Dhimmi
Encyclopedia
A (collectively /, "the people of the dhimma or contract") is a non-Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia law
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

. Linguistically, the word means "one whose responsibility has been taken". This has to be understood in the context of the definition of state in Islam. The dhimma is a theoretical contract based on a widely held Islamic doctrine granting limited responsibilities and rights to adherents of Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, ("People of the Book
People of the Book
People of the Book is a term used to designate non-Muslim adherents to faiths which have a revealed scripture called, in Arabic, Al-Kitab . The three types of adherents to faiths that the Qur'an mentions as people of the book are the Jews, Sabians and Christians.In Islam, the Muslim scripture, the...

") and certain other non-Muslim religions. Dhimma allows rights of residence in return for taxes. Dhimmi have fewer legal and social responsibilities and rights than Muslims, but more than other non-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
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

 law, dhimmi status was originally afforded to Jews, Christians, and Sabians
Sabians
The Sabians of Middle Eastern tradition were a monotheistic Abrahamic religious group mentioned three times in the Quran: "the Jews, the Sabians, and the Christians." In the Hadith they are nothing but converts to Islam, while their identity in later Islamic literature became a matter of...

. The protected religions later came to include Zoroastrians, Mandaeans, Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

s and Buddhists. Eventually, the largest
Hanafi
The Hanafi school is one of the four Madhhab in jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. The Hanafi madhhab is named after the Persian scholar Abu Hanifa an-Nu‘man ibn Thābit , a Tabi‘i whose legal views were preserved primarily by his two most important disciples, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani...

 school of Islamic legal thought
Fiqh
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....

 applied this term to all non-Muslims living in Islamic lands outside the sacred area
Hejaz
al-Hejaz, also Hijaz is a region in the west of present-day Saudi Arabia. Defined primarily by its western border on the Red Sea, it extends from Haql on the Gulf of Aqaba to Jizan. Its main city is Jeddah, but it is probably better known for the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina...

 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. As another example of this, sharia law in present-day Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

 prescribes blood money
Diyya
Diyya is compensation paid to the heirs of a victim. In Arabic, the word means both blood money and ransom.-Islamic and Arab tradition:The Qur'an specifies the principle of Qisas Diyya (plural: Diyyat; ) is compensation paid to the heirs of a victim. In Arabic, the word means both blood money and...

 to be paid for the death of a person caused by another. The amount payable for a Christian or Jew is half that for a male Muslim; but all others are valued at 1/16. However this is a minority view, and 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.

Treatment of dhimmis

The question of how tolerant Islam was, and is, towards other religions requires a definition of terms. If a lack of discrimination is the criterion for tolerance, one answer will emerge. If a lack of persecution, defined as active and violent repression, is the criterion, the question gets a different answer. Discrimination against dhimmis was institutionalized in traditional Islamic societies. Persecution, on the other hand, was rare and atypical. The dhimmi communities had their own chiefs and judges, with their own family, personal and religious laws.

Many of the dhimmi restrictions seem to go back to the early days of the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

 conquest, and to have been instituted as security precautions in order to protect occupying military and administrative personnel. Most of the restrictions were social and symbolic in nature. Various restrictions, such as dress codes, building codes, and limits on openness of worship, were enforced unevenly on the dhimmi populations. A pattern of stricter, then more lax, enforcement developed over time. In times of external threat, or under a more pious ruler, the restrictions would be rigorously enforced for a while – then more lax enforcement would again return. The major financial disabilities of the dhimmi were the jizya
Jizya
Under Islamic law, jizya or jizyah is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim citizens, who meet certain criteria...

 poll tax and the fact dhimmis and Muslims could not inherit each from other. The jurists and scholars of Islamic sharia law called for humane treatment of the dhimmis, however the commentators were more severe. Unlike the Jews and Muslims of Spain after its reconquest
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...

 by Catholic Christians the dhimmis did not have to choose between apostasy, exile and death, except under the Almohad dynasty.

Islam has become a major religion in much of the world primarily through three avenues. First, a gradual process of religious conversion for material and spiritual reasons. Second, interfaith marriages, which require the children to be raised as Muslims. Third, and more recently, differing rates of population growth among the religious communities.

Although there were evidently no large scale massacres or expulsions of dhimmi populations before the 20th century, large-scale persecution of Christians, Jews, Hindus and even some sects of Islam occurred in many Muslim lands in the 20th century along with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 and establishment of modern Middle East nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...

s. The end of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 witnessed the genocides of Armenians
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...

, Assyrians
Assyrian genocide
The Assyrian Genocide refers to the mass slaughter of the Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac population of the Ottoman Empire during the 1890s, the First World War, and the period of 1922-1925...

 and Greeks in Ottoman lands, and subsequent acts of ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....

 resulted in the expulsion or flight of nearly all Jews formerly inhabiting Arab and Muslim lands, a decrease of Hindus in Pakistan from over 15 % in 1947 to less than 2 % in 2010 and a decrease of Hindus in Bangladesh from 28% in 1941 to 9% in 2010. Some Christians still remain in Muslim countries, especially in Egypt (the Copts), Lebanon and Syria. Relations between Muslims and most other religions has often been uneasy, including a prolonged, sectarian civil war
Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 150,000 to 230,000 civilian fatalities. Another one million people were wounded, and today approximately 350,000 people remain displaced. There was also a mass exodus of...

 in Lebanon, and various acts of persecution of Copts
Persecution of Copts
Copts are native Egyptian Christians, usually Orthodox, who currently make up around 10% of the population of Egypt — the largest religious minority of that country...

 in Egypt.

The dhimma contract and sharia law

The dhimma contract is an integral part of traditional Islamic sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

 law. From the 9th century AD, the power to interpret and refine law in traditional Islamic societies was in the hands of the scholars (ulema
Ulema
Ulama , also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...

). This separation of powers served to limit the range of actions available to the ruler, who could not easily decree or reinterpret law independently and expect the continued support of the community. Through succeeding centuries and empires, the balance between the ulema and the rulers shifted and reformed, but the balance of power was never decisively changed. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution introduced an era of European world hegemony that included the domination of most of the lands of Islam. At the end of the Second World War, the European powers found themselves too weakened to maintain their empires. The wide variety of forms of government, systems of law, attitudes toward modernity and interpretations of sharia are a result of the ensuing drives for independence and modernity in the Muslim world.

Muslim states, sects, schools of thought and individuals differ as to exactly what sharia law entails. In addition, Muslim states today utilize a spectrum of legal systems. Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states enforce their interpretations of classical sharia law. Most states have a mixed system implementing certain aspects of sharia while acknowledging constitutional supremacy. A few, such as Turkey, have declared themselves secular. Local and customary laws may take precedence in certain matters, as well. Islamic law is therefore polynormative, and despite several cases of regression in recent years, the trend is towards modernization and liberalization. Questions of human rights and the status of minorities cannot be generalized with regards to Islam and the Muslim world. They must instead be examined on a case-by-case basis, within specific political and cultural contexts, using perspectives drawn from the historical framework.

The end of the dhimma contract in Ottoman North Africa and the Middle East

The status of the dhimmi "was for long accepted with resignation by the Christians and with gratitude by the Jews" but ceased to be so after the rising power of Christendom and the radical ideas of the French revolution caused a wave of discontent among Christian dhimmis. While Muslims opposed the abolition of dhimma laws, continuing and growing pressure from the Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an powers combined with pressure from Muslim reformers gradually relaxed the inequalities between Muslims and non-Muslims.

The collection of the jizya
Jizya
Under Islamic law, jizya or jizyah is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim citizens, who meet certain criteria...

 tax from non-Muslims was widespread throughout the history of Islam. In the mid-19th century, the Ottoman empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 significantly relaxed the restrictions and taxes placed on its non-Muslim residents under Ottomanism
Ottomanism
Ottomanism was a concept which developed prior to the First Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire. Its proponents believed that it could solve the social issues that the empire was facing. Ottomanism was highly affected by thinkers such as Montesquieu and Rousseau and the French Revolution. It...

. These relaxations occurred gradually as part of the Tanzimat
Tanzimat
The Tanzimât , meaning reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, was a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. The Tanzimât reform era was characterized by various attempts to modernize the Ottoman Empire, to secure its territorial integrity against...

 reform movement, which began in 1839 with the accession of the Ottoman Sultan Abd-ul-Mejid I.

On November 3, 1839, the Hatt-i Sharif of Gulhane edict was put forth by the Sultan, in part proclaiming the principle of equality among all subjects regardless of religion. Part of the motivation for this was a desire to gain support from the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

, whose help was needed in a conflict with Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

.

On February 18, 1856, the Hatt-i Humayan
Hatt-i Hümayan
Islâhat Fermânı was a February 18, 1856 edict of the Ottoman government and part of the Tanzimat reforms...

 edict was issued, building upon the 1839 edict. It came about partly as a result of pressure from and the efforts of the ambassadors of England, France, and Austria, whose respective countries were needed as allies in the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

. It again proclaimed the principle of equality between Muslims and non-Muslims, and produced many specific reforms to this end. For example, the jizya tax was abolished and non-Muslims were allowed to join the army.

Lapses in the protection of religious minorities after the end of the dhimma contract

With the end of the dhimma contract, various approaches have been adopted to deal with the protection of minority rights in place of traditional sharia law. Some of the results, such as those experienced by Turkish Christians
Armenian Genocide
The Armenian Genocide—also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, as the Great Crime—refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I...

 and Jews during the early 20th century AD
History of the Jews in Iraq
The history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BCE. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities....

, have been disastrous, although their extent is still debated.

Views of contemporary Islamic scholars on the status of dhimmis in an Islamic society

  • Ayatollah Khomeini in his book On Islamic Government indicates unequivocally that non-Muslims should be required to pay the poll tax
    Poll tax
    A poll tax is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census . When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax...

    , in return for which they would profit from the protection and services of the state; they would, however, be excluded from all participation in the political process. Bernard Lewis remarks about Khomeini that one of his main grievances against the Shah was that his legislation allowed the theoretical possibility of non-Muslims exercising political or judicial authority over Muslims.

  • Allameh Tabatabaei
    Allameh Tabatabaei
    Allameh Seyyed Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei was one of the most prominent thinkers of philosophy and contemporary Shia Islam...

    , a prominent 20th century Shia scholar, commenting on a hadith
    Hadith
    The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

     that claims that the verse 9:29 has "abrogated" other verses asking for good behaviour toward dhimmis, states that "abrogation" could be understood either in its terminological sense or its literal sense. If "abrogation" is understood in its terminological sense, Muslims should deal with dhimmis strictly in a good and decent manner.

  • Javed Ahmed Ghamidi
    Javed Ahmed Ghamidi
    Javed Ahmad Ghamidi is a well-known Pakistani Muslim theologian, Quran scholar and exegete, and educationist. A former member of the Jamaat-e-Islami, who extended the work of his tutor, Amin Ahsan Islahi. Ghamidi is the founder of Al-Mawrid Institute of Islamic Sciences and its sister...

     writes in Mizan
    Mizan
    Mizan is a comprehensive treatise on the contents of Islam, written by Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, a Pakistani Islamic scholar. It is published in Urdu by Al-Mawrid Institute of Islamic Sciences. The book is also available in the form of different booklets...

     that certain directives of the Qur’an were specific only to the Prophet Muhammad against peoples of his times, besides other directives, the campaign involved asking the polytheists of Arabia for submission to Islam as a condition for exoneration and the others for jizya
    Jizya
    Under Islamic law, jizya or jizyah is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim citizens, who meet certain criteria...

     and submission to the political authority of the Muslims for exemption from death punishment and for military protection as the dhimmis of the Muslims. Therefore, after the Prophet and his companions, there is no concept in Islam obliging Muslims to wage war for propagation or implementation of Islam.

  • The Shia jurist Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi
    Naser Makarem Shirazi
    Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi is an ayatollah in Iran. He is a spiritual guide for many Shia Muslims.-In Iran:He started his formal Islamic studies at the age of 14 in the Agha Babakhan Shirazi seminary....

     states in the selection of the Tafsir Nemooneh that the main philosophy of jizya is that it is only a financial aid to those Muslims who are in the charge of safeguarding the security of the state and Dhimmis' lives and properties on their behalf

Views of prominent contemporary Muslims on the status of dhimmis in an Islamic society

  • Legal scholar L. Ali Khan points to the Constitution of Medina as a way forward for Islamic states in his 2006 paper titled The Medina Constitution. He suggests this ancient document, which governed the status of religions and races in the first Islamic state, can serve as a basis for the protection of minority rights, equality, and religious freedom in the modern Islamic state.

  • Dr. Zakir Naik
    Zakir Naik
    Zakir Abdul Karim Naik is an Indian public speaker on the subject of Islam and comparative religion. He is the founder and president of the Islamic Research Foundation , a non-profit organization that owns the Peace TV channel based in Dubai, UAE. He is sometimes referred to as a televangelist...

    , a prominent Islamic preacher from India
    India
    India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

    , has stated that "as far as the matters of religion are concerned we know for sure that only Islam is the true religion in the eyes of God. In 3:85 it is mentioned that God will never accept any religion other than Islam. As far as the second question regarding building of churches or temples is concerned, how can we allow this when their religion is wrong? And when worship is also wrong? Thus we will surely not allow such wrong things in our (i.e. an Islamic) country."

  • Tariq Ramadan
    Tariq Ramadan
    Tariq Ramadan is a Swiss academic, poet and writer. He is also a Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University...

    , Professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford University, advocates the inclusion of academic disciplines and Islamic society, along with traditional Islamic scholars, in an effort to reform Islamic law and address modern conditions. He speaks of remaining faithful to the higher objectives of sharia law. He posits universal rights of dignity, welfare, freedom, equality and justice in a religiously
    Religious pluralism
    Religious pluralism is a loosely defined expression concerning acceptance of various religions, and is used in a number of related ways:* As the name of the worldview according to which one's religion is not the sole and exclusive source of truth, and thus that at least some truths and true values...

     and culturally pluralistic
    Cultural pluralism
    Cultural pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the wider culture. Cultural pluralism is often confused with Multiculturalism...

     Islamic (or other) society, and proposes a dialog regarding the modern term "citizenship," although it has no clear precedent in classical fiqh. He further includes the terms "non-citizen", "foreigner", "resident" and "immigrant" in this dialog, and challenges not only Islam, but modern civilization as a whole, to come to terms with these concepts in a meaningful way with regards to problems of racism, discrimination and oppression.

Historical implications for non-Muslims living in Islamic lands

Over the course of many centuries, most Zoroastrians and Christians in Islamic countries converted to Islam, but the Muslim conquest had a limited impact on the Jews. Zoroastrianism was the first to crumble after the Muslim conquest of Persia. Closely associated with the power structures of the Persian Empire, the Zoroastrian clergy quickly declined after they were deprived of state support.

Christianity

For Christians, the process of conversion was slower, but no less inexorable. It is possible that as late as the time of the Crusades
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...

 Christians still constituted a majority of the population. The switch from a non-dominated to an inferior position evidently proved too difficult for many Christians and they converted to Islam in large numbers. Christianity disappeared altogether in Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

 and Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

. It disappeared from the Maghreb, when it was subjected to persecution by the Almohads. Christians continued to live in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, and Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, but their numbers were reduced to a tiny minority. The relative resiliency of local Christians in those countries may have stemmed from the fact that their position as non-Chalcedonians had made them a minority among the predominantly orthodox Chalcedonian Christians of the Eastern Roman Empire, which may have made them more amenable to accepting Muslim supremacy; many may have felt better off under early Muslim rule than under that of the orthodox Greeks of Constantinople.

In 1095 AD, Pope Urban II
Pope Urban II
Pope Urban II , born Otho de Lagery , was Pope from 12 March 1088 until his death on July 29 1099...

 urged western European Christians to come to the aid of the Christians of Palestine. The subsequent Crusades brought Roman Catholic Christians into contact with Orthodox Christians whose beliefs they discovered to differ from their own perhaps more than they had realised, and whose position under the rule of the Muslim Fatimid dynasty was less uncomfortable than had been supposed. Consequently, the Eastern Christians provided perhaps less support to the Crusaders than had been expected. When the Arab East came under Ottoman rule in the 16th century AD, Christian populations and fortunes rebounded significantly. The Ottomans had long experience dealing with Christian and Jewish minorities, and were more tolerant towards religious minorities than the former Muslim rulers, the Mamluk
Mamluk
A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...

s of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. By the 19th century AD European pressure had removed all dhimma restrictions on Ottoman religious minorities. The ensuing modernizations and improvements in economic positions of the Arab Christians would eventually lead to a reduction in their relative numbers through a lowered birth rate among their population. The increase in wealth and freedom enjoyed by the former dhimmis would in turn lead to friction with the Muslim community.

Judaism

Jews were the least affected by dhimma. Accustomed to survival in adverse circumstances after many centuries of discrimination and persecution within the Roman Empire, both pre-Christian and Christian, Jews saw the Islamic conquests as just another change of rulers, this time for the better. Voluntary conversion among the Jews was rare, and they managed to preserve their religion all over the Muslim lands.

According to the scholar Mordechai Zaken, tribal chieftains (also known as aghas) in tribal Muslim societies such as the Kurdish society in Kurdistan would tax their Jewish subjects. The Jews were in fact civilians protected by their chieftains in and around their communities; in return they paid part of their harvest as dues, and contributed their skills and services to their patron chieftain.

South Asia

By the 10th century, the Turks of Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

 had brought Islam to the mountains north of the Indic plains. It was not long before they swept south across the Punjab. The Indus basin held a substantial Buddhist population in addition to the ruling Hindu castes, and most converted to Islam over the next two centuries. At the end of the 12th century, the Muslims advanced quickly into the Ganges plain. In one decade, a Muslim army led by Turkic slaves consolidated resistance around Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...

 and brought northern India, as far as west Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...

, under Muslim rule. From these Turkic slaves would come sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...

s, including the founder of the sultanate of Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

. Muslims and dhimmis alike participated in urbanization and urban prosperity.

By the 15th century, Islamic and Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

 civilization had evolved in a complementary manner, with the Muslims taking the role of a ruling caste in Hindu society. Nevertheless, the Muslims retained their Islamic identities, and were in some ways regarded by Hindus in much the same light as their own lowest castes. By this time, most of the Indian subcontinent was under the influence of Islamic rulers, although resistance in the south continued. Bengal had a high rate of conversions to Islam. Across India, certain castes and trades converted to Islam en masse to attain equality and higher status. Areas where Buddhism was strong became strongly Muslim. There was a notable atrocity perpetrated upon Buddhist monks in a monastery in Bengal. Forced conversions were not the source of conversions among the Buddhists, although the Muslims did not hold them in high regard. The main source of conversions was among Buddhist peasants coming to the cities.

In the 16th century AD, India came under the influence of the Mughals (Mongols). Babar, a petty ruler of the Mongol Timuri empire, established a foothold in the North which paved the way for further expansion by his successors. Until it was eclipsed by European hegemony in the 18th century, the Timuri Moghul emperors oversaw a period of coexistence and tolerance between Hindus and Muslims. The emperor Akbar has been described as a universalist. He sought to establish tolerance and equality between all communities and religions, and instituted far reaching social and religious reforms. Not all the Mughal emperors endorsed the ideals espoused by Akbar, indeed Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb
Abul Muzaffar Muhy-ud-Din Muhammad Aurangzeb Alamgir , more commonly known as Aurangzeb or by his chosen imperial title Alamgir , was the sixth Mughal Emperor of India, whose reign lasted from 1658 until his death in 1707.Badshah Aurangzeb, having ruled most of the Indian subcontinent for nearly...

 was inclined towards a more traditional, communal approach.

The entire subcontinent fell under European colonial rule during the 18th century. Independence from their former European colonial rulers, and the subsequent struggles for political power, have brought ethnic and religious strife to this area of the world in modern times.

The Far East

The most populous Muslim country in the world is Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, with a population of over 200 million people. The officially recognized religions in Indonesia are Islam (87% of the population), Protestant (6%), Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 (3.5%), Hindu (1.8%) and other religious and spiritual groups (1.3%). There are 525 languages and dialects spoken. Islam came to Indonesia with traders from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 among other places, in the 13th and 14th centuries. These Muslim traders cemented their positions in port cities through intermarriage with local inhabitants. Christianity came later, with Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 control of those ports in the 18th century. Nowhere is cultural pluralism more pronounced than in Indonesia and the other countries of the Malaysian archipelago
Archipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...

: Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

 and Malaysia. The history of Islam and Christianity in Indonesia has largely been one of peaceful coexistence, but lately the situation has changed: the minority, especially Christians, have received pressure from the Muslim Fundamentalists
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...

, there are so many unresolved cases such as GKI Yasmin and STT Setia (School of Theology Setia) where the government seemed to permit discrimination.

As is the case in India, independence from their former European colonial rulers and the subsequent struggles for political power have brought ethnic and religious strife to this area.

In Indonesia, especially the island of Java, Javanese and Balinese Hindus were generally not treated as dhimmis.

Peace terms

A precedent for the dhimma contract was established with the agreement between the Islamic prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

 and the Jews of Khaybar
Battle of Khaybar
The Battle of Khaybar was fought in the year 629 between Muhammad and his followers against the Jews living in the oasis of Khaybar, located from Medina in the north-western part of the Arabian peninsula, in modern-day Saudi Arabia....

, an oasis near Medina
Medina
Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...

. Khaybar was the first territory attacked and conquered by Muslims. When the Jews of Khaybar surrendered to Muhammad after a siege, Muhammad allowed them to remain in Khaybar in return for handing over to the Muslims one half their annual produce. The Khaybar case served as a precedent for later Islamic scholars in their discussions on the issue of dhimma, even though the second caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word   which means "successor" or "representative"...

, Umar I
Umar
`Umar ibn al-Khattāb c. 2 November , was a leading companion and adviser to the Islamic prophet Muhammad who later became the second Muslim Caliph after Muhammad's death....

, subsequently expelled the Jews from the oasis.

As the early Muslims expanded their territory through conquest, they imposed terms of surrender upon some of the defeated peoples. Courbage and Fargues write:

Before launching an attack the ruler would offer them three choices – conversion, payment of a tribute, or to fight by the sword. If they did not choose conversion a treaty was concluded, either instead of battle or after it, which established the conditions of surrender for the Christians and Jews – the only non-Muslims allowed to retain their religion at this time. The terms of these treaties were similar and imposed on the dhimmi, the people ‘protected’ by Islam, certain obligations.


After Mecca was brought under Islamic rule, deputations from tribes across Arabia came to make terms with Muhammad and the Muslims. Some tribes converted and became Muslim, other Jewish and Christian tribes agreed to pay the poll tax in order to keep their religion and stay in their homes. Most of the Bedouin pagans were given no other choice but conversion to Islam.

One hundred years from its beginnings, the Islamic Arabian empire had expanded to include the lands of the Persians and the eastern Roman Empire. Sharia law was still in its infancy, and tribal law was more influential. The Arab conquerors included Christian as well as Muslim tribes. The Christian Arabs were regarded as fellow Arabs rather than dhimmis. The Arabs generally established garrisons outside towns in the conquered territories, and had little interaction with the local dhimmi populations for purposes other than the collection of taxes. The conquered Christian, Jewish, Mazdean and Buddhist communities were otherwise left to lead their lives as before.

Roman and Persian contexts

As small minorities in the newly conquered territories of the Eastern Roman and Persian empires, the Muslim ruling class needed administrative personnel and expertise. In addition, the Islamic tradition carried the principles for governing these new subjects, but lacked the procedures. The existing personnel, procedures and traditions for ruling religious minorities were adapted to conform to Islamic principles, and used to govern these new dhimmi subjects.

Qur'anic verses as a basis for Islamic policies toward dhimmis

Lewis states
  • The phrase "…there is no compulsion in religion…", from , has usually been interpreted in the Islamic legal and theological traditions to mean followers of other religions should not be forced to adopt Islam.

  • The phrase "…To you your religion, to me my religion…", from , has been used as a "proof-text for pluralism and coexistence".

  • Verse has served to justify the tolerated position accorded to the followers of Christianity, Judaism, and Sabianism under Muslim rule.

Hadith

A hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

 by Muhammad, "Whoever killed a Mu'ahid (a person who is granted the pledge of protection by the Muslims) shall not smell the fragrance of Paradise though its fragrance can be smelt at a distance of forty years (of traveling)", is considered to be a foundation for the protection of the People of the Book
People of the Book
People of the Book is a term used to designate non-Muslim adherents to faiths which have a revealed scripture called, in Arabic, Al-Kitab . The three types of adherents to faiths that the Qur'an mentions as people of the book are the Jews, Sabians and Christians.In Islam, the Muslim scripture, the...

 in Muslim ruled countries.

Majid Khadduri
Majid Khadduri
Majid Khadduri was an Iraqi–born founder of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Middle East Studies program. Internationally, he was recognized as a leading authority on a wide variety of Islamic subjects, modern history and the politics of the Middle East...

 cites a similar hadith in regard to the status of the dhimmis: "Whoever wrongs one with whom a compact(treaty) has been made [i.e., a dhimmi] and lays on him a burden beyond his strength, I will be his accuser."

Constitution of Medina

The Constitution of Medina
Constitution of Medina
The Constitution of Medina , also known as the Charter of Medina, was drafted by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It constituted a formal agreement between Muhammad and all of the significant tribes and families of Yathrib , including Muslims, Jews, Christians and pagans. This constitution formed the...

, a formal agreement between Muhammad and all of the significant tribes and families of Medina (including Muslims, Jews and pagans), declared that non-Muslims in the Ummah
Ummah
Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...

had the following rights:
  1. The security (dhimma) of God is equal for all groups,
  2. Non-Muslim members have equal political and cultural rights as Muslims. They will have autonomy and freedom of religion.
  3. Non-Muslims will take up arms against the enemy of the Ummah and share the cost of war. There is to be no treachery between the two.
  4. Non-Muslims will not be obliged to take part in religious wars of the Muslims.

Pact of Umar

The Pact of Umar, believed by many Muslims to be between caliph Umar I and the conquered Christians of Jerusalem, was another source of regulations pertaining to dhimmis.

The document enumerates the obligations and restrictions that the Christians proposed to the Muslim conquerors as conditions of surrender. However, Western orientalists
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...

 doubt the authenticity of the Pact, arguing it is usually the victors and not the vanquished who impose rather than propose, the terms of peace, and that it is highly unlikely that the people who spoke no Arabic and knew nothing of Islam could draft such a document. Academic historians believe the Pact of Umar in the form it is known today was a product of later jurists who attributed it to the venerated caliph Umar I in order to lend greater authority to their own opinions. The similarities between the Pact of Umar and the Theodosian and Justinian Codes
Corpus Juris Civilis
The Corpus Juris Civilis is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Eastern Roman Emperor...

 of the Eastern Roman Empire suggest that perhaps much of the Pact of Umar was borrowed from these earlier codes by later Islamic jurists. At least some of the clauses of the pact mirror the measures first introduced by the Umayyad
Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four major Arab caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the...

 caliph Umar II or by the early Abbasid
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate or, more simply, the Abbasids , was the third of the Islamic caliphates. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphate from all but the al-Andalus region....

 caliphs.

Gradual expulsion of dhimmis from the Arabian Peninsula

After Mecca was brought under Islamic rule, deputations from tribes across Arabia came to make terms with Muhammad and the Muslims. Some tribes converted and became Muslims, other Jewish and Christian tribes agreed to pay the poll tax in order to keep their religion and stay in their homes. Most of the Bedouins pagans were given no other choice but conversion to Islam.

By the end of the Middle Ages, most Jews and Christians from the Arabian peninsula had been resettled in the Fertile Crescent, in spite of their protected status as dhimmis. There they were given land in compensation for their loss. Arabia was never completely cleared of all non-Muslims, but agreement was reached they should not be allowed in the vicinity of Mecca and Medina, even as visitors.

Religious aspects

From an Islamic legal perspective, the pledge of protection granted dhimmis the freedom to practice their religion and spared them forced conversions. The dhimmis were also serving a variety of useful purposes, mostly economic, which was another point of concern to jurists. Religious minorities were free to do whatever they wished in their own homes, provided they did not engage in illicit sexual activity in ways that could threaten public morals. In some cases, religious practices that Muslims found repugnant were allowed. One example was the Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...

 practice of incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...

uous "self-marriage" where a man could marry his mother, sister or daughter. According to the famous Islamic legal scholar Ibn Qayyim (1292–1350), non-Muslims had the right to engage in such religious practices even if it offended Muslims, under the conditions that such cases not be presented to Islamic Sharia courts and that these religious minorities believed that the practice in question is permissible according to their religion. This ruling was based on the precedent that the prophet Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

 did not forbid such self-marriages among Zoroastrians despite coming in contact with them and having knowledge of their practices.

Conversions to Islam

The spread of the Muslim faith in the first centuries of the Islamic rule was mainly by persuasion and inducement. Many Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

s, Jews and Zoroastrians converted to Islam, however there were significant differences among the conversion rates and scales of these three religions. Judaism, on the whole, survived throughout the Islamic lands. Lewis explains the reason for the rapid conversion of Zoroastrians was the close association of the Zoroastrian priesthood and the structure of power in ancient Iran, and neither possessing "stimulation of powerful friends abroad by the Christians, nor the bitter skill in survival possessed by the Jews." For the Christians, the process of Arab settlement, of conversion to Islam and assimilation into the dominant culture caused their gradual conversion. For many of them, transition to an inferior status, which involved disadvantages and discrimination, was too much to endure. In some places, like the Maghreb
Maghreb
The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...

, Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

, and southern Arabia, Christianity died out completely. Jews in contrast were more accustomed to such adversity. For them, the Islamic conquest was just a change of master. They had already learned how to adapt themselves and "endure under the conditions of political, social and economic disability."

Jewish Encyclopedia
Jewish Encyclopedia
The Jewish Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia originally published in New York between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. It contained over 15,000 articles in 12 volumes on the history and then-current state of Judaism and the Jews as of 1901...

 reports a high rate of conversion to Islam of informed Jews in the 12th century. Kohler and Gottheil in Jewish Encyclopedia agree with Grätz who thinks the reason was 'the degeneracy that had taken hold of Eastern Judaism, manifesting itself in the most superstitious practises,' and their being 'moved by the wonderful success of the Arabs in becoming a world-power.' Jewish Encyclopedia also reports outward conversions of Jews to Islam at around the year 1142 in southwestern Europe due to the rise of the Almohades.
Forced conversions

In the first several centuries after the Islamic conquest and subsequently in the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

, forced conversions were rare. Forced conversions occurred mostly in the Maghreb, especially under the Almohad
Almohad
The Almohad Dynasty , was a Moroccan Berber-Muslim dynasty founded in the 12th century that established a Berber state in Tinmel in the Atlas Mountains in roughly 1120.The movement was started by Ibn Tumart in the Masmuda tribe, followed by Abd al-Mu'min al-Gumi between 1130 and his...

s, a militant dynasty with messianic claims, as well as in Persia.

In the 12th century, rulers of the Almohad dynasty purged Muslims who would not submit to their particular brand of Islam, and killed or forcibly converted Jews and Christians in Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...

 and the Maghreb, putting an end to the existence of Christian communities in North Africa outside Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. In an effort to survive under Almohads, most Jews resorted to practicing Islam outwardly, while remaining faithful to Judaism; they openly reverted to Judaism after Almohad persecutions passed. Maimonides
Maimonides
Moses ben-Maimon, called Maimonides and also known as Mūsā ibn Maymūn in Arabic, or Rambam , was a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages...

, the great Jewish author and philosopher, was among those forced to profess allegiance to Islam for a period of time. He wrote about the theological basis for the outward practice of Islam by Jews in terms of the perceived similarities between the strict monotheism of Judaism and Islam as compared to Christianity.

Although Lewis claims they were very rare overall, most forced conversions of dhimmis that did happen occurred in Persia. In 1656, Shah
Shah
Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...

 Abbas I
Abbas I of Persia
Shāh ‘Abbās the Great was Shah of Iran, and generally considered the greatest ruler of the Safavid dynasty. He was the third son of Shah Mohammad....

 expelled the Jews from Isfahan and compelled them to adopt Islam, although the order was subsequently withdrawn, possibly because of the loss of fiscal revenues. In the early 18th century, Shia'a clergy attempted to force all dhimmis to embrace Islam, but without success. In 1830, all 2,500 Jews of Shiraz
Shiraz
Shiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor...

 were forcibly converted to Islam. In 1839, Jews were massacred in Mashhad
Mashhad
Mashhad , is the second largest city in Iran and one of the holiest cities in the Shia Muslim world. It is also the only major Iranian city with an Arabic name. It is located east of Tehran, at the center of the Razavi Khorasan Province close to the borders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Its...

 and survivors were forcibly converted. The same fate awaited the Jews of Barforoush in 1866, even though they were allowed to revert to Judaism after an intervention from the British and French ambassadors.

Jews and Assyrian Christians forced migrations between 1843 and the 21st century

In his recent PhD thesis and in his recent book the Israeli scholar Mordechai Zaken discussed the history of the Assyrian Christians of Turkey and Iraq (in the Kurdish vicinity) during the last 180 years, from 1843 onwards. In his studies Zaken outlines three major eruptions that took place between 1843 and 1933 during which the Assyrian Christians lost their land and hegemony in their habitat in the Hakkārī (or Julamerk) region in southeastern Turkey and became refugees in other lands, notably Iran and Iraq, and ultimately in exiled communities in European and western countries (the USA, Canada, Australia, New-Zealand, Sweden, France, to mention some of these countries). Mordechai Zaken wrote this important study from an analytical and comparative point of view, comparing the Assyrian Christians experience with the experience of the Kurdish Jews who had been dwelling in Kurdistan for two thousands years or so, but were forced to migrate the land to Israel in the early 1950s. The Jews of Kurdistan were forced to leave and migrate as a result of the Arab-Israeli war, as a result of the increasing hostility and acts of violence against Jews in Iraq and Kurdish towns and villages, and as a result of a new situation that had been built up during the 1940s in Iraq and Kurdistan in which the ability of Jews to live in relative comfort and relative tolerance (that was erupted from time to time prior to that period) with their Arab and Muslim neighbors, as they did for many years, practically came to an end. At the end, the Jews of Kurdistan had to leave their Kurdish habitat en masse and migrate into Israel. The Assyrian Christians on the other hand, came to similar conclusion but migrated in stages following each and every eruption of a political crisis with the regime in which boundaries they lived or following each conflict with their Muslim, Turkish, Arabs or Kurdish neighbors, or following the departure or expulsion of their patriarch Mar Shimon in 1933, first to Cyprus and then to the United States. Consequently, indeed there is still a small and fragile community of Assyrians in Iraq, however, millions of Assyrian Christians live today in exiled and prosperous communities in the west.

Restrictions on practice

Although dhimmis were allowed to perform their religious rituals, they were obliged to do so in a manner not conspicuous to Muslims. Display of non-Muslim religious symbols, such as crosses or icons, was prohibited on buildings and on clothing (unless mandated as part of distinctive clothing). Loud prayers were forbidden, as were the ringing of church bells or the trumpeting of shofar
Shofar
A shofar is a horn, traditionally that of a ram, used for Jewish religious purposes. Shofar-blowing is incorporated in synagogue services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.Shofar come in a variety of sizes.- Bible and rabbinic literature :...

s.

Dhimmis had the right to choose their own religious leaders: patriarchs for Christians, exilarch
Exilarch
Exilarch refers to the leaders of the Diaspora Jewish community in Babylon following the deportation of King Jeconiah and his court into Babylonian exile after the first fall of Jerusalem in 597 BCE and augmented after the further deportations following the destruction...

s and geonim
Geonim
Geonim were the presidents of the two great Babylonian, Talmudic Academies of Sura and Pumbedita, in the Abbasid Caliphate, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of the Jewish community world wide in the early medieval era, in contrast to the Resh Galuta who wielded secular authority...

 for Jews. However, the choice of the community was sometimes subject to the approval of the Muslim authorities, who might block candidates more likely to instigate political instability.

Dhimmis were prohibited from proselytizing
Proselytism
Proselytizing is the act of attempting to convert people to another opinion and, particularly, another religion. The word proselytize is derived ultimately from the Greek language prefix προσ- and the verb ἔρχομαι in the form of προσήλυτος...

 on pain of death. Neither were they allowed to obstruct the spread of Islam in any manner. Other restrictions included a prohibition on publishing or sale of non-Muslim religious literature and a ban on teaching the Qur’an.

Places of worship

The Pact of Umar puts an obligation on dhimmis not to "restore, by night or by day, any [places of worship] that have fallen into ruin", and Ibn Kathir
Ibn Kathir
Ismail ibn Kathir was a Muslim muhaddith, Faqih, historian, and commentator.-Biography:His full name was Abu Al-Fida, 'Imad Ad-Din, Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir, Al-Qurashi, Al-Busrawi...

 adhered to this view. At the same time, al-Mawardi
Al-Mawardi
Abu al-Hasan Ali Ibn Muhammad Ibn Habib al-Mawardi , known in Latin as Alboacen , was an Arab Muslim jurist of the Shafi'i school most remembered for his works on religion, government, the caliphate, and public and constitutional law during a time of political turmoil...

 wrote that dhimmis may "rebuild dilapidated old temples and churches". As in the case of building new houses of worship, the ability of dhimmi communities to repair churches and synagogues usually depended upon their relationship with local Muslim authorities and their ability to pay the relevant taxes.

Islamic doctrine prohibited the construction of new churches and synagogues. Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil
Al-Mutawakkil
Al-Mutawakkil ʻAlā Allāh Jaʻfar ibn al-Muʻtasim was an Abbasid caliph who reigned in Samarra from 847 until 861...

 ordered the destruction of all churches and synagogues built after the Islamic conquest. In the 11th century, the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim
Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
Abu ‘Ali Mansur Tāriqu l-Ḥākim, called Al-Hakim bi Amr al-Lāh , was the sixth Fatimid caliph and 16th Ismaili imam .- History :...

 ordered the demolition of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, is a church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan....

 in Jerusalem.

When non-Muslim houses of worship were built in cities founded after the Islamic conquests, Muslim jurists usually justified such evasions of Islamic law by claiming that those churches and synagogues had existed in the pre-existing non-Muslim settlements. This reasoning was applied in Baghdad, which was built on the grounds of an eponymous Persian village, as well as in some other cities.

Blasphemy

Blasphemy
Blasphemy
Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...

 by both Muslims and by dhimmis was severely punished. The definition of blasphemy included defamation of Muslim holy texts, denial of the prophethood of Muhammad, and disrespectful references to Islam. Scholars of the Hanbali
Hanbali
The Hanbali school is one the schools of Fiqh or religious law within Sunni Islam. The jurisprudence school traces back to Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal but was institutionalized by his students. Hanbali jurisprudence is considered very strict and conservative, especially regarding questions of dogma...

 and Maliki
Maliki
The ' madhhab is one of the schools of Fiqh or religious law within Sunni Islam. It is the second-largest of the four schools, followed by approximately 25% of Muslims, mostly in North Africa, West Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and in some parts of Saudi Arabia...

 schools, as well as the Shi’ites, prescribed a death penalty for blasphemy, while Hanafis and to some extent Shafi’is advocated flogging and imprisonment in some cases, reserving the death penalty only for habitual and public offenders. Al-Mawardi
Al-Mawardi
Abu al-Hasan Ali Ibn Muhammad Ibn Habib al-Mawardi , known in Latin as Alboacen , was an Arab Muslim jurist of the Shafi'i school most remembered for his works on religion, government, the caliphate, and public and constitutional law during a time of political turmoil...

 treated blasphemy as a capital crime.

In general, prosecutions and condemnations for this crime were not common, but they occurred. Although some deliberately sought martyrdom, many blasphemers were insane or drunk; it was not uncommon for the blasphemy accusation to be made due to political considerations or private vengeance, and the fear of a blasphemy charge was a big factor in the fearful and subservient attitude of dhimmis under Muslim rule.

As Edward William Lane
Edward William Lane
Edward William Lane was a British Orientalist, translator and lexicographer....

 put it, describing his visit to Egypt: "[Jews] scarcely ever dare to utter a word of abuse when reviled or beaten by the meanest Arab or Turk; for many a Jew have been put to death upon a false and malicious accusation of uttering disrespectful words against the Kuran or the Prophet".

Taxation of dhimmis

The main tax imposed upon dhimmis was the jizya
Jizya
Under Islamic law, jizya or jizyah is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim citizens, who meet certain criteria...

, which was paid in lieu of serving in the military. Dhimmis were exempted from the zakaat tax, paid by Muslims and used to alleviate the suffering of the poor and the funding of Jihad. Later, the kharaj
Kharaj
In Islamic law, kharaj is a tax on agricultural land.Initially, after the first Muslim conquests in the 7th century, kharaj usually denoted a lump-sum duty levied upon the conquered provinces and collected by the officials of the former Byzantine and Sassanid empires or, more broadly, any kind of...

emerged as a tax payable on land by a farmer regardless of his religion. In addition, various tolls and duties were levied upon both Muslims and non-Muslims.

The jizya tax

Payment of the jizya obligated Muslim authorities to protect dhimmis in civil and military matters. Sura 9:29 stipulates that jizya be exacted from non-Muslims as a condition required for jihad to cease. Failure to pay the jizya could result in the pledge of protection of a dhimmi's life and property becoming void, with the dhimmi facing the alternatives of conversion, enslavement or death (or imprisonment, as advocated by Abu Yusuf
Abu Yusuf
Yaqub ibn Ibrahim al-Ansari, better known as Abu Yusuf was a student of legist Abu Hanifah who helped spread the influence of the Hanafi school of Islamic law through his writings and the government positions he held.-Biography:...

, the chief qadi
Qadi
Qadi is a judge ruling in accordance with Islamic religious law appointed by the ruler of a Muslim country. Because Islam makes no distinction between religious and secular domains, qadis traditionally have jurisdiction over all legal matters involving Muslims...

— religious judge — of Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid).

Taxation, from the perspective of dhimmis who came under Muslim rule, was "a concrete continuation of the taxes paid to earlier regimes" and, from the point of view of the Muslim conqueror, was a material proof of the Dhimmi's subjection to Muslim control. Lewis observes that the change from Byzantine to Arab rule was welcomed by many among the Dhimmis who found the new yoke far lighter than the old, both in taxation and in other matters, and that some even among the Christians of Syria and Egypt preferred the rule of Islam to that of Byzantines.

The importance of dhimmis as a source of revenue for the Muslim community is illuminated in a letter ascribed to Umar I and cited by Abu Yusuf: "if we take dhimmis and share them out, what will be left for the Muslims who come after us? By God, Muslims would not find a man to talk to and profit from his labors."

Most Islamic scholars agree that jizya must be levied only upon adult males. In an important early account, Malik's Muwatta reports that the jizya was collected from non-Muslim men only, and additional taxes were to be levied against dhimmis who travelled on business:
"The Sunnah
Sunnah
The word literally means a clear, well trodden, busy and plain surfaced road. In the discussion of the sources of religion, Sunnah denotes the practice of Prophet Muhammad that he taught and practically instituted as a teacher of the sharī‘ah and the best exemplar...

 is that there is no jizya due from women or children of people of the Book
People of the Book
People of the Book is a term used to designate non-Muslim adherents to faiths which have a revealed scripture called, in Arabic, Al-Kitab . The three types of adherents to faiths that the Qur'an mentions as people of the book are the Jews, Sabians and Christians.In Islam, the Muslim scripture, the...

, and that jizya is only taken from men who have reached puberty. The people of dhimma ... do not have to pay any zakat ... This is because zakat is imposed on the Muslims to purify them and to be given back to their poor, whereas jizya is imposed on the people of the Book to humble them...If in any one year they frequently come and go in Muslim countries then they have to pay a tenth every time they do so, since that is outside what they have agreed upon, and not one of the conditions stipulated for them. This is what I have seen the people of knowledge of our city doing."

Although in general dhimmis had to pay higher taxes (despite not having to pay Zakat), Lewis notes there are varying opinions among scholars as to how much of an additional burden this was. According to Norman Stillman: "Jizya and kharaj were a crushing burden for the non-Muslim peasantry who eked out a bare living in a subsistence economy." Both agree that ultimately, the additional taxation on non-Muslims was a critical factor that drove many dhimmis to leave their religion and accept Islam. However, in some regions the jizya on populations was significantly lower than the zakat, meaning dhimmi populations maintained an economic advantage.

The early Islamic scholars took a relatively humane and practical attitude towards the collection of jizya, compared to the 11th century commentators writing when Islam was under threat both at home and abroad.
  • In his commentary on Sura 9:29, Ibn Kathir writes that dhimmis must be:


disgraced, humiliated and belittled. Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of the dhimma or elevate them above Muslims, for they [dhimmis] are miserable, disgraced, and humiliated.

  • The jurist Abu Yusuf, the chief judge of the Caliph Harun Al-Rashid, rules as follows regarding the manner of collecting the jizya


No one of the people of the dhimma should be beaten in order to exact payment of the jizya, nor made to stand in the hot sun, nor should hateful things be inflicted upon their bodies, or anything of that sort. Rather they should be treated with leniency.

Use of Muslim and dhimmi courts

Religious pluralism existed in medieval Islamic law
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

 and ethics
Islamic ethics
Islamic ethics , defined as "good character," historically took shape gradually from the 7th century and was finally established by the 11th century...

. The religious law
Religious law
In some religions, law can be thought of as the ordering principle of reality; knowledge as revealed by a God defining and governing all human affairs. Law, in the religious sense, also includes codes of ethics and morality which are upheld and required by the God...

s and court
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...

s of other religions, including Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

, Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 and Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

, were usually accommodated within the Islamic legal framework, as exemplified in the Caliphate
Caliphate
The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...

, Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...

, Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 and Indian subcontinent
Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent
Muslim conquest in South Asia mainly took place from the 13th to the 16th centuries, though earlier Muslim conquests made limited inroads into the region, beginning during the period of the ascendancy of the Rajput Kingdoms in North India, from the 7th century onwards.However, the Himalayan...

. In medieval Islamic societies, the qadi
Qadi
Qadi is a judge ruling in accordance with Islamic religious law appointed by the ruler of a Muslim country. Because Islam makes no distinction between religious and secular domains, qadis traditionally have jurisdiction over all legal matters involving Muslims...

(Islamic judges) usually could not interfere in the matters of non-Muslims unless the parties voluntarily chose to be judged according to Islamic law. The dhimmi communities living in Islamic states usually had their own laws independent from the Sharia law, such as the Jews who had their own Halakha
Halakha
Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...

courts.

Dhimmis were allowed to operate their own courts following their own legal systems in cases that did not involve other religious groups, capital offences, or threats to public order. However, in the Ottoman Empire of the 18th and 19th centuries, dhimmis frequently attended the Muslim courts. This was not only when their appearance was compulsory (for example in cases brought against them by Muslims) but also in order to record property and business transactions within their own communities. Cases were taken out against Muslims, against other dhimmis and even against members of the dhimmi’s own family. Dhimmis often took cases relating to marriage, divorce or inheritance to the Muslim courts so these cases would be decided under sharia law. Oaths sworn by dhimmis in the Muslim courts were sometimes the same as the oaths taken by Muslims, sometimes tailored to the dhimmis’ beliefs.

When a case pitched a Muslim against a dhimmi, the word of a Muslim witness nearly always carried more weight than that of a dhimmi. According to Hanafi jurists, dhimmi testimony and oaths were not valid against Muslims. On the other hand, Muslims could testify against dhimmis.

Punishment for murder of a dhimmi

The Hanafi school, which represents the vast majority of Muslims, believes that the murder of a dhimmi must be punishable by death, citing a hadith according to which Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

 ordered the execution of a Muslim who killed a dhimmi. In other schools of Islamic jurisprudence
Fiqh
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....

 the maximum punishment for the murder of a dhimmi, if perpetrated by a Muslim, was the payment of blood money; no death penalty was possible. According to the Maliki
Maliki
The ' madhhab is one of the schools of Fiqh or religious law within Sunni Islam. It is the second-largest of the four schools, followed by approximately 25% of Muslims, mostly in North Africa, West Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and in some parts of Saudi Arabia...

 and Hanbali
Hanbali
The Hanbali school is one the schools of Fiqh or religious law within Sunni Islam. The jurisprudence school traces back to Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal but was institutionalized by his students. Hanbali jurisprudence is considered very strict and conservative, especially regarding questions of dogma...

 schools of jurisprudence, the value of a dhimmi's life was one-half the value of a Muslim's life; in the Shafi'i school, Jews and Christians were worth one-third of a Muslim and Zoroastrians were worth just one-fifteenth.

Leniency in case of murder of a dhimmi, in the tribal Kurdish society

An expert of the Jewish Kurdish society, Mordechai Zaken, revealed recently the term used in the tribal Kurdish society "kafir kusht" (Kurdish: "kafir kuşt"), i.e., murder of non-Muslims, infidels, or un-belivers, according to which murder of non-Muslims has been generally treated with much leniency, in comparison to murder of tribal Muslim Kurds that could have led to a major blood-feud between the tribes. Mordechai Zaken shows in his book that the tribal Kurdish society treated the murder of Jews and Christians with relative leniency. Some cases were resolved in financial compensation paid, ironically, to the patron chieftain of the Jew who was murdered (and not to the family of the victim), to compensate him for the future financial loss in terms of dues and services because of the murder of his Jewish protégé.

Inheritance

The general rule in Islamic law is that a difference in religion is an obstacle to inheritance, so dhimmis could not inherit from Muslims, nor could Muslims inherit from dhimmis. However, some Muslim jurists maintained that a Muslim could inherit from a dhimmi, while a dhimmi could not inherit from a Muslim. Shi'a
Shi'a Islam
Shia Islam is the second largest denomination of Islam. The followers of Shia Islam are called Shi'ites or Shias. "Shia" is the short form of the historic phrase Shīʻatu ʻAlī , meaning "followers of Ali", "faction of Ali", or "party of Ali".Like other schools of thought in Islam, Shia Islam is...

 scholars went so far as to argue that if a dhimmi died leaving even one Muslim heir, all the estate belonged to the Muslim heir at the expense of any dhimmi heirs. This provision was a subject of frequent complaints from Persian Jews
Persian Jews
Persian Jews , are Jews historically associated with Iran, traditionally known as Persia in Western sources.Judaism is one of the oldest religions practiced in Iran. The Book of Esther contains some references to the experiences of Jews in Persia...

.

Personal safety

Despite a common prohibition on carrying weapons, Muslim jurists allowed dhimmis to serve as auxiliary soldiers. In the border provinces, dhimmis were sometimes recruited for military operations. In such cases, they were exempted from jizya for the year of service; however, they were not entitled to a share in the booty, receiving only a fixed stipend.

Being forbidden to bear arms, non-Muslims relied on the Muslim authorities for personal safety. Usually these authorities managed to protect dhimmis from violence, but such protection was likely to fail at times of public disorder. In the Maghreb during changes of reign and periods of instability, non-Muslim quarters were pillaged and their inhabitants either massacred or abducted for ransom.

Prohibition on enslavement

Islamic law and custom prohibit the enslavement of free dhimmis within lands under Islamic rule.

In some Islamic societies, non-Muslim boys were pressed into service in the slave armies of Muslim rulers. These slaves were ordinarily purchased or captured in military actions along the frontier, in accordance with sharia law, as dhimmi status was not available to non-Muslims beyond the borders of the Islamic state. The practice goes back to the Abbasids, who recruited such slave warriors, mainly from non-Muslim Turkic
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...

 populations. Descendants of those slaves later formed the Mamluk
Mamluk
A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...

 dynasties.

An exception to the right of personal freedom guaranteed by the dhimma is seen in the Ottoman system known as devshirmeh
Devshirmeh
Devshirme was the practice by which...

: the enslavement of boys from the Christian population of the Ottoman Balkan provinces in order to muster Janissary
Janissary
The Janissaries were infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops and bodyguards...

 troops and administrative personnel. These boys were often taken first to the households of local Muslim rulers and gentry, where they learned the Turkic language and converted to Islam. Refusal of conversion was rare, and some families were happy to have their sons receive this opportunity. This claim is unlikely to have reflected the complete picture, in a situation of a militarily subjected population. Later, they would travel to Istanbul, the Ottoman capital, for training in their occupations. They were considered personal slaves of the monarch. Most were destined to serve in the infantry, but some would receive an advanced education and go on to serve in the highest military and administrative leadership positions in the empire.

Distinctive clothing

See also Jewish hat

For dhimmis to be clearly distinguishable from Muslims in public, Muslim rulers often prohibited dhimmis from wearing certain types of clothing, while forcing them to put on highly distinctive garments, usually of a bright color. The scholars cited the Pact of Umar in which Christians supposedly took an obligation to "always dress in the same way wherever we may be, and… bind the zunar [wide belt] round our waists". Al-Nawawi required dhimmis to wear a piece of yellow cloth and a belt, as well as a metallic ring, inside public baths.

Riding

Dhimmis were forbidden to ride horses or camels; they were only allowed to ride donkeys and only on packsaddles, a prohibition that has its roots in the Pact of Umar. In the 18th century, Damanhuri, rector of Al-Azhar University
Al-Azhar University
Al-Azhar University is an educational institute in Cairo, Egypt. Founded in 970~972 as a madrasa, it is the chief centre of Arabic literature and Islamic learning in the world. It is the oldest degree-granting university in Egypt. In 1961 non-religious subjects were added to its curriculum.It is...

, summed up the consensus of Islamic jurists: "Neither Jew nor Christian should ride a horse, with or without saddle. They may ride asses with a packsaddle." An additional requirement for dhimmis was to not ride astride, but only sidesaddle, like a woman. In the Mamluk
Mamluk
A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...

 Egypt, where non-Mamluk Muslims were not allowed to ride horses and camels, dhimmis were prohibited even from riding donkeys inside cities. The same prohibition imposed on dhimmis was recorded in the 19th century in Damascus, as well as in Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...

.

European travelers passing through the Middle East in the 18th and 19th centuries left ample evidence of the careful enforcement of prohibitions on horseback riding. Danish traveler Carsten Niebuhr
Carsten Niebuhr
Carsten Niebuhr or Karsten Niebuhr , a German mathematician, cartographer, and explorer in the service of Denmark, is renowned for his travels on the Arabian peninsula.-Biography:...

 wrote in 1761 that in Egypt, Jews and Christians were forced to alight while passing the houses of notable Muslims and when meeting such notables in the street. A Frenchman visiting Cairo in 1697 recorded the same situation. In Yemen and in the rural areas of Morocco, Libya, Iraq, and Persia, dhimmis had to dismount from a mule when passing a Muslim.

Dwelling places

The dhimmis’ obligation not to build houses higher than those of Muslims is one of the clauses of the Pact of Umar, supported as a desirable condition of “dhimma” by the consensus opinion of Islamic scholars. According to Bat Ye’or, the rule was not always enforced; for example, no such laws were recorded in Muslim Spain, and in Tunisia Jews owned fine houses. Sometimes, Muslim rulers issued regulations requiring dhimmis to attach distinctive signs to their houses. In the 9th century, Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil
Al-Mutawakkil
Al-Mutawakkil ʻAlā Allāh Jaʻfar ibn al-Muʻtasim was an Abbasid caliph who reigned in Samarra from 847 until 861...

 ordered dhimmis to nail wooden images of devils to the doors of their homes. At about the same time in Tunisia, a qadi of the Aghlabid
Aghlabid
The Aghlabids were a dynasty of emirs, members of the Arab tribe of Bani Tamim, who ruled Ifriqiya, nominally on behalf of the Abbasid Caliph, for about a century, until overthrown by the new power of the Fatimid.-History:...

 dynasty compelled dhimmis to nail onto their doors a board bearing the sign of a monkey. In Bukhara
Bukhara
Bukhara , from the Soghdian βuxārak , is the capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 263,400 . The region around Bukhara has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time...

, Jews had to hang a piece of cloth out of their houses so that they could be distinguished from those of Muslims.

Dhimmis were seldom prohibited from living in certain places, but there were some exceptions. In Morocco, beginning from the 15th century, and especially since the early 19th century, Jews were confined to mellah
Mellah
A mellah is a walled Jewish quarter of a city in Morocco, an analogue of the European ghetto...

s (walled quarters similar to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...

s). Jews were also forced to live in separate quarters in Persia. Neither Jews nor Christians were allowed to live in Hejaz
Hejaz
al-Hejaz, also Hijaz is a region in the west of present-day Saudi Arabia. Defined primarily by its western border on the Red Sea, it extends from Haql on the Gulf of Aqaba to Jizan. Its main city is Jeddah, but it is probably better known for the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina...

 after Umar I had expelled them.

Marriage between Muslims and dhimmis

Muslim men may generally marry dhimmi women who are considered "People of the Book," however Islamic jurists reject the possibility any non-Muslim man might marry a Muslim woman. Islamic law regarding mixed marriages developed primarily out of three Quranic verses – , , and .

Traditionally, the prohibition of marriage between Muslim women and dhimmi men was enforced with the utmost rigor. All schools of Islamic jurisprudence
Fiqh
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....

, with the exception of the Hanafi
Hanafi
The Hanafi school is one of the four Madhhab in jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. The Hanafi madhhab is named after the Persian scholar Abu Hanifa an-Nu‘man ibn Thābit , a Tabi‘i whose legal views were preserved primarily by his two most important disciples, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani...

, treated dhimmi men who married Muslim women as adulterers, for whom the punishment was death by stoning
Stoning
Stoning, or lapidation, is a form of capital punishment whereby a group throws stones at a person until the person dies. No individual among the group can be identified as the one who kills the subject, yet everyone involved plainly bears some degree of moral culpability. This is in contrast to the...

. In cases where a non-Muslim wife converts to Islam, while her non-Muslim husband does not, their marriage is annulled.

According to some early Muslim scholars, marriage between a dhimmi and a Muslim woman would lead to an incompatibility between the superiority of the woman, by virtue of her being a Muslim, and her unavoidable subservience to a non-Muslim husband. Some traditionalists compared marriage to enslavement; as dhimmis were prohibited from having Muslim slaves, so dhimmi men were not allowed to have Muslim wives. Conversely, Muslim men were allowed to marry dhimmi women because the enslavement of non-Muslims by Muslims was allowed. The feminist professor Azizah Y. al-Hibri
Azizah Y. al-Hibri
Azizah Y. al-Hibri is a professor at the T. C. Williams School of Law, University of Richmond. She is a former professor of Philosophy, founding editor of Hypatia: a Journal of Feminist Philosophy, and founder and president of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights...

 interprets that the relevant hadith regarding marriage and slavery draw an analogy between the status of women and slaves in Muhammad's society in order to beseech the male audience to treat them kindly. She quotes "Be good to women; for they are powerless captives (awan) in your households. You took them in God’s trust, and legitimated your sexual relations with the Word of God, so come to your senses people, and hear my words..."

Cultural interactions and cultural differences

During the Middle Ages, local associations known as futuwwa
Futuwwa
Futuwwa is a Sufi term that has some similarities to chivalry and virtue. It was also a name of ethical urban organizations or "guilds" in mediaeval Muslim realms that emphasised honesty, peacefulness, gentleness, generosity, avoidance of complaint and hospitality in life. According to Ibn...

 clubs developed across the Islamic lands. There were usually several futuwwah in each town. These clubs catered to varying interests, primarily sports, and might involve distinctive manners of dress and custom. They were known for their hospitality, idealism and loyalty. They often had a militaristic aspect, purportedly for the mutual protection of the membership. These clubs commonly crossed social strata, including among their membership local notables, dhimmi and slaves – to the exclusion of those associated with the local ruler, or amir.

Muslims and Jews were sometimes partners in trade, with the Muslim taking days off on Fridays and the Jew taking off on the Sabbath.

Andrew Wheatcroft describes how some social customs such as different conceptions of dirt and cleanliness made it difficult for the religious communities to live close to each other, either under Muslim or under Christian rule.

For Muslims and Christians alike the experience of living in close proximity to unbelievers was disquieting. The social customs of each group invariably sought to minimize contact with the people of other faiths. Each often spoke of the other in terms of fear and sometimes disgust.


Shi'a Islam devotes much attention to the issues of ritual purity – tahara. Strict Shi'as consider Non-Muslims ritually unclean – najis
Najis
In Islamic law, najis are things or persons regarded as ritually unclean. According to Shi'a Islam, there are two kinds of najis: the essential najis which cannot be cleaned and the unessential najis which become najis while in contact with another najis....

 – so that certain physical contact with them or things they touched with wet hands would require purification before undertaking religious or ritual duties. In Persia, where Shi'ism is dominant, these beliefs brought about restrictions that aimed at limiting physical contact between Muslims and dhimmis.

See also

  • Itmaam-i-hujjat
    Itmaam-i-hujjat
    Itmām al-hujjah is an Islamic concept denoting that religious truth has been completely clarified by a Messenger of Allah and made available to a people, who are considered to have no excuse to deny it.-Role of a Messenger:The concept of Itmām al-hujjah requires that religious truth...



Related concepts in Islam:
  • Aljama
    Aljama
    Aljama is a term of Arabic origin used in old official documents in Spain and Portugal to designate the self-governing communities of Moors and Jews living under Christian rule in the Iberian Peninsula...



Related historical events:
  • History of Christianity
    History of Christianity
    The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, its followers and the Church with its various denominations, from the first century to the present. Christianity was founded in the 1st century by the followers of Jesus of Nazareth who they believed to be the Christ or chosen one of God...

  • Jewish history
    Jewish history
    Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Since Jewish history is over 4000 years long and includes hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes...

  • Banu Qurayza
    Banu Qurayza
    The Banu Qurayza were a Jewish tribe which lived in northern Arabia, at the oasis of Yathrib , until the 7th century, when their conflict with Muhammad led to their demise, after the Invasion of Banu Qurayza, took place in the Dhul Qa‘dah, 5 A.H i.e. in February/March, 627 AD...

  • Hijra
    Hijra (Islam)
    The Hijra is the migration or journey of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE. Alternate spellings of this Arabic word are Hijrah, Hijrat or Hegira, the latter following the spelling rules of Latin.- Hijra of Muhammad :In September 622, warned of a plot to...



Related to Islamic law:
  • Jihad
    Jihad
    Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...

  • Sharia
    Sharia
    Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

  • Islamism
    Islamism
    Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...

  • Itmam al-hujjah
  • Jizya
    Jizya
    Under Islamic law, jizya or jizyah is a per capita tax levied on a section of an Islamic state's non-Muslim citizens, who meet certain criteria...

  • Mutaween
    Mutaween
    The word mutaween most literally means "volunteers" in the Arabic language, and is commonly used as a casual term for the government-authorized or government-recognized religious police of Saudi Arabia....

     (religious police)


Terms used for people of other faiths:
  • Kafir
    Kafir
    Kafir is an Arabic term used in a Islamic doctrinal sense, usually translated as "unbeliever" or "disbeliever"...

     in Islam
  • People of the Book
    People of the Book
    People of the Book is a term used to designate non-Muslim adherents to faiths which have a revealed scripture called, in Arabic, Al-Kitab . The three types of adherents to faiths that the Qur'an mentions as people of the book are the Jews, Sabians and Christians.In Islam, the Muslim scripture, the...

     in Islam
  • Gentile
    Gentile
    The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....

     in Judaism
    • Goy
      Goy
      is a Hebrew biblical term for "nation". By Roman times it had also acquired the meaning of "non-Jew". The latter is also its meaning in Yiddish.-In Biblical Hebrew:...

       in Hebrew
  • Heathen in Christianity


Terms used for partial believers
  • God-fearer
    God-fearer
    A God-fearer or Godfearer was a class of non-Jewish sympathizer to Second Temple Judaism mentioned in the Christian New Testament and other contemporary sources such as synagogue inscriptions in Diaspora Hellenistic Judaism...

     in Judaism
  • Proselyte
    Proselyte
    The biblical term "Proselyte", derives from the Koine Greek προσήλυτος/proselytos, as used in the Septuagint for "stranger", i.e. a "newcomer to Israel"; a "sojourner in the land", and in the New Testament for a convert to Judaism from Paganism...

     in Judaism and Christianity


Related to restrictions:
  • Ottoman Millet system
    Millet (Ottoman Empire)
    Millet is a term for the confessional communities in the Ottoman Empire. It refers to the separate legal courts pertaining to "personal law" under which communities were allowed to rule themselves under their own system...

  • Minority religion
    Minority religion
    A minority religion is a religion held by a minority of the population of a country, state, or region. Minority religions may be subject to stigma or discrimination. An example of a stigma is using the term cult with its extremely negative connotations for certain new religious movements...

  • Second-class citizen
    Second-class citizen
    Second-class citizen is an informal term used to describe a person who is systematically discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or legal resident there...

  • Yellow badge
    Yellow badge
    The yellow badge , also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments in order to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism...

  • Giaour
    Giaour
    Giaour, Gawur or Ghiaour written gâvur in modern Turkish, is an offensive ethnic slur used by Muslims in Turkey and the Balkans to describe all who are non Muslim, with particular reference to Christians like Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Serbs and Assyrians...

  • Rayah
    Rayah
    A rayah or reaya was a member of the tax-paying lower class of Ottoman society, in contrast to the askeri and kul...

  • Recusancy
    Recusancy
    In the history of England and Wales, the recusancy was the state of those who refused to attend Anglican services. The individuals were known as "recusants"...

  • Najis
    Najis
    In Islamic law, najis are things or persons regarded as ritually unclean. According to Shi'a Islam, there are two kinds of najis: the essential najis which cannot be cleaned and the unessential najis which become najis while in contact with another najis....



Further reading

  • Bat Ye'or: Der Niedergang des orientalischen Christentums unter dem Islam. 7.-20. Jahrhundert. Gräfeling 2002, ISBN 3-935197-19-5
  • Karl Binswanger: Untersuchungen zum Status der Nichtmuslime im Osmanischen Reich des 16. Jahrhunderts. Diss. phil. München 1977, ISBN 3-87828-108-0
  • Mark. R. Cohen: Unter Kreuz und Halbmond. Die Juden im Mittelalter. München 2005, ISBN 3-406-52904-6
  • Nabil Luka Babawi: Les droits et les devoirs des chrétiens dans l'état islamique et leurs conséquences sur la sécurité nationale, thèse de doctorat.
  • Nicola Melis, “Il concetto di ğihād”, in P. Manduchi (a cura di), Dalla penna al mouse. Gli strumenti di diffusione del concetto di ğihād, Angeli, Milano 2006, pp. 23–54.
  • Nicola Melis, “Lo statuto giuridico degli ebrei dell’Impero Ottomano”, in M. Contu – N. Melis – G. Pinna (a cura di), Ebraismo e rapporti con le culture del Mediterraneo nei secoli XVIII-XX, Giuntina, Firenze 2003.
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    Bat Ye'or
    Bat Ye'or is a pseudonym of Gisèle Littman, née Orebi, an Egyptian-born British writer and political commentator who writes about the history of non-Muslims in the Middle East, and in particular the history of Christian and Jewish dhimmis living under Islamic governments.She is the author of eight...

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    Bat Ye'or is a pseudonym of Gisèle Littman, née Orebi, an Egyptian-born British writer and political commentator who writes about the history of non-Muslims in the Middle East, and in particular the history of Christian and Jewish dhimmis living under Islamic governments.She is the author of eight...

    : Les chrétientés d'Orient entre jihâd et dhimmitude : VII-XX siècle. Éditions du Cerf, Paris 1991, (L'histoire à vif), ISBN 2-204-04347-8
  • Yohanan Friedmann: Classification of Unbelievers in Sunnī Muslim Law and Tradition. In: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam. 22 (1998), pp. 163–195
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  • Pessah Shinar: Some remarks regarding the colours of male Jewish dress in North Africa and their Arabic-Islamic context. In: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam
    Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam
    Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam is a peer reviewed, international academic journal devoted to the study of classical Islam, Islamic religious thought, Arabic language and literature, the origins of Islamic institutions, and the interaction between Islam and other civilizations. The founding...

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  • M. Levy-Rubin: Shurut `Umar and its alternatives: the legal debate on the status of the dhimmis. In: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam. 30/2005

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