This article is about acts of religious persecution which have been committed against Muslims because of their faith. For negative attitudes towards Muslims, see Islamophobia. For specific incidents, see List of Islamophobic incidents.
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The persecution of Muslims has been recorded throughout the history of Islam, beginning with its founding by Muhammad in the 7th century.
In the early days of Islam in Mecca, pre-Islamic Arabia, the new Muslims were frequently subjected to abuse and persecution by the Meccans (also called Mushrikun by Muslims), a polytheistic Arab tribal confederation. In the contemporary period, Muslims have faced religious restrictions in some countries. Various incidents of Islamophobia have also occurred.
In the early days of Islam in Mecca, the new Muslims were often subjected to abuse and persecution by the pagan Meccans (often called Mushrikin: the unbelievers or polytheists). Some were killed, such as Sumayyah bint Khabbab, the seventh convert to Islam, who was allegedly tortured first by Amr ibn Hishām.[1] Even the Islamic prophet Muhammad was subjected to such abuse; while he was praying near the Kaaba, Uqba ibn Abu Mu'ayt threw the entrails of a sacrificed camel over him. Abu Lahab's wife Umm Jamil would regularly dump filth outside his door and placed thorns in the path to his house.[2]
Accordingly, if free Muslims were attacked, slaves who converted were subjected to far worse. The master of the Ethiopian Bilal ibn Rabah (who would become the first muezzin) would take him out into the desert in the boiling heat of midday and place a heavy rock on his chest, demanding that he forswear his religion and pray to the polytheists' gods and goddesses, until Abu Bakr bought him and freed him.[3]
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. The Fatimid Caliph, Al Hakim of Cairo, known as the "mad Caliph"[4] destroyed the Constantinian-era Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1009, as well as other Christian churches and shrines in the Holy Land.
This event, in conjunction with the killing of Germanic pilgrims who were travelling from Byzantium to Jerusalem, raised the anger of Europe, and inspired Pope Urban II to call on all Catholic rulers, knights, and gentlemen to recapture the Holy Land from Muslim rule.
In part, it was also 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 favour, 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.