Page 220 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

islamic world 1039

“territory of Islam,” opposed to which was the dar al- tians, which allowed them to continue to practice their
harb, the “abode” or “territory of war.” The celebrated Hindu faith in return for fealty to the new Muslim
jurist ash-Shafi‘i (d. 820 CE) added a third category: the administration. Such imperial designs were not sup-
abode or territory of treaty or reconciliation.These con- ported by all jurists; dissenting jurists and many ordinary
cepts and terms are not to be found in the Quran nor in pious Muslims were aghast at the notion of offensive mil-
the prophetic sunna (sayings and practices of Muham- itary activity that could be justified by the invocation of
mad); rather, they reflect the legal and political pragma- an assumed confrontational bipolar world.
tism of these jurists, who wished to make sense of and By roughly the twelfth century, these terms had begun
impose moral order on the historical reality of their times. to lose their efficacy and began to be redefined in response
In this, they were following a time-honored custom of to changed historical and political realities.The Muslim
defining themselves and the polity they inhabited by polity had become quite fractured, having split into sev-
demarcating the limits of the civilized world as they knew eral autonomous realms with independent rulers who
it from the realm of disorder and moral chaos. Greeks in sometimes fought with one another. Muslims also some-
classical antiquity saw themselves as the very antithesis times traveled to non-Muslim territories and settled there.
of all non-Greeks, whom they termed barbarians; simi- The question was posed: Were these realms and Muslims
larly, the pre-Islamic Arabs set themselves apart from the no longer to be regarded as a part of dar al-Islam? In
uncivilized non-Arabs.Among earlier religious communi- recognition of the changed situation, some jurists in this
ties, the Jews separated themselves from the impure non- period formed the opinion that non-Muslim territory in
Jews and the Christian regarded the unsaved infidel as which Muslims were free to practice their religion could
beyond the pale. For the Muslim jurists of this period, the be subsumed under the rubric of dar al-Islam. Thus,
territory of Islam represented all that was lawful and mor- already in the medieval period, we see a broadening of
ally right in God’s world, being under the governance of the concept of the Islamic world to include not only
God’s law. Beyond its confines, the rest of the world was countries and regions where Muslims predominated but
in need of divine guidance and, ideally speaking, through also territories which included minority Muslim popula-
propagation of the message of Islam or by acknowledg- tions who were not impeded in the practice of their faith.
ing the suzerainty of the Muslim ruler, could in time (so In a similar vein, in our contemporary period, the term
it was hoped) be brought into the abode of Islam. Such Islamic world now includes not only the traditional
a world vision was created by the spectacular spread of heartlands of Islam but also Europe and North America,
Islamic dominion in the few decades after the Prophet’s both of which have sizeable minority Muslim popula-
death, which tended to foster a sense of the inevitable tions.This may be understood to reflect a resurgence of
and ultimate triumph of Islam. Such a worldview, how- the concept of the worldwide umma, signaling certain
ever, did not include the forcible conversion of nonbe- shared values and common religious observances among
lievers, strictly forbidden in the Quran (2:256), but only Muslims regardless of where they may be located and
their political capitulation, preferably peacefully, but whether they are under the political jurisdiction of a Mus-
through military means if necessary.Thus although Egypt lim ruler or not.
and Syria were conquered militarily by the Arabs in the
late seventh century, the native populations remained The Contemporary
largely Christian until about the tenth century. Similarly, Islamic World
the military conquest of the western Indian province of The vast majority of Muslims today are concentrated in
Sind was followed by the extension of the status of “pro- South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North
tected people” (ahl al-dhimma) to Hindus, a status tradi- Africa, with sizeable minority populations in the rest of
tionally reserved under Islamic Law for Jews and Chris- Africa and Asia, Europe, and North America. Islam has