Persecution of Muslims

Persecution of Muslims is the religious persecution inflicted upon followers of the Islamic faith. This page lists incidents in both medieval and modern history in which Muslim populations have been targeted for persecution by non-Muslim groups.

Persecution of Muslims is the religious persecution that is inflicted upon followers of the Islamic faith. In the early days of Islam at Mecca, the new Muslims were often subjected to abuse and persecution by the pagan Meccans (often called Mushrikin: the unbelievers or polytheists).

Muslims were persecuted by Meccans at the time of prophet Muhammed. In contemporary period Muslims face religious restrictions in some countries, and the non-Muslims do not face these restrictions in these countries.

Muslims are currently "One among the most persecuted religious groups" in the world. Muslims are victims of human rights violations mainly in four countries: Israel, India, Myanmar and China.^{[citation needed]} There are also various incidents of Islamophobia, such as the Christchurch mosque shootings, Demolition of Babri Masjid, the France Burka Ban, Xinjiang Ethnic cleansing, West Bank annexation in Palestine, and many more incidents.

The ongoing Rohingya genocide has resulted in: over 25,000 deaths from 2016 to present, 700,000+ refugees sent abroad since 2017, gang rapes and other sexual violence mainly targeted towards Rohingya women and girls, which are caused mainly by the Rakhine Buddhists and Burmese military soldiers, arson of Rohingya homes and mosques, as well as many other human rights violations.

In 1990, Myanmar Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and this award has been criticized by some people for having participated in the extermination of the Rohingya Muslims.

Medieval

Early Islam

In the early days of Islam at 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][2] 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.[3]

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.[4][5]

Crusades

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"[6] destroyed the ancient and magnificent Constantinian-Era Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1009, as well as most other Christian churches and shrines in the Holy Land.

This, in conjunction with the killing of Germanic pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem from Byzantium, raised the anger of Europe, and inspired Pope Urban II to call on all Catholic Rulers, Knights and Gentleman to recapture the Holy Land from Muslim rule.

It was also partly 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.

Capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099

On 7 May 1099 the crusaders reached Jerusalem, which had been recaptured from the Seljuks by the Fatimids of Egypt only a year before. On 15 July, the crusaders were able to end the siege by breaking down sections of the walls and entering the city. Over the course of that afternoon, evening and next morning, the crusaders killed almost every inhabitant of Jerusalem. Muslims and Jews alike. Although many Muslims sought shelter atop the Temple Mount inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the crusaders spared few lives. According to the anonymous Gesta Francorum, in what some believe to be one of the most valuable contemporary sources of the First Crusade, "...the slaughter was so great that our men waded in blood up to their ankles...."[7] Tancred, Prince of Galilee claimed the Temple quarter for himself and offered protection to some of the Muslims there, but he was unable to prevent their deaths at the hands of his fellow crusaders. According to Fulcher of Chartres: "Indeed, if you had been there you would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared."[8]

During the First Crusade and the massacre at Jerusalem, it has been reported that the Crusaders "[circled] the screaming, flame-tortured humanity singing 'Christ We Adore Thee!' with their Crusader crosses held high".[9] Muslims were indiscriminately killed, and Jews who had taken refuge in their Synagogue were killed when it was burnt down by the Crusaders.

Southern Italy

The island of Sicily was conquered by the Aghlabids in the 10th century after over a century of conflict, with the Byzantine Empire losing its final stronghold in 965.[10] The Normans conquered the last Arab Muslim stronghold by 1091.[11] Subsequently, taxes were imposed on the Muslim minority called the jizya (locally spelled gisia) which was a continuation of the jizya imposed on non-Muslims in Sicily, by Muslim rulers in the 11th century, before the Norman conquest. Another tax on levied them for a time was the augustale.[12] Muslim rebellion broke out during the reign of Tancred as King of Sicily. Lombard pogroms against Muslims started in the 1160s. Muslim and Christian communities in Sicily became increasingly geographically separated. The island's Muslim communities were mainly isolated beyond an internal frontier which divided the south-western half of the island from the Christian north-east. Sicilian Muslims, a subject population, were dependent on royal protection. When King William the Good died in 1189, this royal protection was lifted, and the door was opened for widespread attacks against the island's Muslims. Toleration of Muslims ended with increasing Hohenstaufen control. Many oppressive measures, passed by Frederick II, were introduced in order to please the Popes who could not tolerate Islam being practised in Christendom: the result was in a rebellion of Sicily's Muslims. This triggered organized and systematic reprisals which marked the final chapter of Islam in Sicily. The rebellion abated, but direct papal pressure induced Frederick to mass transfer all his Muslim subjects deep into the Italian hinterland.[13][14][15][16] In 1224, Frederick II expelled all Muslims from the island transferring many to Lucera (Lugêrah, as it was known in Arabic) over the next two decades. In this controlled environment they could not challenge royal authority and they benefited the crown in taxes and military service. Their numbers eventually reached between 15,000 and 20,000, leading Lucera to be called Lucaera Saracenorum because it represented the last stronghold of Islamic presence in Italy. During peacetime, Muslims in Lucera were predominantly farmers. They grew durum wheat, barley, legumes, grapes and other fruits. Muslims also kept bees for honey.[17] The Muslim settlement of Lucera was destroyed by Charles II of Naples with backing from the papacy. The Muslims were either massacred, forcibly converted, enslaved or exiled. Their abandoned mosques were demolished, and churches were usually built in their place. The Lucera Cathedral was built on the site of a mosque which was destroyed. The mosque was the last one still functioning in medieval Italy by that time.[18][19][20][21][22] Some were exiled, with many finding asylum in Albania across the Adriatic Sea.[23][24] Islam was no longer a major presence in the island by the 14th century.

The Aghlabids also conquered the island of Malta at the same time during their invasion of Sicily.[25] Per the Al-Himyari the island was reduced to an uninhabited ruin due to the conquest. The place was later converted into a settlement by Muslims.[26] The Normans conquered it as the same time as Sicily.[27] The Normans however didn't interfere in the matters of Muslims of the island and gave them a tributary status.[28] Their conquest however led to the Christianization and Latinization of the island.[29] An annual fine on the Christian community for killing of a Muslim was also repealed in the 12th century, signifying the degradation of the protection given to the Muslims.[30] Most of the Maltese Muslims were deported by 1271.[31] All Maltese Muslims had converted to Christianity by the end of the 15th century and had to find ways to disguise their previous identities by Latinizing or adopting new surnames.[32]

Mongol invasions

Genghis Khan, and the later Yuan Emperors of China imposed restrictive decrees which forbade Islamic practices like halal butchering and forced Muslims to follow Mongol methods of butchering animals. As a result of these decrees, Muslims were forced to slaughter sheep in secret.[33] Genghis Khan referred to Muslims as "slaves", and he also commanded them to follow the Mongol method of eating rather than the halal one. Circumcision was also forbidden.[34][35] Towards the end of their rule, the corruption of the Mongol court and the persecution of Muslims became so severe that Muslim generals joined Han Chinese in rebelling against the Mongols. The Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang employed Muslim generals like Lan Yu who rebelled against the Mongols and defeated them in combat. Some Muslim communities were named "kamsia," which, in Hokkien Chinese, means "thank you"; many Hui Muslims claim that their communities were named "kamsia" because the Han Chinese appreciated the important role which they had played in assisting them to overthrow the Mongols.[36] The Muslims in the Semu class also revolted against the Yuan dynasty in the Ispah Rebellion but the rebellion was crushed and the Muslims were massacred by the Yuan loyalist commander Chen Youding.

Site where the Mongol ruler Hulegu Khan destroyed a mosque in Baghdad during the siege of Baghdad.

Following the brutal Mongol invasion of Central Asia under Genghis Khan, and the sack of Baghdad which occurred in 1258, the Mongol Empire's rule extended across most Muslim lands in Asia. The Abbasid caliphate was destroyed and the Islamic civilization suffered much devastation, especially in Mesopotamia, and Tengriism and Buddhism replaced it as the official religions of the empire.[37] However, the Mongols attacked people for goods and riches, not because of their religion. Later, many Mongol khans and rulers such as those of the Oljeitu, the Ilkhanid and the Golden Horde became Muslims along with their subjects. The Mongols made no real effort to replace Islam with any other religion, they just had the desire to plunder goods from anyone who didn't submit to their rule, which was characteristic of Mongol warfare. During the Yuan Dynasty which the Mongols founded in China, Muslim scientists were highly regarded and Muslim beliefs were also respected. Regarding the Mongol attacks, the Muslim historian, ibn al-Athir lamented:

I shrank from giving a recital of these events on the account of their magnitude and abhorrence. Even now I come reluctant to the task, for who would deem it a light thing to sing the death song of Islam and the Muslims or find it easy to tell this tale? O that my mother had not given me birth![38]

The detailed atrocities include:

The Grand Library of Baghdad, which contained countless precious historical documents and books on subjects that ranged from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Survivors said that the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantities of books that were flung into the river.
Citizens attempted to flee, but they were intercepted by Mongol soldiers who killed them with abandon. Martin Sicker writes that close to 90,000 people may have died (Sicker 2000, p. 111). Other estimates go much higher. Wassaf claims that the loss of life was several hundred thousand. Ian Frazier of The New Yorker claims that estimates of the death toll range from 200,000 to one million.[39]
The Mongols looted and then destroyed mosques, palaces, libraries, and hospitals. Grand buildings which had taken generations to build were burned to the ground.
The caliph was captured and forced to watch as his citizens were murdered and his treasury was plundered. According to most accounts, the caliph was killed by trampling. The Mongols rolled the caliph up in a rug, and rode their horses over him, because they believed that the earth would be offended if it were ever touched by royal blood. All but one of his sons were killed, and the sole surviving son was sent to Mongolia.
Hulagu had to move his camp upwind from the city, due to the stench of decay that emanated from its ruins.

At the intervention of Hulagu's Nestorian Christian wife, Dokuz Khatun, the city's Christian inhabitants were spared.[40][41] Hulagu offered the royal palace to the Nestorian Catholicos Mar Makikha, and he also ordered that a cathedral should be built for him.[42] Ultimately, the seventh ruler of the Ilkhanate, Mahmud Ghazan, converted from Tengrism to Islam, and thus began the gradual decline of Tengrism and Buddhism in the region and its replacement by the renaissance of Islam. Later, three of the four principal Mongol khanates embraced Islam.[43]

Iberian Peninsula

Old Mosque in Mértola, Portugal. Converted into a church.

Arabs relying largely on Berbers conquered the Iberian Peninsula starting in 711, subduing the whole Visigothic Kingdom by 725. The triumphant Umayyads got conditional capitulations probably in most of the towns, so that they could get a compromise with the native population. This was not always so. For example, Mérida, Cordova, Toledo, or Narbonne were conquered by storm or after laying siege on them. The arrangement reached with the locals was based on respecting the laws and traditions used in each place, so that the Goths (a legal concept, not an ethnic one, i.e. the communities ruled by the Forum Iudicum) continued to be ruled on new conditions by their own tribunals and laws.[44] The Gothic Church remained in place and collaborated with the new masters. Al-Andalus or Muslim ruled Iberian peninsula, was conquered by northern Christian kingdoms in 1492, as a result of their expansion taking place especially after the definite collapse of the Caliphate of Cordova in 1031.

The coming of the Crusades (starting with the massacre of Barbastro) and similarly entrenched positions on the northern African Almoravids, who took over al-Andalus as of 1086, added to the difficult coexistence between communities, including Muslims in Christian ruled territory, or the Mozarabic rite Christians (quite different from those of the northern kingdoms), and further minority groups. The Almohads, a fanatic north African sect, pushed the boundaries of religious intolerance during their occupation of al-Andalus, affecting also the Jews.[45]

Expulsion of the Moriscos from Valencia

During the expansion south of the northern Christian kingdoms, depending on the local capitulations, local Muslims were allowed to remain (Mudéjars) with extreme restrictions, while some were forcefully converted to the Christian faith. After the conquest of Granada, all the Spanish Muslims were under Christian rule. The new acquired population spoke Arabic or Mozarabic, and the campaigns to convert them were unsuccessful. Legislation was gradually introduced to remove Islam, culminating with the Muslims being forced to convert to Catholicism by the Spanish Inquisition. They were known as Moriscos and considered New Christians. Further laws were introduced, as on 25 May 1566, stipulating that they 'had to abandon the use of Arabic, change their costumes, that their doors must remain open every Friday, and other feast days, and that their baths, public and private, to be torn down.'[46] The reason doors were to be left open so as to determine whether they secretly observed any Islamic festivals.[47] King Philip II of Spain ordered the destruction of all public baths on the grounds of them being relics of infidelity, notorious for their use by Muslims performing their purification rites.[48][49] The possession of books or papers in Arabic was near concrete proof of disobedience with severe reprisals and penalties.[50] On 1 January 1568, Christian priests were ordered to take all Morisco children between the ages of three and fifteen, and place them in schools, where they were forced to learn Castillian and Christian doctrine.[51] All these laws and measures required force to be implemented, and from much earlier.

Between 1609 and 1614 the Moriscos were expelled from Spain.[52] They were to depart 'under the pain of death and confiscation, without trial or sentence ... to take with them no money, bullion, jewels or bills of exchange ... just what they could carry.'[53]

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

The Lipka Tatars, also known as Polish Tatars or Lithuanian Tatars, were a community of Tatar Muslims who migrated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and became Polonized.

The Counter-Reformation of the Catholic Church in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth led to persecution of Muslims, Jews, and Orthodox Christians. The ways the Muslims were persecuted included banning the repair of old mosques and preventing new ones from being constructed, banning serfdom of Christians under Muslims, banning marriage of Christian females to Muslims, putting limitations on property ownership among Tatars and the Polish–Ottoman Wars fed into the discriminatory atmosphere against them and led to anti-Islamic writings and attacks.[54]

Sikh Khalsa and Sikh Empire

Following the Sikh occupation of Samana in 1709, the Sikh army participated in a massacre of the city's residents. Ten thousand unarmed Muslim men and women were slain.[55] Following the Siege of Sirhind, Banda Singh Bahadur ordered that all men, women and children be executed.[55] All residents of Sirhind, whether they were men, women or children were all burned alive or slain.[55] In December 1757, Sikhs pillaged the Doab and the city of Jullunder.[55] During this pillaging, "Children were put to the sword, women were dragged out and forcibly converted to Sikhism" and Mosques were defiled by pigs blood.[55] The body of Nassir Ali was dug out by Sikhs and flesh was thrust into it.[55]

Ranjit Singh went to Peshawar and pillaged the city, cut down trees for which the city was famous, burnt the palace of Bala Hissar and its mosque was defiled. Diwan Chand became the first Hindu Governor of Kashmir after 1354 and enacted dozens of anti-Muslim laws. He raised the tax on Muslims, demolished the Jama Masjid of Srinagar and prohibited cow slaughter. The punishment for cow slaughter was the death penalty without any exception. He abducted all the Pashtun and Uzbek women and infamously sold them at Hira Mandi, a very popular market in Lahore (the Sikh Empire Capital).[56][57][58] Maharaja Ranjit Singh in lieu of helping Shah Shuja the grandson of Ahmad Shah Durrani asked for the ban of cow slaughter in Afghanistan and with Ranjit Singh's help, Shuja regained the Kabul Throne and imposed a ban on cow slaughter in Kabul.[59]

Sayyid Ahmed Barelvi declared war against Maharaja Ranjit Singh and recruited many Muslims from madrassas. However the Yousufzai and Muhammadzai Khawaneen didn't like his egalitarian ideals and betrayed Sayyid Ahmed Shahid and his army at the battle of Balakot and supported the Sikh Army in the Battle of Balakote in 1831, and Barelvi's head was severed by Sikh General Hari Singh Nalwa.[60][61]

Muslims still revered Sayyid Ahmad, however he was defeated and killed in the battle by Sikh Forces commanded by Hari Singh Nalwa and Gulab Singh.[62] Raja Aggar Khan of Rajaouri was defeated, humiliated by the Ranjit Singh commander Gulab Singh and was brought to Lahore where he was beheaded by Gulab Singh of Jammu.[63]

Modern era

Asia Minor

In retaliation for the Armenian and Greek Genocides, many Muslims (Turkish and Kurdish) were killed by Russians and Armenians in eastern provinces in Ottoman Empire (including Bayburt, Bitlis, Erzincan, Erzurum, Kars and Muş).[64][65]

On 14 May 1919, the Greek army landed in Izmir (Smyrna), which marked the beginning of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). During the war, the Greek side committed a number of atrocities in western provinces (such as Izmir, Manisa and Uşak),[66] the local Muslim population was subjected to massacre, ravaging and rape.[67] Johannes Kolmodin was a Swedish orientalist in Izmir. He wrote in his letters that the Greek army had burned 250 Turkish villages.[68]

Southeastern Europe (Balkans)

Mourners at the reburial ceremony for an exhumed victim of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia.

As the Ottoman Empire entered a permanent phase of decline in the late 17th century it was engaged in a protracted state of conflict, losing territories both in Europe and the Caucasus. The victors were the Christian States, the old Habsburg and Romanov Empires and the new nation-states of Greece, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria.[69] Rival European powers encouraged the development of nationalist ideologies among the Ottoman subjects in which the Muslims were portrayed as an ethnic "fifth column" left over from a previous era that could not be integrated into the planned future states. The struggle to rid themselves of Ottomans became an important element of the self-identification of the Balkan Christians.[70]

According to Mark Levene, the Victorian public in the 1870s paid much more attention to the massacres and expulsions of Christians than to massacres and expulsions of Muslims, even if on a greater scale. He further suggests that such massacres were even favoured by some circles. Mark Levene also argues that the dominant powers, by supporting "nation-statism" at the Congress of Berlin, legitimized "the primary instrument of Balkan nation-building": ethnic cleansing.[71] Hall points out that atrocities were committed by all sides during the Balkan conflicts. Deliberate terror was designed to instigate population movements out of particular territories. The aim of targeting the civilian population was to carve ethnically homogeneous countries.[72]

During the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 the Russian Army commander Alexander Suvorov successfully besieged the fortress of Izmail on 22 December 1790. Ottoman forces inside the fortress had the orders to stand their ground to the end, haughtily declining the Russian ultimatum. Alexander Suvorov announced the capture of Ismail in 1791 to the Tsaritsa Catherine in a doggerel couplet, after the assault had been pressed from house to house, room to room, and nearly every Muslim man, woman, and child in the city had been killed in three days of uncontrolled massacre, 40,000 Turks dead, a few hundred taken into captivity. For all his bluffness, Suvorov later told an English traveller that when the massacre was over he went back to his tent and wept.[73]

Muslim Albanians, along smaller numbers of urban Turks (some with Albanian heritage), were expelled by the Serb army from most parts of the Sanjak of Niş and fled to the Kosovo Vilayet during and after the Serbian–Ottoman War (1876–78).[74] An estimated 60–70,000 to as low as 30,000[75][76][77][78][79][80] Albanians were either expelled, fled and/or retreated from the captured areas seeking refuge in Ottoman Kosovo.[74][81] The departure of the Albanian population from these regions was done in a manner that today would be characterized as ethnic cleansing.[81]

Justin McCarty estimates that between 1821 and 1922 around five and a half million Muslims were driven out of Europe and five million more were killed or died of disease and starvation while fleeing.[82] Cleansing occurred as a result of the Serbian and Greek independence in the 1820s and 1830s, the Russo-Turkish War 1877–1878, and culminating in the Balkan Wars 1912–1913. Mann describes these acts as "murderous ethnic cleansing on stupendous scale not previously seen in Europe" referring to the 1914 Carnegie Endowment report.[83][84] It is estimated that at the turn of the 20th century there were 4,4 million Muslims living in the Balkan regions under Ottoman control.[85] More than one million Muslims left the Balkans in the last three decades of the 19th century.[86] Between 1912 and 1926 nearly 2.9 million Muslims were either killed or forced to emigrate to Turkey.[85]

Between 10,000[87] and 30,000[88][89][90] Turks were killed in Tripolitsa by Greek rebels in the summer of 1821, including the entire Jewish population of the city. Similar events as these occurred elsewhere during the Greek Revolution resulting in the eradication and expulsion of virtually the entire Turkish population of the Morea. These acts ensured the ethnic homogenization of the area under the rule of the future modern Greek state.[91] According to claims by Turkish delegations, in 1878 the Muslim inhabitants in Thessaly are estimated to be 150,000 and in 1897 the Muslims numbered 50,000 in Crete. By 1919 there were virtually no Muslims left in Thessaly and only 20,000 in Crete.[92]

In the Bulgarian insurgency of the April Uprising in 1876 an estimate of 1,000 Muslims were killed.[93][94] During the Russo-Turkish War large numbers of Turks were either killed, perished or became refugees. There are different estimates about the casualties of the war. Crampton describes an exodus of 130,000–150,000 expelled of which approximately half returned for an intermediary period encouraged by the Congress of Berlin. Hupchick and McCarthy point out that 260,000 perished and 500,000 became refugees.[95][96] The Turkish scholars Karpat and Ipek argue that up to 300,000 were killed and 1–1.5 million were forced to emigrate.[97][98] Members of the European press who covered the war in Bulgaria reported on the Russian atrocities against Muslims. Witness accounts from Schumla and Razgrad describe children, women and elderly wounded by sabres and lances. They stated that the entire Muslim population of many villages had been massacred.[99] Recently uncovered photographs in the archive of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the Russo-Turkish War 1877–1878 show the massacre of Muslims by the Russians in the region of Stara Zagora claiming to have affected some 20,000 Muslim civilians.[100]

Massacres against Turks and Muslims during the Balkan Wars in the hands of Bulgarians, Greeks and Armenians are described in detail in the 1912 Carnegie Endowment report.[101] The Bulgarian violence during the Balkan War included burning of villages, transforming mosques into churches, rape of women and mutilation of bodies. It is estimated that 220,000 Pomaks were forcefully Christianized and forbidden to bear Islamic religious clothing.[102]

During World War II The Chetniks, a Yugoslav Royalist and Serbian nationalist movement, committed numerous war crimes primarily directed against the non-Serb population of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia explicitly ordered the ethnic cleansing, mainly Muslims 29,000–33,000 was killed.[103][104]

Bulgaria

War distribution clothing to Bulgarian Muslim refugees in Shumla from The Illustrated London News 17 November 1877.

Half a million Muslims succeeded in reaching Ottoman controlled lands and 672,215 were reported to have remained after the war. Approximately a quarter of a million perished from massacres, cold, disease and other harsh conditions.[105] According to Aubaret, the French Consul in Ruse in 1876 in the Danube Vilayet which also included Northern Dobruja in today's Romania, as well as substantial territory in today's southern Serbia, there were 1,120,000 Muslims and 1,233,500 non-Muslims of whom 1,150,000 were Bulgarian. Between 1876 and 1878, through massacres, epidemics, hunger and war a large portion of the Turkish population vanished.[106]

Cambodia

The Cham Muslims suffered serious purges with as much as half of their population exterminated by communists in Cambodia during the 1970s as part of the Cambodian Genocide.[107] About half a million Muslims were killed. According to Cham sources, 132 mosques were destroyed during the Khmer Rouge regime. Only 20 of the previous 113 most prominent Cham clergy in Cambodia survived the Khmer Rouge period.[108]

China

Capture of Dali, the capital of the Pingnan Sultanate in Yunnan, from the set Victory over the Muslims.

The Dungan revolt erupted due to infighting between different Muslim Sufi sects, the Khafiya and the Jahariyya, and the Gedimu. When the rebellion failed, mass-immigration of the Dungan people into Imperial Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan ensued. Before the war, the population of Shaanxi province totalled approximately 13 million inhabitants, at least 1,750,000 of whom were Dungan (Hui). After the war, the population dropped to 7 million; at least 150,000 fled. But once-flourishing Chinese Muslim communities fell 93% in the revolt in Shaanxi province. Between 1648 and 1878, around twelve million Hui and Han Chinese were killed in ten unsuccessful uprisings.[109][110]

The Ush rebellion in 1765 by Uyghur Muslims against the Manchus of the Qing dynasty occurred after Uyghur women were gang raped by the servants and son of Manchu official Su-cheng.[111][112][113] It was said that Ush Muslims had long wanted to sleep on [Sucheng and son's] hides and eat their flesh. because of the rape of Uyghur Muslim women for months by the Manchu official Sucheng and his son.[114] The Manchu Emperor ordered that the Uyghur rebel town be massacred, the Qing forces enslaved all the Uyghur children and women and slaughtered the Uyghur men.[115] Manchu soldiers and Manchu officials regularly having sex with or raping Uyghur women caused massive hatred and anger by Uyghur Muslims to Manchu rule. The invasion by Jahangir Khoja was preceded by another Manchu official, Binjing who raped a Muslim daughter of the Kokan aqsaqal from 1818–1820. The Qing sought to cover up the rape of Uyghur women by Manchus to prevent anger against their rule from spreading among the Uyghurs.[116]

The Manchu official Shuxing'a started an anti-Muslim massacre which led to the Panthay Rebellion. Shuxing'a developed a deep hatred of Muslims after an incident where he was stripped naked and nearly lynched by a mob of Muslims. He ordered several Hui Muslim rebels to be slow sliced to death.[117][118]

The revolts were harshly suppressed by the Manchu government in a manner that amounts to genocide.[119][120][121][122] Approximately a million people in the Panthay rebellion were killed,[123][124] and several million in the Dungan revolt[124] as a "washing off the Muslims"(洗回 (xi Hui)) policy had been long advocated by officials in the Manchu government.[125] Many Muslim generals like Ma Zhanao, Ma Anliang, Ma Qianling, Dong Fuxiang, Ma Haiyan, and Ma Julung helped the Qing dynasty defeat the rebel Muslims, and were rewarded, and their followers were spared from the genocide. The Han Chinese Qing general Zuo Zongtang even relocated the Han from the suburbs Hezhou when the Muslims there surrendered as a reward so that Hezhou (now Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture) is still heavily Muslim to this day and is the most important city for Hui Muslims in China. The Muslims were granted amnesty and allowed to live as long as they stayed outside the city.[126] Some of the Muslims who fought, like General Dong, did not do it because they were Muslim, rather, like many other generals, they gathered bands of followers and fought at will.[127][128]

During the revolt, Uzbek Muslim forces under Yaqub Beg carried out massacres on Dungan Muslims. In one instance, they massacred Dungans in Ili, in the Battle of Ürümqi (1870). The Uzbeks even enlisted non-Muslim Han Chinese militia to help kill Dungans and conquer Xinjiang.[129]

Criticism

Various sources criticize the claims that the Dungan and Panthay Revolts were due to religious persecution by the Qing.

The Dungan and Panthay Revolts by the Hui occurred because of racial antagonism and class warfare, not purely religious strife as is sometimes mistakenly assumed.[130]

The Panthay rebellion was not religious in nature, since the Muslims were joined by non-Muslim Shan and Kakhyen and other hill tribes in the revolt.[131] A British officer testified that the Muslims did not rebel for religious reasons, and the Chinese were tolerant of different religions and unlikely to have caused the revolt by interfering with the practice of Islam.[132] In addition, loyalist Muslim forces helped the Qing crush the rebel Muslims.[133]

Du Wenxiu was not aiming his rebellion at Han, but was anti-Qing and wanted to destroy the Manchu government. During the revolt Hui from provinces which were not in rebellion, like Sichuan and Zhejiang, served as negotiators between rebel Hui and the Qing government. One of Du Wenxiu's banners said "Deprive the Manchu Qing of their Mandate to Rule" (革命滿清), and he called on Han to assist Hui to overthrow the Manchu regime and drive them out of China.[134][135] Du's forces led multiple non-Muslim forces, including Han Chinese, Li, Bai, and Hani.[136] Du Wenxiu also called for unity between Muslim Hui and Han. He was quoted as saying "our army has three tasks: to drive out the Manchus, unite with the Chinese, and drive out traitors."[137]

Muslims in other parts of China proper such as the east and southern provinces who did not revolt were not affected at all by the rebellion, and experienced no genocide, nor did they seek to revolt. It was reported that Muslim villages in Henan province, which was next to Shaanxi, were totally unaffected by the Dungan revolt and relations between Han and Hui continued normally. Muslims from eastern China like Ma Xinyi continued to serve in the Chinese government during the revolt, and ignored the Muslims of northwest China.

Demonstration in Berlin for Uyghur human rights.

The Hui Muslims in Xi'an city in Shaanxi province were completely spared from reprisals by General Zuo Zongtang and allowed to stay in Xi'an after the war since they never joined the Hui rebels in the rural areas of Shaanxi, despite the fact that Shaanxi was the epicenter of the Dungan rebellion. The Muslim quarter still exists in Xi'an to this day with the Hui people living inside it.

The Muslims of Xining were also spared by Zuo after his forces captured the city from the rebels. Zuo differentiated between rebels and "good Muslims", seeking arrangements to resettle Muslim refugees in new areas to avoid future conflict. Zuo Zongtang resettled Hui refugees from Shaanxi in southern Gansu province after defeating the rebels in Xining and Suzhou. Zuo offered amnesty to Gedimu Sunni and Khufiyya Sufi rebels who surrendered.

Elisabeth Allès wrote that the relationship between Hui Muslim and Han peoples continued normally in the Henan area, with no ramifications or consequences from the Muslim rebellions of other areas. Allès wrote in the document "Notes on some joking relationships between Hui and Han villages in Henan" published by French Centre for Research on Contemporary China that "The major Muslim revolts in the middle of the nineteenth century which involved the Hui in Shaanxi, Gansu and Yunnan, as well as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, do not seem to have had any direct effect on this region of the central plain."[138] The Hui Muslim population of Beijing was unaffected by the Muslim rebels during the Dungan revolt.[139]

Gedimu Hanafi Sunni Muslims tried to distance themselves from the Jahriyya Sufi rebels. Some of them even helped the Qing dynasty crush the Sufi rebels.[140]

The rebels were disorganized and without a common purpose. Some Han Chinese rebelled against the Qing state during the rebellion, and rebel bands fought each other. The main Hui rebel leader, Ma Hualong, was even granted a military rank and title during the rebellion by the Qing dynasty. It was only later when Zuo Zongtang launched his campaign to pacify the region, did he decide which rebels who surrendered were going to be executed, or spared.[141]

Zuo Zongtang generally massacred New Teaching Jahriyya rebels, even if they surrendered, but spared Old Teaching Khafiya and Sunni Gedimu rebels. Ma Hualong belonged to the New Teaching school of thought, and Zuo executed him, while Hui generals belonging to the Old Teaching clique such as Ma Qianling, Ma Zhan'ao and Ma Anliang were granted amnesty and even promoted in the Qing military. Moreover, an army of Han Chinese rebels led by Dong Fuxiang surrendered and joined Zuo Zongtang.[141] General Zuo accepted the surrender of Hui people belonging to the Old Teaching school, provided they surrendered large amounts of military equipment and supplies, and accepted relocation. He refused to accept the surrender of New Teaching Muslims who still believed in its tenets, since the Qing classified them as a dangerous heterodox cult, similar to the White Lotus Buddhists. Zuo said, "The only distinction is between the innocent and rebellious, there is none between Han and Hui".[142]

The Qing authorities decreed that the Hui rebels who had taken part in violent attacks were merely heretics and not representative of the entire Hui population, just as the heretical White Lotus did not represent all Buddhists.[143] Qing authorities decreed that there were two different Muslim sects, the "old" religion and "new" religion. The new were heretics and deviated from Islam in the same way that the White Lotus deviated from Buddhism and Daoism, and stated its intention to inform the Hui community that it was aware that the original Islamic religion was one united sect before the advent of new "heretics", saying they would separate Muslim rebels by which sect they belonged to.[144]

Zuo also stated that he would accept the surrender of New Teaching Muslims who admitted that they were deceived, radicalized, and misled by its doctrines. Zuo excluded khalifas and mullas from the surrender.[145]

As noted in the previously, Zuo relocated Han Chinese from Hezhou as a reward for the Hui leader Ma Zhan'ao after he and his followers surrendered and joined the Qing to crush the rebels. Zuo also moved Shaanxi Muslim refugees from Hezhou, only allowing native Gansu Muslims to stay behind. Ma Zhanao and his Hui forces were then recruited into the Green Standard Army of the Qing military.[146]

The Qing dynasty did not persecute Muslims systematically, it only massacred rebels regardless of their religion, when the Muslim General Ma Rulong defected to the Qing Dynasty, he became the most powerful military official in Yunnan province.[141]

The Qing armies only massacred the Muslims who had rebelled, and spared Muslims who took no part in the uprising.[147]

Hui Muslims and Uyghur Muslims massacred each other in the Battle of Kashgar (1933), Kizil massacre, Battle of Kashgar (1934), Battle of Yarkand, Battle of Yangi Hissar, Charkhlik Revolt, during the Kumul Rebellion. More massacres occurred during the Ili Rebellion.

Tensions between Hui and Uyghurs arose because Hui troops and officials often dominated the Uyghurs and crush Uyghur revolts.[148] Xinjiang's Hui population increased by over 520 per cent between 1940 and 1982, an average annual growth of 4.4 per cent, while the Uyghur population only grew at 1.7 per cent. This dramatic increase in Hui population led inevitably to significant tensions between the Hui and Uyghur populations. Some Uyghurs in Kashgar remember that the Hui army at the Battle of Kashgar (1934) massacred 2,000 to 8,000 Uyghurs, which causes tension as more Hui moved into Kashgar from other parts of China.[149] Some Hui criticize Uyghur separatism and generally do not want to get involved in conflict in other countries.[150] Hui and Uyghur live separately, attending different mosques.[151]

During the Cultural Revolution, mosques along with other religious buildings were often defaced, destroyed or closed and copies of the Quran were destroyed and cemeteries by the Red Guards.[152] During that time, the government also constantly accused Muslims and other religious groups of holding "superstitious beliefs" and promoting "anti-socialist trends".[153] The government began to relax its policies towards Muslims in 1978, and supported worship and rituals. Today, Islam is experiencing a modest revival and there are now[154] many mosques in China. There has been an upsurge in Islamic expression and many nationwide Islamic associations have been organized to co-ordinate inter-ethnic activities among Muslims.[155]

However, restrictions have been applied to Uyghur Islamic practices because the Chinese government has attempted since 2001 to link Islamic beliefs with terrorist activities. Numerous events have led the government to crack down on most displays of Islamic piety among Uyghurs, including the wearing of veils and long beards. The Ghulja Incident and July 2009 Ürümqi riots have both resulted from abusive treatment of Uyghur Muslims within Chinese society, and resulted in ever more extreme government crackdowns. While Hui Muslims are seen as relatively docile, Uyghurs are stereotyped as Islamists and punished more strictly for crimes. In 1989 China banned a book titled "Xing Fengsu" ("Sexual Customs") which insulted Islam and placed its authors under arrest after protests in Lanzhou and Beijing by Uyghurs and Hui Muslims.[156][157][158][159][160][161][162][163][164][165] Hui Muslims who vandalized property during the protests against the book went unpunished while Uyghur protestors were imprisoned.[166]

Nazi Germany

Nazi ideology considered ethnic groups which were associated with Islam to be “racially inferior”, particularly Arabs.[167]

During the Invasion of France thousands of Muslims, both Arabs and sub-Saharan Africans, who were serving in French colonial units were captured by the Germans. Massacres of these men were widespread, most notably Moroccans in the fighting around Cambrai against Waffen SS troops, who were killed in mass after being driven from the outskirts of the city and surrendering.[168] Another major massacre against captured Muslim Senegalese troops took place at Erquinvillers by both Wehrmacht and Waffen SS troops.[169]

During Operation Barbarossa the Einsatzgruppen engaged in the mass execution of over 140,000 Soviet POWs,[170] many of whom were killed for being Muslim or having “Asiatic features”.[171][172] Civilian Muslim men were often mistaken for Jews due to being circumsized and killed.[173] Various Muslim ethnic groups were targeted for extermination, such as the Turkmens.[174]

Imperial Japan

Imperial Japanese forces slaughtered, raped, and tortured Rohingya Muslims in a massacre in 1942 and expelled hundreds of thousands of Rohingya into Bengal in British India. The Japanese committed countless acts of rape, murder and torture against thousands of Rohingyas.[175] During this period, some 220,000 Rohingyas are believed to have crossed the border into Bengal, then part of British India, to escape the violence.[176][177] Defeated, 40,000 Rohingyas eventually fled to Chittagong after repeated massacres by the Burmese and Japanese forces.[178]

Japanese forces also carried out massacres, torture and atrocities on Muslim Moro people in Mindanao and Sulu. A former Japanese Imperial Navy medic, Akira Makino, admitted to carrying out dissections on Moro civilians while they were still alive.[179][180][181][182]

Panglong, a Chinese Muslim town in British Burma, was entirely destroyed by the Japanese invaders in the Japanese invasion of Burma.[183] The Hui Muslim Ma Guanggui became the leader of the Hui Panglong self-defense guard created by Su who was sent by the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China to fight against the Japanese invasion of Panglong in 1942. The Japanese destroyed Panglong, burning it and driving out the over 200 Hui households out as refugees. Yunnan and Kokang received Hui refugees from Panglong driven out by the Japanese. One of Ma Guanggui's nephews was Ma Yeye, a son of Ma Guanghua and he narrated the history of Panglang including the Japanese attack.[184] An account of the Japanese attack on the Hui in Panglong was written and published in 1998 by a Hui from Panglong called "Panglong Booklet".[185] The Japanese attack in Burma caused the Hui Mu family to seek refuge in Panglong but they were driven out again to Yunnan from Panglong when the Japanese attacked Panglong.[186]

Dead bodies of the Chinese Hui Muslim Ha family who were slaughtered and raped by the Japanese in Nanjing. The photo comes from Case 5 of John Magee's film. On 13 December 1937, about 30 Japanese soldiers murdered all but two of 11 Chinese Hui Muslims from the Ha family in the house at No. 5 Xinlukou. A woman and her two teenaged daughters were raped, and Japanese soldiers rammed a bottle and a cane into her vagina. An eight-year-old girl was stabbed, but she and her younger sister survived. They were found alive two weeks after the killings by the elderly woman shown in the photo. Bodies of the victims can also be seen in the photo.[187][188]

The Hui Muslim county of Dachang was subjected to slaughter by the Japanese.[189]

During the Second Sino-Japanese war the Japanese followed what has been referred to as a "killing policy" and destroyed many mosques. According to Wan Lei, "Statistics showed that the Japanese destroyed 220 mosques and killed countless Hui people by April 1941." After the Rape of Nanking mosques in Nanjing were found to be filled with dead bodies. They also followed a policy of economic oppression which involved the destruction of mosques and Hui communities and made many Hui jobless and homeless. Another policy was one of deliberate humiliation. This included soldiers smearing mosques with pork fat, forcing Hui to butcher pigs to feed the soldiers, and forcing girls to supposedly train as geishas and singers but in fact made them serve as sex slaves. Hui cemeteries were destroyed for military reasons.[190] Many Hui fought in the war against Japan.

Fascist Italy

Ten thousand inmates were kept at the concentration camp in El Agheila.

The pacification of Libya resulted in mass deaths of the indigenous people in Cyrenaica – one quarter of Cyrenaica's population of 225,000 people died[191] during the conflict in Italian Libya between Italian military forces and indigenous rebels associated with the Senussi Order that lasted from 1923 until 1932, when the principal Senussi leader, Omar Mukhtar, was captured and executed. Italy committed major war crimes during the conflict; including the use of chemical weapons, episodes of refusing to take prisoners of war and instead executing surrendering combatants, and mass executions of civilians.[192] Italian authorities committed ethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling 100,000 Bedouin Cyrenaicans, half the population of Cyrenaica, from their settlements that were slated to be given to Italian settlers.[193][194]

French Algeria

Some governments and scholars have called the French conquest of Algeria a genocide. Ben Kiernan, an Australian expert on the Cambodian genocide, wrote in Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur on the French conquest of Algeria:[195]

By 1875, the French conquest was complete. The war had killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians since 1830. A long shadow of genocidal hatred persisted, provoking a French author to protest in 1882 that in Algeria, "we hear it repeated every day that we must expel the native and if necessary destroy him." As a French statistical journal urged five years later, "the system of extermination must give way to a policy of penetration."

French Algeria became the prototype for a pattern of French colonial rule which has been described as "quasi-apartheid".[196] Napoleon III oversaw an 1865 decree that allowed Arab and Berber Algerians to request French citizenship—but only if they "renounced their Muslim religion and culture":[197] by 1913, only 1,557 Muslims had been granted French citizenship.[198] Despite periodic attempts at partial reform, the situation of the Code de l'indigénat persisted until the French Fourth Republic, which began in 1946, but although Muslim Algerians were accorded the rights of citizenship, the system of discrimination was maintained in more informal ways.[199] This "internal system of apartheid" met with considerable resistance from the Muslims affected by it, and is cited as one of the causes of the 1954 insurrection.[200]

In response to France's recognition of Armenian Genocide, Turkey accused France of committing genocide against 15% of Algeria's population.[201][202]

Middle East

Lebanon

The Sabra and Shatila massacre was the slaughter of between 762 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, by a Lebanese Christian militia in the Sabra neighbourhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon from approximately 6:00 pm 16 September to 8:00 am 18 September 1982.[203]

Myanmar

Myanmar has a Buddhist majority. The Muslim minority in Myanmar mostly consists of the Rohingya people and the descendants of Muslim immigrants from India (including the modern-day nations of Bangladesh) and China (the ancestors of Chinese Muslims in Myanmar came from Yunnan province), as well as descendants of earlier Arab and Persian settlers. Indian Muslims were brought to Burma by the British to aid them in clerical work and business. After independence, many Muslims retained their previous positions and achieved prominence in business and politics.

At first, Buddhist persecution of Muslims arose for religious reasons, and it occurred during the reign of King Bayinnaung, 1550–1589 AD. He also disallowed the Eid al-Adha, the religious sacrifice of cattle, regarding the killing of animals in the name of religion as a cruel custom. Halal food was also forbidden by King Alaungpaya in the 18th century.

Rohingya Muslims at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, October 2017

When General Ne Win swept to power on a wave of nationalism in 1962, the status of Muslims changed for the worse. Muslims were expelled from the army and rapidly marginalized.[204] Many Rohingya Muslims fled Burma as refugees and inundated neighbouring Bangladesh including 200,000 who fled Burma in 1978 as a result of the King Dragon operation in Arakan[205] and 250,000 in 1991.[206]

A widely publicized Burmese conflict was the 2012 Rakhine State riots, a series of clashes that primarily involved the ethnic Rakhine Buddhist people and the Rohingya Muslim people in the northern Rakhine State—an estimated 90,000 people were displaced as a result of the riots.[207][208]

Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was accused of failing to protect Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims during the 2016–17 persecution.[209] State crime experts from Queen Mary University of London warned that Suu Kyi is "legitimising genocide" in Myanmar.[210]

Some buddhist leaders in Myanmar such as Ashin Wirathu promote violence against Muslims in order to "save" Myanmar from becoming an Islamic country.

Philippines

U.S. soldiers pose with Moro dead after the Moro Crater massacre in 1906

The Philippines is predominantly a Christian society with a complicated history of relations between Islam and Christianity. Despite historic evidence of Islamization spreading throughout the islands in the 13th–16th centuries, the archipelago came under Spanish rule in the 16th century. The Spanish proselytized many natives, and labelled those who remained Muslims as Moro, a derogatory term recalling the Moors, an Islamic people of North Africa who occupied parts of Spain for several centuries. Today, this term Moro is used to refer to the indigenous Muslim tribes and ethnic groups of the country. When the Spanish came to the Philippine islands, most of the natives in Luzon and Visayas were pagans with Muslim minorities, and while Spanish proselytized many natives, many Muslims in Luzon and Visayas were not exempted by the Spaniards from the Spanish Inquisition, wherein Muslims to become Catholics or die for their faith. Those who remained Muslims are only the natives of Mindanao and Sulu which the Spaniards did not invade or had control of only briefly and partially.

The Spanish–Moro Wars between Spanish colonial authorities and the indigenous Sultanates of the Moro peoples, (the Sultanate of Sulu, Confederation of sultanates in Lanao and Sultanate of Maguindanao) further escalated tensions between the Christian and Muslim groups of the country. The Moros fought in the Moro Rebellion against the Americans during which Americans massacred Moro women and children at the Moro Crater massacre, against the Japanese in World War II, and are waging an insurgency against the Philippines. The pro-Philippine government Ilaga militia, composed of Catholic and other Christian settlers on Moro land in Mindanao, were known for their atrocities and massacres against Moro civilians and their bloodiest attack happened in June 1971 when they slaughtered 65 Moro civilians at a Mosque during the Manili massacre. On 24 September 1974, in the Malisbong massacre the Armed Forces of the Philippines slaughtered about 1,500 Moro Muslim civilians who were praying at a Mosque in addition to mass raping Moro girls who had been taken aboard a boat.[211]

Polls have shown that some non-Muslim Filipinos hold negative views directed against the Moro people.[212][213][213][214][215][216][217]

Russia

Russian Empire

Qolsharif and his students defend their mosque during the Siege of Kazan.

The period from the conquest of Kazan in 1552 to the ascension of Catherine the Great in 1762, was marked by systematic repression of Muslims through policies of exclusion and discrimination as well as the destruction of Muslim culture by elimination of outward manifestations of Islam such as mosques. The Russians initially demonstrated a willingness in allowing Islam to flourish as Muslim clerics were invited into the various region to preach to the Muslims, particularly the Kazakhs whom the Russians viewed as "savages" and "ignorant" of morals and ethics.[218][219] However, Russian policy shifted toward weakening Islam by introducing pre-Islamic elements of collective consciousness.[220] Such attempts included methods of eulogizing pre-Islamic historical figures and imposing a sense of inferiority by sending Kazakhs to highly elite Russian military institutions.[220] In response, Kazakh religious leaders attempted to bring religious fervor by espousing pan-Turkism, though many were persecuted as a result.[221]

While total expulsion as in other Christian nations such as Spain, Portugal and Sicily was not feasible to achieve a homogenous Russian Orthodox population, other policies such as land grants and the promotion of migration by other Russian and non-Muslim populations into Muslim lands displaced many Muslims making them minorities in places such as some parts of the South Ural region to other parts such as the Ottoman Turkey, and almost annihilating the Circassians, Crimean Tatars, and various Muslims of the Caucasus. The Russian army rounded up people, driving Muslims from their villages to ports on the Black Sea, where they awaited ships provided by the neighbouring Ottoman Empire. The explicit Russian goal was to expel the groups in question from their lands.[222] They were given a choice as to where to be resettled: in the Ottoman Empire or in Russia far from their old lands. Only a small percentage (the numbers are unknown) accepted resettlement within the Russian Empire. The trend of Russification has continued at different paces during the remaining Tsarist period and under the Soviet Union, so that today there are more Tatars living outside the Republic of Tatarstan than inside it.[223]

Alexander Suvorov announced the capture of Ismail in 1791 to the Tsarina Catherine in a doggerel couplet, after the assault had been pressed from house to house, room to room, and nearly every Muslim man, woman, and child in the city had been killed in three days of uncontrolled massacre, 40,000 Turks dead, a few hundred taken into captivity. For all his bluffness, Suvorov later told an English traveller that when the massacre was over he went back to his tent and wept.[73]

USSR

The Soviet Union was hostile to all forms of religion, which was "the opium of the masses" in accordance with Marxist ideology. Relative religious freedom existed for Muslims in the years following the revolution, but in the late 1920s the Soviet government took a strong anti-religious turn. Many mosques were closed or torn down.[224] During the period of Joseph Stalin's leadership, Crimean Tatar, Chechen, Ingush, Balkar, Karachay, and Meskhetian Turk Muslims were victims of mass deportation. Though it principally targeted ethno-religious minorities, the deportations were officially based on alleged collaborationism[225] during the Nazi occupation of Crimea.[226] The deportation began on 17 May 1944 in all Crimean inhabited localities. More than 32,000 NKVD troops participated in this action. 193,865 Crimean Tatars were deported, 151,136 of them to Uzbek SSR, 8,597 to Mari ASSR, 4,286 to Kazakh SSR, the rest 29,846 to the various oblasts of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

From May to November, 10,105 Crimean Tatars died of starvation in Uzbekistan (7% of deported to Uzbek SSR). Nearly 30,000 (20%) died in exile during the year and a half by the NKVD data and nearly 46% by the data of the Crimean Tatar activists. According to Soviet dissident information, many Crimean Tatars were made to work in the large-scale projects conducted by the Soviet Gulag system of slave labour camps.[227]

Soviet–Afghan War

Soviet–Afghan War lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups known collectively as the mujahideen fought a guerrilla war against the Soviet Army. The Soviets used their air power to deal harshly with both rebels and civilians, levelling villages to deny safe haven to the mujahideen, destroying vital irrigation ditches, and laying millions of land mines. American professor Samuel Totten,[189] Australian professor Paul R. Bartrop,[189] scholars from Yale Law School such as W. Michael Reisman[190] and Charles Norchi,[191] as well as scholar Mohammed Kakar, believe that the Afghans were victims of genocide by the Soviet Union. The army of the Soviet Union killed large numbers of Afghans to suppress their resistance.[192] The Soviet forces and their proxies deliberately targeted civilians, particularly in rural areas. Up to 2 million Afghans lost their lives during the Soviet occupation.[35][36] In one notable incident the Soviet Army committed mass killing of civilians in the summer of 1980.[194] In order to separate the mujahideen from the local populations and eliminate their support, the Soviet army killed and drove off civilians, and used scorched earth tactics to prevent their return. They used booby traps, mines, and chemical substances throughout the country.[194] The Soviet army indescriminately killed combatants and noncombatants to ensure submission by the local populations.[194] The provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, Lagham, Kunar, Zabul, Qandahar, Badakhshan, Lowgar, Paktia and Paktika witnessed extensive depopulation programmes by the Soviet forces. The Soviet forces abducted Afghan women in helicopters while flying in the country in search of mujahideen. In November 1980 a number of such incidents had taken place in various parts of the country, including Laghman and Kama. Soviet soldiers as well as KhAD agents kidnapped young women from the city of Kabul and the areas of Darul Aman and Khair Khana, near the Soviet garrisons, to rape them.[195] Women who were taken and raped by Russian soldiers were considered 'dishonoured' by their families if they returned home.[196] Deserters from the Soviet Army in 1984 also confirmed the atrocities by the Soviet troops on Afghan women and children, stating that Afghan women were being raped.[197] There have also been numerous reports of chemical weapons being used by Soviet forces in Afghanistan, often indiscriminately against civilians.[139][229][230] A declassified CIA report from 1982 states that between 1979 and 1982 there were 43 separate chemical weapons attacks which caused more than 3000 deaths.[231] By early 1980, attacks with chemical weapons were reported in "all areas with concentrated resistance activity".[231] Civilian death and destruction from the war was considerable. Estimates of Afghan civilian deaths vary from 562,000[31] to 2,000,000.[32][33][35][36] 5–10 million Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran, 1/3 of the prewar population of the country, and another 2 million were displaced within the country. In the 1980s, half of all refugees in the world were Afghan.[234]

Tatarstan

The 1921–1922 famine in Tatarstan was a period of mass starvation and drought that took place in the Tatar ASSR as a result of war communism policy,[228][229] in which 500,000[230] to 2,000,000[231] peasants died. The event was part of the greater Russian famine of 1921–22 that affected other parts of the USSR,[232] in which up 5,000,000 people died in total.[233][234] According to Roman Serbyn, a professor of Russian and East European history, the Tatarstan famine was the first man-made famine in the Soviet Union and systematically targeted ethnic minorities such as Volga Tatars and Volga Germans.[235] The 1921–1922 famine in Tatarstan has been compared to Holodomor in Ukraine,[236] and in 2008, the All-Russian Tatar Social Center (VTOTs) asked the United Nations to condemn the 1921–22 Tatarstan famine as genocide of Muslim Tatars.[237][238]

Vietnam

The Vietnamese Emperor Minh Mạng unleashed persecution of Cham Muslims after he conquered the final remnants of Champa in 1832.[239][240] The Vietnamese coercively fed lizard and pig meat to Cham Muslims and cow meat to Cham Hindus against their will to punish them and assimilate them to Vietnamese culture.[241]

Current situation

Europe

Bosnia and Herzegovina

A mosque demolished by the Croatian Defence Council in Ahmići, April 1993

The majority of persecutions that have been reported were during the Bosnian War. Primarily, the actions taken by all three factions has led to the Bosnian Genocide, which refers to either the genocidal actions that took place at Srebrenica and Žepa[242]which were committed by the Army of Republika Srpska in 1995, or the more broader ethnic cleansing campaign throughout certain areas that were controlled by Republika Srpska[243] during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War.[244]

The events in Srebrenica in 1995 included the complete cleansing of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, as well as the mass expulsion of another 25,000–30,000 Bosniak civilians, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, committed by units of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladić.[245][246]

The ethnic cleansing campaign that took place throughout areas controlled by the VRS targeted Bosnian Muslims. The ethnic cleansing campaign included unlawful confinement, murder, rape, sexual assault, torture, beating, robbery and inhumane treatment of civilians; the targeting of political leaders, intellectuals and professionals; the unlawful deportation and transfer of civilians; the unlawful shelling of civilians; the unlawful appropriation and plunder of real and personal property; the destruction of homes and businesses; and the destruction of places of worship.[247]

The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide[248][249][250][251][252][253] (Bosnian: Genocid u Srebrenici), was the July 1995 killing of more than 8,000[254][255][256][257][258] Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica during the Bosnian War. The killing was perpetrated by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladić. The Secretary-General of the United Nations described the mass murder as the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War.[259][260] A paramilitary unit from Serbia known as the Scorpions, officially part of the Serbian Interior Ministry until 1991, participated in the massacre,[261][262] along with several hundred Russian and Greek volunteers.[263][264]

Not only were the VRS responsible for ethnic cleansing campaign against the Bosnian Muslims, but so were the Croatian Defence Council, or the HVO. The HVO established several concentration camps, notably the Heliodrom-Dretelj camp, which housed not only captured POWs, but also pregnant women, and sometimes children. The Lasva Valley ethnic cleansing campaign was also committed by the HVO, alongside local Croats supporting them within the area.

After the war, memorials have been put in place to remember those that were killed, such as the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial site near Potocari, where around 2,000 are currently buried.