Definitions
For visitors who have not yet read The Christian State, here are definitions of terms introduced in the book and used as categories on this Web site.
Dhimmi and Dhimmitude: Author Robert Spencer provides a thumbnail definition of Dhimmitude as “the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, ‘protected people,’ are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur’an’s command that they ‘feel themselves subdued’ (Koran, Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, is part of the law that global jihadists are laboring to impose everywhere, ultimately on the entire human race.
Historian Bat Ye’or, who coined the term, provides a more detailed definition: “Dhimmitude is the Islamic system of governing populations conquered by jihad wars, encompassing all of the demographic, ethnic, and religious aspects of the political system. The word ‘dhimmitude’ as a historical concept, was coined by Bat Ye’or in 1983 to describe the legal and social conditions of Jews and Christians subjected to Islamic rule. The word ‘dhimmitude’ comes from dhimmi, an Arabic word meaning ‘protected.’ Dhimmi was the name applied by the Arab-Muslim conquerors to indigenous non-Muslim populations who surrendered by a treaty (dhimma) to Muslim domination. Islamic conquests expanded over vast territories in Africa, Europe and Asia, for over a millennium (638-1683). The Muslim empire incorporated numerous varied peoples which had their own religion, culture, language and civilization. For centuries, these indigenous, pre-Islamic peoples constituted the great majority of the population of the Islamic lands. Although these populations differed, they were ruled by the same type of laws, based on the shari’a.
This similarity, which includes also regional variations, has created a uniform civilization developed throughout the centuries by all non-Muslim indigenous people, who were vanquished by a jihad-war and governed by shari’a law. It is this civilization which is called dhimmitude. It is characterized by the different strategies developed by each dhimmi group to survive as non-Muslim entity in their Islamized countries.
Dhimmitude encompasses the relationship of Muslims and non-Muslims at the theological, social, political and economical levels. It also incorporates the relationship between the numerous ethno-religious dhimmi groups and the type of mentality that they have developed out of their particular historical condition which lasted for centuries, even in some Muslim countries, till today.
Oslo Syndrome: “[W]ithin populations under chronic siege - whether minorities marginalized, demeaned and attacked by surrounding societies or small nations besieged by their neighbors - some will invariably seek either to avert their gaze from the severity of the threat or rationalize the threat and blame themselves or others within their community for the danger. Their doing so reflects wishful thinking that if only they would reform sufficiently the danger would be alleviated.” - Dr. Kenneth Levin, author of The Oslo Syndrome
