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A Dhimmi, or Zimmi (Arabic ذمي), as defined in classical Islamic legal and political literature, is a person living in a Muslim state who is a member of an officially tolerated non-Islamic religion. The term literally means person of the dhimma, the security treaty signed with the Muslim state.

Background

The Arabic word "dhimmi" is an adjective derived from the noun "dhimma", which means "being in the care of" or . The term initially applied to "People of the Book" living in lands under Muslim rule, namely Jews and Christians. Over time Muslims extended this category to Zoroastrians, Mandeans, and Sikhs. Many, but not all, extend this to Hindus.

Traditional Arab historiography traces the origin of the dhimma to the Pact of Umar , allegedly drawn up by the second caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab. Modern historian Hugh Goddard disputes the authenticity of the Pact of Umar, claiming it to be the product of later jurists who attributed it to the caliph Umar in order to lend greater authority to their own opinions.

The mediaeval Quranic commentator Ibn Kathir justified the dhimma in terms of Sura 9:29 of the Qur'an, which calls Muslims to fight against the People of the Book until they pay the jizya head tax and are humbled.. In his classic commentary on the Qur'an, he comments as follows on Sura 9:29:

"Allah said 'until they pay the jizyah' - if they do not choose to embrace Islam; 'with willing submission' - in defeat and subservience; 'and feel themselves subdued' - disgraced, humiliated and belittled. Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of the dhimmah or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced and humiliated."

Modern vs. customary practice

The religious and legal views on the status of dhimmis have historically been a practical issue, but today have become a purely theoretical or theological issue for many Muslim societies. Few if any countries currently have a separate, legally-defined status for dhimmis. Certain Islamist organizations such as Al Qaeda, Taliban, Hamas, and Hizb ut-Tahrir seek to make Islamic law, including dhimma status, applicable in Muslim-majority states.

Some Muslim authors present the dhimmi as being equal to Muslims. For example:

"Islam does not permit discrimination in the treatment of other human beings on the basis of religion or any other criteria... it emphasises neighborliness and respect for the ties of relationship with non-Muslims ...within this human family, Jews and Christians, who share many beliefs and values with Muslims, constitute what Islam terms Ahl al-Kitab, that is, People of the Scripture, and hence Muslim have a special relationship to them as fellow 'Scriptuaries'."

Others present the dhimmi as being second-class citizens.:

"In a country ruled by Muslim authorities, a non-Muslim is guaranteed his freedom of faith... Muslims are forbidden from obliging a non-Muslim to embrace Islam, but he should pay the tribute to Muslims readily and submissively, surrender to Islamic laws, and should not practise his polytheistic rituals openly."

Sayyed Al-Qimni has criticized books used in the curriculum at Al-Azhar University in Cairo and other Islamic universities for teaching that dhimmis should be degraded. For example: "If a dhimmi invites a Muslim to a wedding celebration, he must not go, 'because one must degrade dhimmis...'" 2

Bernard Lewis comments:

Two stereotypes dominate most of what has been written on tolerance and intolerance in the Islamic world. The first depicts a fanatical warrior, an Arab horseman riding out of the desert with a sword in one hand and the Qur'an in the other, offering his victims the choice between the two. This picture is not only false but impossible . The other image, almost equally preposterous, is that of an interfaith, interracial utopia, in which men and women belonging to different races, professing different creeds, lived side by side in a golden age of unbroken harmony, enjoying equality of rights and of opportunities, and toiling together for the advancement of civilization. Both images are of course wildly distorted; yet both contain, as stereotypes often do, some elements of truth. Two features they have in common are that they are relatively recent, and that they are of Western and not Islamic origin.

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 rank of a full member of society was restricted to free male Muslims. Those who lacked any of these three essential qualifications -- that is, the slave, the woman or the unbeliever -- were not equal. The three basic inequalities of master and slave, man and woman, believer and unbeliever, were not merely admitted; they were established and regulated by holy law.

Status of Dhimmis

Rights:

Protection of life, wealth and honor by the Muslim state (even against other co-religionist states)
Right to reside in Muslim lands
Right of worship according to their own religion
Right to choose their own religious leaders (patriarchs for Christians, exilarchs and geonim for Jews)
- Subject to the approval of the Muslim authorities, who sometimes blocked candidates or took the side of the party that offered the larger bribe
- In Saudi Arabia, where no religion apart from Islam is officially recognized, this right is moot
Right to work and trade
Right not to be enslaved
- Not always respected, as the application of the devshirmeh under the Ottomans demonstrates
- Void, should the dhimmi rebel

Exemptions:

Exemption from paying zakat "alms to the poor"
Exemption from military service
Exemptions from religious duties and laws specific to Muslims

Obligations:

Paying jizyah (a poll tax applied to non-muslims)
Paying kharaj (a land tax applied initially to dhimmis but extended in the early 8th century to cover certain classes of land regardless of the cultivator's religion)

Restrictions

A dhimmi male is prohibited from marrying a Muslim woman.
A dhimmi woman may marry a Muslim, yet their children are automatically Muslim and as such under penalty of death prohibited from taking their mother's religion.
No building new non-Muslim houses of worship, expanding, or repairing existing locations, even if they fall in ruin
No displaying non-Muslim symbols on the outside of their existing houses of worship
No praying non-Muslim prayers loudly
No performing non-Muslim rituals in a manner visible to Muslims
No wearing symbols of non-Muslim faith on clothing
No preaching non-Muslim faiths in public
No publishing or sale of non-Muslim religious literature
No asking Muslims to join them in worship (see proselytization)
Inequality in legal matters:
- Dhimmi testimony not accepted in courts
- Death penalty for dhimmis who kill Muslims, but fines for Muslims who kill dhimmis (but see Death Penalty below)

Other points: Later legislation in the Sharia codified the rule that Jews and Christians were forbidden to blaspheme with respect to the Qur'an, the religion of Islam, or Muhammad. Jews and Christians were also forbidden to ask Muslims to join their faith, but Muslims were allowed to ask Jews and Christians to convert to Islam (see proselytization). Violation of these rules could invoke the death sentence.

Dhimmis were sometimes subject to other restrictions. Each of the following were forbidden to dhimmis at some point somewhere in the world:

Holding public office
- In reality, many non-Muslims held high positions in Muslim states, including Samuel ha-Nagid in Spain, as well as others in Egypt, Iraq, and the Ottoman Empire
Bearing weapons
Riding camels or horses (also rarely enforced)
Building houses of worship higher than mosques
Mourning loudly
Dressing in the same way that Muslims dressed
- Dress codes, such as requiring all members of a given religion to wear a particular colour turban or other distinguishing clothing, were sometimes—but not always—enforced, so that dhimmis would be visibly distinct from Muslims; the practice is not found in the Qur'an or hadith

Death penalty

Schools of Islamic jurisprudencehave varied rulings for a Jew or Christian who convicted of killing a Muslim, & a Muslim who is convicted of killing a Jew or Christian.

The following are different ahadeeth & traditions that support these views:

"I asked 'Ali 'Do you have anything Divine literature besides what is in the Qur'an?' Or, as Uyaina once said, 'Apart from what the people have?' 'Ali said, 'By Him Who made the grain split (germinate) and created the soul, we have nothing except what is in the Qur'an and the ability (gift) of understanding Allah's Book which He may endow a man with, and what is written in this sheet of paper.' I asked, 'What is on this paper?' He replied, 'The legal regulations of Diya (Blood-money) and the (ransom for) releasing of the captives, and the judgment that no Muslim should be killed in Qisas (equality in punishment) for killing a Kafir (disbeliever)'."

As does this text from Sunan of Abu-Dawood (Hadith 2745; Narrated by Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-'As), which states:

"The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) said: ... A believer shall not be killed for an unbeliever, nor a confederate within the term of confederation with him."

While this point of view is indeed present in Islamic jurisprudence, it is not the only interpretation, nor has it been the practice over most of Muslim history. There is a hadith (narrated in Abdul Razzaq and Al Baihaqi) which states that Muhammad ordered the execution of a Muslim because he killed a dhimmi. This hadith's authenticity is disputed. Ali would have ordered an execution in a similar case had the dhimmi victim's brother not asked that the Muslim not be executed. Ali said: "Those who have our dhimma have their blood equal to ours ... ". Moreover, Umar II ordered his regional governors to execute those who kill any dhimmis.

This view is adopted by the Maliki and Hanafi schools, as well as many other jurists, such as Al Laith Ibn Saad, Al Sha'bi, Ibn Abi Laila, and Al Nakh'i.

Some Islamic states followed the latter interpretation, as during Ali's and Umar II's reigns, and in the Ottoman Empire until its end in 1924.

Notes

Haneef, Suzanne. What everyone should know about Islam and Muslims, Kazi Publications, Lahore, 1979, p. 173
Abdul Rahman Ben Hammad Al-Omar, The Religion of Truth, Riyadh, General Presidency of Islamic Researches, 1991, p. 86.
Lewis, 1984, p. 3
Stillman, 1979, pp. 37–39
Lewis, 1950, pp. 77–78

References

Choksy, Jamsheed. Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society (New York, 1997)
Duran, Khalid; Hechiche, Abdelwahab. Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Islam for Jews (Ktav, 2001)
Gardet, Louis. La Cite Musulmane: Vie sociale et politique (Paris: Etudes musulmanes, 1954), p. 348.
Lewis, Bernard. The Jews of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984)
Lewis, Bernard. The Arabs in History (London: Hutchinson's University Library, 1950)
Stillman, Norman. The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979)
Ye'or, Bat. The Dhimmi (NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985), pp. 43-44.
Ye'or, Bat. Islam and Dhimmitude. Where Civilizations Collide (Madison/Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/Associated University Presses, 2003)
Ye'or, Bat. The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam. From Jihad to Dhimmitude. Seventh-Twentieth Century (Madison/Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/Associated University Presses, 1996)
Encyclopedia Judaica, Keter Publishing

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