A dhimmī (Arabic: ذمي‎ ḏimmī IPA: [ˈðɪmmiː]), (collectively أهل الذمة ahl al-ḏimmah/dhimmah, "the people of the dhimma") is a historical term referring to non-Muslim subjects of a Muslim state. Dhimma allows rights of residence in return for taxes. According to scholars, Dhimmis have the same social responsibilities and rights as Muslims. They are excused or excluded from specific duties assigned to Muslims, and otherwise equal under the laws of property, contract and obligation.

Under sharia law, dhimmi status was originally afforded to Jews, Christians, and Sabians. The protected religions later came to include Zoroastrians, Mandaeans, Hindus and Buddhists. Eventually, the largest school of Islamic legal thought applied this term to all non-Muslims living in Islamic lands outside the sacred area surrounding Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

As an example of the distinctions between Muslims, dhimmis, and others, sharia law permits the consumption of pork and alcohol by non-Muslims living in Islamic countries, although they may not be openly displayed. These same commodities are expressly forbidden to Muslims. The largest school of legal thought in Islam (i.e. the Hanafi school) does not make any distinction between a non-Muslim dhimmi and a Muslim citizen.

Michael Coren (born January 15, 1959) is an English-Canadian columnist, author, public speaker, radio host and television talk show host. He hosted the television talk show The Michael Coren Show on the Crossroads Television System from 1999 to 2011 when he moved to the Sun News Network to host an evening talk show, The Arena with Michael Coren. He has also been a long-time radio personality, particularly on CFRB radio.

He has written more than ten books, including biographies of G.K. Chesterton, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, and C. S. Lewis. His latest book, Why Catholics are Right, was published in 2011.

Coren was born in Essex, England. After obtaining a degree in politics from Nottingham University, he moved from the UK to Canada in 1987. For several years, he was a columnist for Frank and then The Globe and Mail, before he began syndicated columns for the Financial Post and Sun Media in 1995. Following his departure from Frank, he became a favourite target of that publication, culminating in a spoof ad contest to "deflower" Michael Coren (a nod to Frank's notorious "Deflower Caroline Mulroney" contest, and a satirical jab at Coren's conservative leanings.) Coren had also been a favorite target of Frank back in the days before he began writing for them. Coren took exception to being labelled a "literary prostitute" during a 1994 interview.

Hamza Yusuf Hanson is an American Islamic scholar, and (with Zaid Shakir and Hatem Bazian) is co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, United States. He is a convert to Islam, and is one of the signatories of A Common Word Between Us and You, an open letter by Islamic scholars to Christian leaders, calling for peace and understanding. He has described the 9/11 attacks as "an act of 'mass murder, pure and simple'". Condemning the attacks, he has also stated "Islam was hijacked ... on that plane as an innocent victim".The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom reported that he "is arguably the west's most influential Islamic scholar" and added that "many Muslims find his views hard to stomach."

Hamza Yusuf was born to two academics in Washington State and raised in Northern California. In 1977, he became Muslim and subsequently traveled to the Muslim world and studied for ten years in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, as well as North and West Africa. Hamza Yusuf spent four years studying in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere in the Middle East. Later he traveled to West Africa and studied in Mauritania, Medina, Algeria, and Morocco under such scholars as Murabit al Haaj; Baya bin Salik, head of the Islamic court in Al-'Ain, United Arab Emirates; Muhammad Shaybani, Mufti of Abu Dhabi; Hamad al-Wali; and Muhammad al-Fatrati of Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.^{[citation needed]} After more than a decade abroad, he returned to the United States and earned degrees in nursing from Imperial Valley College and religious studies at San José State University.^{[citation needed]}

Claudia Benedikta Roth (born May 15, 1955 in Ulm) is a German Green Party politician and one of the two current party chairs, together with Cem Özdemir.

Claudia Benedicta Roth began her artistic work, which she always regarded as also being political, in the 1970s as a trained artistic director at a theatre in Memmingen. She then worked at the municipal theatre in Dortmund and the Hoffmanns-Comic-Teater, and subsequently became involved with the political rock band "Ton Steine Scherben".

She came into contact with the Green party on election campaign tours. In 1985, she became press spokesperson for the Greens in the Bundestag, despite being a newcomer to this line of work.

In July 1989, she was elected for the first time as a Member of the European Parliament for the Greens.

Amongst other things, she was a member of two committees of inquiry in the European Parliament, namely the Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia and the Committee of Inquiry into Links between Organized Crime and Drugs, as well as of the EC-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee.

Thilo Sarrazin (born 12 February 1945) is a German politician (SPD) and former member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank (until 30 September 2010). He previously served as senator of finance for the State of Berlin from January 2002 until April 2009, when he was appointed to his position at Bundesbank.

In his 2010 book Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany Is Doing Away With Itself" or "Germany Is Abolishing Itself"), the most popular book on politics by a German-language author in a decade, though widely criticised, he denounces the failure of Germany's post-war immigration policy, sparking a nation-wide controversy about the costs and benefits of the ideology of multiculturalism.

IN 2012 another book by Sarrazin was published but with less controversy. Entitled "Europa braucht den Euro nicht" ("Europe doesn't need the euro"), the book argues that the introduction of a single currency in Europe, in the form of the Euro, was a bad idea and one that should be overturned.

Sarrazin was born in Gera, Germany to a doctor and the daughter of a West Prussian landowner. His paternal family, a French Huguenot family, originates in Burgundy, while his grandmother was English-Italian. He has explained that his name means saracen (i.e. Muslim) and is common in Southern France: "It is derived from the Arab pirates that were called “Saracens” in the Middle Ages". He has referred to himself as "a European mongrel".