Have you ever heard of "Dhimmitude"? A chain email claims "dhimmitude" is on page 107 of the health care law, and it means Muslims will be exempt from the health care law.

We don’t want to keep you in suspense, so we’ll tell it to you straight: The word "dhimmitude" is not in the health care law.

We know this because of our previous reporting on the law, and also because we did a full-text search on both the main law (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) and a companion law (the Health Care and Reconciliation Act). It’s not in either one.

What is "Dhimmitude"? Well, here’s what the email claims:

Dhimmitude -- I had never heard the word until now. I typed it into Google and started reading. Pretty interesting. It's on page 107 of the health care bill. I looked this up on Google and yep, it exists. It is a REAL word.

Dhimmitude is the Muslim system of controlling non-Muslim populations conquered through jihad (Holy War). Specifically, it is the TAXING of non-Muslims in exchange for tolerating their presence AND as a coercive means of converting conquered remnants to Islam.

ObamaCare allows the establishment of Dhimmitude and Sharia Muslim diktat in the United States. Muslims are specifically exempted from the government mandate to purchase insurance, and also from the penalty tax for being uninsured. Islam considers insurance to be ‘gambling,’ ‘risk-taking,’ and ‘usury’ and is thus banned. Muslims are specifically granted exemption based on this.

How convenient. So I, as a Christian, will have crippling IRS liens placed against all of my assets, including real estate, cattle, and even accounts receivable, and will face hard prison time because I refuse to buy insurance or pay the penalty tax. Meanwhile, Louis Farrakhan will have no such penalty and will have 100% of his health insurance needs paid for by the de facto government insurance. Non-Muslims will be paying a tax to subsidize Muslims. This is Dhimmitude.

I recommend sending this on to your contacts. American citizens need to know about it.

We turned to a reputable reference book, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. It does not contain the word "Dhimmitude," but it does include the word "dhimmi."

The dictionary says that dhimmi is a historical term used to describe a "non-Muslim under protection of Muslim law," which could include Jews, Christians or Hindus. Adult male dhimmis were required to pay taxes and follow regulations on dress, occupation and residence. In return, dhimmis received "security of life and property, defense against enemies, communal self-government, and freedom of religion practice." The dictionary notes that dhimmi status has lost relevance in the present day because of the rise of nation-states and modern legal codes.

Some call "‘dhimmitude" the condition of non-Muslims being subject to Muslim rule, but the word seems to be a recent coinage of academics and commentators.

We won’t dwell at length on the concept of dhimmis or of dhimmitude, since neither word is part of the health care law.

The email goes on to claim that the health law specifically exempts Muslims. But that’s not the case either.

The health care law has a general exception for religious conscience (see page 128). But it does not mention any particular religion, denomination or sect. During the debate over the law’s creation, the people most often mentioned as wanting an exemption were adherents of Christian Science, a faith that prefers prayer to conventional medical treatment.

Our fellow fact-checkers over at Factcheck.org dug even deeper into the question of religious exemptions. They looked at religious groups that have filed for religious conscience objections over Social Security’s payroll taxes; the health care law defines the criteria for religious conscience exemptions in a similar way. Using a Freedom of Information Act request, Factcheck.org found in 2010 that no Muslim groups have requested religious conscience exemptions for payroll taxes.

Moreover, Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told Factcheck.org that he had never heard of Muslims having religious objections to health insurance. "I have health insurance. We give health insurance to our employees. Every Muslim group I know of does the same thing," he said.

Finally, we’ll note that the email claims Christians who don’t want insurance will face "crippling IRS liens" or "face hard prison time." This is also plain wrong. Members of Congress did not want the penalties for going without insurance to be too strict, so the law specifically states that people who fail to pay the penalty "shall not not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty" nor may government officials "file notice of lien with respect to any property" (page 131).

In fact, this email is wrong on just about everything: The word "dhimmitude" is not in the law. Muslims are not specifically exempted. And if anyone is exempted, it’s a small number of Christian groups.

For promoting absurd notions and wild fabrication, we have three words: Pants on Fire!