Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood to Coptic Christians: Convert to Islam, or pay ‘jizya’ tax

The Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters have began forcing the roughly 15,000 Christian Copts of Dalga village in Egypt to pay a jizya tax as indicated in Koran 9:29, author and translator Raymond Ibrahim reported on Sunday.

Jizya is the money, or tribute, "that conquered non-Muslims historically had to pay to their Islamic overlords 'with willing submission and while feeling themselves subdued' to safeguard their existence," Mr. Ibrahim explained.

According to Fr. Yunis Shawqi, who spoke yesterday to Dostor reporters in Dalga, all Copts in the village, "without exception," are being forced to pay the tax.

"[The] value of the tribute and method of payment differ from one place to another in the village, so that, some are being expected to pay 200 Egyptian pounds per day, others 500 Egyptian pounds per day," Mr. Shawqi said, according to the translator.

In some cases, families not able to pay have been attacked. As many as 40 Christian families have now fled Dalga, Mr. Ibrahim reported.

The taxes are not unique to Egypt either.

Just over the weekend Syrian rebels went into a Christian man's "shop and gave him three options: become Muslim; pay $70,000 as a tax levied on non-Muslims, known as jizya; or be killed along with his family," Christian Science Monitor reported.

-Washington Times, September 10, 2013

(The Jizya is like a Mafia "street tax," except that the street tax is cheaper and isn't meant to bankrupt the victim.)

Brotherhood Imposes Jizya Tribute on Egypt’s Christians

Now that the attacks on Egypt’s Christian churches have subsided, stage two of the jihad — profiting from the fear and terror caused by stage one — is setting in: reports are arriving that the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters are forcing the roughly 15,000 Christian Copts of Dalga village in south Minya province to pay jizya — the money, or tribute, that conquered non-Muslims historically had to pay to their Islamic overlords “with willing submission and while feeling themselves subdued” to safeguard their existence, as indicated in Koran 9:29.

According to Fr. Yunis Shawqi, who spoke yesterday to Dostor reporters in Dalga, all Copts in the village, “without exception,” are being forced to pay tribute, just as their forefathers did nearly 1400 years ago when the sword of Islam originally invaded Christian Egypt. He said that the “value of the tribute and method of payment differ from one place to another in the village, so that, some are being expected to pay 200 Egyptian pounds per day, others 500 Egyptian pounds per day…”

In some cases, those not able to pay have been attacked, their wives and children beaten and/or kidnapped. As a result, some 40 Christian families have now fled Dalga, joining the ever growing list of displaced Christians in the Middle East.

It’s the same in Syria and Iraq. ”Rebels” recently went to a Christian man’s “shop and gave him three options: become Muslim; pay $70,000 as a tax levied on non-Muslims, known as jizya; or be killed along with his family…. Androus from Mosul, Iraq… says he received a similar demand via telephone. ‘Because you are infidels, you have to pay jizya,’ he recalled being told over the phone. ‘Either you pay jizya, or we will kill you or your son.’”

Collecting jizya from non-Muslims was interrupted in the 19th century, thanks to European intervention. Today, the jizya and other injustices against Mideast Christians — in Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq — have returned precisely thanks to Western intervention, in this case, U.S. support for the Muslim Brotherhood and its jihadi offshoots.

-Raymond Ibrahim, September 8, 2013

If we continue to see the radical groups like the Muslim Brotherhood take over in the wake of these leaders in the Middle East being toppled, it will only serve to show the people in these countries deserve to have a tyrant ruling over them.

Fuckin baboons.

Terrible.

What's the difference between this and the "troubles" in Northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants? Are they baboons too?

They're guerillas.

A few differences are that the troubles that accrue to Islam are are current, are trans-national, and take place within an environment that has little or no history of democracy or enhancement of human existence, or is amenable to compromise.

Oh Don your such a litigator.

I heard an interview with CNN's Vatican reporter. He said that worldwide, 80% of the religious persecutions are against Christians. Each year 100,000 Christians are killed for their religious beliefs.

And we all know which group is probably the group responsible for at least 90% of those persecutions...

Yup.

I'd call it karma, if I believed in such a thing.

In any event, religious persecution is wrong, no matter the denomination.

Whatever the hell that means.

I too want to know what that means. Both groups have been persecuting each other for over a millennium so the karma has to be seriously fucked up whoever it's aimed at right now.

Besides the extreme Christian right is nowhere near as violent as the extreme Islamist right in today's age. I don't see many Christians blowing up buildings or hijacking planes.

In any case of this article is true about the Brotherhood it only serves as a further point to prove they were rightly removed from power, even if the country is a wreck right now

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You know exactly what it means. Christians have done their fair share of persecuting. If one were to believe in something such as karma, they may call the persecution of Christians as karma for their past indiscretions.

I'm not calling it that, I am just saying you shouldn't ignore it. Quit being such a pompous ass.

Not exactly shocking that a liberal like yourself would go the moral relativism route. Except for maybe the Crusades, which were hundreds of years ago, when have Christians persecuted Muslims in the name of their religion or for religious purposes (anything similar to what we've seen the last 40 years with Muslim extremists)? Now, if we're talking about Jews, you would have a point.

Actually the first Crusade was a response to the Islamic invasions of the Holy Land and Europe. Before the Crusades started Muslims already conquered Egypt, Morocco, Spain, the Arabian peninsula, what is now Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, etc. It's sad to see such people posting such historical ignorance and hate.

Christians were persecuting Muslims in Bosnia in the 1990's.

The ugly truth is so long as there has been "one true God," people have been persecuting others in his name. The Christians in the Middle Ages were as bad as the muslims are now. I do not excuse Muslim extremists, they deserve to be killed as soon as their plans are found out, but singaling them out is simply proof of ignorance.

What happened in Bosnia was more political than religious, but there were lingering animosities from when the Turks (Muslims) invaded that part of the world. So your comment was out of context and incomplete.

People have also be persecuting others in the name of "no true God" for the past hundred years -- with a murder rate far higher than the Christians you bash.

Singling them out is "proof of ignorance"?!? No, it's proof of being connected to reality.