Editing Persecution of Christians (section)

==== Rashidun Caliphate ====
Since they are considered "[[People of the Book]]" in the [[Islam|Islamic religion]], Christians under Muslim rule were subjected to the status of ''[[dhimmi]]'' (along with Jews, [[Samaritans]], [[Gnostics]], [[Mandeans]], and [[Zoroastrians]]), which was inferior{{tone inline|date=April 2025}} to the status of Muslims.<ref name="Stillman 1998">{{cite book |last=Stillman |first=Norman A. |author-link=Norman Stillman |year=1998 |orig-date=1979 |title=The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book |chapter=Under the New Order |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bFN2ismyhEYC&pg=PA22 |location=[[Philadelphia]] |publisher=[[Jewish Publication Society]] |pages=22–28 |isbn=978-0-8276-0198-7}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{cite book |last=Runciman |first=Steven |author-link=Steven Runciman |year=1987 |orig-year=1951 |chapter=The Reign of Antichrist |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uDj9sNezWzEC&pg=PA20 |title=[[A History of the Crusades|A History of the Crusades, Volume 1: The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem]] |location=[[Cambridge]] |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |pages=20–37 |isbn=978-0-521-34770-9}}</ref> Christians and other religious minorities thus faced [[religious discrimination]] and [[Religious persecution|persecution]] in that they were banned from [[Proselytism|proselytising]] (for Christians, it was forbidden to [[Evangelism|evangelize or spread Christianity]]) in the [[Early Muslim conquests|lands invaded by the Arab Muslims]] on pain of death, they were banned from bearing arms, undertaking certain professions, and were obligated to dress differently in order to distinguish themselves from Arabs.<ref name="Stillman 1998"/> Under the [[Sharia|Islamic law]] (''sharīʿa''), Non-Muslims were obligated to pay the ''[[jizya]]'' and ''[[kharaj]]'' taxes,<ref name="Stillman 1998"/><ref name=":5"/> together with periodic heavy [[ransom]] levied upon Christian communities by Muslim rulers in order to fund military campaigns, all of which contributed a significant proportion of income to the Islamic states while conversely reducing many Christians to poverty, and these financial and social hardships [[Forced conversion#Islam|forced many Christians to convert to Islam]].<ref name="Stillman 1998"/> Christians unable to pay these taxes were forced to surrender their children to the Muslim rulers as payment who would [[History of slavery in the Muslim world|sell them as slaves]] to Muslim households where they [[Forced conversion#Islam|were forced to convert to Islam]].<ref name="Stillman 1998"/>

According to the tradition of the [[Syriac Orthodox Church]], the [[Muslim conquest of the Levant]] was a relief for Christians oppressed by the Western Roman Empire.<ref name=":5"/> [[Michael the Syrian]], [[patriarch of Antioch]], wrote later that the Christian God had "raised from the south the [[children of Ishmael]] to deliver us by them from the hands of the Romans".<ref name=":5"/> Various Christian communities in the regions of [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], [[Syria (region)|Syria]], Lebanon, and [[Armenia (region)|Armenia]] resented either the governance of the Western Roman Empire or that of the Byzantine Empire, and therefore preferred to live under more favourable economic and political conditions as ''dhimmi'' under the Muslim rulers.<ref name=":5"/> However, modern historians also recognize that the Christian populations living in the [[Early Muslim conquests|lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies]] between the 7th and 10th centuries AD suffered [[religious persecution]], [[religious violence]], and [[Martyrdom in Christianity|martyrdom]] multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers;<ref name=":5"/><ref name="Sahner 2020">{{cite book |last=Sahner |first=Christian C. |year=2020 |orig-year=2018 |title=Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World |chapter=Introduction: Christian Martyrs under Islam |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TZqzDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |location=[[Princeton, New Jersey]] and [[Woodstock, Oxfordshire]] |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |pages=1–28 |isbn=978-0-691-17910-0 |lccn=2017956010}}</ref><ref name="Fierro 2008">{{cite journal |author-last=Fierro |author-first=Maribel |author-link=Maribel Fierro |date=January 2008 |title=Decapitation of Christians and Muslims in the Medieval Iberian Peninsula: Narratives, Images, Contemporary Perceptions |journal=[[Comparative Literature Studies]] |volume=45 |issue=2: ''Al-Andalus and Its Legacies'' |location=[[Philadelphia]], Pennsylvania |publisher=[[Penn State University Press]] |pages=137–164 |doi=10.2307/complitstudies.45.2.0137 |issn=1528-4212 |jstor=25659647 |s2cid=161217907|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Trombley 1996">{{cite journal |author-last=Trombley |author-first=Frank R. |date=Winter 1996 |title=''The Martyrs of Córdoba: Community and Family Conflict in an Age of Mass Conversion'' (review) |journal=[[Journal of Early Christian Studies]] |volume=4 |issue=4 |location=[[Baltimore]], Maryland |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |pages=581–582 |doi=10.1353/earl.1996.0079 |issn=1086-3184 |s2cid=170001371 }}</ref> many [[Capital punishment in Islam |were executed under the Islamic death penalty]] for defending their Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam, [[Apostasy in Islam|repudiation of the Islamic religion]] and subsequent [[Conversion to Christianity|reconversion to Christianity]], and [[Islam and blasphemy|blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs]].<ref name="Sahner 2020"/><ref name="Fierro 2008"/><ref name="Trombley 1996"/>

When [[Amr ibn al-As]] conquered Tripoli in 643, he forced the Jewish and Christian Berbers to give their wives and children as slaves to the Arab army as part of their ''jizya''.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ByLG-2hZX-MC|title=Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System|pages=142–43|isbn=9780300024470 |last1=Pipes |first1=Daniel |author-link1=Daniel Pipes |year=1981 |publisher=Daniel Pipes }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QNsCPOnTfhoC|title=The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In|page=206|isbn=9780306815850 |last1=Kennedy |first1=Hugh |year=2007 |publisher=Da Capo Press }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_MwoDsz2VeEC|title=The History of the Conquest of Egypt, North Africa and Spain: Known as the Futuh|date=January 2010 |page=170|publisher=Cosimo |isbn=9781616404352 }}</ref>

Around the year 666 C.E [[Uqba ibn Nafi]] “conquered the southern Tunisian cities... slaughtering all the Christians living there."<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qVqlswEACAAJ |title=Barbarians, Marauders, And Infidels |date=26 May 2004 |page=144|publisher=Basic Books |isbn=9780813391533 }}</ref> Muslim sources report him waging countless raids, often ending with the complete ransacking and mass enslavement of cities.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6NUOAAAAQAAJ |title=Ibn Abd-el-Hakem's History of the conquest of Spain, ed. [with text and] tr. by J.H. Jones |year=1858 |page=205}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|Archaeological evidence from North Africa in the region of Cyrenaica points to the destruction of churches along the route the Islamic conquerors followed in the late seventh century, and the remarkable artistic treasures buried along the routes leading to the North of Spain by fleeing Visigoths and Hispano-Romans during the early eighth century consist largely of religious and dynastic paraphernalia that the Christian inhabitants obviously wanted to protect from Muslim looting and desecration.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJNgCwAAQBAJ |title=The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise |date=9 February 2016 |page=12|publisher=Open Road Media |isbn=9781504034692 }}</ref>}}