Muhammad’s example to his community explains why, for the most part, Jews thrived under Muslim rule, especially after Islam expanded into Byzantine lands, where Orthodox rulers routinely persecuted both Jews and non-Orthodox Christians for their religious beliefs, often forcing them to convert to Imperial Christianity under penalty of death. In contrast, Muslim law, which considers Jews and Christians “protected peoples” (dhimmi), neither required nor encouraged their conversion to Islam. Muslim persecution of the dhimmi was not only forbidden by Islamic law, it was in direct defiance of
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