Egyptian cleric Dr. Khaled Said, in an interview aired on Al-Hafez TV (via the Internet) on March 17, 2013, described American foreign aid as extracting jizya from infidels, " ... they will accept it, kiss our hands, and double the aid they give us. We consider this aid to be jizya [poll tax], not regular aid. They pay so that we will let them be. The aid constitutes jizya."

Formally, the jizya is a "tax" paid by kafirs already living under Muslim domination. It is a tax that must be paid at risk of losing one's head. Moreover, the jizya is not just a "head" tax; it is also intended to be a form of humiliation.

Qur'an (9:29) - "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

Paying the jizya is just part of dhimmitude. The full status of dhimmitude is a miserable, soulless existence. The linguist and Arabic scholar Mark Durie has traveled extensively to record and observe the status of dhimmis in the Ummah (Muslim world). Think of the life of a cowering, abused dog. As Durie says, "it involves embracing your own inferiority." Indeed, Sura 9:29 of the Koran says that the purpose of the dhimmi system is to "kill the soul" of the non-Muslim, so he will render willingly everything demanded of him.

We pay Pakistan to be "on our side' against al-Qaeda. We pay the Karzai Mafia to hold fast against the Taliban. We pay in blood and money. And we pay Morsi in F16s and Abrams tanks as well as billions in dollars.

Obama started his presidency by paying obeisance to the leaders of the Ummah in the course of his apology tour and then made his shameless Cairo speech. This humbling of the U.S. before the Islamic world is part of the "humiliation" that is central to accepting one's status as a dhimmi. As Mark Durie says, "The two most characteristic psychological traits of the dhimmi are gratitude and humility. We are seeing both these traits shaping public discourse around Islam. President Obama, for example, has spoken of the 'debt' the West owes to Islam. This sense of indebtedness is being imparted to our schoolchildren through Islamicized history textbooks."

The worst of the tribute we pay the Islamic world is the sacrifice of our values -- i.e., our souls. The right to free speech is being chipped away. Any criticism of Islam is labeled Islamophobia. This is the first soul-losing step on the road to full dhimmitude -- part of which contains the principle that one must never say or do anything to offend Muslims.

Starting as early as 2008, there was a government memo that warned against "offending," "insulting," or being "confrontational" to Muslims.

By 2011, as reported by the Daily Caller, "the Obama administration was pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive."

Dr. Khaled Said has it right. The U.S. is paying tribute to the House of Islam. Obama is their agent and bagman, and the bag doesn't contain just our money; it also contains our values.