The Islamic ideal of the brotherhood of all believers was a powerful attraction towards this creed, and though the Arab pride of birth strove to refuse for several generations the privileges of the ruling race to the new converts, still as “clients” of the various Arab tribes to which at first they used to be affiliated, they received a recognised position in the community, and by the close of the first century of the Hijrah they had vindicated for this ideal its true place in Muslim theology and at least a theoretical recognition in the state.[127]
But the condition of the Christians did not always continue to be so tolerable as under the earlier caliphs. In the interests of the true believers, vexatious conditions were sometimes imposed upon the non-Muslim population (or d͟himmīs), with the object of securing for the faithful superior social advantages. Unsuccessful attempts were made by several caliphs to exclude them from the public offices. Decrees to this effect were passed by al-Manṣūr (754–775), al-Mutawakkil (847–861), al-Muqtadir (908–932), and in Egypt by al-Āmir (1101–1130), one of the Fāṭimid caliphs, and by the Mamlūk Sultans in the [[76]]fourteenth century.[128] But the very fact that these decrees excluding the d͟himmīs from government posts were so often renewed, is a sign of the want of any continuity or persistency in putting such intolerant measures into practice. In fact they may generally be traced either to popular indignation excited by the harsh and insolent behaviour of Christian officials,[129] or to outbursts of fanaticism which forced upon the government acts of oppression that were contrary to the general spirit of Muslim rule and were consequently allowed to lapse as soon as possible.
The beginning of a harsher treatment of the native Christian population dates from the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd (786–809) who ordered them to wear a distinctive dress and give up the government posts they held to Muslims. The first of these orders shows how little one at least of the ordinances ascribed to ʻUmar was observed, and these decrees were the outcome, not so much of any purely religious feeling, as of the political circumstances of the time. The Christians under Muhammadan rule have often had to suffer for the bad faith kept by foreign Christian powers in their relations with Muhammadan princes, and on this occasion it was the treachery of the Byzantine Emperor, Nicephorus, that caused the Christian name to stink in the nostrils of Hārūn.[130] Many of the persecutions of Christians in Muslim countries can be traced either to distrust of their loyalty, excited by the intrigues and interference of Christian foreigners and the enemies of Islam, or to the bad feeling stirred up by the treacherous or brutal behaviour of the latter towards the Musalmans. Religious fanaticism is, however, responsible for many of such persecutions, as in the reign of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil (847–861), under whom severe measures of oppression were taken against the Christians. This prince took advantage of the strong Orthodox reaction that had set in in Muhammadan theology against the rationalistic and freethinking tendencies that [[77]]had had free play under former rulers,—and came forward as the champion of the extreme orthodox party, to which the mass of the people as contrasted with the higher classes belonged,[131] and which was eager to exact vengeance for the persecutions it had itself suffered in the two preceding reigns;[132] he sought to curry their favour by persecuting the Muʻtazilites, forbidding all further discussions on the Qurʼān and declaring the doctrine that it was created, to be heretical; he had the followers of ʻAlī imprisoned and beaten, pulled down the tomb of Ḥusayn at Karbalāʼ and forbade pilgrimages to be made to the site. The Christians shared in the sufferings of the other heretics; for al-Mutawakkil put rigorously into force the rules that had been passed in former reigns prescribing a distinction in the dress of d͟himmīs and Muslims, ordered that the Christians should no longer be employed in the public offices, doubled the capitation-tax, forbade them to have Muslim slaves or use the same baths as the Muslims, and harassed them with several other restrictions.
It is noteworthy that the historians of the Nestorian Church—which had to suffer most from this persecution—describe it as something new and individual to al-Mutawakkil, and as ceasing with his death.[133] One of his successors, al-Muqtadir (A.D. 908–932), renewed these regulations, which the lapse of half a century had apparently caused to fall into disuse.
Other outbursts of fanaticism led to the destruction of churches and synagogues,[134] and the terror of such persecution led to the defection of many from the Christian Church.[135] But such oppression was contrary to the tolerant spirit of Islam, and to the teaching traditionally ascribed to the Prophet;[136] and the fanatical party tried in vain to enforce [[78]]the persistent execution of these oppressive measures for the humiliation of the non-Muslim population. “The ʻulamaʼ (i.e. the learned, the clergy) consider this state of things; they weep and groan in silence, while the princes who had the power of putting down these criminal abuses only shut their eyes to them.”[137] The rules that a fanatical priesthood may lay down for the repression of unbelievers cannot always be taken as a criterion of the practice of civil governments: it is failure to realise this fact that has rendered possible the highly-coloured pictures of the sufferings of the Christians under Muhammadan rule, drawn by writers who have assumed that the prescriptions of certain Muslim theologians represented an invariable practice. Such outbursts of persecution seem in some cases to have been excited by the alleged abuse of their position by those Christians who held high posts in the service of the government; they aroused considerable hostility of feeling towards themselves by their oppression of the Muslims, it being said that they took advantage of their high position to plunder and annoy the faithful, treating them with great harshness and rudeness and despoiling them of their lands and money. Such complaints were laid before the caliphs al-Manṣūr (754–775), al-Mahdī (775–785), al-Maʼmūn (813–833), al-Mutawakkil (847–861), al-Muqtadir (908–932), and many of their successors.[138] They also incurred the odium of many Muhammadans by acting as the spies of the ʻAbbāsid dynasty and hunting down the adherents of the displaced Umayyad family.[139] At a later period, during the time of the Crusades they were accused of treasonable correspondence with the Crusaders[140] and brought on themselves severe restrictive measures which cannot justly be described as religious persecution.
In proportion as the lot of the conquered peoples became harder to bear, the more irresistible was the temptation to free themselves from their miseries, by the words, “There is no god but God: Muḥammad is the Apostle of God.” [[79]]When the state was in need of money—as was increasingly the case—the subject races were more and more burdened with taxes, so that the condition of the non-Muslims was constantly growing more unendurable, and conversions to Islam increased in the same proportion. The dreary record of scandals, with which the pages of the Christian historians of this later period are filled, would suggest that the Christian Churches had failed to develop a moral fibre strong enough to endure the stress of adverse conditions, and when persecution came, the reason for the defection that followed might—as the historian of the Nestorian Church suggests[141]—be sought for in the prevailing negligence in the performance of religious duties and the evil life of the clergy.
Further causes that contributed to the decrease of the Christian population may be found in the fact that the children of the numerous Christian captive women who were carried off to the harems of the Muslims had to be brought up in the religion of their fathers, and in the frequent temptation that was offered to the Christian slave by an indulgent master, of purchasing his freedom at the price of conversion to Islam. But of any organised attempt to force the acceptance of Islam on the non-Muslim population, or of any systematic persecution intended to stamp out the Christian religion, we hear nothing. Had the caliphs chosen to adopt either course of action, they might have swept away Christianity as easily as Ferdinand and Isabella drove Islam out of Spain, or Louis XIV made Protestantism penal in France, or the Jews were kept out of England for 350 years. The Eastern Churches in Asia were entirely cut off from communion with the rest of Christendom, throughout which no one would have been found to lift a finger on their behalf, as heretical communions. So that the very survival of these Churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally [[80]]tolerant attitude of the Muhammadan governments towards them.[142]
Of the ancient Churches in Western Asia at the time of the Muhammadan conquest, there still survive about 150,000 Nestorians,[143] and their number would have been larger but for the proselytising efforts of other Christian Churches; the Chaldees who have submitted to the Church of Rome number 70,000, in 1898 the Nestorian Bishop Mār Jonan, with several of the clergy and 15,000 Nestorians were received into the Orthodox Russian Church; and numbers of Nestorians have also become Protestants.[144] The Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch exercises jurisdiction over about 80,000 members of this ancient Church, while 25,000 families of Uniat Jacobites obey the Syrian Catholic Patriarch.[145] Belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church, there are 28,836 families under the Patriarch of Antioch and more than 15,000 persons under the Patriarch of Jerusalem,[146] while the Melchites or Greek-Catholics number about 130,000.[147] The Maronite Church, which has been in union with the Roman Catholic Church since the year 1182, has a following of 300,000.[148]
The marvel is that these isolated and scattered communities should have survived so long, exposed as they have been to the ravages of war, pestilence and famine,[149] living in a country that was for centuries a continual battle-field, overrun by Turks, Mongols and Crusaders,[150] it being [[81]]further remembered that they were forbidden by the Muhammadan law to make good this decay of their numbers by proselytising efforts—if indeed they had cared to do so, for they seem (with the exception of the Nestorians) even before the Muhammadan conquest, to have lost that missionary spirit, without which, as history abundantly shows, no healthy life is possible in a Christian Church. It has also been suggested that the monastic ideal of continence so widespread in the East, and the Christian practice of monogamy, together with the sense of insecurity and their servile condition, may have acted as checks on the growth of the Christian population.[151]
Of the details of conversion to Islam we have hardly any information. At the time of the first occupation of their country by the Arabs, the Christians appear to have gone over to Islam in very large numbers. Some idea of the extent of these early conversions in ʻIrāq for example may be formed from the fact that the income from taxation in the reign of ʻUmar was from 100 to 120 million dirhams, while in the reign of ʻAbd al-Malik, about fifty years later, it had sunk to forty millions: while this fall in the revenue is largely attributable to the devastation caused by wars and insurrections, still it was chiefly due to the fact that large numbers of the population had become Muhammadan and consequently could no longer be called upon to pay the capitation-tax.[152]