Part 1 of this series ended with the term “razzia,” which is a military raid conducted by Muslims against infidel civilians in furtherance of jihad. The purpose of such raids was on occasion to conquer, but more typically it was simply to gather plunder and slaves. If you have not read Part 1 of this series, it would greatly help your understanding to do so.

A little-known fact worth mentioning is that from such razzias Muslim armies captured Many millions of slaves out of Europe, to wit: Western Europeans enslaved by Barbary pirates – 1.25 million, Eastern European slaves taken from the Black Sea region – 2.5 million, young boys taken to be Janissaries – 1 million, and Iberian slaves taken from Spain and Portugal – some untold number in the hundreds of thousands. Nearly all of these enslaved captives were Christian. (By contrast, the number of slaves brought from Africa to the United States was less than four hundred thousand, about one tenth as many.) The Islamic slave raids into Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Lithuania, and even Russia for saqaliba were so systematic and so prolonged that Islam referred to them as “harvesting the Steppe.”

Saqaliba: Slaves captured from Slavic regions. Our word “slave” is derived from “Slav,” indicative of the extent to which those peoples were put in harness.

Jizya: A tax paid by dhimmis in conjunction with certain degradations and humiliations, traditionally it was collected annually and ran up to about 50% of income. A parallel tax called devshirme was also often imposed.

Devshirme: A tax paid by dhimmis in the form of children forced to convert to Islam and serve as soldiers or concubines. Among the best known military forces thus recruited were the Janissaries, infidel boys trained as elite soldiers, and Mamluks, boys taken primarily from the Christian Balkan region. These tax-children formed the bulwark of Islamic military power for many centuries, and the practice is currently being revived throughout Islamic Africa. It was a force of Mamluk boy soldiers that breached the walls of Constantinople in 1453 to bring down the Christian Byzantine Empire.

Pillars of Islam: Fundamental moral obligations which Muslims must meet, including a confession of faith, a regimen of prayer, and acts of charity, fasting and pilgrimage.

Dawah: Stealth jihad. Whenever Muslims lack sufficient power to engage directly in military jihad they are counselled to engage in stealth jihad, or dawah. This may consist in infiltration by hijra. Also permissible are taqiyya, kitma and hudna.

Taqiyya: The principle that allows Muslims to lie in order to keep the peace of Islam, to avoid shame, for self-protection, and most significantly for the protection and advancement of Islam. In practice, this means that a Muslim may engage in any form of deception which offers advantage when dealing with infidels. As an example, Muhammad condoned lying to facilitate the murder of his critics, and urged his followers to feign friendship and alliances with infidels for the purpose of gaining advantage over them.

Kitma: Mental reservations are permitted within Islam even when dealing with other Muslims. Generally, Muslims are to be truthful with one another except when lying will smooth over differences, and even in such cases they should not lie to each other if the truth will accomplish the same objective. However Muhammad allowed even the breaking of oaths for good cause. “If you ever take an oath to do something and later find that something else is better, then you should expiate your oath and do what is better.” Needless to say, when dealing with infidels Muslims are bound by a very loose moral code in this regard, and treachery and deception are regarded as admirable and virtuous. Their treatment of hudnas is illustrative.

Hudna: When engaged in jihad, Muslims are permitted to enter hudnas (treaties or ceasefires) only in order to gain advantage, and then only for a maximum of 10 years. They may violate any treaty on the mere suspicion that the other side is about to do so, and many Muslim scholars teach that Muslims must violate treaties whenever they can gain advantage over infidels by doing so.

Caliphate: The rule of the world wide Ummah under the successor to Muhammad. Traditional Muslims regard the Caliph as the only legitimate ruler in the world, and militant Muslims today are engaged in jihad specifically to restore the caliphate, which the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) now claims to have accomplished. This mission will not be completed until everyone on earth is converted to Islam.

Ummah: A single invisible nation composed of all the world’s Muslims. Ideally, the entire Islamic world will again be united under a single caliphate and ruled by Sharia law. Muslims faithful to their history believe the ummah constitutes the only legitimate political entity, and they fervently pledge their entire worldly allegiance to it. Patriotism toward any other political entity is regarded as treason. The division of Islam into separate nations was imposed by the West after the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate at the end of the First World War, and so-called “radical Muslims” such as the Islamic Brotherhood have been engaged in a struggle (jihad) to restore the caliphate ever since.

Sharia: A body of law which controls every aspect of life, sharia is administered by religious leaders called mullahs. To understand the origins of sharia one must look to the warfare and plunder engaged in by Muhammad himself. During his lifetime, the prophet led scores of preemptive campaigns against the infidel. The vast majority of these were raids against merchant caravans, and to understand the laws that arose from these razzias one need only imagine the caravans as ships and the Arabian Desert a sea. Under such circumstances, Muhammad needed a code of conduct suitable for pirates, and Allah reliably accommodated that need. Thus, sharia has detailed provisions for the division of spoils, the handling of slaves, the etiquette necessary to prevent conflict within the ranks etc. And so, for example, the conduct of women was strictly regulated to prevent male jealousies, and we see this today in the “honor killings” of Pakistan and the khafd the practiced in much of the Islamic world. Any female conduct seen to be the least bit seductive was liable to provoke contention among the mujahedeen, and was dealt with most harshly.

As an adjunct to hijra as mechanism of jihad, Muslims strive to expand Sharia into infidel zones and thereby establish political and legal control in host nations. Needless to say, an infidel cannot bring any action in a Sharia court or even testify as a witness.

Khafd: female genital mutilation.

Mullah: A Muslim male trained in religious law and doctrine and recognized as an authority. Mullahs oversee the enforcement of Islamic law and in special cases issue fatwas for its enforcement.

Fatwa: A legal ruling under Sharia Law binding upon those to whom it is directed. Salmon Rushdie and a Playboy centerfold are currently under death fatwas, along with assorted writers, cartoonists and artists. Every Muslim within the jurisdiction of a given mullah has a duty to act on such a fatwa if possible.

Honor Killing: This is not an Islamic term, because Islam officially condemns the practice. But unofficially, it is the duty of a father or brother in many Islamic regions to execute any female who has shamed the family by engaging in forbidden conduct which might invite sexual interest. For example, females in much of the Islamic world are forbidden to go into the street without the accompaniment of a male relative and without first covering themselves with the hijab. So extreme is this requirement that in many places a woman who is raped will be presumed guilty of instigation and therefore of adultery.

Hijab: A traditional covering for the head and neck required to be worn by Islamic women in order to avoid carnally tempting men.

Dhimmi: This is you if you allow Islamic hijra or ever permit the establishment of Sharia law in your country. Some refer to the dhimmi as a second-class citizen. But this is a euphemistic dodge, because in fact the dhimmi is a form of slave. Literally, the term dhimmi means “protection,” but only in the sense that one might pay “protection” to an organized crime syndicate. A dhimmi is a captive infidel who will not convert to Islam, and as such his life under Sharia is already considered forfeit. However he may be afforded provisional “protection” as long as he conforms to certain strict conditions. He must formally humble himself, reliably pay the jizya, and obey a very precise body of Sharia rules.

Dhimmitude is reserved for People of the Book. In the cases of those who refused to accept dhimmi status, Muhammad’s explicit consequences are severe. “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter.” – Quran 5:33

As just a few examples, dhimmis are allowed no weapons, and are required to travel only on foot. They are forbidden to preach or ring their church bells, and to build or repair churches. They are required to wear a special identifying patch—a practice which Hitler later adopted in his solution to the Jewish Problem. They are forbidden to insult Islam, Allah, his prophet, and for that matter any Muslim under penalty of death.

As a practical matter, any Muslim can force the death of any dhimmi merely by claiming that the infidel struck him, threw garbage against the wall of the mosque, desecrated a Quran etc. Recall that infidels, including dhimmis, are not permitted to testify in Sharia courts. As a result, few infidels have been able to hold out against the pressure to convert except in times when the authorities value the jizya more highly than their duty to uphold the dignity of Sharia. It goes without saying that there are few Jews or Christians living under Islam today, even in those regions which were entirely Christian or Jewish before being overrun by jihad.

Open dhimmitude was ended in the last century by the colonial powers. But tell that to the mujahedeen of ISIS or Al Qaeda or Boko Haram or the Taliban. For most of the past century, as a result of the vast technological supremacy of the West, militant Islam was temporarily dormant. But that was an anomaly entirely out of character with the preceding thirteen hundred years of Islamic history. There are those today who urge that peaceful Islam is the norm, and that militant Muslims are at odds with their own religion. Trust these people at your peril! Or better still, study the history of Islam for yourself!