“Christian Scholars Using the Qurān in Early Islamic Centuries (675-900 A.D)”, Graduate Conference in Civilization Studies: Being Human and Human Being, The Alliance of Civilizations Institute, Ibn Haldun University, 5-6 April 2019, Istanbul, Turkey. (original) (raw)

2019, Graduate Conference in Civilization Studies: Being Human and Human Being

Dhimma literally means 'ahd (treaty), amaan and damaan (protection and assurance) and hurmah (inviolability). It is a much-discussed term in the academia; however, most of the academic literature deals with this concept from a historical perspective, in terms of the status of minorities also called ahl al-dhimma or dhimmis under the Islamic rule. As distinct from that approach, my aim is to discover the theoretical/philosophical background of dhimma in the Islamic tradition by presenting its relation to human responsibility rooted in the creation of man and the amanah (trust) given by God. For this purpose, I firstly deal with how the word dhimma is mentioned in the primary Islamic sources of the Qur'an and hadith of the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬ and then explore the approach of fuqaha, the Muslim jurists in usul al-fiqh (legal theory) and in furu' al-fiqh (practical jurisprudence). Exploring dhimma through the primary sources reveals that dhimma, in its essential nature, is a moral concept requiring responsibility, and it is related to one's being. In relation to creation, dhimma represents a quality that makes human being eligible for being an addressee of the divine law and responsible for the amanah. It is the root of the capacity of conscious and willing submission to God. In the legal theory, dhimma comes in the meaning of a quality by which a person becomes eligible for having rights and responsibilities. This corresponds with personhood in the modern legal theory. Dhimma in this meaning; makes the individual first of all a full member of society and then a proper subject of law bearing rights and responsibilities. As a function of this meaning in usul al-fiqh, dhimma means the place, the seat of obligation in furu' al-fiqh. It is a nominal place where one's obligations, either towards God or towards the people exist. All in all, what I claim is the theoretical investigation of dhimma in the Qur'an, hadith, and fiqh enables the comprehension of human responsibility reaching beyond the time in this world.