Bat Ye'or
| Gisèle Littman | |
|---|---|
| Born | Gisèle Orebi 1933 (age 83–84) Zamalek, Cairo |
| Pen name | Bat Ye'or (Hebrew: בת יאור) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater |
University College London University of Geneva |
| Notable works |
The Decline of Eastern Christianity (French:1991, English:1996) Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (2001) Eurabia (2005) |
Bat Ye'or (Hebrew: בת יאור) is the pen name of Gisèle Littman, an author of the history of religious minorities in the Muslim world and modern European politics. Ye'or has popularized the term dhimmitude in her books about the history of Middle Eastern Christians and Jews living under Islamic governments. Ye'or describes dhimmitude as the "specific social condition that resulted from jihad," and as the "state of fear and insecurity" of "infidels" who are required to "accept a condition of humiliation." She has also popularized the term Eurabia in her writings about modern Europe, in which she argues that Islam, anti-Americanism and antisemitism hold sway over European culture and politics as a result of collaboration between radical Arabs and Muslims, on one hand, and fascists, socialists, Nazis, antisemitic rulers of Europe on the other.
Ye'or's work on the history of religious minorities under Islamic rule and her use of the term dhimmitude have had a predominantly critical reception among academic specialists in the field. Her work on this subject has been praised by some authors writing for a popular audience. Ye’or’s other books have also been a subject of controversy.
Bat Ye'or was born into a Jewish family in Cairo, Egypt in 1933. She and her parents fled Egypt in 1957 after the Suez Crisis of 1956, arriving in London as stateless refugees.
In 1958 she attended the UCL Institute of Archaeology and moved to Switzerland in 1960 to continue her studies at the University of Geneva, but never finished her master's degree and has never held an academic position.
She described her experiences in the following manner:
I had witnessed the destruction, in a few short years, of a vibrant Jewish community living in Egypt for over 2,600 years and which had existed from the time of Jeremiah the Prophet. I saw the disintegration and flight of families, dispossessed and humiliated, the destruction of their synagogues, the bombing of the Jewish quarters and the terrorizing of a peaceful population. I have personally experienced the hardships of exile, the misery of statelessness − and I wanted to get to the root cause of all this. I wanted to understand why the Jews from Arab countries, nearly a million, had shared my experience.
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Wikipedia