Permission to Stay in "Enemy" Territory?. (10th January 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gertz, Steven
• Is Part Of: Muslim world. Volume 103:Number 1(2013:Jan.)
• Page Start: 94
• Page End: 106
• Publication Date: 2013-01-10
• Subjects: Islam -- Periodicals; Islam -- Relations -- Christianity -- Periodicals; Christianity and other religions -- Islam -- Periodicals; Missions -- Periodicals; 297
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.2012.01419.x
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0027-4909

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>Muslim scholars writing about the legal situation of Muslims living under non‐Muslim rule during the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries were primarily concerned with whether Muslims should be allowed to live under non‐Muslim rule or whether they should emigrate (or go on <italic>hijra</italic>) from it. Two Ḥanbalī legists, Ibn Qudāma (d. 620/1223) and Ibn Mufliḥ (d. 763/1362), both of whom lived and wrote in Damascus (Ayyūbid and Mamlūk, respectively), address this issue in their legal works (<italic>fiqh</italic>). Their scholarship, when compared with that of the Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), is instructive, particularly when one considers differences between these scholars' experiences of non‐Muslim rule. A guiding question is how experience may shape (or fail to shape) a jurist's position on <italic>hijra</italic>, since the events of the time (the Crusades and, later, the Mongol invasions) forced Muslims living under non‐Muslim control to decide whether they must leave such lands. Loyalty to one's school (<italic>taqlīd</italic>) appears to have influenced the jurists most in their thinking, but experience shaped how they justified their positions on whether a Muslim must emigrate from lands under non‐Muslim control.</p> </abstract>