( , "protected person", , collectively /, "protected people") is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with certain legal protections and restrictions. The word literally means "protected person", referring to the state's obligation under sharia to protect the individual's life, property, as well as freedom of religion, in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax, in contrast to the zakat, or obligatory alms, paid by the Muslim subjects. Dhimmi were forbidden to bear arms and so did not perform military service and other privileges assigned specifically to Muslims. They were required to pay the poll tax (jizya) but had certain rights under the laws of property, contract, and obligation.H. Patrick Glenn, Legal Traditions of the World. Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 219.The French scholar Gustave Le Bon (the author of La civilisation des Arabes) writes "that despite the fact that the incidence of taxation fell more heavily on a Muslim than a non-Muslim, the non-Muslim was free to enjoy equally well with every Muslim all the privileges afforded to the citizens of the state. The only privilege that was reserved for the Muslims was the seat of the caliphate, and this, because of certain religious functions attached to it, which could not naturally be discharged by a non-Muslim." Mun'im Sirry (2014), Scriptural Polemics: The Qur'an and Other Religions, p. 179. Oxford University Press. .
Dhimmis were subject to specific restrictions as well, which were codified in agreements like the Pact of Umar. These included prohibitions on building new places of worship, repairing existing ones in areas where Muslims lived, teaching children the Quran, and preventing relatives from converting to Islam. Depending on specific areas and periods, Dhimmis were also restricted in the professions they could engage in, limited in travelling outside of specific areas, owning property, and were periodically exposed to forced conversions and massacres. They were also required to wear a yellow badge or other distinctive clothing, refrain from carrying weapons, and avoid riding on saddles.
History Historically, dhimmi status was originally applied to Jews, Christians, and Sabians, who are considered "People of the Book" in Islamic theology. Later, this status was also applied to Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists.
Jews, Christians, and others were required to pay the jizyah, and forced conversions were forbidden.Waines (2003) "An Introduction to Islam" Cambridge University Press. p. 53Winter, T. J., & Williams, J. A. (2002). Understanding Islam and the Muslims: The Muslim Family Islam and World Peace. Louisville, Kentucky: Fons Vitae. p. 82. . Quote: The laws of Muslim warfare forbid any forced conversions, and regard them as invalid if they occur. Despite this nominal prohibition, instances of forced conversion are well-documented.
During the rule of al-Mutawakkil, the tenth Abbasid Caliph, numerous restrictions reinforced the second-class citizen status of dhimmīs and forced their communities into ghettos. For instance, they were required to distinguish themselves from their Muslim neighbors by their dress.The Torah itself set forth rules for dress that set Jews apart from the communities in which they lived.Eric Silverman, A Cultural History of Jewish Dress, A&C Black, 2013 pp. 47, xv, 24:'At 2 Maccabees 4:12 it is recorded that the Maccabees slaughtered Jewish youths guilty of Hellenizing in wearing caps typical of Greek youths. The first of the other Abrahamic religions to impose a distinctive mode of dress on Jews was Islam, beginning with decrees set forth by the Abbasid caliph Al-Mutawakkil obliging non-Muslims (dhimmis) to wear distinctive marks, – buttons on their caps, patches on their sleeves, and generally honey-coloured garbs, – on their clothing in order to mark them off from members of the Muslim communities.'; ‘a twelfth century [Christian] synod decreed the first of many edicts which required Jews to don peculiar garb. These outfits marked Jews as Otherly-to be shunned, despised, …and sometimes murdered… . But Jews also dressed differently in premodern Europe because their rabbis understood any emulation of non-Jews as a violation of the divine law as revealed by God to Moses atop Mount Sinai. The Five Books of Moses, after all, together called the Torah, clearly specify that Jews must adhere to a particular dress code-modesty, for example, and fringes. The very structure of the cosmos demanded nothing less. Clothing, too, served as a "fence" that protected Jews from the profanities and pollutions of the non-Jewish societies in which they dwelled. From this angle, Jews dressed distinctively as God's elect.' They were not permitted to build new churches or synagogues or repair old churches without Muslim consent according to the Pact of Umar.
Under Sharia, the dhimmi communities were usually governed by their own laws in place of some of the laws applicable to the Muslim community. For example, the Jewish community of Medina was allowed to have its own Halakhic courts, and the Ottoman millet system allowed its various dhimmi communities to rule themselves under separate legal courts. These courts did not cover cases that involved religious groups outside of their own communities, or capital offences. Dhimmi communities were also allowed to engage in certain practices that were usually forbidden for the Muslim community, such as the consumption of alcohol and pork.Al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveler (edited and translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller), p. 608. Amana Publications, 1994.Al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveler (ed. and trans. Nuh Ha Mim Keller), pp. 977, 986. Amana Publications, 1994.
Some Muslims reject the dhimma system by arguing that it is a system which is inappropriate in the age of nation-states and democracies."[…] the overwhelming majority of moderate Muslims reject the dhimma system as ahistorical, in the sense that it is inappropriate for the age of nation-states and democracies." There is a range of opinions among 20th-century and contemporary Islamic theologians about whether the notion of dhimma is appropriate for modern times, and, if so, what form it should take in an Islamic state.
There are differences among the Islamic Madhhabs regarding which non-Muslims can pay jizya and have dhimmi status. The Hanafi and Maliki Madhabs generally allow non-Muslims to have dhimmi status. In contrast, the Shafi'i and Hanbali Madhabs only allow Christians, Unitarians, Jews, Sabeans and Zoroastrians to have dhimmi status, and they maintain that all other non-Muslims must either convert to Islam or be fought.
The "Dhimma contract" Based on Quranic verses and Islamic traditions, sharia law distinguishes between Muslims, followers of other Abrahamic religions, and Pagans or people belonging to other polytheistic religions. As monotheists, Jews and Christians have traditionally been considered "People of the Book", and afforded a special legal status known as dhimmi derived from a theoretical contract—"dhimma" or "residence in return for taxes". Islamic legal systems based on sharia law incorporated the religious laws and courts of Christians, Jews, and Hindus, as seen in the early caliphate, al-Andalus, Indian subcontinent, and the Ottoman millet system.
In Yemenite Jewish sources, a treaty was drafted between Muhammad and his Jewish subjects, known as kitāb ḏimmat al-nabi, written in the 17th year of the Hijra (638 CE), which gave express liberty to the Jews living in Arabia to observe the Sabbath and to grow-out their side-locks, but required them to pay the jizya (poll-tax) annually for their protection.Shelomo Dov Goitein, The Yemenites – History, Communal Organization, Spiritual Life (Selected Studies), editor: Menahem Ben-Sasson, Jerusalem 1983, pp. 288–299. Muslim governments in the Indus basin readily extended the dhimmi status to the Hindus and Buddhists of India.Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam Conscience and History in a World Civilization Vol 2. University of Chicago, 1958, p. 278. Eventually, the largest school of Islamic jurisprudence applied this term to all Non-Muslims living in Muslim lands outside the sacred area surrounding Mecca, Arabia.al-Misri, Ahmad ibn Naqib (edited and translated from Arabic (with commentary) by Nuh Ha Mim Keller) (1994 revised ed.), p. 603.
In medieval Islamic societies, the qadi (Islamic judge) usually could not interfere in the matters of non-Muslims unless the parties voluntarily chose to be judged according to Islamic law, thus the dhimmi communities living in Islamic states usually had their own laws independent from the sharia law, as with the Jews who would have their own rabbinical courts. These courts did not cover cases that involved other religious groups, or capital offences or threats to public order. By the 18th century, however, dhimmi frequently attended the Ottoman Muslim courts, where cases were taken against them by Muslims, or they took cases against Muslims or other dhimmi. Oaths sworn by dhimmi in these courts were tailored to their beliefs. Non-Muslims were allowed to engage in certain practices (such as the consumption of alcohol and pork) that were usually forbidden by Islamic law, in point of fact, any Muslim who pours away their wine or forcibly appropriates it is liable to pay compensation. Some Islamic theologians held that Zoroastrian "self-marriages", considered incestuous under sharia, should also be tolerated. Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1292–1350) opined that most scholars of the Hanbali school held that non-Muslims were entitled to such practices, as long as they were not presented to sharia courts and the religious minorities in question held them to be permissible. This ruling was based on the precedent that there were no records of the Islamic prophet Muhammad forbidding such self-marriages among Zoroastrians, despite coming into contact with Zoroastrians and knowing about this practice.Jackson, Sherman A. (2005). p. 144 (via Google Books). Retrieved 19 September 2011. Religious minorities were also free to do as they wished in their own homes, provided they did not publicly engage in illicit sexual activity in ways that could threaten public morals.Jackson, Sherman A. (2005). p. 145 (via Google Books). Retrieved 19 September 2011.
There are parallels for this in Roman and Jewish law.Glenn, H. Patrick (2007). Legal Traditions of the World: Sustainable Diversity in Law (3rd edition). New York City; Oxford: Oxford University Press. . pp. 217–219. According to law professor H. Patrick Glenn of McGill University, "[t]oday it is said that the dhimmi are 'excluded from the specifically Muslim privileges, but on the other hand they are excluded from the specifically Muslim duties' while (and here there are clear parallels with western public and private law treatment of aliens—Fremdenrecht, la condition de estrangers), '[f]or the rest, the Muslim and the dhimmi are equal in practically the whole of the law of property and of contracts and obligations'."Glenn, H. Patrick (2007). Legal Traditions of the World&: Sustainable Diversity in Law (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford: Oxford University Press. . p. 219. Quoting the Qur'anic statement, "Let Christians judge according to what We have revealed in the Gospel", Muhammad Hamidullah writes that Islam decentralized and "communalized" law and justice. However, the classical dhimma contract is no longer enforced. Western influence over the Muslim world has been instrumental in eliminating the restrictions and protections of the dhimma contract.
The Dhimma contract and Sharia law