RELIGION AND LAW IN MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM SOCIETIES 8 RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN CHRISTIAN, JEWISH AND MUSLIM LAW (5 TH – 15 TH CENTURIES (original) (raw)
Related papers
This volume shows through the use of legal sources that law was used to try to erect boundaries between communities in order to regulate or restrict interaction between the faithful and the non-faithful; and at the same time show how these boundaries were repeatedly transgressed and negociated. Muslim law developed a clear legal cadre for dhimmīs, inferior but protected non-Muslim communities (in particular Jews and Christians) and Roman Canon law decreed a similar status for Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe. Yet the theoretical hierarchies between faithful and infidel were constantly brought into question in the daily interactions between men and women of different faiths in streets, markets, bath-houses, law courts, etc. The twelve essays in this volume explore these tensions and attempts to resolve them. These contributions show that law was used to try to erect boundaries between communities in order to regulate or restrict interaction between the faithful and the non-fai...
Religious Minorities in Christian, Jewish and Muslim Law (5th-15th centuries), 2017
In the crusader kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus, a small number of western European Latin Christians formed a “social majority” over a far more numerous population of Muslims, eastern Christians, and Jews. The crusaders created a two-tiered legal system, one for the Latin nobility and one for the non-nobles, merchants, and all other inhabitants of the kingdom. The Latins were, of course, at the top of the social and legal hierarchy, with the other religious groups enjoying fewer legal rights. However, the crusaders seemed to be aware that their position as conquerors could lead to abuses of justice, and there is an underlying principle of equity in their legal texts. This can be seen, for example, in their laws that deal with testimony in court; in the idea that each religious group is equal to the others; and in the laws regulating slavery and the emancipation of slaves. The laws of the crusader kingdom can also be compared and contrasted with similar laws in other areas where Christians, Muslims, and Jews also lived together, such as Spain and Sicily.
The legal status of religious minorities in the medieval Mediterranean world: a comparative study
2010
Throughout the Mediterranean world in the Middle ages, Jews, Christians and Muslims interacted in streets and in marketplaces, shared meals, undertook joint economic ventures, traveled together. These interactions were, in theory, governed by a host of legal strictures. Yet the clerical elites who were often the guarantors of these religious/legal traditions often reacted with realism and pragmatism, adapting the seemingly rigid constraints of religious law to specific needs. Two examples are used to illustrate this, from the writings of twelfth-century ifriqiyan mufti al-Māzarī and thirteenth-century canonist Raymond of Penyafort.