Tolerance, religious freedom and apostasy

Overview

Recall questions on the Qur'an on compulsion in religion, ahl al-kitab, the dhimma contract, the treatment of minorities in medieval and modern Muslim societies, Ghazali on unbelief, classical and modern positions on apostasy, and whether Islam is a tolerant religion.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What does the Qur'an mean when it says that the religion accepted by God is submission to Him?

   Model answer

   The statement is read in two ways by Muslims. On an exclusive reading it identifies Islam, the religion brought by Muhammad, as the one God now accepts, so other paths are superseded. On an inclusive reading the Arabic word means submission in a general sense, so anyone who genuinely submits to the one God, including the prophets and their faithful followers before Muhammad, is included. Most Muslims hold something between the two: Islam is the final and complete form of the religion God has always sent, and how individuals outside it fare is left to God's judgement rather than settled by human beings.

2. 2

   What does the Qur'an teach about compulsion in religion?

   Model answer

   A short and much-quoted statement rules out coercion in matters of faith, giving as its reason that right guidance is now clearly distinguishable from error, so no one needs to be forced. Muslims commonly read this as establishing that belief cannot be produced by force and that forced conversion is worthless. Some classical jurists limited its scope, applying it only to the people of the Book, and a minority held it abrogated by later verses about warfare, but most modern Muslim scholars treat it as a general principle of religious freedom.

3. 3

   Who are ahl al-kitab, and what follows from that status?

   Model answer

   Ahl al-kitab, the people of the Book, are communities that received an earlier revealed scripture, principally Jews and Christians, with the Sabians named alongside them in the Qur'an. Jurists extended protected status and the poll tax to Zoroastrians and, in practice, to Hindus and others in territories that came under Muslim rule, though most did not treat them as full people of the Book. The status carries practical consequences in classical law: their food may be eaten, Muslim men may marry their women, and they are not treated as idolaters. It also carries theological consequences, since the Qur'an addresses them as recipients of genuine revelation and invites them to common ground, while also disputing specific beliefs.

4. 4

   What was the dhimma contract, and what did it involve?

   Model answer

   Dhimma was an arrangement under which non-Muslim communities living under Muslim rule received protection of life, property and worship and exemption from military service, in return for accepting Muslim political authority and paying a poll tax, jizya, from which Muslims were exempt while paying alms instead. Protected communities largely ran their own affairs, applying their own religious law in family matters through their own leaders. Various restrictions accompanied the arrangement, and their severity varied greatly by period and place.

5. 5

   What restrictions did the dhimma arrangement place on non-Muslims?

   Model answer

   Depending on time and place these included limits on building new places of worship or repairing old ones, on public display of religious ritual, processions and bell-ringing, on riding certain animals or bearing arms, on distinctive dress, on holding authority over Muslims, and on preaching to Muslims, along with restrictions on giving testimony against Muslims in court. Historians emphasise that these rules were unevenly applied and often ignored. Assessments differ sharply: some regard the arrangement as remarkably tolerant by the standards of the medieval world, others as a codified second-class status that no modern account of equality could accept.

6. 6

   How were religious minorities actually treated in medieval Muslim societies?

   Model answer

   The record is mixed. Jews and Christians served as physicians, officials, translators and financiers, Jewish intellectual life flourished in Muslim Spain and in Iraq, and the Ottoman millet system gave communities substantial self-government, while Ottoman rulers received Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. Against this stand real persecutions: the Almohads in North Africa and Spain forced conversion and drove Maimonides into exile, an Egyptian ruler destroyed churches and synagogues early in the eleventh century, and there were periodic riots and confiscations. The fairest summary is that protected status was generally honoured and occasionally violated, and that it was better than contemporary European practice without being equality.

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