Religious Minorities Under Muslim Rule
Introduction
The Protected People
Historical Foundations
The Charter of Medina
The Pact of ʿUmar
Historical Precedence
From Theory to Practice
Classical Scholarship
Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly [ʿan yadin] while they are humbled [ṣāghirūn].[52]
We give you back the money that we took from you, as we have received news that a strong force is advancing against us. The agreement between us was that we should protect you, and as this is not now in our power, we return you all that we took. But if we are victorious we shall consider ourselves bound to you by the old terms of our agreement.[61]
Conclusion
Notes
[1] www.marrakeshdeclaration.org.
[2] See for example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/15/isis-genocide-of-religious-minorities-us-house-statement
[3] Bat Yeʾor, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam (Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1985), 36; Milka Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire: From Surrender to Coexistence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
[4] In many cases, the non-Muslims were actually the majority, but were referred to as a minority in a cultural and political sense; Uriah Furman, “Minorities in Contemporary Islamist Discourse,” Middle Eastern Studies 36 (2000): 2.
[5] Levy-Rubin, 41.
[6] Mahmoud Ayoub, “Dhimmah in Qurʾan and Hadith,” in Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, ed. Robert Hoyland, 25-35 (Wiltshire: The Cromwell Press, 2004), 34-5. Originally published in The Formation of the Classical Islamic World, vol. 18, ed. Lawrence I. Conrad (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2004).
[7] Based on evidence from hadith, Ibn al-Qayyim asserts that the scholars have reached a consensus that al-majūs, also known as Magians or Zoroastrians, are among the People of the Book; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah, Ahkām ahl al-dhimmah, ed. Yusūf al-Bakrī and Aḥmad al-ʿArārūri (Dammām: Dār Ramādī li-l-Nashr, 1418/1997), 79.
[8] S.D. Goitein, “Minority Selfrule and Government Control” in Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, ed. Robert Hoyland (Wiltshire: The Cromwell Press, 2004), 160. Originally published in The Formation of the Classical Islamic World, vol. 18, ed. Lawrence I. Conrad (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2004).
[9] Goitein, 163.
[10] An infamous persecution of Christians that has been recorded was led by the Fatimid Caliph al-Ḥakīm who retracted his efforts at the end of his reign and reinstituted traditional measures of tolerance; Cl. Cahen, “Dhimma,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs, eds. Consulted online on 20 October 2016.
[11] Sidney Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 148.
[12] Griffith, 148.
[13] Anver Emon, “Reflections on the ‘Constitution of Medina’: An Essay on Methodology and Ideology in Islamic Legal History,” UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law 1, no. 103 (2001): 103.
[14] Ibn al-Qayyim, 14; Levy-Rubin, 59.
[15] A.S. Tritton, The Caliphs and their Non-Muslim Subjects (London: Frank Cass and Company Ltd., 1970), 8.
[16] Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah, Ahkām ahl al-dhimmah, ed. Yusūf al-Bakrī and Aḥmad al-ʿArārūri (Dammām: Dār Ramādī li-l-Nashr, 1418/1997).
[17] Ibn al-Qayyim, 14.
[18] Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, 59.
[19] Albrecht Noth, “Problems of Differentiation between Muslims and non-Muslims: Re-Reading the ‘Ordinances of ʿUmar’ (Al-Shurūṭ al-ʿUmariyya)” in Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, ed. Robert Hoyland (Wiltshire: The Cromwell Press, 2004), 104-5. Originally published in The Formation of the Classical Islamic World, vol. 18, ed. Lawrence I. Conrad (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2004).
[20] Noth, 105.
[21] Ibn al-Qayyim, 87. Another common option that existed besides war was the peace-treaty (ṣulḥ) contracts that did not necessitate payment of the jizyah. Both the Umayyad and Abbasid Empires, for example, established ṣulḥ agreements with the Byzantine Empire in order to maintain regional peace and promote trade. For more, see M. Khadduri, "Ṣulḥ," Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs, eds. Consulted online on 12 July 2017.
[22] Noth, 122.
[23] Noth, 115.
[24] Noth, 116-7.
[25] Noth, 119; See M.J. Kister, “‘Do Not Assimilate Yourselves…’Lā Tashabbahū…,” in Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, ed. Robert Hoyland, 125-153, (Wiltshire: The Cromwell Press, 2004). Originally published in The Formation of the Classical Islamic World, vol. 18, ed. Lawrence I. Conrad (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2004).
[26] Cahen, “Dhimma.”
[27] Michael Morony, “Religious Communities in Late Sasanian and Early Muslim Iraq” in Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, ed. Robert Hoyland (Wiltshire: The Cromwell Press, 2004), 1. Originally published in The Formation of the Classical Islamic World, vol. 18, ed. Lawrence I. Conrad (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2004).
[28] Uriel I. Simonsohn, A Common Justice: The Legal Alliances of Christians and Jews under Early Islam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 5.
[29] Morony, 9.
[30] Simonsohn, 10-11.
[31] Morony, 13.
[32] Morony, 11.
[33] Neophyte Edelby, “The Legislative Autonomy of Christians in the Islamic World” in Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, ed. Robert Hoyland (Wiltshire: The Cromwell Press, 2004), 44. Originally published in The Formation of the Classical Islamic World, vol. 18, ed. Lawrence I. Conrad (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2004).
[34] Edelby, 45. His opinion, however, does not detract from the possibility of other allegiances (e.g. national affiliations). The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, for example, did not require people to disavow their tribes in favor of a sole religious allegiance.
[35] Noth, “Problems of Differentiation between Muslims and Non-Muslims,” 113.
[36] Noth, 107.
[37] Levy-Rubin, 26.
[38] Levy-Rubin, 36.
[39] Levy-Rubin, 121.
[40] Levy-Rubin, 116-7.
[41] Morony, “Religious Communities,” 7.
[42] Uriel I. Simonsohn, A Common Justice, 7; Cahen, “Dhimma.”
[43] A.S. Tritton, The Caliphs and their Non-Muslim Subjects, 22.
[44] Tritton, 23.
[45] Levy-Rubin, 108.
[46] Tritton, 24.
[47] Many other scholars who focused on the rules of religious minorities are also cited. These include, but are not limited to, Qāḍī Abū Yūṣuf (d. 183 AH) in his book Kitāb al-kharāj, al-Khallāl (d. 311 AH) in his Aḥkām ahl al-milal, and al-Farrāʾ (d. 458 AH) in his Al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭāniyyah.
[48] Ibn al-Qayyim, 79.
[49] Ibn al-Qayyim, 87; Ibn al-Qayyim also states that all disbelievers should pay the jizyah, People of the Book or not, implying that even pagans could join the dhimmī community; Ibn al-Qayyim, 89.
[50] Ibn al-Qayyim, 122.
[51] Levy-Rubin, 49.
[52] Qur’an 9:29; translation from Sahih International, obtained from www.quran.com.
[53] Ibn al-Qayyim, 119; This is also the view of al-Qāḍī Abu Yaʿlā in his al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭānīyah.
[54] Ibn al-Qayyim, 121.
[55] Ibn al-Qayyim, 131.
[56] Ibn al-Qayyim, 129.
[57] Ibn al-Qayyim, 132-133.
[58] Ibn al-Qayyim, 137.
[59] Similar versions of the ḥadīth read, "Whoever harms a dhimmī, then I will be his adversary on the Day of Judgement [narrated by Imam Aḥmad]" and "Whoever harms a dhimmī, then he has harmed me [the Prophet]. And whoever harms me, has harmed God [narrated by al-Albānī].”
[60] Ibn al-Qayyim, 139.
[61] Thomas Walker Arnold, Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith (London: Constable & Robinson Ltd., 1913), 61.
[62] Arnold, 61. See also J. J. Saunders, A History of Medieval Islam (London: Routledge, 2002), 53.
[63] David H. Warren and Christine Gilmore, “One nation under God? Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s changing Fiqh of citizenship in the light of the Islamic legal tradition,” Contemporary Islam 8 (2014), 218.