Bat Ye'or

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Bat Ye'or, meaning "daughter of the Nile" in Hebrew, a pseudonym of Giselle Littman, is an author and historian of the Middle East, best known for her work on Islam and what she calls dhimmitude.

She is the author of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis (2005) and Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (2001), work that has attracted both criticism and praise.

Early life

She was born in Cairo, Egypt, but her Egyptian nationality was revoked in 1955 because she was Jewish, so she and her parents left Egypt in 1957, arriving in London as stateless refugees. In 1959 she became a British citizen. From 1958 she attended the Institute of Archeology at London University, moving to Switzerland in 1960 where she continued her studies at the University of Geneva.

Her first book, The Jews in Egypt, was published in 1971.

Dhimmitude

Bat Ye'or is known for popularizing the use of the term Dhimmitude, which she discusses in detail in her book Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide. She credits Lebanese politician and militia-leader Bachir Gemayel for the term.

She argues that Dhimmitude derives from the surrender of the Christian clergy and political leaders to the Muslim jihad armies, and their submission to Islamic domination of both their lands and peoples. In exchange, they received a pledge of protection ('dhimma') from the Muslim sovereign. This was conditioned on the payment of a special tax, jizya.

Eurabia

She is also known for having coined the term Eurabia, a topic which she discusses at length in her most recent book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis:

Eurabia is a geo-political reality envisaged in 1973 through a system of informal alliances between, on the one hand, the nine countries of the European Community (EC) which, enlarged, became the European Union (EU) in 1992 and on the other hand, the Mediterranean Arab countries. The alliances and agreements were elaborated at the top political level of each EC country with the representative of the European Commission, and their Arab homologues with the Arab League's delegate. This system was synchronised under the roof of an association called the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) created in July 1974 in Paris. A working body composed of committees and always presided jointly by a European and an Arab delegate planned the agendas, and organized and monitored the application of the decisions.

Influence

She has spoken at a Association for World Education-organized conference, before the United States Congress and has been featured on C-SPAN.

An article in the New York Times referred to her as one of the "most extreme voices on the new Jewish right." She rejects that charge, claiming to have been "calumniated in The New York Times."

Bat Ye'or theses

Her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis traces what she sees as connections between radical Arabs and Muslims, on the one hand, and fascists and Nazis, on the other hand, in the origins and developing influence, as she sees it, of Islam over Europe, its culture and politics.

She says she wrote her books because:

I had witnessed the destruction, in a few short years, of a vibrant Jewish community living in Egypt for over 2,600 years and which had existed from the time of Jeremiah the Prophet. I saw the disintegration and flight of families, dispossessed and humiliated, the destruction of their synagogues, the bombing of the Jewish quarters and the terrorizing of a peaceful population. I have personally experienced the hardships of exile, the misery of statelessness−and I wanted to get to the root cause of all this. I wanted to understand why the Jews from Arab countries, nearly a million, had shared my experience.

Ye'or regards dhimmitude as the "specific social condition that resulted from jihad," and as the "state of fear and insecurity" of "infidels" who are required to "accept a condition of humiliation." She believes that "the dhimmi condition can only be understood in the context of Jihad," and studies the relationship between the theological tenets of Islam and the sufferings of the Christians and Jews who, in different geographical areas and periods of history, have lived in Islamic majority areas. The cause of jihad, she argues, "was fomented around the 8th century by Muslim theologians after the death of Muhammad and led to the conquest of large swaths of three continents over the course of a long history." . She says:

Dhimmitude is the direct consequence of jihad. It embodie all the Islamic laws and customs applied over a millennium on the vanquished population, Jews and Christians, living in the countries conquered by jihad and therefore Islamized. return of the jihad ideology since the 1960s, and of some dhimmitude practices in Muslim countries applying the sharia law, or inspired by it. I stress the incompatibility between the concept of tolerance as expressed by the jihad-dhimmitude ideology, and the concept of human rights based on the equality of all human beings and the inalienability of their rights.

Jacques Ellul attempts to summarize her views in the foreword to The Decline (see below), saying that Ye'or focuses on "jihad and dhimmitude ... as ... two complementary institutions... here are many interpretations . At times, the main emphasis is placed on the spiritual nature of this 'struggle'. Indeed, it would merely the struggle that the believer has to wage against his own evil inclinations.... his interpretation ... in no way covers the whole scope of jihad. At other times, one prefers to veil the facts and put them in parentheses. xpansion ... happened through war!" Though Ye'or acknowledges that it is not the case that all Muslims subscribe to so-called "militant jihad theories of society", she claims that the role of the sharia in the "1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam" demonstrates that "a perpetual war against those infidels who refuse to submit" is still an "operative paradigm" in Islamic countries.

Ye'or has focused on the rapid conversion of Eastern Christian lands to Islam, concluding that corruption and division among Christians contributed and may even have afforded Islam certain models of legal control of subjugated populations; she suggests that Yugoslavia is an example of the long-term scars of dhimmitude, where Christians were under that status for centuries.

Usage of the term "dhimmitude" has increased in recent years (as Google confirms); some scholars have used it both by itself and in association with Bat Ye'or's work, e.g. in undergraduate and graduate courses relating to the relationship Muslims have had historically with other peoples or to the study of regions such as Syria. Her works have also been quoted by some scholars with reference to the field of religious history.

Other issues Ye'or studies include:

Pluralism in Islamic culture, with a focus on Eastern Europe
Violations of human rights in Islamic cultures
The theological rules that govern jihad
How Muslims interpret the history of the dhimmi peoples
How the Muslim interpretation of religious scripture influences Islamic interpretation of history and modern-day events
The "dialog of civilizations" and the "negation of the other"

Books by Bat Ye'or

Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, 2005, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, ISBN 083864077X.
Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide, 2001, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, ISBN 0838639437.
The Dhimmi: Jews & Christians Under Islam, 1985, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, ISBN 0838632629.
Der Niedergang des orientalischen Christentums unter dem Islam. Zwischen Dschihad und Dhimmitude. 7-20 Jahrhundert. Foreword by Heribert Busse. (Gräfelfing, Germany: Resch Verlag, 2002)
L'antisionisme euro-arabe in visages de l'antisémitisme: haine-passion ou haine historique? Coll. work (Paris: NM7 Editions, 2001)
"The Dhimmi Factor in the Exodus of Jews from Arab Countries" (pp. 33-51), in Coll. work (ed.) Malka Hillel Shulewitz, The Forgotten Millions. The Modern Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands (London/New York: Cassell, 1999; Continuum, 2000)
The Decline of Eastern Christianity: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, 1996, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, ISBN 0838636888.
Juifs et Chrétiens sous l'Islam: les dhimmis face au défi intégriste (Paris: Berg International, 1994 / "Pensée Politique et Sciences Sociales", series directed by Pierre-André Taguieff)
The Dhimmi (Russian). Trans. from English, 2 vol. (Jerusalem: Society for Research on Jewish Communities/Aliya Library, 1991)
Les Chrétientés d'Orient entre Jihad et Dhimmitude: VIIe-XXe siècle. Preface by Jacques Ellul (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1991)
Ha-Dhimmim. B'nai Ha-Sout (The Dhimmi: Hebrew) Enl. Preface by Jacques Ellul. Introduction by Moshe Sharon. Trans. from English by Aharon Amir. (Jerusalem: Cana Press , 1986)
The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, Enl. Preface by Jacques Ellul. Trans. from French by David Maisel, Paul Fenton and David Littman (Cranbury, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/ Associated University Presses & London: AUP, 1985; 6th printing, 2003) Preface by Jacques Ellul in French.
Le Dhimmi: Profil de l'opprimé en Orient et en Afrique du Nord depuis la conquête arabe (Paris: Editions Anthropos, 1980)
Yehudi Mitzraiyim (Jews in Egypt: Hebrew), rev. & enl. Trans. from French by Aharon Amir. Preface by H.Z. Hirschberg (Tel Aviv: Maariv, with the Israel Ministry of Education, World Sephardi Organization, World Jewish Congress, 1974)
Les Juifs en Egypte (Geneva: Editions de l'Avenir, 1971)

References

Poller, Nida: "Slap at European Jewry prompts backlash", New York Sun, March 3, 2005
Smith, Craig: "Europe's Jews Seek Solace on the Right", New York Times, February 20, 2005

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