Ariel Center for Policy Research (ACPR)

 

ACPR Research - Summary

 

The War of Islam against Minorities in the Middle East

Mordechai Nisan

Policy Paper No. 115, 

(In the book Muhammad's MonstersDavid Bukay, (ed.),
AR: Balfour Books and Israel: ACPR Publishers, 2004, 300 pages.)

 

The Islamization of the Middle East and North Africa beginning in the seventh century expressed the impulse and dogma of a combative faith, and the explicit connection between religion and politics. Islam demanded the convergence of the spiritual and temporal domains by the sword.

In the twentieth-century, Arab nationalism and the concept of pan-Arab unity were promoted in place of the primacy of Islam as the definition of collective identity and political vision. Certainly the link between Arabism and Islam is an important and often subtle one. Nonetheless, Islam returned with a vengeance in the latter part of the century to reaffirm in a fundamentalist modality that religion is the singular standard in moral and political affairs.

The agents and mechanisms of Islam include a variety of religious movements, parties, and regimes, poised against non-Muslim populations across the Mideastern terrain. The victimized groups include four categories:

  1. Classical dhimmi non-Muslims, especially the Jews including the state of Israel, and a variety of Christian populations.
     

  2. Heretical non-Muslims, like Druzes and Alawite sects.
     

  3. Muslim minorities, like the Berbers and Kurds. 4. Individual Muslims, such as intellectual and political figures, who are denied free expression of ideas and choice of life-style.

The sweeping goal of Islam, which has been achieved to a large extent, is to reduce and eliminate the non-Muslim entities and groups from the Mideast and preserve the region as a pure Islamic milieu. The immediate targets are Israel and Lebanon due to their special national and religious identities that challenge monolithic Muslim superiority and rule.

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