Dhimmi

Template:TotallyDisputed A dhimmi (also zimmi, Arabic: ذمي, plural: اهل الذمۃ, ahl al-dhimma) is a free non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia — Islamic law. A dhimmi is a person of the dhimma, a term which refers in Islamic law to the pact of surrender contracted between non-Muslims and their Muslim conquerors. This status was originally only made available to non-Muslims who were People of the Book (i.e. Jews and Christians), but was later extended to include Zoroastrians, Mandeans, and ultimately also Hindus. The status of dhimmi applied to millions of people living from the Atlantic Ocean to India between the 7th century, when dhimma was first introduced, and the mid-19th — early 20th century, when dhimma was abolished. Living in areas conquered by Muslims, these people were reduced to the status of second-class subjects and tributaries of a Muslim state.

Dhimmis were allowed to retain their religion and guaranteed their personal safety and security of property, in return for paying tribute to Muslims and accepting the Muslim supremacy, which involved various restrictions and legal disabilities placed on dhimmis, such as prohibitions to bear arms or testify in courts in cases involving Muslims or the requirement to wear distinctive clothing. Disarmed and unable to defend themselves in courts, dhimmis were vulnerable to the whims of rulers and the violence of mobs. Although Muslim authorities sometimes raised the question whether dhimmis should be forced to accept Islam, the prevailing opinion was that dhimmis had to be allowed to live largely because they were an economic boon to the Muslim state.

The conditions of dhimma resulted in a gradual acceptance of Islam by most Middle Eastern Christians and Zoroastrians living under the Muslim rule, as well as in the Arabization of Christians. Most Zoroastrians converted rather rapidly, while the conversion of Christians took many centuries. Many Jews accepted Islam as well, but the overwhelming majority of them preserved their religion. Although forced conversions also played a role, the key motives for conversion were the need to escape oppressive taxation and social inferiority.

Etymology

The word dhimmi is derived from the noun dhimma, which in its turn comes from a verb dhamma meaning 'to blame, find blameworthy, criticize, find fault with, censure'. The term dhimma thus in its original meaning denotes an obligation or liability arising from a fault, blame or debt owed to another, and a dhimmi is someone who bears this obligation or liability.

The idea that a defeated person is liable for a debt to their conqueror is consistent with an ancient principle of Arab customary law:

According to an ancient Arab concept ... the victor in a fight who spares the life of an enemy taken prisoner does actually do the latter a good deed. This "good deed" - and this is highly noteworthy - involves however ... simultaneously, a legal claim to a "reward"...

Sources of dhimma

The consensus opinion of Muslim scholars justifies the imposition of tribute on non-Muslims who fall under the Muslim rule in terms of Sura 9:29 of the Qur'an. The verse calls upon Muslims to fight against the “People of the Book” until they pay the jizya head tax and are humbled:

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

A classic precedent of dhimma was an agreement between Muhammad and the Jews of Khaybar, an oasis near Medina. Khaybar was the first territory attacked and conquered by the Muslim state ruled by Muhammad himself. 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 of 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 Umar I subsequently expelled the Jews from the oasis.

The Pact of Umar supposedly concluded between caliph Umar I and the conquered Christians, was another source of regulations pertaining to dhimmis. The document enumerates the obligations and restrictions that the Christians purportedly proposed to the Muslim conquerors as conditions of surrender. However, Western orientalists doubt the authenticity of the Pact, arguing that it is usually the victors, not the vanquished, who propose, or rather impose, 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 that 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. At least some of the clauses of the pact mirror the measures first introduced by the Umayyad caliph Umar II or by the early Abbasid caliphs.

Modern historians also agree that discriminatory legislation enacted against Jews and non-Melkite Christians in the Byzantine Empire, as well as laws applying to Jews and Christians in the Sassanid Persian Empire, were also sources of dhimmi regulations, though Islamic jurists never explicitly acknowledge these sources. In the 9th century, the Muslim historian Baladhuri drew the parallel between dhimma and the Byzantine legislation, writing that Jews had been the dhimmis of Christians. Numerous provisions of the Theodosian Code of 438 and the Justinian's Code of 529 migrated into the Islamic law virtually unchanged. Under the Byzantine rule, Jews were obliged not to pray loudly; their prayers were not to be audible in the nearby church. Building new synagogues (and repairing existing ones) was likewise prohibited, unless the buildings threatened to collapse and a special permission was obtained. Jews were banned from all public offices and the army; they were prohibited from criticizing Christianity, marrying a Christian, or owning a Christian slave. Furthermore, Jews paid special taxes, possibly the precursors of jizya. Amplified and expanded, these regulations were applied to Christians also, after Byzantine lands fell under Muslim rule.

Status of dhimmis

In his classic treatise on the principles of Islamic governance, the 11th-century Shafi’i scholar Al-Mawardi divided the conditions attached to ‘’dhimma’’ on top of the requirement to pay tribute into compulsory and desirable. The compulsory conditions included prohibitions on blasphemy against Islam, entering into sexual relations or marriage with a Muslim woman, proselytizing among Muslims, and assisting the enemies of Islam. The desirable conditions included a requirement to wear distinctive apparel, a prohibition to visibly display religious symbols, wine, or pork, ringing church bells, or loudly praying, a requirement to bury deads unobtrusively, and finally, a prohibition on riding horse or camels, but not donkeys. The latter restrictions were largely symbolic in nature and were designed to highlight the inferiority of dhimmis compared to Muslims. The overarching principle in the treatment of dhimmis is encapsulated in the statement: "Islam is exalted, and nothing is exalted above it". which is based on a Qur'anic verse (Qur'an ^{[Quran 9:33]}) establishing the preeminence of Islam over other religions. In the words of the British historian Bernard Lewis:

It is only very recently that some defenders of Islam began to assert that their society in the past accorded equal status to non-Muslims. No such claim is made by spokesman for resurgent Islam, and historically there is no doubt that they are right. Traditional Islamic societies neither accorded such equality nor pretended that they were so doing. Indeed, in the old order, this would have been regarded not as a merit but as a dereliction of duty. How could one accord the same treatment to those who follow the true faith and those who willfully reject it? This would be a theological as well as a logical absurdity.

The treatment of dhimmis, including the enforcement of restrictions placed on them, varied over time and space, depending on both the goodwill of the ruler and the historical circumstances. The "dhimma" was the most oppressive in Morocco, where Jews were subjected to what Norman Stillman called “ritualized degradation”, as well as in Yemen and Persia. The periods when Islamic states were strong generally coincided with more relaxed attitude towards dhimmis; however, treatment of non-Muslims usually became harsher when Islam was weak and in decline. Over time, the treatment of dhimmis tended to develop in cycles, such that periods of when restrictions imposed on dhimmis were relaxed were immediately followed by the periods of pious reaction when such restrictions came to be enforced again.

Religious aspects

Freedom of religion and forced conversions

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Maimonides (pictured) narrowly escaped death during the massacre of dhimmis in Cordoba

The pledge of protection granted dhimmis the freedom to practice their religion and spared them forced conversions. Indeed, in the first several centuries after the Islamic conquest and subsequently in the Ottoman Empire, forcible conversions were rare. Subsequently, rulers occasionally broke the pledge and dhimmis were forced to choose between conversion to Islam and death. Forced conversions occurred mostly in the Maghreb, especially under the Almohads, a militant dynasty with messianic claims, as well as in Persia, where Shi'a Muslims were much less tolerant than their Sunni counterparts.

In the 12th century, rulers of the Almohad dynasty killed or forcibly converted Jews and Christians in Andalusia and the Maghreb, putting an end to the existence of Christian communities in North Africa outside Egypt. 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. During the Cordoba massacre of 1148, the Jewish philosopher, theologian, and physician Maimonides saved his own life only by converting to Islam; after Maimonides moved to Egypt, this conversion was ruled void by a Muslim judge who was a friend and patient of Maimonides. As a result of Almohad persecutions and other forced conversions that took place in Morocco afterwards, several Muslim tribes in the Atlas Mountains, as well as many Muslim families in Fez, have Jewish origin.

Forced conversions were especially common in Persia, putting a dent into the numbers of Christian and especially Jewish communities. In 1656, shah Abbas I expelled the Jews from Isfahan and compelled them to adopt Islam, although the order was subsequently withdrawn. 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 were forcibly converted to Islam. In 1839, Jews were massacred in Mashhad 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.

The Almohads and Muslim authorities in Yemen practiced forcible conversion of children. This practice, though prohibited by the Islamic law, was based on the Muslim belief that every child is born a Muslim (see Qur'an ^{[Quran 30:29]}). Suspecting a lack of sincerity on part of Jews who were forcibly converted to Islam, Almohad rulers took Jewish children from their parents and raised those children as Muslims. In Yemen, fatherless children were taken from their mothers and forcibly converted. Children who refused to convert were beaten and chained in dark vaults. This law was retroactive so that even elderly people who had escaped conversion in childhood after losing their fathers were obliged to convert to Islam.

Sporadic waves of forced conversion occurred at different times and places: for example, in Libya in 1558-89, in Tabriz in 1291 and 1338, and in Baghdad in 1333 and 1344.

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 was the ringing of bells or the trumpeting of shofars. According to one hadith, Muhammad said: "The bell is the musical instrument of the Satan." (Sahih Muslim Template:Muslim-usc)

Dhimmis had the right to choose their own religious leaders: patriarchs for Christians, exilarchs and geonim for Jews. However, the choice of the community was subject to the approval of the Muslim authorities, who sometimes blocked candidates or took the side of the party that offered the larger bribe.

Dhimmis were prohibited from proselytizing 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.

As required by the Pact of Umar, dhimmis had to bury their dead without loud lamentations and prayers. Incidents of harassment of dhimmi funeral processions by Muslims, involving pelting with stones, battery, spitting, or cursing, even by Muslim children, were common regardless of place and time.

Places of worship

According to Islamic law, the permission for dhimmis to retain their places of worship and build new ones depended upon the circumstances in which the land fell under the Muslim rule. According to the Shafi'i Islamic jurist al-Nawawi, dhimmis could not use churches and synagogues if their land was conquered by attack. In such lands, as well as in towns founded after the conquest, or where inhabitants voluntarily converted wholesale to Islam, Islamic law does not allow dhimmis to build new churches and synagogues, or expand or repair existing ones, even if they fall into ruin. If the country submitted by capitulation, al-Nawawi wrote, dhimmis were permitted to build new houses of worship only if the capitulation treaty stated that dhimmis remained owners of their land. In observance of this prohibition, Abbasid caliphs al-Mutawakkil, al-Mahdi and Harun al-Rashid ordered the destruction, in their realms, of all churches and synagogues built after the Islamic conquest. In the 11th century, the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim oversaw over the demolition of all churches and synagogues in Egypt, Syria and Palestine, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. However, al-Hakim subsequently allowed the rebuilding of the destroyed buildings. Nevertheless, dhimmis sometimes managed to expand churches and synagogues and even build new ones, albeit at the price of bribing local officials in order to get permissions.

There was no consensus in Islamic jurisprudence as to whether it was permissible for dhimmis to repair churches and synagogues. 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 adhered to this view. At the same time, al-Mawardi 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 its relationship with local Muslim authorities and its ability to pay bribes.

Blasphemy

Blasphemy against Islam, which included defamation of Muslim holy texts, denial of the prophethood of Muhammad, and disrespectful references to Islam, on part of dhimmis was a capital crime. Scholars of the Hanbali and Maliki schools, as well as the Shi’ites, prescribe a death penalty for blasphemy, while Hanafis and to some extent Shafi’is advocate flogging and imprisonment in some cases, reserving the death penalty only for habitual and public offenders.

Many dhimmis were executed as a result of accusations that they insulted Islam. Although some deliberately sought martyrdom, many blasphemers were insane or drunk; it was not uncommon was 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 toward Muslims. As Edward William Lane 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". Accusations of blasphemy provoked acts of violence against the entire dhimmis communities, as it happened in Tunis in 1876, Hamadan in 1876, Aleppo in 1889, Sulaymaniya in 1895, Tehran in 1895, or Mosul in 1911.

Taxation

Dhimmi communities were subjected to the payment of taxes in favor of Muslims — a requirement that was central to dhimma as a whole. 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." The two main taxes imposed on dhimmis are known as jizya — a poll tax — and kharaj — a land tax. Early chronicles use these terms indiscriminately; only later did the kharaj emerge as a tax payable by a farmer regardless of his religion. The resulting tax burden on dhimmis was thus higher than that on Muslims who paid zakat — mandatory alms, and 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." Most Islamic scholars agree that jizya must be levied only upon adult males, and the 8th-century scholar Abu Ubayd advised that dhimmis must not be burdened above their capacity or caused to suffer. Al-Nawawi, however, dissents, demanding "the poll tax to be paid by dying people, the old, … the blind, monks, workers, and the poor, incapable of practicing a trade." The latter view was often applied in practice, as contemporary non-Muslim sources give witness of taxation even of dead persons, widows, and orphans. All taxes paid by Muslims were usually doubled for dhimmis. Ultimately, the taxation was the critical factor that drove many dhimmis to accept Islam.

Sura 9:29 demands 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 a choice between conversion and death (or imprisonment, as advocated by Abu Yusuf, the chief qadi — religious judge — of Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid). Al-Nawawi demands that the unpaid amount of poll tax remain a debt to the dhimmi’s account until he becomes solvent. In the Ottoman Empire, dhimmis had to carry a receipt certifying their payment of jizya at all times, upon pain of imprisonment.

Legal aspects

Prohibition on testimony

The testimony of dhimmis was not admissible in cases involving a Muslim; on the other hand, Muslims could testify against dhimmis. This legal disability put dhimmis in a precarious position where they could not defend themselves against false accusations leveled by Muslims, except by hiring Muslim witnesses and bribing qadis. Apart from breeding corruption, the prohibition on non-Muslim testimony deepened the rift between communities, as dhimmis sought to reduce the possibility of conflict by limiting contact with Muslims.

Punishment for murder of a dhimmi

In all schools of Islamic jurisprudence, except the Hanafi, 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. For Maliki and Hanbali 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. The Hanafi school, which represents the majority of Sunni Muslims, however, believes that the murder of a dhimmi must be punishable by death, citing a hadith according to which Muhammad ordered the execution of a Muslim who killed a dhimmi.

A peculiar practice developed in Yemen, where Arab tribes collected jizya from Jews, offering them protection. If a Muslim from one tribe killed a Jew protected by another tribe, then the other tribe could retaliate by killing a Jew protected by the tribe of the murderer. As a result, two Jews were murdered, while no direct sanctions were imposed on the Muslims.

Inheritance

The general rule in Islamic law is that a difference in religion is an obstacle to inheritance, so that neither dhimmis can inherit from Muslims, nor Muslims can inherit from dhimmis. However, some jurists maintain that a Muslim can inherit from a dhimmi, while a dhimmi cannot inherit from a Muslim. Shi'a scholars went so far as to argue that if a dhimmi dies leaving even one Muslim heir, all the estate belongs to the Muslim heir at the expense of any dhimmi heirs. This provision was a subject of frequent complaints from Persian Jews.

Bearing arms and military service

In accordance with the Pact of Umar, dhimmis had no right to bear arms of any kind. The few exceptions to this rule were some Jewish tribes in the Atlas Mountains and in the Central Asia. Despite the prohibition to carry weapons, Muslim jurists allowed using a dhimmi as an auxiliary soldier "as one would use a dog". 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.

Personal safety and massacres

Although dhimma was supposed to guarantee safety to non-Muslims, the position of dhimmis was overall insecure. Being prohibited from bearing arms, dhimmis were at the mercy of Muslims in matters of personal safety. The obligation to look after the security of dhimmis lay on the authorities, and although the latter usually managed to protect dhimmis from Muslim violence, such protection frequently failed at times of public disorder. In the Maghreb during changes of reign and periods of instability, Jewish quarters were pillaged and their inhabitants either massacred or abducted for ransom.

The outbreaks of violence, including massacres and expulsions, directed against dhimmis became more frequent beginning from the late 18th century. In 1790, Jews were massacred in Tetouan and then in 1828, in Baghdad. In mid-19th century a wave of violence and forced conversions of Jews swept across Persia: in 1834, Jews were massacred in Safed, in 1839 in Mashhad, and in 1867 in Barforoush. Other outbreaks followed in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and other Arab countries of the Middle East. In 1860, 5,000 Christians were massacred in Damascus. In the 19th-century Iraq, especially in the area of Mosul, both Jews and Christains lived in the state of constant insecurity. Jewish quarters were destroyed in 1912 in Fez and as late as in 1948 in Sana.

Enslavement

An exception to the right of personal freedom guaranteed by the dhimma was the practice of enslavement of young non-Muslim boys for the ruler’s slave army. The practice goes back to the Abbasids, who recruited such slave warriors mainly from non-Muslim Turkic populations; descendants of those slaves later formed the Mamluk dynasties. The Ottoman Empire practiced a similar system, known as devshirmeh, by annually enslaving young boys from the Christian population of its Balkan provinces, to muster Janissary troops.

Social and psychological aspects

Humiliation

Humiliation was inherent to the condition of dhimmis. The final word of Sura 9:29, which gives the Qur'anic basis for the dhimmi's status, is sa:ghiru:na (from saghir ‘tiny, paltry’), meaning ‘made small, belittled, diminished, humbled, ridiculed' or 'adopting a cringing, grovelling manner’. In his commentary on Sura 9:29, Ibn Kathir writes that dhimmis must:

feel themselves subdued, 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.

Consequently, for Muslims, humiliation of dhimmis was a religious duty that served as a proof of the triumph of Islam. As a 14th-century Egyptian scholar Ibn Naqqash put it: "[T]he prior degradation of the infidels in this world before the life to come — where it is their lot — is considered an act of piety." In the Arab society, where honor plays a critical role, denigration of dhimmis was supposed to reduce them to the lowest level of human life, helping to generate many conversions among dhimmis of upper classes. Bernard Lewis comments:

The Qur'an and tradition often use the word dhull or dhilla (humiliation or abasement) to indicate the status God has assigned to those who reject Mohammad, and in which they should be kept for so long as they persist in that rejection.

As recommended by many Muslim scholars, jizya was to be collected in a humiliating procedure:

[T]he collector remains seated and the infidel remains standing..., his head bowed and his back bent. The infidel must place money on the scales, while the collector holds him by his beard and strikes him on both cheeks.(Al-Nawawi)

Jews, Christians, and Majians must pay the jizya…on offering up the jizya, the dhimmi must hang his head while the official takes hold of his beard and hits [the dhimmi] on the protruberant bone beneath his ear [i.e., the mandible]…(Al-Ghazali)

Following this [the handing over of the jizya payment] the emir will strike the dhimmi on the neck with his fist; a man will stand near the emir to chase away the dhimmi in haste; then a second and a third will come forward to suffer the same treatment as well as all those to follow. All [Muslims] will be admitted to enjoy this spectacle. (Ahmad al-Dardi al-Adawi)

On the day of payment they [the dhimmis] shall be assembled in a public place … They should be standing there waiting in the lowest and dirtiest place. The acting officials representing the law shall be placed above them and shall adopt a threatening attitude so that it seems to them, as well as to the others, that our object is to degrade them by pretending to take their possessions. They will realize that we are doing them a favor in accepting from them the jizya and letting them go free. They then shall be dragged one by one for the exacting of payment. When paying, the dhimmi will receive a blow and will be thrown aside so that he will think that he has escaped the sword through this. This is the way that the friends of the Lord, of the first and last generations, will act toward their infidel enemies, for might belongs to Allah, to His Prophet, and to the believers. (Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Maghili)

The dhimmis posture during the collection of the jizya – [lowering themselves] by walking on their hands, reluctantly; on the authority of Ibn ’Abbas (al Tabari).

Some scholars explicitly link this ritual to the interpretation of Sura ^{[Quran 9:29]}, that jizya was not merely to be a tax, but also a symbol of humiliation:

[Saaghiruuna means] submissively … by coercion … [’an yadin means] directly, not trusting the trickery of an intermediary … by force … without resistance … in an unpraiseworthy manner … while you stand [and the dhimmi] sits with the whip in front of you [you take] the money while he has dirt on his head. (Al-Suyuti's tafsir on Sura 9:29)

Abu Yusuf, however, advises against the mistreatment of dhimmis during jizya collection, saying that "they should be treated with leniency". The annual payment ritual was not followed in parts of the Ottoman Empire, where jizya was collected from individuals by representatives of the dhimmi communities themselves.

Dhimmis were frequently referred to by derogatory names, both in the official and in the everyday speech. In the Ottoman Empire, the official appellation for dhimmis was "raya", meaning "a herd of cattle". In the Muslim parlance, "apes" was the standard epithet for the Jews, while Christians were frequently denoted as "pigs". These animalistic parallels were rooted in the Qur'anic verses describing some People of the Book being transformed into apes and pigs (Qur'an ^{[Quran 5:60]}).

Echoing a saying attributed to Muhammad (Sahih Muslim Template:Muslim-usc), Hasan al-Kafrawi, an 18th century scholar, advises that "if you [Muslims] encounter one of them [dhimmis] on the road, push him into the narrowest and tightest spot". Both Muslim sources and European travelers to the Middle East describe humiliations and insults of dhimmis, and especially of the Jews. Throwing of stones at dhimmis was a favorite amusement of Muslim children in many places from early times until nowadays.

Distinctive clothing

See also Yellow badge

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. To increase the debasement of non-Muslims, the clothes usually had to be made of rough fabrics and were often incongruous. Although distinctive clothing for non-Muslims was not spelled out in Islamic holy texts, Muslim scholars still agreed that dhimmis must not wear the same clothing as Muslims do; frequently, these 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.

Regulations on dhimmi clothing varied frequently to please the whims of the ruler. Although the initiation of such regulations is usually attributed to Umar I, historical evidence suggests that it was the Abbasid caliphs who pioneered this practice. In 807, Harun al-Rashid ordered that Jews should wear high cone caps and yellow belts, the first prototypes of the yellow badge; Christians had to wear blue belts. These distinction marks became obsolete in 849 when al-Mutawakkil ordered dhimmis to put a yellow veil on their heads and shoulders and wear a wide belt. He also required them to wear small bells in public baths. In the 11th century, the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim ordered Christians to put on half-meter wooden crosses and Jews to wear wooden calves around their necks. In the late 12th century, Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf ordered the Jews of the Maghreb to wear dark blue garments with long sleeves and saddle-like caps. His grandson Abdallah made a concession after appeals from the Jews, relaxing the required clothing to yellow garments and turbans. In the 16th century, Jews of the Maghreb could only wear sandals made of rushes and black turbans or caps with a red piece of garment on it.

Ottoman sultans were similarly diligent and inventive in regulating the clothings of their non-Muslim subjects. In 1577, Murad III issued a firman forbidding Jews and Christians from wearing dresses, turbans, and sandals. In 1580, he changed his mind, restricting the previous prohibition to turbans and requiring dhimmis to wear black shoes; Jews and Christians also had to wear red and black hats, respectively. Observing in 1730 that some Muslims took to the habit of wearing caps similar to those of the Jews, Mahmud I ordered the hanging of the perpetrators. Mustafa III personally helped to enforce his decrees regarding clothes. In 1758, he was walking incognito in Istanbul and ordered to beheading of a Jew and an Armenian seen dressed in forbidden attire. The last Ottoman decree affirming the distinctive clothing for dhimmis was issued in 1837 by Mahmud II. Discriminatory clothing did not exist only in those Ottoman provinces where Christians were in majority, e.g. in Greece and the Balkans.

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, 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 not ride astride, but only sidesaddle, like a woman. In the Mamluk 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.

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 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, Lybia, 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. 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 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 dynasty compelled dhimmis to nail onto their doors a board bearing the sign of a monkey. In Bukhara, 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, where beginning from the 15th century and especially since the early 19th century, Jews were confined to mellahs — walled quarters, similar to European ghettos. Jews were also forced to live in separate quarters in Persia. Neither Jews, nor Christians were allowed to live in Hejaz after Umar I had expelled them.

Marriage

Islamic jurists reject the possibility that a dhimmi man (and generally any non muslim) may marry a Muslim woman. As some scholars put it, marriage is like enslavement, with the husband being the master and the wife being the slave. Even as dhimmis are prohibited from having Muslim slaves, so dhimmi men are not allowed to have Muslim wives. Following the same logic, Muslim men were allowed to marry dhimmi women because the enslavement of non-Muslims by Muslims is allowed. Touching a senstive point of the Muslim psyche, this prohibition was enforced with the utmost rigor, and any violations of it were severely punished.

Shi'a ritual purity

Shi'a Islam devotes much attention to the issues of ritual purity — tahara. Shi'a jurists have commonly deemed the Non-Muslims to be ritually unclean— najis — so that certain physical contact with them or things they touched with wet hands would require Shi'as to wash themselves before doing regular prayers. Opinions of modern Shi'a scholars range from Ruhollah Khomeini's view that all non-Muslims are unclean to the position held by Fazel Lankarani that Jews and Christians are clean. In Persia, where Shi'ism is dominant, these beliefs brought about restrictions that aimed at limiting physical contact between Muslims and dhimmis. Persian Muslims sought to limit contact with non-Muslims by requiring them to settle in separate parts of the city, banning them from public baths, or demanding them not to go out in rain or snow.

Consequences of dhimma

Over the course of many centuries, dhimma gradually led to the conversion of most Zoroastrians and Christians to Islam, but 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, Zoroastrian clergy quickly declined after it was deprived of the state support.

For Christians, the process of conversion was slower — it is possible that as late as at the time of the Crusades Christians still constituted a majority of the population — but no less inexorable. The switch from a dominant to an inferior position proved too difficult for many Christians and they converted to Islam in large numbers to avoid oppression. Christianity disappeared altogether in Central Asia, Yemen, and the Maghreb, when it was subjected to persecution by the Almohads. Christians continued to live in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, but their numbers were still reduced to a tiny minority. Bernard Lewis argues that the relative resiliency of Christians in those countries stemmed from their subordinated position in the Byzantine Empire, which made them more amenable to accepting Muslim supremacy; he suggests that many of them felt better under the early Muslim rule than under the Byzantines.

Jews, were the least affected. Accustomed to survival in adverse circumstances after many centuries of Roman and Byzantine persecutions, Jews saw the Islamic conquests as a just another change of rulers; this time, not necessarily for the worse. Voluntary conversion among the Jews was rare, and they managed to preserve their religion all over the Muslim lands.

See also

• Dhimmi Watch
• Dhimmitude
• History of Christianity
• Jewish history
• Islamism
• Kafir
• Ottoman Millet system
• Minority religion
• Second-class citizen
• Sharia
• Yellow badge

References

• Bat Ye'or (2002). Islam and Dhimmitude. Where Civilizations Collide. Madison/Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/Associated University Presses. ISBN 0838639437.
• Bat Ye'or (1996). The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam. From Jihad to Dhimmitude. Seventh-Twentieth Century. Madison/Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/Associated University Presses. ISBN 0838636888.
• Bat Ye'or (1985). The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam. Madison/Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 0838632629.
• Bravmann, Meïr M. (1966). "The ancient background of the Qur'ānic Concept Al-Ğizyatu 'an Yadin". Arabica. 13.
• Bostom, Andrew, ed. (2005). The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. Prometeus Books. ISBN 1591023076. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Bosworth, C. E. (1982). The Concept of Dhimma in Early Islam In Benjamin Braude and B. Lewis, eds., Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society 2 vols., New York: Holmes & Meier Publishing. ISBN 0841905207
• Cahen, Cl. "Djizya (i)". In P.J. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs (ed.). Encyclopaedia of Islam Online. Brill Academic Publishers. ISSN 1573-3912.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
• Friedmann, Yohanan (2003). Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521827035.
• Goddard, Hugh (2000). A History of Christian-Muslim Relations. Chicago: New Amsterdam Books. ISBN 1566633400.
• Husik, Isaac (1946). A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. ASIN B0007DFH4E.
• Kantor, Mattis (1989). The Jewish Timeline Encyclopedia. Northvale, NJ: Aronson. ISBN 0-87668-229-8.
• Lewis, Bernard (2002). The Arabs in History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192803107.
• Lewis, Bernard (1984). The Jews of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691008078.
• Littman, David (1979). "Jews Under Muslim Rule: The Case Of Persia". The Wiener Library Bulletin. XXXII.
• Al-Mawardi (2000). The Ordnances of Government (‘’Al-Ahkam al-Sultaniyya w’al-Wilayat al-Diniyya’’). Lebanon: Garnet Publishing. ISBN 1859641407.
• Stillman, Norman (1979). The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. ISBN 082760198.
• Tritton, Arthur S. (1970). The Caliphs and their non-Muslim Subjects: a Critical Study of the Covenant of Umar. London: Frank Cass Publisher. ISBN 0714619965.
• Viré, F. "Kird", Encyclopaedia of Islam Online, eds. P.J. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill Academic Publishers. ISSN 1573-3912. Retrieved May 2, 2006
• Wehr, Hans (1976). J. Milton Cowan, ed. (ed.). A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. Ithaca, New York: Spoken Language Services, Inc. ISBN 0879500018. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)

Further reading

• Choksy, Jamsheed (1997). Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society. New York.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Fattal, Antoine (1958). Le statut légal des non-musulmans en pays d’Islam (in French). Beirut.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Goitein, S. D. (1967–71). The Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza (4 vols.). Berkeley and Los Angeles.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date format (link) CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

External links

• Islamic and Christian Spain in the early Middle Ages. Thomas F. Glick: Chapter 5: Ethnic relations
• The Ahl al-Kitab in Early Fatimid Times
• Dhimmi: The Victims of Muslim Religious Apartheid
• The status of the Dhimmi: A critical perspective
• The status of the Dhimmi: An Islamic perspective
• The Status of Non-Muslim Minorities Under Islamic Rule
• Dhimmi Watch
• Islam and its tolerance level (dhimmis also covered)
• Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East
• Jihad, the Arab Conquests and the Position of Non-Muslim Subjects
• Yusuf al-Qaradawi "Non Muslims in Islamic societies" Template:Ar icon
• Religious Freedom in the Eyes of Shari`ah
• On Religious Tolerance, by Khalid Baig