The successor to dhimma is the Sharia.

When Ottoman Empire collapsed and western powers like France and Great Britain came in to administer the former territories of the empire, western values and ideas reemerged.

The idea of equality of citizenship was enforced. So was religious freedom that allowed Christianity to tickle back. It did not take time before ideas like Socialism, Capitalism and others based on secular concepts began to flourish again.

An example of such emergence was the Ba’th party in most of Middle-East. The party was conceived as a center-left secular pan-Arab nationalist party. Founded by Michel Aflag, the word Ba’th means resurrection. It went contrary to the ideas of other Arab governments that were more Islamic and theocratic.

The presence of Westerners in Arab land, governing and the fear of the emerging western norms on Arab streets were soon interpreted as a mortal threat to Islam. Those in the Muslim world who felt so strongly about that soon constituted themselves into what is today referred to as radical Islam. It was the environment that produced a group like Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Aside from representing the frustration of many Muslims who lost an empire and did not seem to find a significant role in the new world order that emerged after the Second World War, the radical Islamists also desired to return to a purified form of Islam. One of their ways for achieving that was an aggressive enforcement of the Sharia.

The Sharia originates from the Koran. In the Koran, Sharia provides the general principles of behavior without a whole lot of specifics. Over the years, the divine teachings as are obtained in the Koran have been interpreted and expanded to cover the changing times and lives of Muslims. This process is called ijtihad. These laws promulgated through human effort are known as fiqh. They are not part of the permanent divine laws and as such could be reexamined and reformulated if need be.

Prof. Khalaf, a professor of Sharia at Cairo School of Law stated, “All Sharia rules are based on their reason and the existence and non-existence of a rule depends on the existence or non-existence of its reason.” He also wrote, “Sharia rule is applicable if its reason is present, even if the wisdom of the rule is not understood but that a rule is inapplicable if its reason does not exist, even if the wisdom of the rule is clear.”

The openness to varying interpretations is what makes the Sharia a wonderful tool in the hands of Islamists. The Sharia of Saudi Arabia is different from the Sharia implemented by the Taliban in Afghanistan. In many states that consider themselves Islamic, the Sharia is being implemented across the land. Like dhimma before it, the implication of Sharia on non-Muslims is just the same. When fully enforced, it imposes restrictions on Christians, leaving many with just two options – emigrate or convert to Islam. Figures show that in the last ten years close to ten million Christians have left Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Palestine for Europe and America.

In Nigeria, the Christian –Muslim conflicts often get a political disguise. Until recently, the Muslims of Northern Nigeria seemed more satisfied exerting their blow on Christians on the cloak of political reasons, be it in Jos in 1945, Kano in 1957, all of northern Nigeria in 1966, Kano in 1980, Maiduguri in 1982, Jimeta in 1984, Gombe in 1985, Kaduna & Kafanchan in 1991, Bauchi, Kastina, & Kano in 1991, Zango-Kataf in 1992, Funtua in 1993, Kano in 1994.

A careful look at the nature of the massacres, the choice of targets and the motivations behind them show the Islamist elements that desire to establish a pure form of an Islamic North that will not be adulterated by infidels. Within this period, the Muslims sporadically made it clear as when in December 1994 they captured and murdered Christian trader, Gideon Akaluka, who was under police protection. He was accused of tearing pages of the Koran in the northern city of Kano. Muslim group beheaded him and hoisted his head on a pike and paraded through the streets of Kano. On December 12, 2001, a Nigerian Christian truck driver, Saint Moritz, reversing his truck in Kano accidentally ran into an area occupied by Koranic study group. As students fled, one dropped his Koran. The truck trampled on a copy of the Koran. Muslim groups pursued the man into a police station, overpowered the few cops on post and killed him.

In 1999, the first predominately Northern Muslims state of Zamfara came out to declare its desire to have Sharia law fully observed. On January 10, 2001, while the rest of the world watched the Luna eclipse, hundreds of Muslim youths went on rampage in the northern city of Maiduguri. The youths blamed the eclipse on sinful activities committed in the city by Christians. They attacked hotels, bars, brothels, churches, burning and killing, screaming: “God is great!” “We want Sharia.” On October 15, 2001, as America began air strike against Afghanistan, riots broke out in northern Nigerian city of Kano against the air strike. Hundreds of non-Muslims were killed by mobs carrying the picture of Osama bin Laden. To date, thirteen states of the North have declared Sharia law. Since then, over 10,000 people have been killed in religious conflicts

While countries like Nigeria, Sudan, Philippines, Indonesia have lived with serious incidents of Muslims massacre of Christians for years, what is interesting is the angling of some Muslims now living in the West for the imposition of Sharia laws. Coming after September 11 attack on America, July 7 attack on London, March 11 attack on Madrid, and the October 12 attack on Bali by Islamic radicals, this new poser is attracting attention in Western countries as far away as Australia.

At least on rhetorical level, Australia is proving itself to be the ground zero of the ongoing conflict between Islam and the West.

to be continued...