The Khilafah State and Minorities

مقدمة / Introduction

Diversity prevailed in the first Islamic state established by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in Medina from its inception. It included Muhajirun (emigrants) and Ansar (helpers), and its subjects included Arabs and non-Arabs, Muslims, Jews, and polytheists, as well as the tribes of Aws and Khazraj, despite their previous animosity. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) laid the foundations for the relationship between the segments of this nascent society in what was called the Document of Medina. The Islamic state then expanded to include the entire Arabian Peninsula during the life of the Prophet (peace be upon him), and it expanded further during the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and those who came after them during the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman eras. This increased the diversity in the Islamic state as people entered Islam in droves from various tribes and peoples, and many followers of different religions, not known in the Arabian Peninsula, became subject to the authority of the Caliphate, despite their differences in race, color, language, culture, and religion. Harmony, compatibility, and good fellowship were the norm in the relationship between them and in their relationship with the state and the Sultan. The Islamic state and Muslim society did not know the concept of minorities throughout their long history, except for the infiltration of this concept from the West, planned and orchestrated by Western countries coveting Muslim lands in the late Ottoman era. The Western colonial powers exploited the element of strength represented by the great diversity prevailing in the Ottoman Empire and turned it into a factor of weakness to strike the Islamic state, fragment it, and eliminate it by spreading the concept of minorities intellectually and by adopting some "minorities" materially, morally, and militarily and inciting them to rebel against the Ottoman state. At first, they focused on the European peoples under the rule of the Islamic state in the Balkans, Greece, and other regions, arousing nationalistic tendencies and separatist desires in them, and providing them with weapons and support to rebel against this state, and also targeting the Christians, trying to convince them of the injustice inflicted upon them by the Muslims and their state and of the deficiency in their rights. Thus, they interfered in the affairs of the Ottoman state under the pretext of protecting the Christian religious minority as an extension of these countries in terms of religion. These countries continued in this matter until they were able to fragment the Ottoman state and incite strife and animosity within it, until it ended with its elimination and the colonization of most of its lands by these countries, which did not respect the rights of these alleged minorities in their colonization, so they suffered from the injustice and control of the colonizers what their neighbors from the majorities suffered.