"Separate but unequal citizens
Author: Robert Ellis
15 November 2010 - Issue : 911
Almost 1200 years of Christian civilisation in what is now known as Turkey came to an end with the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The much lauded millet system which followed, by which the religious communities were allowed to rule themselves, was in fact a system of ‘separate but unequal’. Sharia law prevailed, and the status of the Christian or Jewish dhimmi (“protected people”) was inferior both legally and in everyday life."
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