The earliest usage of the term
dhimma is in the Constitution of Medina. Dating from around 622 CE, it regulates
the status of the Jewish clans of Medina (in modern Saudi Arabia) after its
conquest by the Prophet Muhammad and states that “The dhimma [the pact
guaranteeing security and protection] of God is one”. This implies that all the
people of Medina - Jews and Muslims alike - were protected by the new Muslim
rulers of the city. The document also acknowledges that Jews and Muslims each
have their own religion.
On the
whole, the document regulates the status of non-Muslims quite vaguely but in a
spirit of equality. As such, it echoes the sura (chapters) in the Qur’an in
which reference is made to the status of non-Muslims. These sura are also
imprecise and general in formulation, though there is one sura which later
became the basis for the legal regulation of the status of non-Muslims.
According to sura 9:29, Muslims should fight the People of the Book until they
willingly pay a special tax (jizya). -- Nushin
Arbabzadah
By Nushin
Arbabzadah
This reopening is painful to
some but an opportunity to many others. It allows us to expand the borders of
discussion – geographical, historical and psychological - by looking beyond
contemporary Europe and acknowledging that multiculturalism is neither a new
phenomenon nor unique to the west. Plural societies have always existed in
history and there are many examples of non-western multicultural societies that
are worthy of further exploration for what they might teach.
Given recent world history it is
particularly important to explore how Muslim societies have dealt with
multiculturalism. For contrary to common perceptions, living in multiethnic,
multifaith and multilingual societies has always been part of the experience of
Muslims.
Dealing with the Dhimmis
Seen from a contemporary western
perspective, medieval Muslim (no less than Christian) societies can easily
appear intolerant because they enshrined basic forms of discrimination in law.
Those discriminated against - as in medieval Christian Europe - included women,
slaves and non-believers. It is these non-believers (non-Muslims, from an
Islamic perspective) that I focus on here.
Non-believers were generally
referred in to in Arabic as the ahl al-dhimma, the “people of the pact”, and ahl
al-kitab, the “people of the book”. Strictly speaking the terms should only
refer to the monotheists mentioned in the Qur’an, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians
and a group called the Sabeans, whose identity is unknown. In practice, however,
the legal interpretation allowed other religious groups the Muslims encountered,
such as Hindus, to be counted as legitimate members of the dhimmi community.
The earliest usage of the term
dhimma is in the Constitution of Medina. Dating from around 622 CE, it regulates
the status of the Jewish clans of Medina (in modern Saudi Arabia) after its
conquest by the Prophet Muhammad and states that “The dhimma [the pact
guaranteeing security and protection] of God is one”. This implies that all the
people of Medina - Jews and Muslims alike - were protected by the new Muslim
rulers of the city. The document also acknowledges that Jews and Muslims each
have their own religion.
On the whole, the document
regulates the status of non-Muslims quite vaguely but in a spirit of equality.
As such, it echoes the sura (chapters) in the Qur’an in which reference is made
to the status of non-Muslims. These sura are also imprecise and general in
formulation, though there is one sura which later became the basis for the legal
regulation of the status of non-Muslims. According to sura 9:29, Muslims should
fight the People of the Book until they willingly pay a special tax (jizya).
These early regulations paved
the way for the later legalisation of non-Muslims’ status in the sharia (holy
law), a process that reached its peak during the Abbasid period (750-1258 CE).
The results for those affected can best be described as irritating and sometimes
unpleasant but basically bearable.
Indeed, the jizya was the only
law that had a practical impact on the lives of dhimmi. From the perspective of
medieval Muslim rulers, the dhimmi paid this tax out of choice, because the
option to convert to Islam, and so avoid the tax, remained open to them.
Medieval Islamic court documents indicate that the jizya was the only
dhimmi-specific law that Muslim rulers truly cared for.
In addition to the jizya, dhimmi
had to obey a number of additional rules that were supposed to govern their
public conduct. The rules were often suspended in practice but in theory they
included regulations such as “showing a respectful attitude towards Muslims” or
“when celebrating religious ceremonies, keeping the level of noise low”. Dhimmi
were also required to build houses lower than those of their Muslim neighbours,
to avoid dressing like Muslims and to ride on ‘inferior’ animals like mules and
donkeys rather than horses. In court, the word of a dhimmi witness counted less
than a Muslim male, putting dhimmi on an equal footing with Muslim women.
However, when the rules were
enforced they took on different shapes. According to the Mamluk period
(1250-1517 CE) historian Ibn Taghribirdi, for example, since the Muslims’
favourite colours were black, white and green, for their turbans the dhimmi of
Egypt were allocated a less solemn range of colours to choose from, including
yellow, red and blue. Yellow leather boots with one red and one black garter
were another item mentioned in the sources describing the medieval dhimmi
dress-code.
The tolerable but unpleasant
restrictions imposed on dhimmi revealed Muslim rulers’ ambivalent attitude
towards the “people of the book”. Despite the restrictions, dhimmi retained
considerable freedom and autonomy in administrating their own communal affairs.
They were free to practice their religion, own property and manage personal
status issues like marriage, death and inheritance. This relative tolerance
towards religious minorities in medieval Islamic societies was in marked
contrast to the fate of the Jews in medieval Christendom.
Even the rather petty Islamic
rule prohibiting the dhimmifrom building houses taller than those of Muslims
proves that religious minorities and Muslims lived on the same streets. In
practice, wealthy middle-eastern Christian merchants and courtiers often lived
in palaces which towered above the houses of poor Muslims. There were no
ghettoes or laws prohibiting the dhimmis from sharing urban space with Muslims.
Neither were there laws excluding dhimmis from pursuing certain careers.
Certainly, unpleasant jobs, such as the castration of eunuchs, were often
performed by the dhimmi, but generally all careers seem to have been open to
everyone.
The Ottoman mosaic
As for other members of medieval
Muslim societies, the situation of dhimmi depended on the political and economic
circumstances of the time. So, for example, in the early Ottoman empire, a
multi-religious society was divided into two sections, the askeri (army and
state officials) and raya (tax-paying population). The former group was
considered superior to the latter, but the distinction had nothing to do with
religion.
Indeed, the Ottomans designed
institutions specifically aimed at incorporating members of the dhimmi community
into the prestigious military and state system. One such institution, the
devshirme, recruited Christian boys for service in the court and army after they
converted to Islam. Historical evidence suggests that dhimmi boys were quite
keen on devshirme service and once inside the palace tried to help their own
friends and family members to join. The popularity and opportunities offered by
devshirme eventually brought about its downfall.
Being innovative and pragmatic,
the early Ottoman rulers also directly recruited non-Muslims into the army
without the requirement of religious conversion. During the conquest of the
Balkans, for example, non-Muslims were in charge of guarding fortresses. These
practices reveal that Muslim rulers could and did introduce institutions that
went against the restrictive dhimmirules of the sharia.
In this way, political and
economic circumstances as much as religious law shaped the situation of
non-Muslims in Muslim societies. But from the 16th century onwards, the Ottoman
empire underwent changes which affected the situation of the dhimmi, coming
under pressure from two rival states, the Shi’a Safavids to the east and the
Habsburgs to the west. At the same time, the Ottoman rulers conquered Mecca and
Medina. The new circumstances changed the character of their empire, which
became a conservative Sunni state. The sultans began to call themselves
Padishahi Islam, the ‘Kings of Islam’ and the army received the new designation
of askeri Islam, the ‘Army of Islam’. Subsequently, there were few new Christian
soldiers in the army.
Medieval equal opportunities
Nonetheless, outside of these
vacillating periods of orthodoxy, historical evidence reveals that there was
something like equal opportunity in medieval middle-eastern societies. Records
reveal that members of religious minority communities were engaged in diplomacy,
trading in rice and sugar or working as carpenters, for example.
Jewish and Christian physicians
were respected and often served in the Ottoman sultan’s court, their most
prominent patient being the sultan himself. One such physician was Hekim Yakub.
His reputation was such that a whole quarter of Istanbul was named after him.
Another Jewish high achiever was Yakub Mahallesi, who rose up to become vizir
(prime minister). The list of high flyers from the religious minorities includes
Rabbi Moses Capsali, the spiritual and political head of the Jewish community of
Istanbul; Rabbi Salto, a Sephardic Jewish fiscal administrator; Don Joseph Nasi,
banker, advisor and tax farmer who was given the title of Duke of Naxos by the
sultan; and his equally famous wife, Dona Reyna. These high achievers were
refugees, Sephardic Jews expelled from Europe by the Catholic Kings of Spain
after 1492.
A letter believed to have been
written in the early 15th century indicates that the Ottoman rulers encouraged
the migration of Jewish refugees to their realms. The letter was written by a
Rabbi Isaac Tsarfati and was addressed to the Jews of Europe, encouraging them
to move to the Ottoman domains.
Religious minority groups of the
Ottoman empire were given considerable freedom in administrating their communal
affairs. Each community had its own spiritual/political leaders who mediated
between the community and the state. In addition to their communal loyalties,
all members of society, regardless of their religion, owed allegiance to two
Ottoman officials, the head of their profession and the head of their
residential quarter. Religion was only one factor at work.
Historical evidence also shows
that sharia courts were used by both Muslims and Christians. In a clever legal
ploy, Christians in trouble tended to undergo a timely conversion to Islam in
order to escape the punishment of their own community. Evidence also reveals
that economic transactions were regularly carried out between Muslims and
Christians; sometimes Muslims and Christians jointly owned property or traded
together.
Of course, these facts do not
mean that Muslims, Jews and Christians lived in peace and harmony all the time.
The reality of dhimmi existence under Muslim rule was much more complex. It was
not a state of perfect harmony, but neither was it one typified by the absolute
intolerance of which Muslims are so often accused. It was, like modern western
multicultural cities, something between the two.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts-multiculturalism/article_2263.jsp
10:12 PM
Sultan Shahin
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