Dhimma Agreements and Sanctuary Systems at Islamic Origins PDF

Dhimma Agreements and Sanctuary
Systems at Islamic Origins

Sarah Mirza, College of Wooster
Introduction lated as “protection,” with non-Muslim groups liv-

ing under Muslim rule, and couples the term with
Although there are no surviving physical documents
personal status, the poll tax, and humiliation.2 The
from the time of the Prophet Muḥammad, early Is-
term dhimma occurs in a relatively standardized for-
lamic narrative sources claim that he authored several
mula in the Prophet’s documents whose most basic
hundred pragmatic texts. These include tax records,
form reads: inna lahum dhimmat Allāh wa dhimmat
sale documents, and diplomatic letters, the texts of
rasūlihi (“They have the security of God and of his
which are reported in later medieval works. What
Messenger”). This is accompanied by expressions of
makes these reported texts interesting is that they are
specific securities granted to the addressees, including
concise and contain little to no narrative or theological
inviolability of areas of land, freedom from invasion,
material. It is their structural elements—the formulaic
and tax exemptions. The formula fits most comfort-
phrases used to open the text, state the business, frame
ably in the category of a clause granting personal in-
a legal relationship, and close the text—that can allow
violability within a political confederation. In several
us to use them as historical evidence for pre-existing
cases, it is used in documents that establish security
socio-legal practices.1
between groups within a mutually recognized system
In 1975, Ziauddin Ahmed and Ziauddin Ahmad
of sanctuaries. This is most obvious when the formula
noted that these documents attributed to the Prophet
was used in defensive alliances such as the “Constitu-
provide evidence for the extension of the same or
tion of Medina,” and those that sanctified areas of
similar legal relationships to both Muslims and non-
Medina and al-Ṭāʾif. These documents state custom-
Muslims. One of their examples is the distinction be-
ary rules of ḥaram (sanctuary) and ḥimā (inviolable
tween the use of the term dhimma in the Prophet’s
pasture) which prohibit bloodshed and other crimes
documents as contrasted to the classical Islamic legal
within an area.
formulation that associates this term, usually trans-
1
I would like to thank the organizers and participants of the
workshop, “Holistic Approaches to the Study of Early Islam and the 2
Ziauddin Ahmed and Ziauddin Ahmad, “The Concept of Jizya
Late Antique World” (Indiana University, April 2016) where this in Early Islam,” Islamic Studies 14/4 (1975): 296–97. For the classi-
paper was first presented; Colin Cortbus and Lisa W. Crothers for cal legal formulation of dhimma as a status, including the particular
their assistance and input on various stages of this project; and the arguments of al-Shāfiʿī and Abū Yūsuf, see Yohanan Friedmann,
anonymous reviewers for their careful reading, and their invaluable “Dhimma,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 3rd Edition, Section 3, ed. K.
corrections and suggestions. Fleet et al. (Leiden, 2007–): 87–91.
[JNES 77 no. 1 (2018)] © 2018 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022–2968/2018/7701–0009$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/696536
99
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100 F Journal of Near Eastern Studies
The use of the dhimmat Allāh formula in the tuaries, markets, rights to pasturage, tribute, and di-
Prophet’s documents thus tells us very little about the plomacy. Tracing a formula in its particular iterations
development of confessional identities, which appear within these agreements allows us to investigate the
irrelevant in the formation of dhimma agreements. socio-legal infrastructures it which it was embedded.
Instead, the documents allow an exploration of the At the same time, locating analogous or related legal
culture and typology of security contracts available formulae in documentary and archaeological evidence
in late antique Arabia. Looking only at this “docu- may reveal precedents for these formulae and the legal
mentary” use of the dhimmat Allāh formula reveals relationships to which they allude. This broadens our
that it is a formula blind to confessional identity, as it understanding of the consequences of these agree-
occurs within agreements made between the Prophet ments attributed to the Prophet, and allows us to de-
and groups retaining their religion; as well as between termine factors other than confessional identity that
those entering Islam, Bedouin tribes conceding to po- may have been at stake. What follows is not an argu-
litical domination, and groups agreeing to peace or ment for the nature of the Prophet’s role or activity,
petitioning for safe-conduct or rights to land. Indeed, but for the historical value of texts found in literary
the majority of these documents do not reference the sources that post-date him. The intention is to widen
confessional identities of the addressees at all, and the horizon of what we can do with this material other
the religious affiliation of many of these groups who than tracing the contours of the Prophet’s historical
negotiated with the Prophet remains uncertain. This role. These texts provide evidence for a continuity of
includes uncertainty over the meaning of the verbal Islamic origins with pre-Islamic socio-legal infrastruc-
noun islām when it occurs in the documents. The for- tures, rather than for the creation of new law. The
mula is thus part of a culture of negotiation, illustrat- real protagonist in this history of the dhimmat Allāh
ing how these groups affiliated themselves, and how formula is Arabian customary law.
they both bound and loosened ties within a network
of several identities at play, in which religion may have
Legal formulae as historical evidence
played but a minor role.
These documents should not be seen as unam- The documents of the Prophet, which occur as in-
biguously tracing the boundaries of later religious af- serted material in historical compilations, should
filiations. Instead, older epigraphic evidence is more not be viewed simply as ancillary to narratives of the
instructive here. Formulaic parallels for the dhimmat Prophet’s life and to the development of early Islam.
Allāh formula in the Prophet’s documents can be Although the texts of these agreements are found in
seen in statements of political confederation under a literary sources only, their formulaic content is rather
deity and the inviolability of customary law in ancient consistent, both across the various documents as-
Arabia. The dhimmat Allāh formula in the Prophet’s cribed to the Prophet and various redactions of the
documents needs to be contextualized in relation to same. The language of the documents, as provided
the laws of sanctuary in late antique Arabia. Sīra- by such early sources as Ibn Isḥāq (d. 151/760), al-
maghāzī literature retains hints of this infrastructure Wāqidī (d. 207/823), Ibn Saʿd (d. 230/845), Abū
of sanctuary systems and the Prophet’s participation ʿUbayd (d. 224/830), al-Balādhurī (d. 279/892),
in it. Security within a network of sanctuary systems is and al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), is distinctive from that
the most appropriate socio-legal context in which to of the historical reports (akhbār) in which they are
explain the dhimmat Allāh formula in the Prophet’s embedded, in terms of their formulaic nature as well
documents. as in the absence or ambiguity of their taxation ter-
Assuming that the classical Islamic legal concept minology. These features will be illustrated below in
of dhimma as a personal status category was based on a close reading of a handful of documents that use
decisions made by the Prophet is thus problematical. the dhimmat Allāh formula, namely those addressed
Rather than setting the foundation of later, classical to the inhabitants of Dūmat al-Jandal, Ayla, Adhruḥ,
Islamic law, the dhimmat Allāh formula is comprehen- Maqnā, Najrān, al-Ṭāʾif, and Medina.
sible only within the pre-Islamic Arabian customary That the formulaic content of these texts can be
laws that governed the relationships between nomads compared to documentary evidence from early Arabic
and sedentary settlements through a system of sanc- papyri has already been established by Adolf Groh

Dhimma Agreements and Sanctuary Systems at Islamic Origins F 101
mann.3 Grohmann found the use in the Prophet’s ments are relatively consistent in following the same
documents of the invocation bismika Allāhumma, basic formulary.9
the basmala, the ḥamdala greeting (innī aḥmadu While Grohmann found the formulae of the Proph-
ilayka Allāh . . .), and the salām ʿalā man ittabaʿa et’s documents reflective of a tradition that returns to
al-hudā greeting all to be consistent with first/sev- ancient Near Eastern parallels and extends into early
enth and second/eighth century Arabic papyri.4 He Arabic papyri, he cautioned against the use of some of
further found the curse formula in the Prophet’s land the documents in order to arrive at historical conclu-
grants to be paralleled by Babylonian kudurru texts, sions, particularly the land grants with their widely-
Neo-Babylonian documents, South Arabian texts, and varying redactions and anachronistic details. 10 My
Nabataean tomb inscriptions.5 In 2008, Werner Diem argument is not that if a formula is old that the entire
suggested a re-construction of pre-Islamic formular- document is authentic, but that the formula can be
ies based on the Prophet’s documents (for which he contextualized in legal tradition and social practices,
used the collection of Muḥammad Ḥamīd Allāh), 6 and roughly dated based on a comparison with the
through a comparison of their introductory greeting papyrological record. By contributing a study of the
formulae to first/seventh and second/eighth century dhimmat Allāh formula, this paper builds on Groh
Arabic papyri. Diem found the places where the for- mann’s and Diem’s findings regarding the consistent
mulae resemble (but do not fully match) Umayyad occurrence of formulae in the Prophet’s documents
and ʿAbbasid conventions to be indicative of the con- that are related to early Arabic papyri.
ventions of the Prophet’s time, indicating that some
of these formulae may have been in the process of
The longevity of the dhimma formula
becoming obsolete even during the Prophet’s lifetime.
Diem asserted: “Even if the historicity of the letters In the Prophet’s documents, the dhimmat Allāh for-
ascribed to the Prophet Muḥammad is questionable mula occurs directly in relation to terms, both obli-
or uncertain, they might nevertheless reflect epistolary gations and rights, granted to a group. It can appear
conventions of early Islam and the decades before.”7 in conjunction with formulae using the terms amāna
When it comes to documents attributed to a later pe- or jiwār, including the formula innahum āminūn bi-
riod in the literature, Wadād al-Qāḍī has also noted amān Allāh (“they are at peace according to the peace
the relationships between futūḥ documents in literary of God”), or a monumental opening formula that re-
transmission and first/seventh century Arabic papyri, fers to the document as an amāna, such as hādha
including shared formulae such as the construction of kitāb amana min Muḥammad (“This is an amāna
the address and the greeting salām ʿalā man ittabaʿa document from Muḥammad”). An example of a docu-
al-hudā.8 Al-Qāḍī also found that these futūḥ document that combines the dhimmat Allāh and āminūn
formulae is the following. Addressed to “whomsoever
3
Adolf Grohmann, “Die Papyrologie in ihrer Beziehung zur submits” (li-man aslama) from among the Ḥadas of
arabischen Urkundenlehre,” Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusfor
Lakhm, the document states:
schung 19 (Munich, 1934).
4
Ibid.: 335. fa innahu āminūn bi-dhimmat Allāh wa dhim-
5
Ibid.: 333.
mat Muḥammad wa man rajaʿa ʿan dīnihi fa-
6
Documents ascribed to the Prophet in the literary sources have
been collected by Muḥammad Ḥamīd Allāh, Majmūʿat al-wathāʾiq
inna dhimmat Allāh wa dhimmat rasūlihi minhu
al-siyāsīya lil-ʿahd al-nabawī wa-al-khilāfa al-rāshida (Cairo: barīʾa wa man shahida lahu muslimūn bi-islām
Maṭbaʿat lajnat al-taʾlīf wa-l-tarjama wa-l-nashr, 1956). fa-innahu āminūn bi-dhimmat Muḥammad.
7
Werner Diem, “Arabic Letters in Pre-Modern Times, A Survey
with Commented Selected Bibliographies,” in Documentary Letters
from the Middle East: the Evidence in Greek, Coptic, South Arabian, documents in literary transmission. For example, there is irregular-
Pehlevi, and Arabic (1st–15th c. CE), ed. Andreas Kaplony and Eva ity in maintaining either objective or subjective format, but only in
Mira Grob (Bern, 2008), 858. the first nineteen years hijrī. She finds increasing consistency over
8
Wadād al-Qāḍī, “Madkhal ilā dirāsat ʿuhūd al-ṣulḥ al-islāmiyya time as reflective of the credibility of the reported documents, or at
zaman al-futūḥ,” in The Acts of the Fourth International Conference least the relationship between these literary transmissions and the
on the History of Bilād al-Shām, vol. 2, ed. Muḥammad ʿAdnān original texts of the agreements.
al-Bakhīt and Ḥasan ʿAbbās (Amman: Jāmiʿat al-urdunīya, 1987), 9
Ibid., 222–23.
203–204. al-Qāḍī also sees changes over time reflected in futūḥ 10
Grohmann, “Die Papyrologie”: 331.

They are at peace with the security of God and A document to ʿAmr b. Maʿbad al-Juhanī of the Ju-
the security of Muḥammad. The security of God hayna and the Banū Ḥurmuz granted security through
and the security of his messenger is lifted from the formula: fa-innahu āminun bi-amān Allāh wa-
whosoever reneges on his religion. For one amān Muḥammad. They owed ṣadaqa that amounted
whose Islam is witnessed by the Muslims, he is to one-tenth of their fruit, their debts to the Muslims
at peace with the security of Muḥammad. would be repaid without interest, and whoever joined
them would have similar rights.15 The Banū Zurʿa and
The addressees are obliged to establish ṣalāt, pay
the Banū al-Rabʿa of Juhayna were granted security
the zakāt and the “portion” (ḥāẓẓ) due to Allāh and
through the formula: innahum āminūn ʿalā anfusi-
his messenger, and to disengage from the mushrikīn.11
him wa-amwālihim (“They are at peace concerning
The āminūn formula can also be found without the
their persons and their property”), the same treatment
dhimmat Allāh formula in similar contexts of manag-
guaranteed for the pious and God-fearing among their
ing security relations between the Prophet and other
Bedouin (ahl bādiyatihim) and those among them
groups. In Ibn Saʿd’s redactions of the documents
who are sedentary (mā li-ḥāḍiratihim), and they were
of the Prophet, for example, the āminūn formula is
charged with coming to the aid of the Muslims.16
found in a number of agreements made with tribes
Joseph Schacht has noted that amān/amāna, ʿahd,
such as the ‘Abd al-Qays, the Banū al-Ḥarith, the Ju-
dhimma, and jiwār are synonyms in the Prophet’s
hayna, and the Ṭayyiʾ.
documents. This is in contrast to later legal usage,
These documents grant rights of safe-conduct, pas-
where amān was differentiated from dhimma, as the
turage, and other uses of land, all dependent upon
amān was a temporary safe-conduct for someone
payment of taxes termed zakāt or khums. In some
from Dār al-Ḥarb, exterior to the rule of Islam, usu-
documents, this is explicitly within the context of a
ally traders and pilgrims. 17 In a small number of the
defense treaty in which the other party is identified as
Prophet’s documents, the synonymous use of amāna
being Muslim or “having submitted.” The Prophet’s
and dhimma is clearly seen in the combination of
document to al-Akbar b. ʿAbd al-Qays in Baḥrayn,
both terms within the same clause, and both terms
for instance, granted rights to safe-conduct, collec-
occur within agreements that grant rights to land use.
tion of rainwater and fruit, and obliged them to aid
However, the Prophet’s documents also show some
the Prophet’s army (with a share in the spoils). The
differentiation between use of the āminūn and dhim-
formula is: innahum āminūn bi-amān Allāh wa amān
mat Allāh formulae. Dhimma tended to govern the
rasūl Allāh.12 A similar wording, innahu āminun bi-
relationship between the Prophet and market- and
amān Allāh wa-rasūlihi, is found in a document to
sanctuary-towns, whereas the āminūn formula seems
the Banū Muʿāwiya b. Jarwal of Ṭayyiʾ. They were
to have been preferred for documents to Bedouin
granted the rights to retain what they possessed when
who had submitted, and to those tribes with Bedouin
they submitted, as well as to their evening sheep en-
branches that required access to land resources.
closure.13 Another branch of the Ṭayyiʾ was granted a
In surviving Arabic papyri, the term dhimma oc-
document with a variant wording of the formula: fa-
curs most frequently with the sense of “responsibility
inna lahu amān Allāh wa Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh.
for debt” or “obligation to pay.” This corresponds to
The Banū Juwayn of Ṭayyiʾ were thus granted security
classical Islamic legal theory, which conceives of debt
and rights to retain their towns, springs, and what they
as possessed by the creditor while yet residing with
possessed at the time of their islām, and they were en-
the debtor under the debtor’s legal personality (called
titled to pasture land to keep sheep by day and night.14
11
Muḥammad b. Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kabīr, ed. E. Sachau out of the spoils, and bear witness to their own islām:” Ibn Saʿd,
(Leiden, 1904–40), I/ii: 21. al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii:23.
12
Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii: 32–33. 15
Addressed to whomsoever among them who submitted, es-
13
It is addressed to “those people among them who submit (li- tablishes ṣalāt, give zakāt and khums out of their spoils to Allāh and
man aslama), establish ṣalāt, give zakāt, and khums out of the spoils his Messenger, remains witness to his islām, and disengages from
to God and his Messenger, and who disengage from the mushrikīn the mushrikīn: Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii: 24–25.
and bear witness to their own islām”: Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii:23. 16
Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii: 24.
14
Addressed to “those people among them who believe in Allāh 17
Joseph Schacht, “Amān,” Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition,
(āminun minhum bi-Allāh), establish ṣalāt, give zakāt, who dis- vol. 3, ed. B. Lewis, Ch. Pellat, and J. Schacht (Leiden, 1991),
engage from the mushrikīn, give Allāh and his Messenger khums 429–30.

dhimma).18 This sense is found in a range of papyri, the papyrological record at odds with legal theory
from marriage contracts, and records of sale and tax- concerning the ahl al-dhimma as elaborated by such
collection. For example, a tax-collecting record from sources as Abū Yūsuf ’s (d. 182/798) Kitāb al-Kharāj,
Egypt dated 288/901 states: la-hu ḍamānan ṣaḥīḥan / and later the Aḥkām ahl al-Dhimma of Ibn al-Qay
lāziman la-nā wa-wājiban ʿalaynā fī dhimmatinā wa- yim al-Jawziyya (d. 750/1350). The development
mālinā, “a judgment in favour of it as a valid guar- away from an earlier conception and terminology of
antee binding on us and obligatory to us in our debt dhimma has been discussed by Milka Levy-Rubin,
and on our property . . .” (lines 4–5).19 A marriage who has traced the formulae of Conquest-era surren-
contract from Egypt dated 264/878 uses a similar for- der agreements to pre-existing Levantine and Greek
mula, wa-ḍamānan lāziman la-hu fī dhimmati-hi wa- idioms,23 and by Hoyland, who has published the ear-
mālihi, “as a guarantee binding upon him in respect of liest papyrological attestation of the dhimmat Allāh
his obligation (to pay) and (upon) his property” (line formula.24
6).20 And a contract of sale for house property from Concerning surrender treaties from the Conquest
Fayyūm dated 423/1032 reads, wa-tukhalliṣa la-hu period, Levy-Rubin argues that practice after the
dhālika fī mālihā wa-dhimmatihā, “who shall indem- first/seventh century was influenced by the prevalent
nify him for it out of her property and at her expense” Levantine usage, and the substantive term used in the
(line 15).21 This usage and denotation represent the treaties switched from dhimma and jiwār to amān.
most common and frequent use of the word dhimma She notes that jiwār had connotations of “equals”
in Arabic papyri. or “insiders,” and was therefore an uncomfortable
The phrase that is most closely associated with per- fit for the terminology of the early surrender agree-
sonal status and religious minorities, ahl al-dhimma, ments. Levy-Rubin’s argument reverses the perspec-
is rare in the early papyri. In its earliest attestations, tive of historiography which seeks to present Muslim
ahl al-dhimma in the papyri neither refers definitively conquerors as dominant, primary agents, making the
to confessional identity, nor is it associated with dis- case for the conquered cities and peoples themselves
tinctive taxes. Robert Hoyland notes that use of the requesting treaties under terms and terminology to
phrase ahl al-dhimma to refer to generally monotheist which they had been accustomed. This terminology
religious communities under Islamic rule is actually was then adopted and developed further by the Mus-
a latecomer in the papyrological record.22 This puts lim conquerors. Thus Levy-Rubin finds that in the
Conquest-era treaties, Arabic amān is a parallel of
18
For this explanation of dhimma, see Valentino Cattelan,
Greek pistis and Latin fides.25
“Property (Māl) and Credit Relations in Islamic Law: An Explana-
tion of Dayn and the Function of Legal Personality (Dhimma),”
According to Hoyland, the earliest papyrological
Arab Law Quarterly 27 (2013): 195–97. For dhimma as legal per- attestation of the formula dhimmat Allāh wa dhim-
sonality, see also Mahdi Zahraa, “Legal Personality in Islamic Law,” mat rasūlihi is in PNess 77 letter 1. Lines 11–12
Arab Law Quarterly 10/3 (1995), and Chafik Chéhata, “Dhimma,” read: wa li-ahl niṣān dhimmat Allāh wa dhimmat
Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, vol. 2, 231. rasūlihi (“For the people of Nessana is the security
19
P.Met.1978.384.1a recto. This is Petra M. Sijpesteijn’s trans-
of God and the security of his messenger”). This let-
lation from “Profit following responsibility: A leaf from the records
of a third/ninth century tax-collecting agent with an appended ter is dated through internal references to ah 60s/ad
checklist of editions of Arabic Papyri,” Journal of Juristic Papyrol- 680, and extended dhimma to the people of Nessana,
ogy 31 (2001): 115, 118. which included a Christian majority, in the context of
20
P.Cair.Arab39. For Adolf Grohmann’s translation, clarifying that Nessana did not owe the functionary
see The Arabic Papyrology Database (APD), http://www.apd.gwi.
Yazīd b. Fāʾid a certain payment.26 The formula as it
uni-muenchen.de:8080/apd/show2.jsp?papname=Grohmann_
APEL_39_3&line=6 (accessed 27 November 2017).
is found in the Prophet’s documents thus does appear
21
P.Cair.Arab.61. For Adolf Grohmann’s translation, see in an early Arabic papyrus, though it appears to have
http://www.apd.gwi.uni-muenchen.de:8080/apd/show2.
jsp?papname=Grohmann_APEL_61&line=15 [accessed 27 No-
vember 2017]).
22
Robert Hoyland, with an appendix by Hannah Cotton, “The 23
Milka Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire:
Earliest Attestation of the Dhimma of God and His Messenger and From Surrender to Coexistence (Cambridge, 2011).
the Rediscovery of P. Nessana 77 (60s AH/680 CE),” in Islamic 24
Hoyland, “Earliest Attestation.”
Cultures, Islamic Contexts: Essays in Honor of Professor Patricia 25
Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims, 33–36.
Crone, ed. B. Sadeghi et al. (Leiden, 2014), 57. 26
Hoyland, “Earliest Attestation,” 58, 61.

become obsolete at a later point.27 The use of the with the dhimma of the commander, appeared in sev-
formula in both the Prophet’s documents and in the eral other redactions of Conquest-era treaties.31
Nessana letter corroborates references in the narrative The literary sources that claim to represent the
sources which indicate that the “dhimma of God and documentary tradition from this early period after the
his messenger” could be enjoyed by both Muslims Prophet’s death assume that the dhimmat Allāh wa
and non-Muslims. Later jurists, however, limited the dhimmat rasūlihi formula was in circulation, and so
addressees of this formula to Muslims, and it is clear some akhbār and ḥadīth encouraged the discontinued
that the issue at stake was the gravity of and conditions use of the dhimmat Allāh formula for non-Muslims.
placed on receiving the dhimma of God. Al-Shāfiʿī (d. Some of these reports suggest that the dhimmat Allāh
204/828) in his Kitāb al-Umm required jizya treaties formula was requested by the recipients. The context
for non-Muslims making use of this formula to include of a speech given in year 23 by ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb
a clause specifying that dhimma was to be forfeit if to Salama b. Qays al-Ashjaʿī indicates that bilateral
any of the addressees spoke ill against Islam.28 Later treaties were initiated by the conquered peoples.32
jurists recommended the use of the dhimmat Allāh ʿUmar proclaimed, “When they ask you for dhim-
formula for Muslims only, and constructed a differ- mat Allāh wa dhimmat rasūlihi give them dhimam
ent formula for non-Muslims which offered them the anfusikum (‘your own security’).”33 Yet several refer-
dhimma of the Muslim military commander in charge ences remain for the continued use of some version
of the agreement, the commander’s fathers, and the of the requested formula during the Conquest period.
commander’s companions.29 The formula ʿahd Allāh wa dhimmat rasūlihi (“the
This jurisprudential interest in shifting the use of the covenant of God and the security of his messenger”)
dhimmat Allāh formula is reflected in the early nar- occurs in Khālid b. al-Walīd’s written treaty with Da-
rative sources on the Conquests. The recommended mascus.34 And ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb granted the people
change in wording does appear in the documents of Jerusalem in year 15: wa ʿalā mā fī hādhā l-kitābī
quoted by sources such as al-Wāqidī, al-Balādhurī, ʿahdu Allāhi wa-dhimmatu rasūlihi wa-dhimmatu
and al-Ṭabarī. For example, a redaction of the treaty l-khulafāʾi wa-dhimmatu l-muslimīn (“And what is
made with Mujjāʿa b. Murāra b. Sulamī, a branch of in this document is under the covenant of God and
the Sulaym involved in the ridda, retained the āminūn the security of his messenger and the security of the
formula, but offered instead of the dhimma of the caliphs and the security of the Muslims”).35
Prophet rather that of the military commander re- Ḥadīth literature also leaves unclear the reasons for
sponsible for the treaty and other authorities. It reads: the recommended shift. Al-Wāqidī included a report
in which the Prophet called for granting the dhimma
thumma antum āminūn bi-amān Allāh wa la-
of “you, your father, and your companions” when the
kum dhimmatu Khālid b. al-Walīd wa dhimmatu
people of a fortress or city desired to be given dhim-
Abī Bakr khalīfat rasūl Allāh ṣlʿm wa dhimam
al-muslimīn ʿalā al-wafāʾ
You are at peace according to the peace of 31
Surveyed in Albrecht Noth in collaboration with Lawrence I.
God. You have the security of Khālid b. al- Conrad, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source-Critical
Walīd and the security of Abū Bakr the caliph Study, 2nd ed., trans. Michael Bonner (Princeton, 1994), 64–70.
of the Messenger of God and the security of the 32
Levy-Rubin (Non-Muslims, 26) also argues that the anticipa-
Muslims in good faith.30 tion and request of certain terms and formulae by the conquered
parties suggest that negotiations were bilateral and drew on exist-
This lengthier formula, which included the addi- ing legal grants. Further, Arietta Papaconstantinou writes, “. . . fis-
tional phrases dhimmat al-khulafāʾ and dhimam al- cal systems should be analysed as forms of transaction rather than of
muslimīn, or the replacement of dhimmat rasūl Allāh one-way state imposition” (Arietta Papaconstantinou, “Administer-
ing the early Islamic Empire: insights from the papyri,” in Money,
Power and Politics in early Islamic Syria: A Review of the Current
27
PNess77 is the only Arabic papyrus I know of which attests Debates, ed. John Haldon [Farnham, 2010], 71).
this formula. 33
Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, ed. Mars-
28
Ibid., 56. den Jones (Oxford, 1996), II: 757–58; al-Ṭabarī, Annales, I:2714
29
Ibid., 57. 34
Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-Buldān, ed., M.J. de
30
Abū Ja‘far Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Annales quos scripsit, Goeje (Leiden, 1866), 121.
ed. M. J. de Goeje (Lugundi-Baavoruml, 1879–1965), I:1954. 35
Al-Ṭabarī, Annales, I:2406.

mat Allāh wa dhimmat rasūlihi.36 But a version of this on confessional identity. In their studies of Christian
ḥadīth in the Sunan of Ibn Mājah contained additional communities in Conquest-era Egypt and Syria, Hus-
text which suggests that it was not that non-Muslims sein Omar and Arietta Papaconstantinou have argued
were undeserving, but rather that Muslims should be- that the legal discourse on dhimma as a social category
ware the difficulty of meeting the greater responsibility can be dated to third/ninth century developments.
of dhimmat Allāh.37 That a shift was occurring in the In his history of the designation qibṭī, Omar writes:
use of dhimmat Allāh remains clear. In contrast to
The term ahl al-dhimma can be traced to the
this development of separate formulae for Muslim and
legal disputations that occurred in Iraq in the
non-Muslim recipients, the documents attributed to
late second/end of the eighth century about
the Prophet retained the dhimmat Allāh wa dhimmat
the fiscal status of the subjected peoples (e.g.,
rasūlihi formula and applied it regardless of confes-
Abū Yūsuf ’s Kitāb al-Kharāj). This discussion
sional identity.
involved the citing of ḥadīths; the Egyptian
In line with this evidence which reflects an interest
ḥadīth material cited in the Futūḥ [of Ibn ‘Abd
in shifting the formula to deny non-Muslims dhimmat
al-Ḥakam] was probably a reflection of this dis-
Allāh, we may well expect backdating or attribution
cussion being brought into or conducted within
of the replacement formula to the Prophet’s docu-
Egypt. The new designation ahl al-dhimma,
ments. Yet dhimma as a term in documents attributed
which is used indiscriminately by modern schol-
to the Prophet, or to the ridda and Conquest periods,
ars to refer to the Christian population of Egypt,
does not appear to be a target for standardization by
is thus inaccurate and, as has been shown, refers
the redactors. In Donald Hill’s survey of the terms
to a specific episode in conquest history, when
found in reports of Conquest-era agreements, 182
the tax-paying Egyptians could not be simply
out of 375 reports contain the terms dhimma, jizya,
classified as “people of the Earth.”39
or kharāj. Jizya is the most frequently-occurring of
these terms (at 53.2%), and dhimma has the least in- According to Papaconstantinou, the rising self-aware-
cidence (at 18.7%), with no correlation of dhimma ness of groups under the caliphate in the early second/
and jizya occurring together. Sayf b. ʿUmar’s reports eighth century correlates with the earliest surviving
show a preference for dhimma, providing 42% of its evidence for the effort to establish Christian legis-
incidences, and may be evidence for standardization. lation.40 Papaconstantinou argues that, prior to the
Otherwise, Hill asserts that the evidence points to a Islamic legislation first developed in the third/ninth
general lack in Conquest-era agreements of the term century, “it is quite misleading to speak of ‘dhimmī
dhimma to refer to personal status law with its conno- status’ or ‘dhimmī communities’ as a given, clear and
tations of humiliation or second-class status.38 While definable reality, because as very often in the history
we may expect conformity of these documents in lit- of Islamic society, this is only a retrojection of a later
erary transmission with contemporary religio-legal situation.”41
or juristic discourse, in actuality they are the main The earliest papyrological attestations of ahl al-
contrast with that discourse, and indicate that their dhimma indicate that the phrase refers to a category
formulae may be historical evidence. of subject peoples distinct from Muslims. However,
The use of the phrase ahl al-dhimma in early Arabic the nature of that distinction is unclear. The earliest
papyri is also at odds with the classical formulation papyrological usage of the phrase seems to be P.Cair.
of ahl al-dhimma as a personal status category based IslArt inv. 2548, an Arabic scroll at the Egyptian Mu-
seum in Cairo dated 141/758. This is an adminis-
36
Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, II:257–58, with the isnād Ibn Abī
trative letter by the governor of ʿAbbasid Egypt to
Sabra < Isḥāq b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Ṭalḥa < Rāfiʿ b. Isḥāq < Zayd b.
Aqram < Rasūl Allāh. 39
Hussein Omar, “ ‘The Crinkly-Haired People of the Black
37
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Yazīd b. Mājah al-Qazwīnī, Earth’: Examining Egyptian Identities in Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam’s
Sunan Ibn Mājah, ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī (Cairo: Dār Futūḥ,” in History and Identity in the Late Antique Near East, ed.
al-ḥadīth, 1998), III: 532–33, Kitāb al-Jihād no. 2858 through Phillip Wood (Oxford, 2013), 164.
the isnād Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā < Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Firyābī < 40
Arietta Papaconstantinou, “Between umma and dhimma: the
Sufyān < ʿAlqama b. Marthad < Ibn Burayda < his father. Christians of the Middle East under the Umayyads,” Annales isla-
38
D. R. Hill, The Termination of Hostilities in the Early Arab mologiques 42 (2008): 148.
Conquests, A.D. 634–656 (London, 1971), 169. 41
Ibid.: 129.

the king of Nubia and Muqurra, first published by phrase that first appeared when Muslims start settling
J. Martin Plumey in 1975,42 with a revised transla- the countryside in Egypt, and needed to be distin-
tion and commentary published by Martin Hinds and guished from the resident population.48 According
Hamdi Sakkout in 1981. Lines 52–53 charge that the to Omar, in the first two centuries of Islamic rule in
Nubians detained slaves “from the people of Islam and Egypt, ethnic identity was less stable and concrete than
the people under our dhimma” (fa-ḥabastumūhum later portrayed, and Arab and Copt emerged as dis-
maʿa mā ʿindakum min ariqqāʾi ahli al-islāmi / wa tinctive identities only in the fourth/tenth century.49
ahli dhimmatinā).43 Here the ahl al-dhimma is some The earliest descriptions of the population of Egypt in
category of people with rights under the caliphate the papyri make no reference to religion, language, or
alongside Muslims. Lena Salaymeh has noted that, ethnicity.50 Further, while the late appearance of qibṭ
while second/eighth century papyri distinguish be- in the papyri does not mean that there was no earlier
tween Muslims and others, they do not reveal who conception of distinct ethnic, linguistic, and religious
“counted” as belonging to one or the other of these identities, it does indicate that there was no need to
categories.44 Other early attestations of the phrase articulate them in the early post-Conquest period.51
place the ahl al-dhimma in the same tax category as That the early papyrological use of ahl al-dhimma
Muslims by making both groups liable for the jizya. did not unambiguously denote a distinctive tax status
An administrative letter ca. ad 789 is addressed to aligns with what has long been noted as the non-
“all those in the region (kūra) of Ahnās, the Muslims standardized nature of early, post-Conquest taxation
and the ahl al-dhimma, upon whom is determined terms. While legal manuals present a neat conceptu-
the jizya of Miṣr for the Commander of the Faithful, alization of jizya as a tax paid by non-Muslims and as
may God extend his life” (jamīʿ man bi-kūrat Ahnās a sign of submission in return for protected status,52
min al-muslimīn wa ahl-al-dhimma / alladhī taqar- jizya in the papyri appears to be a general term for tax
rara ʿinda amīr al-muʾminīn aṭāla Allāh baqāʾahu until the ‘Abbasid period.53 The application of some
min jizyat Miṣr).”45 A receipt dated 168/785 from form of poll tax on a distinct class of non-Muslims
the governor Mūsā b. Muṣʿab refers to two categories also appears non-standardized in the early papyri. One
(as indicated by the dual verb) of tax-payers.46 This Arabic papyrus, P. Vindob. AP 5.379, illustrates this
includes the ahl al-dhimma alongside the people of nicely. This is a second/eighth century letter from an
the regions and provinces of Miṣr, who appear to have administrator who was confused about tax liabilities
been jointly assessed for the jizyat al-raʾs (jawālīhā / after finding that a Christian and a Muslim had been
wa-anbāṭihā wa jamīʿ man yas[k]unuhā min [a]hl taxed jointly. The names and rates of the taxes paid
al-dhimma).47 by Muslims in this early period were not standardized,
Omar argues that early Arabic papyri indicate that and conditions for assessing taxes fluctuated through-
the ahl al-dhimma were land-owning, tax-paying con- out the districts of Egypt.54 Second/eighth century
quered peoples, and that this was a previously unused Arabic papyri record ṣadaqāt payments, but this tax
was also called ʿushr or zakāt, and often appeared in
the same lists that mentioned the poll tax, meadow
42
J. Martin Plumey, “An Eighth-Century Arabic Letter to the
King of Nubia,” JEA 61 (1975). tax, and other levies.55 The growing need for distinc-
43
Martin Hinds and Hamdi Sakkout, “A Letter From the Gov- tions seems reflected in the appearance of the term
ernor of Egypt To the King of Nubia and Muqurra Concerning
Egyptian-Nubian Relations in 141/758,” in Studia Arabica et
Islamica: Festschrift for Iḥsān ʿAbbās on his Sixtieth Birthday, ed.
Wadād al-Qāḍī (Beirut, 1981), 222. 48
Omar, “ ‘Crinkly-Haired People’,” 163.
44
Lena Salaymeh, “Taxing Citizens: Socio-Legal Construc- 49
Ibid., 150.
tions of Late Antique Muslim Identity,” Islamic Law and Society 50
Ibid., 163.
23 (2016): 364. 51
Ibid., 164.
45
Adolf Grohmann, From the World of Arabic Papyri (Cairo, 52
Papaconstantinou, “Administering the early Islamic Empire.”
1952), 132–33. 53
Ibid., 63 n. 20.
46
Werner Diem, “Einige frühe amtliche Urkunden aus der 54
Petra Sijpesteijn, “The Archival Mind in Early Islamic Egypt:
Sammlung papyrus Erzherzog Rainer (Wien),” Le Muséon 97
Two Arabic Papyri,” in From al-Andalus to Khurasan: Documents
(1984): 140. from the Medieval Muslim World, ed. Petra M. Sijpesteijn et al.
47
P.DiemFrüheUrkunden 07 = P.Vind.inv.A.P.2704. Diem (Leiden, 2007), 167–68.
(ibid., no. 7) comments that here anbāṭ may refer to Muslims. 55
Ibid.

jizyat al-raʾs for poll tax (as P.DiemFrüheUrkunden Both Conquest-era documents in literary sources
07, quoted above). and the papyrological record thus illustrate that con-
Kōsei Morimoto sees the use of jizyat al-raʿs as part fessional distinctions in both diplomatic agreements
of the second stage toward the classical formulation and in taxation were a gradual development. The pa-
of the poll tax on non-Muslims. In this intermediary pyrological evidence for the use of dhimma, ahl al-
stage, the poll tax begins to be differentiated from dhimma, and dhimmat Allāh wa-dhimmat rasūlihi,
a tribute on conquered land-dwelling peoples. This and the shift away from the use of this last formula in
earlier sense of tribute is seen, for example, in papyri the Conquest-era documents, all indicate that dhim-
from 90–91 ah, such as the bilingual Aphrodito pa- mat Allāh wa dhimmat rasūlihi was an earlier formula-
pyri.56 As Petra Sejpesteijn writes, “The picture is very tion. As an expression of inviolability and security, it
murky. In general, by the end of the second/eighth seems to give way in both Conquest-era documents
century, it is hard to discern any consistent pattern dis- and early papyri to amān.61 For example, P.Cair.IslArt
tinguishing the taxes paid by Muslims and those paid inv. 2548 refers to the agreement granted to the Nu-
by non-Muslims.”57 P.Vindob AP 5.379 thus shows bians concerning their safe-conduct in Egyptian lands
the “flexibility still inherent in what was an evolving as amanakum (line 12).62 Treating the use of dhim-
system,” and dates prior to identical tax rates on Mus- mat Allāh in the Prophet’s documents as a formula
lim and non-Muslim landholders.58 Eastern Christian with a particular wording, rather than as reflective of
literary sources also corroborate that jizya was initially the broader, and later, concept of dhimma, allows us
seen as a tribute paid by the defeated, and assessed to avoid anachronistic backdating of later intellectual
on an ad hoc basis depending on negotiations. The structures. This formulaic evidence can also change
Maronite Chronicle, for instance, written before the how we use this material. Rather than assuming that
680s, describes Muʿāwiya’s dealings with delegations sīra-maghāzī material established a distinctively Is-
of Jacobites and Maronites to Damascus in 659. In this lamic worldview, this material can be shown to com-
visit, the Maronites won a debate and their rivals the municate with and be corroborated by archaeological
Jacobites agreed to a tax. The rationale here thus does evidence for ancient Arabia. The formulaic content
not appear to have been a religiously motivated tax on of the Prophet’s documents lets us look at socio-legal
all groups deemed protected, but the “negotiation of developments for a period earlier than the reach of the
state protection against a rival group.”59 Arabic papyrological record.
Even later, papyrological evidence in the context of
political upheavals in Norman Sicily shows that taxes
Security agreements
associated with dhimma were neither limited to non-
Muslims nor universally applied to all non-Muslims. In the Prophet’s documents, the presence of the dhim-
Further dissociating the concept of dhimma from the mat Allāh formula itself does not mark the addressee
status of minorities under Muslim rule, Jeremy Johns as Muslim or non-Muslim. Its use highlights the fuzzy
has noted the entrance of dhimma agreements into nature of the verbal noun islām as a term. In these
non-Muslim local law. This is exemplified by a twelfth- texts, islām is sometimes related to ritual observances
century document from Norman Sicily that records such as ṣalāt, but seems to have little to do with con-
three Muslim brothers paying a poll-tax termed jizya fessional identity, or friendship with the muslimūn.
to their Christian overlords. In his Riḥla, a record of The actual measure for the terms granted to these
his visit to Sicily in 1184–85, Ibn Jubayr al-Kinānī ex- groups is not religious identity or even a history of
presses the relation of the Muslims to their overlords resistance to the Prophet. Instead, the terms in the
in terms of dhimma.60 documents employing the dhimmat Allāh formula are
based on assessments of potential military threat to
56
Kōsei Morimoto, The Fiscal Administration of Egypt in the control of the Ḥijāz, and the necessity of maintaining
Early Islamic Period (Kyoto, 1981), 60. a system of taxation on market towns and the routes
57
Sijpesteijn, “Archival Mind,” 169.
58
Ibid., 170.
59
Papaconstantinou, “Administering the early Islamic Empire,” Studies in Honor of Professor Alan Jones, ed. Robert G. Hoyland and
60. Philip F. Kennedy (London, 2004), 245.
60
Jeremy Johns, “The boys from Mezzouiso: Muslim jizya- 61
See Schacht, “Amān,” and Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims.
payers in Christian Sicily,” in Islamic Reflections, Arabic Musings: 62
Hinds and Sakkout, “A Letter,” 218.

between them.63 This is evident when we compare the dhimmat rasūlihi to secure their land, possessions, and
conciliatory terms offered to al-Ṭāʾif, which include slaves.66
dhimmat Allāh, versus the burdensome terms offered Consistency in the use of the dhimmat Allāh
to Dūmat al-Jandal in an agreement which seems to formula is visible if we treat the documents of the
pointedly exclude that formula. Even the commenta- Prophet as a whole corpus, and consider the stability
tors on these texts do not always interpret these terms of formulae found across variants. Variants found in
as reflecting a relation of subjugation to the Prophet. redactions of these documents consist primarily of the
Abū ʿUbayd, for example, explained the terms granted replacement of operative terms with what may argu-
al-Ṭāʾif as reflective of the sunna of granting conces- ably be synonyms (such as jiwār for dhimma), the
sions to a people in return for peace, allegiance, and/ omission or addition of entire formulae, and errors of
or Islam.64 sight, copying, or orthography. These variants show
The dhimmat Allāh formula usually occurs in the that formulae are the building blocks of these texts,
Prophet’s documents as part of a conditional sentence and that what constitutes a formula and what a certain
marking out the terms of the agreement between formula consists of are all agreed upon. This stability is
Muḥammad and the other parties. It is therefore clear in contrast to the differing details of historical reports
that these documents present bilateral agreements and often noted in source-critical studies of the transmis-
are not simply declarations. For example, a document sion of early Islamic material.
to ʿUmayr Dhī Marrān and “those who entered Islam/ The negotiations between the Prophet and the
submitted” (wa man aslama min Hamdān) in Yemen towns of Ayla, Adhruḥ (and Jarbā), Maqnā, Najrān,
includes the formula fa-inna lakum dhimmat Allāh and Dūmat al-Jandal are in chronological proximity
wa dhimmat rasūlihi as part of a conditional state- to each other in the sīra narrative of the developments
ment directly following the list of stipulations, which of the years 8–9 ah. Reports from al-Wāqidī draw a
consist of bearing witness to the shahāda, establish- causal relationship between the various arrangements
ing ṣalāt, and giving zakāt. This agreement would made with each of these towns.67 Redactions of the
secure their lives, possessions, and uncultivated lands, Prophet’s agreements with these towns employ the
plains, mountains, wells, and border regions.65 As it dhimmat Allāh and/or aminūn formula, with the ex-
specifies areas of land considered inviolable and estab- ception of the agreement with Dūmat al-Jandal. In the
lishes taxes and ritual requirements, this format and akhbār, Ayla and Najrān are associated with Christian
placing of the dhimmat Allāh formula is typical of the communities, and Maqnā, Adhruḥ, and Jarbā with
Prophet’s documents. The dhimmat Allāh formula is Jewish inhabitants.68 Dūma and Najrān were both key
also found in texts that are sometimes called “land “nodes” in the cycle of pre-Islamic markets,69 while
grants” in the secondary literature, and which confirm
a group’s access to designated resources. An example 66
Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, VI:18.
is a confirmation of land to the ʿAkk dhū Khaywān, a 67
Al-Wāqidī reports that Dūma, Ayla, and Taymāʾ all “started to
text which uses the formula fa-lahu amān Allāh wa fear the Prophet, when they noticed that the nomads were entering
Islam,” and that Yuḥanna b. Ruba, the Byzantine functionary of
Ayla, requested from the Prophet that Ayla be granted terms similar
63
Michael Lecker has noted, following Abū ʿUbayd’s discus- to those granted to Dūma. See further Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt, I/ii: 37
sion of this in his Kitāb al-Amwāl, that it was pre-Islamic custom 68
al-Wāqidī’s reports in Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii: 37–38.
to levy customs dues at all annual fairs except at ʿUkāẓ (Michael 69
Michael Bonner, “Commerce and Migration in Arabia be-
Lecker, “Were Custom Dues Levied at the Time of the Prophet fore Islam: A Brief History of a Long Tradition,” in Iranian Lan-
Muḥammad?” Al-Qanṭara 22/1 [2001]: 24), as well as on main guage and Culture in honor of Prof. Gernot Windfuhr, ed. B. Aghaei
roads and markets located between desert and town (ibid.: 31). and M. R. Ghanoonparvar (Malibu, 2012). For the placement of
64
Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām, Kitāb al-Amwāl, ed. Najrān, Dūmat al-Jandal, and Taymāʾ on the routes taken by the
Muḥammad Khalīl Harrās (Cairo: Maktabat al-kulīyāt al-azharīya, ancient Arabian incense trade, see Jean François Breton, Arabia
1968), 280–81. Felix from the Time of the Queen of Sheba: Eight Century B.C. to
65
Aḥmad b. Abū Yaʿqūb al-Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīkh, ed. M. J. de Goeje First Century AD, trans. Albert LaFarge (Notre Dame, IN, 2000),
and W. Wright (Lugduni Batavorum, 1883), 89. The combination Ch. 3; M. C. A. Macdonald, “Trade Routes and Trade Goods at
of the introductory greeting silmun anta followed by the ḥamdala the Northern End of the ‘Incense Road’ in the First Millennium
formula (fa-innī aḥmadu ilayka Allāh, “I address the praises of God B.C.,” in M. C. A. Macdonald, Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic
to you”), found in this text and others of the Prophet’s documents Arabia (Ashgate, 2009), Ch. 9; and Daniel T. Potts, “Trans-Ara-
is also distinctive because it is not attested in surviving early Arabic bian Routes of the Pre-Islamic Period,” Travaux de la Maison de
documents: Diem, “Arabic Letters in Pre-Modern Times,” 860. l’Orient 16/1 (1988).

Ayla on the Red Sea was a major sea port. Adhruḥ, Saʿd and al-Maqrīzī in omitting the clause that states
Taymāʾ, and Jarbā were towns in the vicinity of Ayla. that Dūma owed nothing more than the khums (one-
Adhruḥ was important in Nabataean trade with its fifth) and the ʿushr (one-tenth) on old date palms
proximity to Petra, a Roman fort in fourth century (thabāt). Al-Wāqidī, who has his text from an elder
ad, and remained a major settlement in the Byzantine of Dūma, includes a variant that turns this into an
period.70 These considerations determined their value exemption rather than the imposition of the ʿushr
and desirability to the Prophet based in the Ḥijāz.71 (by omitting the particle illā) on batāt.72 Al-Wāqidī’s
The outlier here, and setting a contrast with the omission of illā preceding ʿushr and the replacement
other agreements in this group, is the case of Dūmat of thabāt with batāt are likely a copyist’s errors. The
al-Jandal. Various early redactions of this document reference to ʿushr here may be to customs dues. Mi-
agree on the absence of the dhimmat Allāh and chael Lecker has argued that the clause lā yuʿsharūna
āminūn formulae. They agree on the document’s wa-lā yuḥsharūna found in the Prophet’s documents
wording, that Dūmat al-Jandal was granted a “cov- expresses an exemption from taxes including customs
enant” (ʿahd wa l-mīthāq). In their commentaries, dues, and that in these texts the terms ṣadaqa, zakāt,
however, the redactors refer to the document as an kharāj, and ʿushr obscured and replaced the earlier
amāna. The terms of the document, particularly the and more straightforward term for customs, maks.73
absence of both freedom from military occupation Lecker points out that while Abū ʿUbayd states that
and tax exemptions, present a stark contrast to those the lā yuʿsharūna wa-lā yuḥsharūna clause is found
granted to other towns in agreements that do include in the Prophet’s documents to Muslims, and that the
the dhimmat Allāh formula. This contrast indicates Prophet’s practice replaced the burdensome pre-Is-
a disconnect between the typology followed by the lamic customs with the zakāt, the clause is also found
redactors and the document’s own terminology. in the Prophet’s documents to non-Muslims, includ-
The redactions of the document for Dūmat al- ing to the inhabitants of Najrān.74 Indeed, it is found
Jandal agree on the opening formulae, including an in Abū ʿUbayd’s own redaction of the document for
address to the governor Ukaydir on the occasion of his Najrān, an agreement that utilizes the dhimmat Allāh
responding positively (ajāba) to islām and renounc- formula in addition to granting exemption from cer-
ing idols under the authority of Khālid b. al-Walīd. tain taxes.75
Dūma and the shallow pools, cultivated and uncul- According to the text’s reference to ritual obser-
tivated lands, unmarked lands, armor, cavalry, riding vances, Ukaydir and the people of Dūmat al-Jandal
animals, and forts of its environs all belonged to the were confessionally Muslim, but they were not of-
Prophet. Dūma retained rights to its palm groves, run- fered dhimmat Allāh; their rights to their land were
ning springs, and to use of the land as pasture, as well considerably restricted in comparison to the other
as to its produce and vegetation. The requirements towns conducting security agreements at the same
placed on the inhabitants were timely prayers and the time; and the agreement was focused on collecting
zakāt. The terms alone suggest the granting of some
security to Dūma, but not inviolability. 72
Abū ʿUbayd, Kitāb al-Amwāl, 281–83, no. 508; al-Balādhurī,
The redactions of this text given by al-Wāqidī, Futūḥ, 61; Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī, Imtāʿ al-asmāʿ bi-mā lil-rusūl
Ibn Saʿd, Abū ʿUbayd, al-Balādhurī, and al-Maqrīzī min al-anbāʾ wa-l-amwāl wa-l-hafadah wa-l-matāʿ, ed. Maḥmūd
(d. 845/1442) agree on the introductory formulae Shākir (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat lajnat al-taʾlīf wa-l-tarjama wa-l-nashr,
and terms mentioned above. The variants are as fol- 1941), 466–67; Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii: 36; al-Wāqidī, Kitāb
al-Maghāzī, 1030; ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAsākir, Taʾrīkh Madīnat Di-
lows: Abū ʿUbayd and al-Balādhurī differ from Ibn
mashq, wa-dhikr faḍlihā wa-tasmiyat man ḥallahā min al-amāthil
aw ijtāza bi-nawāḥīhā min wāridīhā wa-ahlihā, ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn
70
Zeyad al-Salemeen et al., “New Arabic-Christian Inscriptions Munajjid (Damascus: n.p., 1951), I: 385–86. Abū ʿUbayd has the
from Udhruḥ, Southern Jordan,” Arabian Archaeology and Epig- text as copied from a document on white leather (qaḍīm) held by
raphy 22 (2011). one of their elders.
71
Fred Donner has pointed out that these towns made ar- 73
Lecker, “Custom Dues”: 38.
rangements with Muḥammad after witnessing his success with 74
Abū ʿUbayd, Kitāb al-Amwāl, 707 nos. 1638–40; Lecker,
the nomadic populations surrounding them, and that this is what “Custom Dues”: 36–37.
ultimately convinced al-Ṭāʾif, which faced isolation otherwise, to 75
The formula reads lā yuḥsharū wa lā yuʿsharū (Abū ʿUbayd,
submit: Fred Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, NJ, Kitāb al-Amwāl, 273 no. 502). In his redaction of the Najrān docu-
1981), 109. ment, al-Balādhurī has lā yuḥsharūna wa lā yuʿsharūna (Futūḥ, 60).

tribute or customs and neutralizing them as a military Janbā who were Jews of Maqnā. Al-Balādhurī had his
threat. There is a correlation here between the ab- redaction addressed to the Banū Ḥabība and people
sence of the dhimmat Allāh and āminūn formulae of Maqnā. Thus the redactions of the full text agree
and these terms which outline military occupation by on the inclusion of the dhimmat Allāh formula and
the muslimūn. This occupation guarantees control of the amounts of taxes and tributes owed. The variants
peninsular trade.76 consist of the opening and closing greetings, scribal
As for the town of Maqnā, al-Wāqidī, Ibn Saʿd and dating clauses, and al-Balādhurī’s additional clause
(through al-Wāqidī), and al-Maqrīzī give a summary emphasizing the inviolability of Maqnā’s people.
version of the document that includes the āminūn for- Ibn Isḥāq, al-Wāqidī, and Ibn Saʿd group the
mula and the requirements of Maqnā paying a fourth Prophet’s agreement with the town of Ayla with the
of its spun thread and fruits to the Prophet.77 In their negotiations with Jarbā, Dūma, and Taymāʾ. All three
more extended reports, Ibn Saʿd (a second report not redactions agree on the use of the dhimmat Allāh
through al-Wāqidī, but al-Shaʿbī) and al-Balādhurī formula to state the terms which would grant Ayla re-
agree on the presence of several dhimma and aminūn tention of its trade routes, covering its ships, caravans,
formulae, and that the document prohibited the im- sea and land routes, and all those traveling there from
position of the jizya on Maqnā. Ibn Saʿd’s text uses overland from Syria or Yemen, or by sea.80 The com-
several dhimma formulae interspersed between the mentaries of Ibn Isḥāq and al-Wāqidī put this docu-
terms of the agreement: fa-innakum āminūn lakum ment in the context of jizya, although their redactions
dhimmat Allāh wa dhimmat rasūlihi . . . wa inna of the document do not supply this term. These re-
lakum dhimmat Allāh wa dhimmat rasūlihi . . . wa dactions do not include mention of any requirements
inna rasūl Allāh jārukum.78 Al-Balādhurī also has a or payments, and the terms granted to Ayla consist
repetition of the dhimmat Allāh formula, with a vari- entirely of concessions.
ant making use of the term jār: wa inna rasūl Allāh The redactions of Al-Wāqidī,81 Ibn Saʿd (from al-
ṣlʿm yujīrukum mimmā yujīru nafsahu. Al-Balādhūrī’s Wāqidī), and al-Maqrīzī of the document for Adhruḥ
variants include the addition of an opening greeting open with the āminūn formula, and state that Adhruḥ
formula (silmun anta), while Ibn Saʿd adds a clos- owed one thousand dinārs to the Prophet annually.
ing formula (wa-l-salām). Ibn Saʿd’s text lists several Ibn Saʿd in his commentary compared this agreement
tributes and taxes owed, including spoils in terms to the three thousand dīnārs per head jizya owed by
of clothing, slaves, animals, and armor, after which Ayla (which is not actually mentioned in his text of
Maqnā would owe a fourth each of the date palm that document). These terms are repeated in another
harvest, fishing, and spun thread. Al-Balādhurī agrees report of Ibn Saʿd’s, which has the document ad-
with these terms, while providing a copy of the docu- dressed to both Jarbā and Adhruḥ. Al-Maqrīzī’s redac-
ment which was based on a physical copy of the text. tion agrees with those of al-Wāqidī and Ibn Saʿd, but
This copy included a scribal and dating clause (wa has the addition of a guarantee formula: wa-Allāhu
kataba ʿAlī bin Abū Ṭālib fī sana ٩) missing from Ibn kafīlu ʿalayhim bi-l-nuṣḥ wa-l-iḥsān li-l-muslimīn
Saʿd’s redaction.79 Al-Balādhūrī also has an additional (“And God is guarantor against them regarding be-
clause on the prohibition of the muslimūn harming nevolence and good treatment to the Muslims”).82
the people of Maqnā. According to Ibn Saʿd’s com- Thus the redactions of this document agree on the
mentary, the document was intended for the Banū
80
Al-Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 1031; Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii: 37;
76
Dūma held immense strategic value as a market for long-dis- Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, Das Leben Muhammed’s nach Muhammed
tance trade and the starting point for the annual cycle of Arabian ibn Ishāk bearbeitet von Abd el-Malik ibn Hischām (Gottingen,
markets, and its control would allow redirecting of the peninsu- 1858–60), 902; Abū ʿUbayd, Amwāl, 287–88, no. 513; al-Maqrīzī,
lar trade through Medina (Karim Samji, “Aswāq-cum-Maghāzī: Imtāʿ al-asmāʿ, 468. The major variant is the addition or omission
Commerce and Conflict in Late Antique Arabia,” Der Islam 93/1 of the scribal clause (naming Juhaym b. al-Ṣalt and Shuraḥbīl b.
[2016]). Samji also argues that Dūma fell not during the lifetime of Ḥasana), which is found in al-Wāqidī, Ibn Saʿd, and al-Maqrīzī.
the Prophet, but in 12/633 under Abū Bakr. 81
Al-Wāqidī has two reports, the second being a copy of a docu-
77
Al-Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 1032; Ibn Sa’d, al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii: 38; ment he had seen himself. Both texts agree in the terms of the
al-Maqrīzī, Imtāʿ al-asmāʿ, 469. agreement, while the copied text uses more extensive formulae. Al-
78
Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii: 28. Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 1031.
79
Ibid., I/ii: 28; al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, 60. The peculiar orthog- 82
Ibid., 1032; Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii: 37; al-Maqrīzī, Imtāʿ
raphy is reproduced in both redactions. al-asmāʿ, 469.

wording of the security formula and the terms of the The major variant here is an exemption that Ibn Saʿd is
agreement, while the variants are found in the address missing but which is included by al-Balādhurī and Abū
and additional guarantee formula. ʿUbayd. This is Najrān’s exemption from the ʿushr (us-
In redactions of the Prophet’s agreement with ing the formula wa-lā yuḥsharūna wa-lā yuʿsharūna).
Najrān, the dhimmat Allāh formula followed a list of These terms and the dhimmat Allāh formula were
stipulations, and is in turn followed by a list of rights followed by the condition of their avoiding charging
granted to Najrān. The formula reads: wa li-najrān interest (ribā), and a formula declaring quittance of
wa ḥāshiyatihā [Balādhurī and Ibn Saʿd: jiwār Allāh the Prophet’s dhimma if this condition was not met.
wa] dhimmat Allāh wa dhimmat rasūlihi (“And for While the redactions of this text thus agree on the
Najrān and its environs is [the jiwār of God and] use of the dhimmat Allāh formula and on the terms,
the security of God and the security of his messen- there are major discrepancies in the names given in the
ger”). This clause covered their lives, land, posses- witness and scribal clauses and in Ibn Saʿd’s omission
sions, religion, places of worship, monks, and religious of a critical tax exemption clause.
leaders, for both those inhabitants who were present This selection of documents shows that both the
during the time of the agreement as well as those terms of these agreements and the formulae employed
who were absent (here Ibn Saʿd adds “their prayers,” remained stable across several redactions of these
ṣalawātihim). Ibn Saʿd’s redaction also repeats a ver- texts in the earliest sources. The irregularity lies in
sion of the dhimma formula at the closing: wa lahum the opening and closing formulae and, in two cases,
ʿalā mā fī hādhihi al-ṣaḥīfa jiwār Allāh wa dhimmat in omissions of clauses that may have been copyist
Muḥammad al-nabī abadan (“And theirs with respect errors. Occasionally, as in the case of Ibn Saʿd’s re-
to what is stipulated in this document is the jiwār daction of the agreement with Najrān, a more serious
of God and the security of Muḥammad the prophet discrepancy occurs in the omission of a taxation clause.
forever”).83 If we follow the lead of Abu ʿUbayd, what governs
Abū ʿUbayd and al-Balādhurī have the text through these agreements—the key to understanding the dif-
different isnāds, while al-Balādhurī’s is claimed to be ferent terms granted each settlement—is not confes-
from a physical copy of the document. They match in sional identity, but strategic value. This may explain
terms, with slight variants (e.g., the transposition of the harsher terms granted Dūma, given its strength as
the order of formulae), but contain major variants in a military outpost and as the point of convergence for
the names given in the witness and scribal clauses.84 three trade routes that allowed access to the rest of the
The terms granted to Najrān included their annual Arabian peninsula. Dūma was also the only addressee
payment of two thousand garments (ḥulla), and a in this set whose inhabitants’ islām is referenced in the
tax (kharāj) on camels, horses, and armor. They were document.85 That the onerous terms granted Dūma
liable for hosting the Prophet’s messengers and tax were not in response to the history of its resistance to
collectors for twenty days, and lending thirty horses, the Prophet is evident when compared to the terms
camels, and coats of mail in case of rebellion in Yemen. granted al-Ṭāʾif, which resolutely resisted the Prophet
and capitulated only after a long unsuccessful siege.
83
al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, 65; Ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt, I/ii: 35–36; Al-Ṭāʾif was not only granted an agreement including
Abu ʿUbayd, Amwāl, 273, no. 502. the dhimmat Allāh formula, but one that included
84
al-Balādhurī’s text is through the isnād al-Ḥusayn b. al-Aswad recognition of its local sanctuary, which was dedicated
< Wakīʿ < Mubārak b. Faḍūla-al-Ḥasan. Al-Ḥasan-Yaḥyā b. Adam to the ancient Arabian goddess Allāt.
says he copied the document from another document or copy from
al-Ḥasan b. Ṣāliḥ. His version was witnessed by Abū Sufyān b. Ḥarb,
Ghaylān b. ʿAmr, Mālik b. ʿAwf of B. Naṣr, al-Aqraʿ b. Ḥābis al- Inviolability under Arabian customary law
Ḥanẓalī, and al-Mughīra, who wrote it. Yaḥyā b. Adam also says that
he saw the text in the hands of the Najrānites and that it resembled The use of the dhimmat Allāh formula in widely vary-
the text of this report, except at the end of it was “wa kataba ʿAlī ing types of documents attributed to the Prophet is
b. Abū Ṭālib”—a grammatical error which he could not explain not due to randomness or inconsistency. The appar-
(Al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ, 63–65). Abu ʿUbayd’s report was via Ayyūb
ent wide-ranging use of the formula, in documents
b. Dimashqī-Saʿdān b. Abī Yaḥyā < ʿUbayd Allāh b. Abī Ḥumayd <
Abū al-Malīḥ al-Hudhalī, and was witnessed by ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān
and Muʿayqab, who wrote it (Abū ʿUbayd, Amwāl, 272–73, no. 85
Whether Dūma’s inhabitants converted to Islam at this time is
502). up for debate: see Samji, “Aswāq-cum-Maghāzī”: 24–25.

granted to towns surrendering militarily, in land its function with precision.89 As it binds various semi-
grants, safe-conducts, and declarations of sanctuary, autonomous territories under the Prophet and Allāh,
actually alerts us to its precise function in formulating it resembles the ancient Arabian confederation for-
inviolability within an inter-tribal confederation under mula used to mark the boundaries of a political com-
the aegis of a deity. While there seems to be no direct plex patronized by a deity. Expressions of this earlier
precedent for it, the dhimmat Allāh formula shares type of confederation are found in the ancient South
both grammatical form and vocabulary with legal for- Arabian epigraphic record from the first millennium
mulae related to political unification and inviolability bc.90 An example is one of the Sabaic inscriptions (ca.
from ancient South Arabia and Nabataea. the eighth century bc), from the temple of ʿAwwām
Dedications and other epigraphic evidence from the near Maʾrib (the Maḥram Bilqīs) which reads:
ancient South Arabian kingdoms (Saba, Hadramawt,
Yadaʿʾil Ḏariḥ, son of Sumhaʿalayʾ, mukarrib of
Qataban, Maʾin) illustrate the legal function of deities
Sabaʾ, walled ʿAwwām, the temple of ʾIlumquh,
when they were invoked as guarantors and against of-
when he sacrificed to ʿAṯtar and [when] he estab-
fenders. The promotion of a tribal or communal deity
lished the whole community [united] by a god
on a supra-tribal level, as for example of ʾAlmaqah for
and a patron and by a pact and a [secret] trea[ty.
the kingdom of Saba, “federalized” that deity. This is
By ʿAṯtar and by Hawbas and by] ʾIlumquh.91
evinced by inscriptions which referenced those deities,
and direct travel toward state centers where major Another parallel for the function of the dhimmat Allāh
temples were located, such as Maʾrib for Saba and formula is the Nabataean “inviolability principle” in-
Shabwa for Hadramawt.86 These locations were also voked in legal documents, such as of sale. This for-
nodes in the peninsular trade routes. Joy McCorriston mula refers to a custom of recognizing the sanctity of
has argued that, as a function of the emerging state, something, and is sometimes explicitly under the aegis
these kingdoms obligated both settled and nomadic of the Nabataean deity Dushara. The formula often
populations to undergo annual pilgrimages to central reads: ḥlyqt ḥrm nbṭw wšlmw, “the traditional law/
temples at times that coincided with and facilitated custom of sanctity of the Nabataeans and Shalamians,”
trade, particularly the frankincense trade.87 See, for where the word for sanctity uses the root ḥ-r-m.92
example, the document Glaser 1210 (= RES 4176), in In its conditional construct, the dhimmat Allāh
which Taʿlab enjoins his worshippers, the tribe Sami, formula can also be seen as a parallel to curse for-
both to make pilgrimage to his shrine in Riyam, and mulae in Nabataean and Ancient South Arabian
not to neglect pilgrimage in the month of dhu-Abhay languages. These curse formulae are also conditional
to the temple of ʾAlmaqah at Maʾrib.88 statements found in the conclusions of agreements
Treating the dhimmat Allāh formula in the Proph- and contracts.93 They accompany legal conditions and
et’s documents as a clause granting personal inviola- convey the threat of expulsion from the group. In
bility within political confederation, and taking into
consideration that its distinctive mark in this early
89
In contrast, amān does not seem to be rooted like dhimmat
Allāh wa dhimmat rasūlihi in an ancient Arabian tradition of polit-
usage is the provision of the “security of God” to
ical confederation and sanctuary systems.
Muslims and non-Muslims alike, allow us to identify 90
Andrew Marsham, Rituals of Islamic Monarchy: Accession and
Succession in the First Muslim Empire (Edinburgh, 2009), 26.
91
Translation by A. Jamme, in ed. J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near
86
Andrey Korotayev, “Religion and Society in Southern Arabia Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament, 3rd rev ed. (Princeton,
and Among the Arabs,” Arabia: revue de sabéologie 1 (2003). 1969), 663.
87
Two of McCorriston’s major arguments are that emerging 92
John F. Healey, “Fines and Curses: Law and Religion among
states manipulated extant tribal practices like pilgrimage in order to the Nabataeans and their Neighbours,” in Law and Religion in the
access the incense trade, which brought both labor and capital to Eastern Mediterranean: From Antiquity to Early Islam, ed. Anselm
the area, and that pilgrimage was directed at pastoralists in order to C. Hagedorn and Reinhard G. Kratz (Oxford, 2013), 174; the
confederate them and to allow the passage of incense and caravans translation is Healey’s.
through their regions of control at set times during the year. Joy 93
Mohammed Maraqten, “Curse formulae in South Arabian
McCorriston, Pilgrimage and Household in the Ancient Near East inscriptions and some of their Semitic parallels,” Proceedings of
(Cambridge, 2011), 59, 68. the Seminar for Arabian Studies 28 (1998): 196. Healey argues
88
Jacques Ryckmans, “Ritual Meals in the Ancient South Ara- that this feature in Nabataean inscriptions in its grammatical form
bian Religion,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 3 (precative perfect) and vocabulary (lʿn as both verb and noun) is an
(1973): 37. Arabism (Healey, “Fines and Curses,” 173).

Nabataean inscriptions (as well as in Thamudic and trade networks, thus allowing social and mercantile
Safaitic), the form is an Arabism using the root l-ʿ-n, movement facilitated by political arrangements.97
which Mohammad Maraqten notes has the meaning In the sīra, the “Constitution of Medina” contains
of being expelled from the family.94 the first appearance of the dhimmat Allāh formula. In
The relationship of dhimma with the pre-Islamic this text, dhimma was coupled with jiwār, and does
Arabian concept of jār has been noted by Joseph not contain a reference to the Prophet. Clause 16 of
Schacht and Patricia Crone. This is the practice of Michael Lecker’s edition of Ibn Isḥāq’s version reads:
asking for protection and temporary acceptance into wa inna dhimmat Allah wāḥida yajīruhum ʿalayhim
another familial group. Crone argues that jiwār was adnāhum (“The security of Allah is unvarying, the
not an element of the law of alliances, but of the pre- least of them is entitled to grant refuge that is binding
Islamic custom of hospitality, where the jār is a kind for all of them”).98 This falls under the section that
of insider-alien, and the relationship cannot be ex- belongs to the document addressed to the muʾminūn
tended to non-tribesmen and non-Arabs.95 The use (conventionally translated as “believers” but here
of the term jiwār in pre-Islamic poetry occurs in the perhaps “parties to the covenant”) according to the
context of describing a network of human relations, schema of those scholars who treat the document as a
semantically related to concepts of nobility (ʿizza, composite (including R. B. Serjeant, Michael Lecker,
karāma). Only oral jiwār agreements and announce- and Saïd Arjomand). Formulae referring to the secu-
ments, sometimes accompanied by gestures, rather rity of God using the term jār occur several times and
than documents, are mentioned in poetry that refers in all sections of the text.
to the pre-Islamic custom.96 The formulaic use of This document (or set of documents) also contains
jiwār in relation to dhimmat Allāh in the Prophet’s a clause declaring the sanctity (taḥrīm) of a region of
documents reflects an element of formalization as part Medina. In Lecker’s edition of Ibn Isḥāq’s version,
of legal and diplomatic tradition. Jār and ḥrm are both clause 49 states: wa-inna yathrib ḥarām jawfahā li-
related in ancient Arabia to sanctuary laws. ahl hādhihi l-ṣaḥīfa (“The center [jawf] of Yathrib is
a sanctuary for the people of this agreement”).99 The
“Constitution” not only establishes the ḥaram, but
Sanctuary system as polity
the Prophet’s administrative authority over it and the
The operative distinction governing the use of the confederation that is formed around recognition of
dhimmat Allāh formula in the Prophet’s documents, the sanctuary. Harry Munt points out that this docu-
along with the related terms jiwār and amān, was not ment is preoccupied with the prevention of violent
religious identity. Instead, the terms of the Prophet’s conflict between the resident groups, and that this
dhimma agreements reflected the rules that established
political confederations according to the ancient Ara- 97
Similar arguments for Muḥammad’s maintenance of these
bian model. This included the rules governing mutual sanctuaries, as well as their relation to both pilgrimage and long-
recognition of sanctuaries and the establishment of distance trade routes, are made by Harry Munt, The Holy City of
Medina: Sacred Space in Early Islamic Arabia (Cambridge, 2014),
their networks within a polity. Muḥammad’s diplo-
62; Aziz al-Azmeh, The Emergency of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allāh
matic relations with various tribes in the Ḥijāz who and his People (Cambridge, 2014), 221, 250–51; and Christian Dé
maintained their sanctuaries while submitting to his cobert, Le mendiant et le combattant: l’institution de l’islam (Paris,
military dominance, expressed in terms of the dhim- 1991), 172. Décobert stresses the importance of Muḥammad’s
mat Allāh formula, exemplify the continuance of this recognition of pre-existing groups and tribal integrity through the
recognitions he granted to ḥarams (ibid., 176–77).
socio-legal infrastructure. Sanctuaries were public safe 98
Michael Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina”: Muhammad’s
zones, offering inviolability of refugees and of game First Legal Document, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam 23
for hunting, and were adjacent to (or were) nodes on (Princeton, 2004), 33; Wüstenfeld, Das Leben, 342. I have replaced
“protection” in Lecker’s translation with “security” for dhimma,
94
Maraqten, “Curse formulae,” 195. and replaced his “protection” with “refuge” to translate yajīruhum.
95
Patricia Crone, Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The Ori- 99
In Serjeant’s scheme of eight separate documents, the entirety
gins of the Islamic Patronate (Cambridge, 1987), 51–52. of “document F” is a taḥrīm of Medina dated by Serjeant approx-
96
Poetic references to these jiwār agreements are compiled and imately to year 7 ah (R. B. Serjeant, “The ‘Sunnah Jāmiʿah’ Pacts
discussed by Arafat Madri Shoukri, Refugee Status in Islam: Con- with the Yathrib Jews, and the ‘Taḥrīm’ of Yathrib: Analysis and
cepts of protection in Islamic tradition and international law, In- Translation of the Documents Comprised in the So-Called ‘Con-
ternational Library of Migration Studies 7 (London, 2011), 3–16. stitution of Medina’,” BSOAS 41/1 (1978).

clause may be seen in relation to that larger aim.100 two boys who were harassing a fox in the ḥaram area,
To Serjeant, the reference to umma (commonly and Abū Hurayra stressed that he would not touch
translated as “community”) in this document is to the gazelles in Medina.108
the customary law of confederation along a secular In fact, the Prophet needed to recognize ḥarams in
pattern in ancient Arabia. By this custom, tribes con- areas under other tribal authorities in order to incor-
sidered themselves attached to a ḥaram rather than to porate them under his own, and his most resolute op-
a dynasty.101 Reports on the taḥrīm of Medina and of ponents were correlated with those who retained their
other cities by the Prophet are reflective of this pat- ḥarams.109 The Banū Ḥanīfa had their own ḥaram
tern: the creation of a ḥaram surrounded by tribes under Musaylima,110 and the Banū Thaqīf of al-Ṭāʾif,
who retained their sovereignty but were confederated with their sanctuary of Allāt, only capitulated in year 8
under it. Serjeant points to the Prophet’s documents after being besieged. The Prophet granted an amān to
as indicative of the fact that the tribes were asked to the wādī of Ṭāʾif, called Wajj. This agreement included
yield very little in terms of rights in order to enter into a declaration of Wajj as a ḥaram, including a prohibi-
these agreements.102 tion on felling trees, hunting game, and committing
Related to the establishment of a ḥaram was the crimes within it, as well as providing freedom for all
declaration of a pasture as ḥimā, an Arabian customary markets and trade, and freedom from invasion. The
law that managed tribal access to resources.103 A ḥimā document also included use of the dhimmat Allāh
was sometimes put under the protection of a tribal formula which read: inna lahum dhimmat Allāh
deity and then became assimilated into a ḥaram, pro- alladhī lā ilāha illā huwa wa dhimmat Muḥammad
tecting plant and animal life and offering right of asy- bin ʿAbd Allāh al-nabī (“For them is the security of
lum.104 Reports related to the appointment of ʿAmr God other than whom there is no God and the secu-
b. ʿAwf al-Muzanī in charge of the ḥaram of Medina rity of Muḥammad son of ʿAbd Allāḥ, the prophet”).
also use the term ḥimā.105 This was followed by a statement that the wādī was
The taḥrīm of an area of Medina has several atten- confirmed as a ḥaram by Allah (anna wādihim ḥarām
dant traditions. Yāqūt (d. 626/1229) gives an alter- muḥarram li-llāhi kullahu).111 While the sīra narrative
nate name for the ḥaram, al-Aswāf, which he specified holds that al-Ṭāʾif ’s idol was destroyed,112 this invio-
as an area of the Baqīʿ market.106 Hunting game in this lability status is granted to an already marked sacred
area was forbidden. Some individuals poaching birds space, and the social utility of sanctuaries as widely
here were caught by Zayd b. Thābit and reprimanded known places of refuge for both humans and animals
for violating an area that the Prophet had sanctified encouraged their maintenance rather than their dis-
(ḥarrama).107 Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī also reprimanded solution. This system of sanctuaries was critical to the
movement of people, livestock, and goods in the pen-
100
Munt, The Holy City of Medina, 59.
insula. In the year 10 ah, a deputation from Jurash
101
R. B. Serjeant, “Haram and Hawta, the Sacred Enclave in
Arabia,” in Mélanges Taha Hussein: Offerts par ses Amies and ses also requested recognition of their ḥimā, which the
disciples, à l’occasion de son 70ième. anniversaire, ed. Abdurrahman Prophet granted to them.113 Mecca too, after its con-
Badawi (Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif, 1962), 49. quest, was declared a ḥaram with similar conditions, as
102
Ibid., 50–51. reported in ḥadīth. The rules of sanctuary pertaining
103
Serjeant (ibid., 55) points out that traditions on Hāshim’s
to Mecca (whose relation to the well of Zamzam is
alliances may indicate that those tribes insisting on khafāra were
attached to ḥarams other than Mecca.
not insignificant) and Medina both were reportedly
104
Lutfallah Gari, “A History of the Himā Conservation Sys- recorded in writing. 114 It is clear that these recogni-
tem,” Environment and History 12/2 (2006): 215.
105
Lecker, “Constitution,” 201. 108
Gari, “History of the Himā”: 217.
106
Some reports state that the ḥaram of Medina was between 109
Serjeant, “Haram and Hawta,” 52.
two lābas or ḥarras (lava fields) of Medina. Lecker (ibid., 167) 110
Ibid., 48.
sees this delimitation as reflecting a later extension of the ḥaram. 111
Abū ʿUbayd, Amwāl, 276, no. 506.
Change in the extent of a sanctuary is archaeologically attested for 112
al-Ṭabarī, Annales, I:1691–92.
the ancient South Arabian Maḥram Bilqis at Awwām. Here the des- 113
Ibid, 1731.
ignation of sacred space altered with time and the construction and 114
Abū Hurayra narrates that in the year of the conquest (of
use of space: see William D. Glanzman, “Some notions of sacred Mecca) the tribe of Khuzāʾa killed a man from the Banū Layth in
space at the Maḥram Bilqīs in Mārib,” Proceedings of the Seminar revenge for someone killed in the pre-Islamic period. In response,
for Arabian Studies 32 (2002). the Prophet declared that Mecca was a sanctuary, and that fighting,
107
Yāqūt ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-Buldān, ed. with the exception of the period allowed for the conquest, was not
Ferdinand Wüstenfeld vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1965), 267, s.v. al-Aswāf. permitted there; and that neither its thorny shrubs nor trees should

tions did not manage ritual practice or confessional age or act sinfully”).117 Ancient Arabian sanctuaries
identity, but recognized tribal access to resources such offered asylum not to the criminal but to refugees,
as land, water, and economic zones. presumably those fleeing war or tribal feuds.118 The
All of these regulations for the ḥarams of Medina, formula “sacred and inviolable” (ἱερὰν καὶ ἄσυλον) for
Mecca, and al-Ṭaʾif are in line with ancient Arabian temples, cities, and/or territories is also found in texts
sanctuaries and their laws of ritual purity, peace, and of dedications and recognitions of Hellenistic asyla.119
asylum. These explicitly prohibited bloodshed, both Characteristics shared between the texts recognizing
human and animal, as well as criminal acts, within des- these asyla and the security agreements employing the
ignated sanctuaries.115 An inscription on an orthostat dhimmat Allāh formula in the Prophet’s documents
depicting a lion protecting a gazelle, possibly from the are the vocabulary of piety and of honoring the deity.
first century ad, at the sanctuary of Allāt at Palmyra Ancient South Arabian epigraphic and archae-
reads: “A[llāt] will bless / whoever will not shed / ological studies can be correlated with the literary-
blood in the sanctuary.” The sanctuary of Allāt may legal evidence provided by the early Islamic narrative
have been the only designated asylum among Palmy- sources for a network of sanctuaries which facilitated
ra’s sanctuaries.116 In comparison, Clause 50 in Leck- and maintained social relations. Andrey Korotayev,
er’s edition of Ibn Isḥāq’s text of the “Constitution Vladimir Klimenko, and Dmitry Proussakov argue for
of Medina,” directly following the clause identifying a new religio-political development in sixth-century
the ḥaram of Medina, reads: wa-inna l-jār ka-l-nafs Arabia. This period saw the rise of the free tribe main-
ghayr muḍārr wa-lā āthim (“The protected neighbour tained by “soft structures,” networks produced by the
is like one’s self, as long as he does not cause dam- sanctuary and pilgrimage system.120 As we have seen,
the sīra preserves evidence for the maintenance of
pre-Islamic sanctuaries in the Ḥijāz, linking this main-
be cut down, nor fallen things picked up except by someone looking tenance to diplomatic strategies under the Prophet.
for their owner. Then a man from the Quraysh stood up and asked Al Makin argues that sīra-maghāzī literature also re-
for an exception for the uprooting of al-idhkhir, a grass used in tains evidence for simultaneous multiple religious al-
the houses and for graves, which the Prophet accepted. Thereupon legiances held by tribes and a competition of ḥarams.
another man, from Yemen, called Abū Shāh, stood up and asked for
The Banū Ḥanīfa following Musaylima were affiliated
this to be written down for him, and the Prophet commanded for
this to be done. Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad b. Isma’īl al-Bukhārī.
with a ḥaram competing with Mecca, while also con-
Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (Riyad: Bayt al-afkār al-dawliyah lil-nashr, 1998), sidering Muḥammad to be a partner of Musaylima
457, Kitāb fi l-Luqata no. 2434. Similarly, Rāfi‘ b. Khadīj reported in prophethood.121 Although we lack the amount of
that the Prophet’s statement sanctifying Medina was written on a evidence that we have for ancient South Arabia or
type of Yemeni tanned leather and that he could bring forth this Hellenistic Syria,122 it is evident that sanctuaries ex-
text as proof of this declaration. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn Ḥanbal,
isted in the Ḥijāz, and that their recognition served to
al-Musnad wa bi-hāmishihi kitāb muntakhab kanz al-ʿummāl fī su-
nan al-aqwāl wa-l-afʿāl li-l-Muttaqī al-Hindī (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa organize social relations. The dhimmat Allāh formula
al-maymanīya, 1895), IV: 141.
115
These were sometimes accompanied by instructions on ritual
purity. See for example an inscription on the entrance to the temple 117
Lecker, “Constitution,” 37.
of the “Syrian goddess” (Atargatis) on the island of Delos, prohibit- 118
Drijvers, “Sanctuaries and Social Safety,” 71.
ing entrance to those who had not ritually cleansed themselves from 119
Kent J. Rigsby, Asylia: Territorial Inviolability in the Helle-
activities such as eating pork or having intercourse, or an invocation nistic World (Berkeley, CA, 1996), 387. According to Rigsby, these
of deities against those entering shrine IV in Hatra wearing shoes. documents were not effective in declaring military inviolability or
Ted Kaizer, The Religious Life of Palmyra, Orients Et Occidens 4 sanctuary for refugees, which were customary for temples, but re-
(Stuttgart, 2002), 186–87. flected a movement to obtain civic recognitions and honors (ibid.,
116
H. J. W. Drijvers clarifies that this space was not meant as 24–27).
sanctuary for criminals or those committing offenses, but for tribal 120
Andrey Korotayev, Vladimir Klimenko, and Dmitry Proussa-
feuds. This was one of the many ways in which the laws of sanctuary kov, “Origins of Islam: Political-Anthropological and Environmen-
served social-integrative functions. Drijvers also argues that the lo- tal Context,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
cation of the sanctuary of Allāt in Palymra at the edge of the desert, 52/3–4 (1999): 284 ff. See also M. J. Kister, “Mecca and Tamim,”
as well as evidence for processions to and from the temple of Bel JESHO 8 (1965), for an argument on the development of the Mec-
in the urban center, indicate appeasement, recognition and incor- can commonwealth under the Prophet as a response to the lack of
poration by urban authorities of desert dwellers: H. J. W. Drijvers, inter-tribal security.
“Sanctuaries and Social Safety: The Iconography of Divine Peace in 121
Al Makin, Representing the Enemy: Musaylima in Muslim
Hellenistic Syria,” Visible Religion: Annual for Religious Iconogra- Literature (Frankfurt, 2010), 249.
phy 1 (Leiden, 1982). 122
See Rigsby, Asylia.

from the Prophet’s documents is an artifact of this Conclusion

earlier Arabian polity.
The use of the dhimmat Allāh formula in the Proph-
Saïd Arjomand calls the development in these years,
et’s documents in order to stipulate inviolability for
in which the Prophet extended control over tribes in
persons, and its distinctive wording which contrasts
surrounding deserts, the “pax islamica of an inter-
both with classical legal theory concerning the ahl
tribal security system,” which functioned without pro-
al-dhimma and the dhimma formula in Conquest-era
fession of Islam and included autonomous Christian
treaties, make these texts relevant, as a corpus, to the
and Jewish settlements declared “protectorates.”123
question of the existence of a pre-Islamic Arabic le-
Thus he sees the term muʾminūn in the “Constitution
gal formulary. Milka Levy-Rubin has established that
of Medina” as referring to those people faithful to the
the issue of the authenticity of documents in literary
covenant, a term initially distinct from muslimūn.124
transmission requires a comparative legal history, and
Regarding the status of the addressees of the
her work firmly locates Conquest-era surrender trea-
Prophet’s documents discussed in this paper, the
ties in international diplomatic culture practiced in
distinction between submission to Muḥammad and
the Byzantine and Sassanian realms.126 Geoffrey Khan
conversion to Islam remains unclear. Understanding
and Michael Lecker have both argued for the existence
this may help explain the ridda wars. Ella Landau-
and influence on Arabic documentary tradition of pre-
Tasseron, for example, argues that among those par-
Islamic Arabic legal formularies.127
ticipating in the ridda, there were those who did not
The distinctive use of the dhimmat Allāh formula
renounce Islam but refused to share in Muslim iden-
in the Prophet’s documents suggests that it is archaic.
tity due to the change in leadership with the Prophet’s
While these documents, such as the famous letters to
death, while others submitted but did not convert.
kings, are certainly part of the image of the Prophet,
There were also parties who were indifferent to Islam,
and play a narrative role in sīra-maghāzī literature,
but involved in the wars due to their own inter- and
their formulaic elements should not be collapsed into
intra-tribal conflicts. The outcome of the ridda was
the interpretative use made of them by redactors who
to extend the grounds of the community and make
saw the documents as setting the foundation of later
indifference to Islam an unacceptable option. Thus
law. This is seen, for example, in the redactors’ use of
Landau-Tasseron finds the choice between translat-
the term jizya or amān in their commentaries, but
ing islām as “political submission” or “belief ” to be
not in their quotation of the documents. We cannot
irrelevant to the pre-ridda context in which Islamic
unquestioningly attribute these documents to the
hegemony was incomplete.125
Prophet, or even date with certainty the Prophet’s
For these reasons also, the dhimmat Allāh for-
military campaigns and diplomatic agreements. How-
mula in the Prophet’s documents is best understood
ever, the usage of the dhimmat Allāh formula in these
as functioning within the pattern of ancient Arabian
documents does not agree with and pre-dates the legal
confederations. This includes the mutual recognition
conceptualization of non-Muslims that developed in
of sanctuaries, which also facilitated economic transac-
the third/ninth century. These documents also agree
tions. Though the dhimmat Allāh formula defers to
with the earliest Arabic papyri in their use of general
the deity, this should not be understood as a matter of
and non-standardized taxation terminology. Further,
belief or confessional identity but of political confed-
the ambiguity they display concerning whether the
eration. These arrangements under the Prophet also
term islām refers to political/military submission,
imply that dhimma functioned as a temporary condi-
agreement to pay tribute, ritual practice, or religious
tion, rather than a permanent status.
confession places these documents earlier than the de-
finitive association of islām with a confessional identity
123
Saïd Arjomand, “The Constitution of Medina: A Sociolegal
Interpretation of Muhammad’s Acts of Foundation of the ‘Umma’,”
IJMES 41/4 (2009): 571. Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims.
126
124
Ibid., 571. Geoffrey Khan, “The Pre-Islamic Background of Muslim Le-
127
125
Ella Landau-Tasseron, “From Tribal Society to Centralized gal Formularies,” Aram 6 (1994); Michael Lecker, “A Pre-Islamic
Polity: An Interpretation of Events and Anecdotes of the Formative Endowment Deed in Arabic regarding al-Waḥīda in the Hijāz,” in
Period of Islam,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 24 (2000): Michael Lecker, People, Tribes and Society in Arabia around the Time
205–206. of Muhammad (Ashgate, UK, 2005) no. IV.

that was universally available.128 The terminology of historical and anthropological methods. He describes
these documents indicates that there were several al- the longevity and “seeming continuity” of the terms
ternatives for conducting relationships within a polit- and principles governing jiwār, and the long-lived
ical confederation. Of these, islām was only one, and verbatim memory of this law which remained inde-
not necessarily the one that always resulted in the most pendent of the survival or copying of texts thusly:
pragmatic benefits. In all these ways, the documents
What we do know is that every time we gain a
attributed to the Prophet reflect the late antique eco-
glimpse of tribal affairs, through a document-
nomic and political context of the period prior to the
find or through anecdotes in a chronicle or
establishment of the Islamic state.
learned biography, we find much the same logic
In his study of customary law called ḥukm al-manʿ
of mutually-recognized protection, of moral
(dealing with jiwār, i.e., rights and obligations of pro-
reciprocity, and of a distinction between com-
tection and refuge) among modern tribes in Yemen,
pensation and amends, expressed in a language
Paul Dresch notes the inapplicability of modern jur-
of binding rules.132
isprudential concepts, which are based on state struc-
tures, to non-state based law. Decoupling our concept Further, he notes, in this process in modern Yemen,
of law from that of morality and our expectations of “one finds not only copying back and forth of docu-
law enforcement through centralized authority can ments, but people who quote word for word early texts
allow us to focus on “statements of law, not law as they could not possibly have read. . . . ”133 Evidence
process,”129 which apply to tribes that function “not at the linguistic, formulaic level is also geographically
as cohesive groups . . . but as geographically based diffuse; Dresch writes: “resemblances become deeply
sets.”130 Both of these distinctions, concerning the na- unsettling when, in the absence of any institutional
ture of law and the nature of tribes, apply to the types or documentary connection, one finds sometimes the
of evidence that have been explored in this article. same turns of phrase in Sinai, the Egyptian desert, or
Ḥukm al-manʿ is a transactional law that turns on North Africa. Contemporary anthropology and his-
the concept of protection provided by individuals. tory seem ill-equipped to describe this.”134
These transactions devolved neither upon the com- I suggest that a similar process is at work explaining
munity nor any higher authority, but applied person- the continuity of dhimmat Allāh in Arabian practice
ally to the individuals involved.131 Dresch’s material under the Prophet, where a formula related to political
illustrates the longevity of legal formulae, and suggests confederation and inviolability drew on pre-existing
that social structures served to maintain these formu- infrastructures that were not based on a single en-
lae over centuries. Crucially, Dresch recognizes that forceable authority, but on a network of agreements
both this formulaic longevity and its dependence on regulating access to pastures, market towns, and sanc-
social structures are difficult to explain by our current tuaries. The agreements in which the dhimmat Allāh
formula is found did not follow some universal law,
128
Both Harry Munt and Lena Salaymeh have argued for the
and their conditions were tailored to specific social and
early conceptualization of “muslim” as a geographically and politi-
cally bounded identity. Munt explores early juristic discussions on
geographical relations. Mapping a formula “on the
the expulsion of non-Muslims from the Hijāz as part of a process of ground” reveals its functional relationships to other
boundary creation contributing to an emerging Muslim identity. In formulae also used in the documents attributed to the
this process, “the limits of the Ḥijāz/Arabian Peninsula were often Prophet, the barrenness of the category of confes-
defined by the limits of contemporary non-Muslim residence, and sional identity in understanding these agreements, and
not vice versa” (Harry Munt, “ ‘No Two Religions’: Non-Muslims
the utility of treating law in this period not as positive
in the Early Islamic Hijāz,” BSOAS 78/2 [2015]: 263). Salaymeh
posits Muslim identity up to the second/eighth century as a hybrid law, but as a tradition based on negotiation. Docu-
identity containing elements of belief, but determined on the basis ments found in literary sources that are attributed to
of citizenship status such that “most Muslims did not understand this early period can yield possibly archaic formulae
Muslim identity as a matter of belief, but rather as a public expres- drawing on customary law. These should encourage an
sion of socio-political membership” (Salaymeh, “Taxing Citizens,”
investigation into how much of Islamic origins func-
342).
129
Paul Dresch, “Aspects of Non-State Law: Early Yemen and
tioned as ancient localized custom.
Perpetual Peace,” in Legalism: Anthropology and History, ed. Paul
Dresch and Hannah Skoda (Oxford, 2012), 145. 132
Ibid., 171.
130
Ibid., 146. 133
Ibid., 171 n. 35.
131
Ibid., 155. 134
Ibid.


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Dhimma Agreements and Sanctuary

Systems at Islamic Origins

Introduction lated as “protection,” with non-Muslim groups liv-

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from the Prophet’s documents is an artifact of this Conclusion

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