Pact of Umar II

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Covenant of Umar I . (Discuss) Proposed since May 2010.

Not to be confused with Covenant of Umar I between the second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab and Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

The Pact (Covenant) of Umar (c. 717 AD) was a treaty supposedly made between the Umayyad caliph Umar II (not to be confused with the second caliph Umar who had made the first treaty with Christians in Jerusalem known as "Umari Treaty") and the ahl al-kitab (اهل الكتاب) ("People of the Book") living on the land conquered. Muslim scholars, and non-Muslim historians have questioned the historicity of the document.

Conditions

The document in prescribed the condition of "People of the Book" (Jews and Christians).

They were granted the right to practice their own religious rites. Manifesting their religion publicly or converting anyone to it was prohibited, as was keeping their children from becoming Muslim. Protection of Christians and Jews and their property was part of the pact, and this compared "well with the treatment meted out to non-Christians in Christian Europe".^[1]

Mamluk sultans during the latter Middle Ages specified that dhimmi could not be in service to the State.^[2]

To secure their rights, non-Muslims would pledge loyalty to their Muslim rulers, pay a special poll-tax (the jizya) for adult males. The conditions of the Pact were authoritative, the level of enforcement varied, as shown by the existence of churches constructed long after the Muslim conquests.

Historicity

Modern scholars have questioned the authenticity of this agreement (which exists in several different textual forms), claiming it to be the product of later jurists who attributed it to the caliph Umar in order to lend greater authority to their own opinions.^{[citation needed]}

Western Academic historians believe that the Pact of Umar in the form it is known today was a product of later jurists who attributed it to the venerated caliph Umar I in order to lend greater authority to their own opinions.^{[citation needed]} At least some of the clauses of the pact mirror the measures first introduced by the Umayyad caliph Umar II or by the early Abbasid caliphs.^[3]

It has recently been suggested that many of the detailed regulations originate from an earlier historical precedent, namely the regulations which existed in the Sassanian Persian Empire with reference to its religious minorities.^{[citation needed]} Here there was a highly developed Jewish community, and separate Monophysite and Nestorian Christian communities, and during the late Sassanian period the rulers experimented with arrangements by which efforts were made to ensure the loyalty of the population by granting military protection and some degree of religious toleration in return for the payment of taxes.^[4]

See also

• Covenant of Umar I

References

• Hugh Goddard (2000). A History of Christian-Muslim Relations. Chicago: New Amsterdam Books. ISBN 1-56663-340-0. 
• A. S. Tritton (1930). The Caliphs and their non-Muslim Subjects: a Critical Study of the Covenant of `Umar. London: Frank Cass Publisher. ISBN 0-7146-1996-5. 
• Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, by Josef W. Meri, Jere L. Bacharach, published by Routledge, 2006 ISBN 0-415-96690-6, ISBN 978-0-415-96690-0 878 pages

Notes