Persecution of Muslims in the Middle East during the Crusades
Main article: Crusades
The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II , with the stated goal of regaining control of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslims , who had captured them from the Byzantines in 638. It was also partly a response to the Investiture Controversy , which was the most significant conflict between secular and religious powers in medieval Europe . The controversy began as a dispute between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Gregorian Papacy and gave rise to the political concept of Christendom as a union of all peoples and sovereigns under the direction of the pope; as both sides tried to marshal public opinion in their favor, people became personally engaged in a dramatic religious controversy. Also of great significance in launching the crusade were the string of victories by the Seljuk Turks, which saw the end of Arab rule in Jerusalem.
On 7 May 1099 the crusaders reached Jerusalem , which had been recaptured from the Seljuks by the Fatimids of Egypt only a year before. On 15 July, the crusaders were able to end the siege by breaking down sections of the walls and entering the city. Over the course of that afternoon, evening and next morning, the crusaders murdered almost every inhabitant of Jerusalem. Muslims, Jews, and even eastern Christians were all massacred. Although many Muslims sought shelter atop the Temple Mount inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque , the crusaders spared few lives. According to the anonymous Gesta Francorum , in what some believe to be one of the most valuable contemporary sources of the First Crusade, "...the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles..." [ 44 ] Tancred claimed the Temple quarter for himself and offered protection to some of the Muslims there, but he was unable to prevent their deaths at the hands of his fellow crusaders. According to Fulcher of Chartres: "Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared." [ 45 ]
During the First Crusade and the massacre at Jerusalem , it has been reported that the Crusaders "[circled] the screaming, flame-tortured humanity singing 'Christ We Adore Thee!' with their Crusader crosses held high". [ 46 ] Muslims were indiscriminately killed, and Jews who had taken refuge in their Synagogue were murdered when it was burnt down by the Crusaders.
Persecution of Muslims in South Europe
Further information: History of Islam in southern Italy , Emirate of Sicily , and Muslim settlement of Lucera
At first, the Muslim populations did well in Sicily in the first 100 years of the Norman conquest. Arabs remained privileged in the matters of government. Indeed, 4000 Saracen archers took part in various battles between Christian forces. When the Normans and later the House of Anjou lost control of the Island to Peter of Aragon, Islam began to decline. Norman rulers followed a policy of steadily Latinization (converting the island to Catholicism ). Some Muslims chose the option of feigning conversion, but such a remedy could only provide individual protection and could not sustain a community. [ 47 ]
Lombard pogroms against Muslims started in the 1160s. Muslim and Christian communities in Sicily became increasingly geographically separated. The island's Muslim communities were mainly isolated beyond an internal frontier which divided the south-western half of the island from the Christian north-east. Sicilian Muslims, a subject population, were dependent on the mercy of their Christian masters and, ultimately, on royal protection. When King William the Good died in 1189, this royal protection was lifted, and the door was opened for widespread attacks against the island's Muslims. Islam was no longer a major presence in the Island by the 14th century. Toleration of Muslims ended with Increasing Hohenstaufen control. Many repressive measures, passed by Frederick II , were introduced in order to please the Popes who could not tolerate Islam being practiced in the heart of Christendom , [ 48 ] which resulted in a rebellion of Sicily's Muslims. [ 49 ] This in turn triggered organized resistance and systematic reprisals [ 50 ] and marked the final chapter of Islam in Sicily. The rebellion abated, but direct papal pressure induced Frederick to mass transfer all his Muslim subjects deep into the Italian hinterland, to Lucera . [ 49 ]
In the Iberian Peninsula
Main article: Expulsion of the Moriscos
During the centuries of Reconquista (711-1492), the Christian North of the Iberian Peninsula and the Southern Muslim-ruled Al Andalus battled internally and against each other. It ended with the Christian domination of the Peninsula.
Depending on the local capitulations, local Muslims were allowed to remain ( Mudéjars ) with some restrictions and some assimilated into the Christian population. After the conquest of Granada , all the Spanish Muslims were under Christian rule. The new acquired population spoke Arabic and the campaigns to convert them were unsuccessful. Legislation was gradually introduced to remove Islam, culminating with the Muslims being forced to convert to Catholicism by the Spanish Inquisition . They were known as Moriscos and considered New Christians . Further laws were introduced, as on 25 May 1566, stipulating that they 'had to abandon the use of Arabic, change their costumes, that their doors must remain open every Friday, and other feast days, and that their baths, public and private, to be torn down.'. [ 51 ] The reason doors were to be left open so as to determine whether they secretly observed any Islamic festivals. [ 52 ] King Philip II of Spain ordered the destruction of all public baths on the grounds of them being relics of infidelity, notorious for their use by Muslims performing their purification rites. [ 53 ] [ 54 ] The possession of books or papers in Arabic was near concrete proof of disobedience with severe repercussions. [ 55 ] On 1 January 1568, Christian priests were ordered to take all Muslim children, between the ages of three and fifteen, and place them in schools, where they should learn Castillian and Christian doctrine. [ 56 ] All these laws and measures required forced to be implemented, and from much earlier. In Aragon alone, during the close of the 15th century, fifty thousand Muslims were put to death and double the number compelled to renounce their religion. [ 57 ]
Between 1609 and 1614 the Moriscos were expelled from Spain. [ 58 ] They were to depart 'under the pain of death and confiscation, without trial or sentence... to take with them no money, bullion, jewels or bills of exchange... just what they could carry.' [ 59 ]
The Balkans
As the Ottoman Empire entered a permanent phase of decline in the late 17th century it was engaged in a protracted state of conflict, losing territories both in Europe and the Caucasus. The victors were the Christian States, the old Habsburg and Romanov Empires and the new nation-states of Greece, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. [ 60 ] Rival European powers encouraged the development of nationalist ideologies among the Ottoman subjects in which the Muslims were portrayed as an ethnic “fifth column” leftover from a previous era that could not be integrated into the planned future states. The struggle to rid them selves of Ottomans became an important element of the self-identification of the Balkan Christians.[ 61 ]
According to Mark Levene, the Victorian public in the 1870s paid much more attention to the massacres and expulsions of Christians than to massacres and expulsions of Muslims, even if on a greater scale. He further suggests that such massacres were even favored by some circles.Mark Levene also argues that the dominant powers, by supporting "nation-statism" at the Congress of Berlin , legitimized "the primary instrument of Balkan nation-building": ethnic cleansing . [ 62 ] Hall points out that atrocities were committed by all sides during the Balkan conflicts. Deliberate terror was designed to instigate population movements out of particular territories. The aim of targeting the civilian population was to carve ethnically homogeneous countries. [ 63 ]
Justin McCarty estimates that between 1821 and 1922 around five and a half million Muslims were driven out of Europe and five million more were killed or died of disease and starvation while fleeing. [ 64 ] Cleansing occurred as a result of the Serbian and Greek independence in the 1820s and 1830s, the Russo-Turkish War 1877-1878, and culminating in the Balkan Wars1912-1913. Mann describes these acts as “murderous ethnic cleansing on stupendous scale not previously seen in Europe” referring to the 1914 Carnegie Endowment report. [ 65 ] [ 66 ] It is estimated that at the turn of the 20th century there were 4,4 million Muslims living in the Balkan zone of Ottoman control. [ 67 ] More than one million Muslims left the Balkans in the last three decades of the 19th century. [ 68 ] Between 1912 and 1926 nearly 2.9 million Muslims were either killed or forced to emigrate to Turkey. [ 67 ]
Between 10,000 [ 69 ] and 30,000 [ 70 ] [ 71 ] [ 72 ] Turks were killed in Tripolitsa by Greek rebels in the summer of 1821, including the entire Jewish population of the city. Similar events as these occurred also elsewhere during the Greek Revolution resulting in the eradication and expulsion of virtually the entire Turkish population of the Morea . These acts ensured the ethnic homogenization of the area under the rule of the future modern Greek state. [ 73 ] In 1830 the Muslims population in Morea is put at 300,000. In 1878 the Muslim inhabitants in Thessalyare estimated to be 150,000 and in 1897 the Muslims numbered 50,000 in Crete. By 1919 there were virtually no Muslims left in Morea and Thessaly and only 20,000 in Crete. [ 74 ]
During the Russo-Turkish War a significant number of Turks were either killed, perished or became refugees. There are different estimates about the casualties of the war. Crampton describes an exodus of 130,000-150,000 expelled of which approximately half returned for an intermediary period encouraged by the Congress of Berlin . Hupchick and McCarthy point out that 260,000 perished and 500,000 became refugees. [ 75 ] [ 76 ] The Turkish scholars Karpat and Ipek argue that up to 300,000 were killed and 1 - 1.5 million were forced to emigrate. [77 ] [ 78 ]
Massacres against Turks and Muslims during the Balkan Wars in the hands of Bulgarians , Greeks and Armenians are described in detail in the 1912 Carnegie Endowment report. [ 79 ]Hupchick estimates that nearly 1,5 million Muslims died and 400,000 became refugees as a result of the Balkan Wars. [ 80 ]
Kosovo
Main article: Operation Horseshoe
In modern times, notably during the Kosovo conflict, Muslim were victims of mass killings. The Ljubenić massacres were a series of killings committed by Serbian police and paramilitary forces on Muslim Kosovo Albanians in the in the village of Ljubenić near Peć , during the Kosovo War 1998-1999. In the May 1999 Cuska massacre , Serbian army, police, paramilitary and Serb volunteers from Bosnia in killed 48 Kosovo Albanian civilians, all men and boys. Some of the perpetrators were Kosovo Serbs while some others were criminals from Central Serbia released from prison for fighting in Kosovo. In 2005, Nebjosa Minic, also known as “Commander Death”, who was one of the leaders of militia group who carried out the massacre was identified by HRW and arrested in Argentina . [ 81 ]
In the Drenica massacres , Serbian special police forces in central Kosovo killed Kosovo Albanian civilians. [ 82 ] According to Human Rights Watch , abuses in the Drenica region during the Kosovo War 1998–1999 "were so widespread that a comprehensive description is beyond the scope of this report". [ 82 ] Key atrocities took place in the period of February–March 1998 in the Qirez, Likoshan and Prekaz and during theNATO bombing of Yugoslavia , from March to June 1999 in the villages of Izbica , Rezala, Poklek and Qikatova e vjetër (Staro Ćikatovo). [ 82 ] In the Suva Reka massacre , there were 48 victims — among them many children — all members of the Berisha family. [ 83 ] Victims were locked inside a pizzeria into which two hand grenades were thrown. [ 83 ] Before taking the bodies out of the pizzeria, the police allegedly shot anyone still showing signs of life. [ 83 ] Bodies of victims were later transported to Serbia and buried in mass graves near a police facility at Batajnica , near Belgrade . [ 84 ]
Between March 19 and June 15, 1999, Serbian and Yugoslav forces in Drenica engaged in "a brutal campaign of " ethnic cleansing " against the Albanians of Kosova that involved summary and arbitrary executions, arbitrary detentions, regular beatings, widespread looting, and the destruction of schools, hospitals, and other civilian objects". [ 85 ] In Cikatovo, more than 100 ethnic Albanians were executed by Serb forces and buried at a mass grave site, according to war crimes investigators. [ 86 ]
Bulgaria
Main article: Turks in Bulgaria
1.5 million Muslims used to live in Bulgaria before Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) . After the Turkish defeat, the Russian army along with irregular troops that included Cossacks entered Bulgaria and carried out massacres and deportations against Muslim people with aid of Bulgarians. Half a million Muslims succeeded in going to Ottoman controlled lands and 672.215 Muslim were reported after war in Bulgaria. Approximately a quarter of a million Muslim people perished from massacres, cold, disease and other bad conditions. [ 87 ] "I can come to no other conclusion but that the Russians are carrying out a fixed policy exterminating the Moslem race" [ 88 ]
In 1989, 310,000 Turks left Bulgaria, many under pressure as a result of the communist Zhivkov regime's assimilation campaign (though up to a third returned before the end of the year).That program, which began in 1984, forced all Turks and other Muslims in Bulgaria to adopt Bulgarian names and renounce all Muslim customs. The motivation of the 1984 assimilation campaign is unclear; however, some experts believe that the disproportion between the birth rates of the Turks and the Bulgarians was a major factor. [ 89 ] During the name-changing phase of the campaign, Turkish towns and villages were surrounded by army units. Citizens were issued new identity cards with Bulgarian names. Failure to present a new card meant forfeiture of salary, pension payments, and bank withdrawals. Birth or marriage certificates would be issued only in Bulgarian names. Traditional Turkish costumes were banned; homes were searched and all signs of Turkish identity removed. Mosques were closed. According to estimates, 500 to 1,500 people were killed when they resisted assimilation measures, and thousands of others were imprisoned or sent to labor camps or were forcibly resettled. [ 90 ]
Bosnian Genocide
Main article: Bosnian Genocide
Further information: Foča massacres , Srebrenica massacre , and Omarska camp
Although religious and ethnic strife has flared in the Balkans for centuries, modern persecution of Muslims occurred during theYugoslav Wars , in which militias from both the Serb and Croat communities, which were largely Christian, carried out attacks on theBosniak community, which was largely Muslim. Although the conflict was not inherently religious, Islam was a crucial part of Bosniak identity and as a result, many attacks on religious buildings and symbols took place in towns such whilst as Foča , where all of the town's mosques were destroyed. On 22 April 1992, Serbs blew up the Aladža Mosque and eight more mosques dating from the 16th and 17th centuries were damaged or completely destroyed. On January 1994, the Serb authorities renamed Foča “Srbinje” ( Serbian: Србиње ), literally meaning "place of the Serbs" (from Srbi Serbs and -nje which is a Slavic locative suffix). [ 91 ]
Asian Turkey
Anatolia
See also: Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)
It is estimated that in the course of the World War I and the Turkish War of Independence 2.5 million Muslims died in Anatolia while hundreds of thousands of refugees arrived from former Ottoman territories and Russia. [ 92 ]
On May 14, 1919 a fleet of British, American and French warships brought an entire Greek division into the harbour of Izmir. The landing was followed by a general slaughter of the Turkish population. Greek gangs roamed the streets looting and killing. As the Greek army pushed into Anatolia the local population was subjected to massacres, ravaging and raping. [ 93 ]
Syria
In Syria , the total number of civilian casualties was as many as 500,000. The civilian casualties of Greater Syria, including Akkar, were covered in a detailed article by Linda Schatkowski Schilcher. [ 94 ] Scholars acknowledge one particular reason for civilian deaths attributed to Germany, the callousness of German military officials in Syria, and systematic hoarding by the population at large. [ 94 ]
Russian Empire
Further information: Circassian genocide and Caucasian War
The period from the conquest of Kazan in 1552 to the ascension of Catherine the Great in 1762, was marked by systematic repression of Muslims through policies of exclusion and discrimination as well as the destruction of Muslim culture by elimination of outward manifestations of Islam such as mosques . The Russians initially demonstrated a willingness in allowing Islam to flourish as Muslim clerics were invited into the various region to preach to the Muslims, particularly the Kazakhs whom the Russians viewed as "savages" and "ignorant" of morals and ethics. [ 95 ] [ 96 ] However, Russian policy shifted toward weakening Islam by introducing pre-Islamic elements of collective consciousness. [ 97 ] Such attempts included methods of eulogizing pre-Islamic historical figures and imposing a sense of inferiority by sending Kazakhs to highly elite Russian military institutions. [ 97 ] In response, Kazakh religious leaders attempted to bring religious fervor by espousing pan-Turkism , though many were persecuted as a result. [ 98 ]
While total expulsion as in other Christian nations such as Spain, Portugal and Sicily was not feasible to achieve a homogenous Russian Orthodoxpopulation, other policies such as land grants and the promotion of migration by other Russian and non-Muslim populations into Muslim lands displaced many Muslims making them minorities in places such as some parts of the South Ural region to other parts such as the Ottoman Turkey , and almost annihilating the Circassians , Crimean Tatars , and various Muslims of the Caucasus . The Russian army rounded up people, driving Muslims from their villages to ports on the Black Sea, where they awaited ships provided by the neighboring Ottoman Empire . The explicit Russian goal was to expel the groups in question from their lands. [ 99 ] They were given a choice as to where to be resettled: in the Ottoman Empire or in Russia far from their old lands. Only a small percentage (the numbers are unknown) accepted resettlement within the Russian Empire . The trend of Russification has continued at different paces during the remaining Tsarist period and under the Soviet Union , so that today there are more Tatars living outside the Republic of Tatarstan than inside it. [ 100 ]
Suvorov announced the capture of Ismail in 1791 to the Tsarina Catherine in a doggerel couplet, after the assault had been pressed from house to house, room to room, and nearly everyMuslim man, woman, and child in the city had been killed in three days of uncontrolled massacre, 40,000 Turks dead, a few hundred taken into captivity. For all his bluffness, Suvorov later told an English traveller that when the massacre was over he went back to his tent and wept. [ 101 ]
Nigeria
Main article: Yelwa massacre
During the Yelwa massacre on May 2, 2004, a Christian militia killed hundreds of Muslims in Yelwa , Nigeria , and thousands of Muslims were forced to flee the area. [ 102 ]
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