] Abdallah b. Badr, his mawla, to interrogate the accused and carry out an Inquisition against them…terrifying them and punishing them severely.13

  It is not surprising, considering his careful adherence to Islamic law, that Abd al-Rahman III was harsh with his Christian prisoners. Ibn Hayyan detailed a typical incident:

  Muhammad [one of the officers of Abd al-Rahman III] chose the 100 most important barbarians [that is, Christians] and sent them to the alcazar of Córdoba, where they arrived Friday, 7 of the yumada I [March 2, 939], but since an-Nasir [Abd al-Rahman III] was vacationing in the orchard of an-Naura [La Noria], they were taken there, their marching coinciding with the people’s exiting from the aljama mosque of Córdoba, upon the conclusion of the Friday prayer, so that many gathered and followed to see what end the prisoners would have, and it turned out that an-Nasir was installed on the upper balcony over the orchard facing the river…to watch the execution. All the prisoners, one by one, were decapitated in his presence and under his eyes, in plain sight of the people, whose feelings against the infidels Allah alleviated, and they showered their blessings on the Caliph. The death of these barbarians was celebrated in a poem by Ubaydallah b. Yahya b. Idris [one of the many sycophantic intellectuals in the pay of the Umayyads who relentlessly praised their greatness], saying:

  Defeated the prisoners arrived,

  Carried and shackled by Allah,

  Like an angry lion you looked at them,

  Surrounded by wild lions and dragons,

  And in plain sight of everyone your sword annihilated them,

  Among blessings and praises to Allah.14

  Abd al-Rahman III was also notorious for his cruelty toward the dhimmis. Ibn Hayyan related one sadly representative incident:

  I must say that I have heard from ulama, generationally close to that dynasty [the Umayyads], about the brutality of an-Nasir li-din [that is, “the defender of the faith of Allah,” Abd al-Rahman III] towards the women that were under his protection and discretion, similar to what he showed in public toward men, according to the word of the principal ones among his most intimate servants—eunuchs who lived in his house and witnessed his personal life: a female slave who was one of his most highly regarded favorites, but whose haughty personality did not bend easily to his vanity, having remained with him alone in one of his leisure days to drink in the garden of az-Zahra [a palace that Abd al-Rahman III had built for his favorite sexual slave that contained three hundred baths, four hundred horses, fifteen thousand eunuchs and servants, and a harem of 6,300 women], sitting by his side until drinking had an effect on him, and he threw himself upon her face to kiss and bite her, and she got disgusted by this and turned her face away, raining on his parade; this so provoked his anger that he ordered the eunuchs to seize her and put a candle to her face, burning and destroying her beauty…until they destroyed her face, burning her badly and finishing with her—one of his worst actions.15

  The tenth-century Catholic nun Hrotsvitha von Gandersheim recorded that Abd al-Rahman also happened upon a thirteen-year-old Christian boy who had been taken hostage. Entranced by the boy’s beauty, the calip
h made amorous advances upon him, only to be rejected; enraged, he had the boy tortured and then beheaded.16

  On another occasion, another one of Abd al-Rahman’s sex slaves found herself bearing the brunt of the caliph’s anger. Ibn Hayyim recounted:

  His executioner, Abu Imran [Yahya], whom he always had at the ready with his “instruments,” said that one night he called him to his room in the palace of an-Naura, where Yahya had slept with his sword and leather floor mat. [Yahya] then entered the room where [Abd al-Rahman III] was drinking and found him squatting, like a lion sitting on his paws, in the company of a girl, beautiful like an onyx, who was being held by his eunuchs in a corner of the room, who was asking for mercy, while he answered her in the grossest manner. He then told [Yahya] “Take that whore, Abu Imran, and cut her neck.” [Yahya] said, “I procrastinated, asking him again, as was my custom, but he told me, “Cut it, so may Allah cut your hand, or if not, put down your own [neck].” And a servant brought her close to me, gathering up her braids, so that with one blow I made her head fly; but the strike of the blade made an abnormal noise, although I had not seen it hit anything else [but the neck]. Afterwards they took away the body of the girl, I cleaned my sword on my leather mat, I rolled up the mat, and I left; but when I entered my own room and I unfolded the mat, there appeared in it pearls big and shiny, mixed with jacinths and topazes that shone like red-hot coals, all of which I gathered in my hands and I hurried to take it to an-Nasir; he rejected it immediately and told me, “We knew they were there, but we wanted to give them to you as a gift; take it and may Allah bless it to you.” And with it I bought this house.17

  Abd al-Rahman III was no more merciful toward his own people. According to Ibn Hayyan, “I must also mention a horror with which an-Nasir terrorized people, which was by means of lions to make their punishment even more terrible, an action more proper of the tyrannical kings of the Orient, in which he imitated them, having the lions brought to him by the little kings on the North African coast, since they are not animals proper to al-Andalus.18

  The eleventh-century Muslim cleric Ibn Hazm of Córdoba added that Abd al-Rahman’s cruelty sometimes had a racial element:

  Abd al-Rahman an-Nasir was not far from his great grandfather al-Hakam b. Hisam in the way he threw himself into sin and committed doubtful acts, abusing his subjects, giving himself cynically to pleasure, punishing with cruelty and caring little for the effusion of blood. He was the one who hanged the sons of the blacks from the well of his palace as a sort of counterweight to draw water, making them die; and he had his impudent buffoon Rasis in a cortege, with sword and helmet, when in fact she was a shameless old woman, not to mention other hideous things, that Allah knows better.19

  In a small bit of retribution for all this savagery, Abd al-Rahman III and the Muslims were badly beaten at Simancas, and the jihadi army utterly wiped out. Abd al-Rahman III managed to escape with his life, but although he remained caliph of Córdoba until his death in 961, he never again led the warriors of jihad onto the field of battle against the infidels.

  This was no indication, however, that he blamed himself for the disaster at Simancas. Upon his return to Córdoba after the defeat, the caliph ordered the crucifixion of three hundred of his top officers.20 Ibn Hayyan recounted that he ordered an attic built above the highest floor of one wing of his palace, specifically for this purpose:

  He put almenas [turrets] and ten door-like openings in it.… Having prepared ten high crosses, each one placed in front of each door of the attic, an arrangement that awed the people, who did not know his purpose, and therefore more people came to watch than ever before. When the army arrived, he ordered the zalmedina to arrest 10 of the principal officers of the army, the first ones to break ranks on the day of Alhandega, who were there in the ranks, whom he named and ordered to be placed on the crosses, which was done by the executioners right away, leaving them crucified, among their supplications for mercy and pardon, which only increased his anger and insults, while letting him know they had let him down.21

  Crucifixion was the punishment the Qur’an prescribed (5:33) for those who “make war upon Allah and his messenger”; apparently Abd al-Rahman considered that they had done that by their incompetent management of the battle against the Christians at Simancas. An onlooker later recalled: “I was caught in the midst of the crowd…I turned away my eyes, almost fainting with horror at the sight…and such was my state, that a thief stole my pack [without my noticing it].… It was a terrible day that scared people for a long time afterwards.”22

  However, even with the decimation of the caliphate’s army, the Christians were too riven by infighting to take full advantage of the situation. The caliphate of Córdoba continued to exist, and to “strike terror in the enemies of Allah,” as the Qur’an ordered (8:60). In 981, the de facto Córdoban ruler Almanzor, who had usurped the caliph’s powers, sacked Zamora and killed four thousand Christians, leveling a thousand Christian villages and destroying their churches and monasteries.23

  This roused the twenty-year-old King Ramiro III of León, who had become king at age five upon the death of his father, Sancho the Fat, to action. But Almanzor was far more experienced, knowledgeable, and ruthless than Ramiro, who showed how outmatched he was as Almanzor defeated him three times in quick succession.24 Emboldened by victory, Almanzor began conducting regular jihad raids into Christian lands. In 985, he sacked Barcelona; the following year, he destroyed León, burning monasteries as he went.25

  As he pursued the jihad against the Christian domains of northern Spain, Almanzor also determined to enhance the glory of his capital. He set a squadron of Christian slaves, their legs in irons, to the task of expanding and beautifying the Great Mosque of Córdoba.26 In 997, he destroyed Santiago de Compostela, the city that housed the famous shrine of St. James, known as Santiago Matamoros, or St. James the Moor-Slayer. As the warriors destroyed the shrine, they saved the gates and bells for the mosque at Córdoba; Islam forbade bells, but they could be melted down and put to other uses. Newly enslaved Christians, captured at Santiago de Compostela, carried these precious spoils back to Córdoba on their shoulders.27

  Almanzor continued to pursue the jihad against the Christians of Spain with consistent success, becoming notorious among the Christians of Spain as he did so; when he died, a Christian monk, bitter over the devastation he had wrought upon the native population of Spain, wrote him a succinct epitaph: “Almanzor died in 1002; he was buried in hell.”28

  After the death of Almanzor, there was no leader of comparable strength ready to take his place. The Muslims in Spain were beset with infighting. Berbers from North Africa entered Spain and challenged Umayyad authority; taking Córdoba in 1013, they began massacring Jews, and initiated a wholesale slaughter of Jews in Granada.29

  The caliphate of Córdoba came to an end in 1031, as the last Umayyad caliph, Hisham III, was imprisoned and exiled, and the Muslim chieftains who ruled the various regions of Muslim Spain could not agree on a successor. Al-Andalus henceforth became a collection of small Muslim emirates and fiefdoms. In the early 1060s, King Fernando I of León won a series of victories over the four most important of these small Muslim states (taifas): Zaragoza, Toledo, Badajoz, and Valencia. In a turnabout of the jizya, he forced them to pay tribute. In 1064, he successfully laid siege to the fortress city of Coimbra and freed most of Portugal from Islamic rule.30 After he died, those who were grateful for his stand against the jihad began to refer to him as Ferdinand the Great.

  Pogrom in Granada

  Meanwhile, the disarray, lack of central authority, and overall weakness of Muslim Spain in the middle of the eleventh century led to no lessening of the plight of religious minorities, since that plight was mandated in the core texts of Islam.

  Jews in al-Andalus sometimes had it even worse than Christians did. In the middle of the eleventh century, a Jew named Samuel ibn Naghrila gained the trust of the Muslim rulers and was granted p
olitical power in Granada. Later, Samuel’s son Joseph also held positions of great honor and responsibility. Islamic law mandated that a non-Muslim could not hold authority over a Muslim, but as with all legal systems, there are some people who flout the rules and periods of relaxation in which the rules are simply ignored.

  However, the Muslims in Granada knew Islamic law and were considerably resentful of the power of Samuel, and later of Joseph.31 The Muslim jurist Abu Ishaq composed verses addressed to the Berber king Badis that vividly demonstrate the Muslim conviction that Muslims must enjoy a place superior to that of the dhimmis, who must endure a state of humiliation. Of Granada’s Muslim ruler, Abu Ishaq wrote:

  He has chosen an infidel as his secretary / when he could, had he wished, have chosen a Believer. / Through him, the Jews have become great and proud / and arrogant—they, who were among the most abject. / And have gained their desires and attained the utmost / and this happened suddenly, before they even realized it. / And how many a worthy Muslim humbly obeys / the vilest ape among these miscreants. / And this did not happen through their own efforts / but through one of our own people who rose as their accomplice. / Oh why did he not deal with them, following the example set by worthy and pious leaders? / Put them back where they belong / and reduce them to the lowest of the low, / Roaming among us, with their little bags, / with contempt, degradation and scorn as their lot, / Scrabbling in the dunghills for colored rags / to shroud their dead for burial… / These low-born people would not be seated in society / or paraded along with the intimates of the ruler.…/ God has vouchsafed in His revelations / a warning against the society of the wicked. / Do not choose a servant from among them / but leave them to the curse of the accurst! / For the earth cries out against their wickedness / and is about to heave and swallow all. / Turn your eyes to other countries / and you will find the Jews are outcast dogs. / Why should you alone be different and bring them near / when in all the land they are kept afar?… / I came to live in Granada / and I saw them frolicking there. / They divided up the city and the provinces / with one of their accursed men everywhere. / They collect all the revenues, / they munch and they crunch. / They dress in the finest clothes / while you wear the meanest. / They are the trustees of your secrets, / yet how can traitors be trusted? / Others eat a dirham’s worth, afar, / while they are near and dine well.…/ Their chief ape has marbled his house / and led the finest spring water to it. / Our affairs are now in his hands / and we stand at his door. / He laughs at God and our religion.…/ Hasten to slaughter him as an offering, / sacrifice him, for he is a precious thing.…/ Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them, / the breach of faith would be to let them carry on. / They have violated our covenant with them.…/ God watches His own people / and the people of God will prevail.32