The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> actually

actually
Posted by Rashad (Guest) - Saturday, September 24 2011, 22:26:59 (UTC)
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The high tax myth which our boys complain was the reason why they converted has long been debunked by historians such as Albert Hurrani, Thomas Arnold and others. There is a huge contradiction in their story anyways. First, they say that Assyrians wouldn't convert even when their children were supposedly having their throats slit, yet then we are told those who converted did so to avoid taxes. Does that make any sense? They wouldn't convert at the point of swords but would do so because of taxes? Those taxes they're referring to is jizya and this wasn't a form of oppression. Those idiots don't even understand what jizya was for. We have stated this numerous times but I gladly do it again. Muslims pay zakat, and that's men and women. Non-Muslim citizens had to pay jizya but it was only taken from the men of military ages who could afford it. It was only a yearly thing but the poor, women, children, blind and disabled were all exempted. That yearly tax actually guaranteed them freedom and services offered by the state.

I don't believe any converted because of taxes because why would they do that and now have to pay zakat which is taken from men and women who have the money? It makes no sense at all but another lie by Christians. It be actually nice if Christians had offered such an alternatives to others who were captured and conquered. Christians didn't even offer such choices to other Christian so they definitely would do that for Jews, Muslims, and the many others. Here is Thomas Arnold again, the Christian historian and missionary who knew the Nestorians very well:

"We have never heard about any attempt to compel non-Muslim parties to adopt Islam or about any organized persecution aiming at exterminating Christianity. If the Caliphs had chosen one of these plans, they would have wiped out Christianity as easily as what happened to Islam during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain; by the same method which Louis XIV followed to make Protestantism a creed whose followers were to be sentenced to death; or with the same ease of keeping the Jews away from Britain for a period of three hundred fifty years.[4] "

"This tax was not imposed on the Christians, as some would have us think, as a penalty for their refusal to accept the Muslim faith, but was paid by them in common with the other dhimmis or non-Muslim subjects of the states whose religion precluded them from serving in the army, in return for the protection secured for them by the arms of the Musalmans. When the people of Hirah contributed the sum agreed upon, they expressly mentioned that they paid this Jizyah on condition that 'the Muslims and their leader protect us from those who would oppress us, whether they be Muslims or others.' (Sir Thomas Arnold, Call To Islam, pp. 79-81)"

"'The jizya was so light that it did not constitute a burden on them, especially when we observe that it exempted them from compulsory military service that was an obligation for their fellow citizens, the Muslims.' (Sir Thomas Arnold, Invitation to Islam, p. 77)"

then we got Will Durant in "story of civilization":

"To these Dhimmis - Christians, Zoroastrians, Sabaeans, Jews - the Umayyad caliphate offered a degree of toleration hardly equated in contemporary Christian lands. They were allowed the free practice of their faiths, and the retention of their churches, on condition that they wear a distinctive honey-colored dress, and pay a poll tax of from one to four dinars ($4.75 to $ 19.00) per year according to their income. This tax fell only upon non-Moslems capable of military service; it was not levied upon monks, women, adolescents, slaves, the old, crippled, blind or very poor. In return the dhimmis were excused (or excluded) from military service, were exempted from the two and a half per cent tax for community charity, and received the protection of the government. Their testimony was not admitted in Moslem courts, but they were allowed self-government under their own leaders, judges and laws."

"Christian heretics persecuted by the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria, or Antioch were now free and safe under a Moslem rule that found their disputes quite unintelligible. In the ninth century, the Moslem governor of Antioch appointed a special guard to keep Christian sects from massacring one another at church. Monasteries and nunneries flourished under the skeptical Umayyads; the Arabs admired the work of the monks in agriculture and reclamation, acclaimed the wines of monastic vintage, and enjoyed, in traveling, the shade and hospitality of Christian cloisters. For a time, relations between the two religions were so genial that Christians wearing crosses on their breasts conversed in mosques with Moslem friends. The Mohammedan bureaucracy had hundreds of Christian employees; Christians rose so frequently to high office as to provoke Moslem complaints. Sergius, father of St. John of Damascus, was chief finance minister to Abd-al-Malik, and John himself, last of the Greek Fathers of the Church, headed the council that governed Damascus. The Christians of the East in general regarded Islamic rule as a lesser evil than that of the Byzantine government and church.



Despite, or because of this policy of tolerance in early Islam, the new faith won over to itself in time most of the Christians, nearly all the Zoroastrians and pagans, and many of the Jews, of Asia, Egypt, and North Africa. (Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: The Age of Faith, Volume 4 p. 218-219)"

And here is Abu Bakar the second caliph writing to Nestorians and other Christians of Mesopotamia(Aprim's Assyrians):

"'In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful. This is the written statement of God's slave Abu Bakr, the successor of Muhammad, the Prophet and Messenger of God. He affirms for you the rights of a protected neighbor, in yourselves, your lands, your religious community, your wealth, retainers, and servants, those of you who are present or abroad, your bishops and monks, and monasteries, and all that you own, be it great or small. You shall not be deprived of any of it, and shall have full control over it.' (Abu Yusuf, Kitab al-Kharaj, p. 79)"

Then we got the Nestorian Patriarch Geoff III:

"‘The Arabs, to whom God has given power over the whole world, know how wealthy you are, for they live among you. In spite of this, they do not assail the Christian creed. To the contrary, they have sympathy with our religion, and venerate our priests and saints of our Lord, and they graciously donate to our churches and monasteries."

Richard Stebbins and his experience:

"‘They (the Turks) allowed all of them, Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox, to preserve their religion and follow their consciences as they chose: they allowed them their churches to perform their sacred rituals in Constantinople and many other places. This is in contrast to what I can testify to from living in Spain for twelve years; not only were we forced to attend their Papist celebrations, but our lives and the lives of our grandchildren were in danger also."



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