Pact of Umar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Views: |
The Pact (Covenant) of Umar (c. 717 A.D.) is a treaty edicted by the eponymous second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab for the ahl al-kitab (اهل الكتاب) ("people of the Book") living on the lands newly conquered by Muslims. Those people, called dhimmis (ذمي), had to follow some discriminatory rules in exchange for not converting to Islam. The Pact of Umar enumerates in detail many of the conditions of their subjugation, and served as a key foundational text in the legal elaboration of dhimmi status during the classical period of Islamic jurisprudence.
Contents |
[edit] Conditions
The Pact of Umar is a fundamental document in prescribing the condition of tolerated "People of the Book" (Jews and Christians) living within Muslim-controlled states.
Dhimmi are granted the right to practice their own religious rites in privacy. The protection of their persons and property was also part of the pact but the punishment for infringement was less severe than for a Muslim. During aberrant fundamentalist movements, these rights varied or did not apply.
To secure their rights, dhimmi would pledge loyalty to their Muslim rulers, pay a special poll-tax (the jizya) for adult males, and in general show deference and humility to Muslims in social interactions.
While the conditions of the Pact were authoritative, the level of enforcement varied, as shown by the existence of churches constructed long after the Muslim conquests.
ARTICLES OF THE PACT OF UMAR
We Christians:
1 - We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries,
2 - churches,
3 - convents,
4 - or monks' cells,
5 - nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins
6 - or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims. . . .
7- We shall not give shelter in our churches or in our dwellings to any spy,
8 - nor hide him from the Muslims. We shall not teach the Quran to our children.
9 - We shall not manifest our religion publicly
10 - nor convert anyone to it.
11 - We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it.
12 - We shall show respect toward the Muslims, and
13 - we shall rise from our seats if they wish to sit.
14 - We shall not seek to resemble the Muslims by imitating any of their garments, the headgear, the turban, footwear, or the parting of the hair.
15 - We shall not speak as they do,
16 - nor shall we adopt their honorific names.
17 - We shall not mount on saddles,
18- nor shall we gird swords nor bear any kind of arms nor carry them on our persons.
19 - We shall not engrave Arabic inscriptions on our seals.
20 - We shall not sell fermented drinks. (i.e. Alcohol)
21 - We shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the Muslims.
22 - We shall only use clappers in our churches very softly.
23 - We shall not raise our voices in our church services or in the presence of Muslims,
24 - nor shall we raise our voices when following our dead.
25 - We shall not show lights on any of the roads of the Muslims or in their markets.
26 - We shall not bury our dead near the Muslims.
27 - We shall not take slave who have been allotted to the Muslims.
28 - We shall not build houses over-topping the houses of the Muslims.
It shall be noted here that although these conditions might seem harsh or unjust, in context of that time, they were very reasonable instructions, and Christians did not feel ofended by them.
[edit] Historicity
Modern scholars have questioned the authenticity of this agreement (which exists in several different textual forms), 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:
- Although the documents are attributed to `Umar, in all probability they actually come from the second Islamic century, and although they may reflect some of the policies and attitudes towards the conquered population which began to become evident in the period of the Umayyad caliph `Umar ibn `Abd al-`Azìz... the texts were only collected in the form in which they exist today sometime after that. "The covenant was drawn up in the schools of law, and came to be ascribed, like so much else, to `Umar I."
- (Goddard, p. 46)
Scholars have also argued that the Pact may have direct pre-Islamic inspiration:
- It has recently been suggested that many of the detailed regulations concerning what the ahl al-dhimma were and were not permitted to do come from an earlier historical precedent, namely the regulations which existed in the Sassanian Persian Empire with reference to its religious minorities in Iraq. Here the was a highly developed Jewish community, and separate Monophysite and Nestorian Christian communities, and during the late Sassanian period the rulers experimented with arrangements by which efforts were made to ensure the loyalty of the population by granting military protection and some degree of religious toleration in return for the payment of taxes.
- (Goddard p. 47)
[edit] Text
The text exists in several different forms, one of them a letter from a community of Christians to Umar, enumerating in retrospect the conditions of their pact. One version of this letter may be found here.
Another version was transmitted by the tenth-century Muslim historian, al-Tabari:
In the name of God, the Merciful Benefactor! This is the guarantee granted the inhabitants of Aelia by the servant of God Umar, Commander of the Believers. He grants them the surety of their persons, their goods, their churches, their crosses - whether these are in a good or bad condition - and the cult in general. Their churches will not be expropriated for residences nor destroyed; they and their annexes will suffer no harm and the same will be true of their crosses and their goods. No constraint will be imposed upon them in the matter of religion and no one of them will be annoyed. No Jew will be authorized to live in Jerusalem with them. The inhabitants of Jerusalem will pay the poll-tax in the same manner as those in other cities. It will be left to them to expel from their city the Byzantines and the brigands. Those of the latter who leave will have safe-conduct. Those who wish to stay will be authorized to do so, on condition of paying the same poll-tax as the residents of Aelia. Those among the inhabitants of Aelia who wish to leave with the Byzantines, take with them their goods, leave behind their churches and their crosses, will likewise have safe-conduct for themselves, their churches, and their crosses. [...]
—al-Tabari, Annals I, 2405
[edit] References
- Hugh Goddard (2000). A History of Christian-Muslim Relations. Chicago: New Amsterdam Books. ISBN 1-56663-340-0.
- A. S. Tritton (1930). The Caliphs and their non-Muslim Subjects: a Critical Study of the Covenant of `Umar. London: Frank Cass Publisher. ISBN 0-7146-1996-5.
