Islam,
so often seen as the West’s “Other” and depicted as a monocultural and
intolerant religion, itself has centuries of experience of hosting and
regulating a diverse cultural mosaic. Nushin Arbabzadah gazes through
history’s mirror.
In
recent European debates on multiculturalism, Muslims have often appeared as the
black sheep of the multicultural family. From the French schoolgirls who refuse
to remove their veils to the extremist who killed the Dutch filmmaker Theo van
Gogh, the symbolic—and at times violent—resistance of some Muslims to fully
“assimilate” into the European way of life has been interpreted as
multiculturalism gone wrong. As a result, politicians and social commentators
across Europe have been forced to review their understanding of
multiculturalism; a debate long assumed to be settled in its fundamentals is
reopened.
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.
Seen
from a contemporary Western perspective, medieval Muslim (no less than
Christian) societies can easily appear intolerant because they enshrine 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-Muslims
were generally referred in to in Arabic as Ahl Al-Dhimmah, 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 dhimmah is in the Constitution of Madinah and
states that “The dhimmah [the pact guaranteeing security and
protection] of God is one.” This implies that all the people of Madinah—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 surahs (chapters) in the
Qur’an in which reference is made to the status of non-Muslims. These surahs
are also imprecise and general in formulation, though there is one surah that
later became the basis for the legal regulation of the status of non-Muslims.
According to Surat At-Tawbah (9:29), Muslims should fight the People of the Book
until they willingly pay a special tax or tribute (jizyah).
These
early regulations paved the way for the later legalization of non-Muslims’
status in the Shari`ah (Islamic 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 jizyah 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 jizyah
was the only dhimmi-specific law that Muslim rulers truly cared for.
In
addition to the jizyah, 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 neighbors, 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’ favorite colors were black, white, and green, for their turbans, the
dhimmi of Egypt were allocated a less solemn range of colors 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 the 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 dhimmi from 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 that 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 any 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 dhimmi rules of the
Shari`ah.
In
this way, political and economic circumstances shaped the situation of
non-Muslims in Muslim societies as much as religious law. From the 16th century
onwards, coming under pressure from two rival states—the Shiite Safavids to
the East and the Habsburgs to the West—the Ottoman Empire underwent changes
that affected the situation of the dhimmi. At the same time, the Ottoman rulers
conquered Makkah and Madinah. 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 fewer 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 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 and
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 Shari`ah 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 and 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; 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.
* This
article was first published on openDemocracy.net.
** Nushin
Arbabzadah grew up in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. She studied at
Hamburg and Cambridge universities and has edited an anthology of contemporary
journalistic writing from the Islamic world, No Ordinary Life: Being Young
in the Worlds of Islam.
