The Dhimma Pact… in the Custody of History
The “Dhimma pact” is among the concepts most frequently misused in debates about Islam, freedom of expression, and coexistence.
Between those who present it as an advanced system of protection for its time and those who reduce it to an image of humiliation and discrimination, the balanced historical reading has been lost, replaced by contemporary projections that belong neither to the context of the experience nor to its historical conditions.
The Dhimma Pact in Its Historical Context
The Dhimma pact emerged during a period in which states defined themselves on a religious or ethnic basis, and the concept of “equal citizenship” had not yet taken shape in any civilization.
Within this context, the Dhimma pact was an attempt to regulate the relationship between a state grounded in an Islamic reference and the various religious communities living within it.
The objective was neither to eliminate the other nor to compel them to change their beliefs, but rather to define rights and obligations within a single political framework.
Protection Before Taxation
A paradox often overlooked is that the Dhimma pact was not merely a financial obligation but a contract of protection.
Under this pact, the state committed itself to:
• protecting life and property,
• safeguarding places of worship,
• and refraining from interfering in private religious affairs.
As for the jizya, it was not a punishment for belief but a counterpart to exemption from military service at a time when warfare was considered an obligation imposed on Muslims alone.
Where Did the Problem Begin?
The problem did not lie in the original contract but in some of its later applications.
When the state weakened and religion was transformed into a tool of discrimination, the balance between rights and duties was disrupted. What had been a system of protection was turned into a practice of exclusion.
Here, it becomes necessary to distinguish between the principle and the misapplication.
The Dhimma Pact and Freedom of Expression
Most importantly in this context, the Dhimma pact did not abolish freedom of belief nor the freedom of religious expression for non-Muslims.
Rather, it allowed for the existence of religious and intellectual diversity within the Islamic state at a time when exclusion was the prevailing rule across most parts of the world, particularly in Europe.
Why Is the Pact Invoked Today?
Today it is often invoked not to understand it, but to employ it.
Either to condemn Islam wholesale, or to justify discriminatory practices that belong neither to the spirit of the age nor to the objectives of the religious texts.
In both cases, history is reduced and meaning is appropriated.
What Do We Learn from This Experience?
We learn that:
• historical concepts cannot be read outside their time,
• they cannot be used to justify contemporary injustice,
• nor can they be condemned without understanding their context.
Most importantly, Islam in its early experience did not build coexistence with the other upon coercion, but upon contract.
The Dhimma pact itself has become a matter of history since the emergence of the modern state of citizenship, when Christians and Muslims jointly defended the homeland, expelled the colonizer, and established the modern nation-state.
At that point, the conditions of the pact collapsed and it entered the domain of history. Any political attempt to revive it by any side is therefore a tendentious invocation serving a purely political purpose, unrelated to an objective evaluation of the concept.
In the Next Installment
In the next installment, we will move to a more sensitive question and ask:
Freedom of opinion and expression during the Umayyad and Abbasid eras… flourishing or restriction?
To be continued.
Cairo: Five o’clock in the evening, Cairo time.
