Dhimma

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Dhimma (“Protection (Treaty)”, “Custody”, “Guarantee”, “Payment Obligation”) is an institution of Islamic law that establishes the legal status of non-Muslim “protective commanders” under Islamic rule. The definition of and the legal treatment of guardians arose in the Islamic law of war and foreigners in the second Muslim century (8th century AD) and discussed in the branch of legal literature developed from it.

Such a protective alliance was originally reserved only for Jews, Christians and Sabeans. In the course of Islamic expansion, however, the offer of dhimma was also extended to other religious communities, such as the Zoroastrians or the Hindus, so that all non-Muslims were ultimately able to conclude a dhimma treaty with the Muslim conquerors. This contract was accompanied by the payment of the jizya. The treatment of non-Muslim subjects under Islamic rule varied depending on place, time and ruler. (see below: #Legal status of dhimmis in Sharia)

Since the emergence of nation-states in the Islamic world, each with a different scope of Sharia law in their legislatures, the legal status of dhimmi has either been abandoned or modified in the present.

The term dhimma appears in a confrontation of Muhammad with the polytheists of Mecca in verses 8 and 10 of the 9th Sura in the meaning of “binding” and “obligation”. In some of Muhammad’s epistles to the Arab tribes and Christian communities, the “Dhimma of God and His Messenger” is assured in conversion to Islam.

Definition of “Dhimmi”
In the Islamic legal tradition, dhimmi are monotheists who have been tolerated with limited legal status and protected by the state. All people who were neither Muslims nor dhimmis were called Harbī ("belonging to the war"), peoples with whom the House of Islam was at war.

In the Quran, the following non-Muslim religious communities are mentioned: Jews (al-yahūd or banū Isrāʾīl = "the children of Israel"), Christians (an-naṣārā), the Zoroastrians (al-majūs), Sabier (aṣ-ṣābiʾa), the Mandaeans and polytheists (al-mušrikūn). Those who possessed sacred books already in the pre-Islamic period, i.e., the Torah (at-tawrāt), the Psalms (az-zabūr) and the Gospel (al-injul – always in the singular), are the ahl al-kitāb, the “People of the Scriptures”. “The children of Israel” are mentioned both in the context of the biblical history of Judaism and in reference to the Jews around Muhammad, while the term al-yahūd is used in the Quran only for the Jews of Medina and surroundings with whom Muhammad had contacts. In Islamic jurisprudence, when describing the treatment of guardians, only the designation al-ya