Munt SOAS No Two Religions PDF

Bulletin of SOAS, 78, 2 (2015), 249269. SOAS, University of London, 2014.
doi:10.1017/S0041977X14001049 First published online 24 November 2014
No two religions: Non-Muslims in the early

Islamic H ijz
Harry Munt*
University of York
harry.munt@york.ac.uk
Abstract
Many classical Islamic sources argue that it is not permissible for non-
Muslims to reside in the H ijz, especially Mecca and Medina. Such argu-
ments are usually based on a famous Prophetic saying, Two religions
should not join/remain in the peninsula/land of the Arabs, and on the
reported action taken by the second caliph Umar b. al-Khatt b to remove
non-Muslims from settlements in western Arabia. In this article, it is argued
that the contradictory nature of the evidence for this expulsion casts serious
doubt on whether such a widespread action actually took place, certainly
not in the decades immediately following Muhammads death. It concludes
that the widely attested classical prohibition on non-Muslims residing in the
H ijz rather had much more to do with the gradually evolving need to draw
up firmer communal boundaries, which could help distinguish Muslims
from others, and the role played by sacred spaces in doing so.
Keywords: H ijz, Mecca, Non-Muslims, H adith, Islamic law, Communal
boundaries
In the middle decades of the seventh century CE, armies from the Arabian
Peninsula conquered most of the Roman Near East and all of the Sasanian
empire. Whatever the precise role of a new religion in this rapid expansion,
there is little doubt that many of the Arabians involved in it were adherents of
a new religio-political movement recently founded by Muhammad in the
H ijz. It is also now widely accepted that the vast majority of the newly con-
quered populations did not convert to this movements new faith, Islam, for cen-
turies, and so for an extremely long time Muslims remained a small ruling
minority throughout most of the Middle East.1 The interactions between this
ruling minority and the ruled non-Muslim majority have thus justifiably been
the subject of a great deal of modern scholarly research and debate.2 Here,
* Earlier versions of this paper were presented in Oxford in September 2011 and Lancaster in
February 2012. I much appreciated the helpful comments and suggestions of the audiences
on both those occasions. I am also indebted to Chase Robinson, Anna Chrysostomides and
the two anonymous reviewers for reading and commenting upon an earlier draft. My
research has been funded by the British Academy, to whom I am very grateful.
1 The classic work is R.W. Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979).
2 The literature on this topic is far too extensive to cite in detail, but to begin with see for
example A.S. Tritton, The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects: A Critical Study of
Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. Colgate University Library, on 09 Jan 2017 at 14:59:00, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use
, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X14001049
250 HARRY MUNT
however, the focus will be on the interactions which concern the one area of the
new Islamic world where already in the first century AH, so we are led to
understand by our sources, Muslims were actually in the majority.
The H ijz (a region of west Arabia which includes Mecca and Medina)
was the focus of Muhammads mission, and so it is not surprising that earlier
religions were thought to have disappeared there most rapidly. After
Muhammads death the new caliph in Medina, Ab Bakr, had to wage war to
compel the rest of Arabia to accept his and the new communitys authority,
but after these relatively brief ridda wars the Peninsula had largely been won
over, at least to the political hegemony of the Muslims of Medina and
Mecca.3 Many later Muslim scholars argued that in the time of the second
caliph, Umar b. al-Khatt b (r. 1323/63444), the H ijz (or, more radically,
the whole Arabian Peninsula) was freed from the presence of non-Muslims
through a programme of expulsion. This action is justified by reference to a
handful of apparently Prophetic statements, perhaps most famously, Two
religions should not join/remain in the peninsula/land of the Arabs.4
the Covenant of Umar (London: Oxford University Press, 1930); A. Fattal, Le statut lgal
des non-musulmans en pays dislam (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1958); M. Cohen,
Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1994); R.G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and
Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton:
Darwin Press, 1997); Y. Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islamic Law: Interfaith
Relations in the Muslim Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); and
the articles gathered together in R.G. Hoyland (ed.), Muslims and Others in Early
Islamic Society (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). Three particularly useful recent studies are
S.H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the
World of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); A. Papaconstantinou,
Between umma and dhimma: the Christians of the Middle East under the Umayyads,
Annales islamologiques 42, 2008, 12756; and M. Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the
Early Islamic Empire: From Surrender to Coexistence (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2011).
3 On the so-called ridda wars, see for example F.M. Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), esp. 8290; E. Landau-Tasseron, From
tribal society to centralized polity: an interpretation of events and anecdotes of the for-
mative period of Islam, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam (JSAI) 24, 2000,
180216.
4 For other secondary discussions of these texts, see Tritton, Caliphs, 1756; Fattal, Statut
lgal, 8591; A. Ferr, Muhammad a-t-il exclu de lArabie les juifs et les chrtiens?,
Islamochristiana 16, 1990, 4365; S. Ward, A fragment from an unknown work by
al-T abar on the tradition Expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula
(and the lands of Islam), BSOAS 53/3, 1990, 40720; M. Schller, Exegetisches
Denken und Prophetenbiographie: Eine quellenkritische Analyse der Sra-berlieferung
zu Muhammads Konflikt mit den Juden (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), 31353;
Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion, 856, 8893; M. Lecker, Najrn Inc.: the Najrn
exiles in Iraq, Syria and Bahrayn from Umar ibn al-Khatt b to Hrn al-Rashd, in J.
Beaucamp, F. Briquel-Chatonnet and C.J. Robin (eds), Juifs et chrtiens en Arabie aux
e e
V et VI sicles: regards croiss sur les sources (Paris: Association des amis du Centre dhis-
toire et civilisation de Byzance, 2010), 293302; also the second half of C. Melchert,
Whether to keep unbelievers out of sacred zones: a survey of medieval Islamic law,
JSAI 40, 2013, 17794.
NO TWO RELIGIONS 251
As is clear, however, from an investigation of the earliest extant discussions

of this question, matters were not this simple. The statements attributed to the
Prophet, his Companions, and other early authorities on this question vary con-
siderably concerning who was expelled, by whom, and from where. The later
schools of Islamic law also differed in their discussions of the application of
this ruling. Furthermore, historians, geographers and travellers to Arabia contin-
ued to refer to the existence of non-Muslim communities, even in areas widely
considered to be within the H ijz, throughout the early Islamic centuries. Such
evidence should caution us against simplistic assumptions that, very early in the
Islamic period, all non-Muslim communities were effectively and comprehen-
sively expelled from the H ijz, never to appear there again. In light of much
recent research, it is unlikely that the early Muslim community would have
taken such serious action against non-Muslims at such an early stage in its devel-
opment, before many of the symbols and rituals that came to define Islam and
Muslims and differentiate them from non-Muslims were fully in place.5
This invites us to wonder why such importance came to be placed by so many
scholars on the prohibition of non-Muslims from residing in the H ijz. Although
such an investigation must focus in part upon the somewhat unfashionable issue
of the historical reliability of reports about the expulsion, that is by no means the
culmination of the present article. Since it will be demonstrated in what follows
that either there was no such comprehensive attempt at expelling non-Muslims
from the H ijz, or if there was that it had manifestly failed, we must then account
for the reasons why so many scholars over the third/ninth and fourth/tenth cen-
turies and beyond maintained that non-Muslims had in the past been banned
from residing in the H ijz and that they should still be in the present. I wish
to suggest here that this can be explained by turning to recent scholarship
demonstrating the significance of the gradual emergence of Mecca as Islams
single most sacred centre, and with it of the H ijz more broadly, together
with the importance of sacred spaces in conflicts over the drawing up of bound-
aries between communities that perceive each other as fundamentally different.
It was only as Mecca and the surrounding H ijz gained stature as Islams prin-
cipal sanctuary and holy land that access to the region became one defining
feature of what it meant to be a Muslim in a world still dominated by adherents
of other faiths.
Religions of pre-Islamic Arabia

In order to begin investigating some of these questions, it may be helpful to pro-
vide a very brief overview of the religious map of pre-Islamic Arabia.6 It is well
known, of course, that many of the inhabitants of Arabia, and especially of the
5 The bibliography on this topic is extensive, but as well as the works cited in n. 2 above,
see F.M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers at the Origins of Islam (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2010). Also particularly interesting in this regard is
S. Bashear, Qibla musharriqa and early Muslim prayer in churches, Muslim World
81/34, 1991, 26782.
6 For a fuller overview, see R.G. Hoyland, Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to
the Coming of Islam (London: Routledge, 2001), 13966.
252 HARRY MUNT
H ijz, are said to have been polytheists and idolaters (Ar. mushrikn) before the
revelations to Muhammad, although what precisely that meant in practice may
be in some doubt.7 Muslim scholars such as Ibn al-Kalb (d. c. 204/81920),
Ibn Hishm (d. c. 218/8334), and Muhammad b. H abb (d. 245/85960) cer-
tainly present a picture of a H ijz (and a wider Arabia) filled with idols shrines,
attendants and worshippers, but some modern scholars have justifiably
expressed some scepticism concerning their accounts.8
Whatever the state of local Arabian religions, however, it is becoming ever
clearer that Christianity and Judaism were making important inroads into the
Peninsula in pre-Islamic late antiquity. Christianity found a home along the east-
ern Arabian shore of the Gulf; there seems to have been a bishopric in the
Bahrain archipelago by 410 CE, and a number of Syriac writers are known
from the area.9 It is also well attested in parts of south Arabia, particularly at
Najrn from the mid-fifth century CE,10 and at the northern edge of the
Peninsula in the border regions of Syria, Palestine and Iraq.11 Considerable effort
in modern scholarship has been devoted to trying to establish the existence of
Christians in the H ijz around Mecca and Medina, but it has to be said that
the evidence usually offered for their presence in that area remains poor. Irfan
Shahd, one of the more recent proponents of the existence of Christianity in
the pre-Islamic H ijz, has suggested that there were some monasteries as far
south as Wd al-Qur about 170 miles north-west of Medina based mostly
7 For a recent case that those labelled as mushrikn in the Quran were actually believers
in the same God as the Messenger, the God of the Biblical tradition, see P. Crone,
The religion of the Qurnic pagans: God and the lesser deities, Arabica 57/23,
2010, 151200; P. Crone, The Quranic mushrikn and the resurrection (part I),
BSOAS 75/3, 2012, 44572 (quote from 451).
8 Ibn al-Kalb, Kitb al-Asnm, ed. and trans. W. Atallah (Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck,
1969); Ibn Hishm, al-Sra al-nabawiyya, ed. M. al-Saqq, I. al-Ibyr, and A.-H .
Shalab, 4 vols (Cairo: Musta f al-Bb al-H alab, 1355/1936), I, 7891; Ibn H abb,
Kitb al-Muhabbar, ed. I. Lichtenstaedter (Hyderabad: Dirat al-Marif al-
Uthmniyya, 1361/1942), 3159. For a sceptical approach, see G.R. Hawting, The
Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999).
9 J. Beaucamp and C.J. Robin, Lvch nestorien de Mmhg dans larchipel
dal-Bahrayn (VeIXe sicle), in D.T. Potts (ed.), Dilmun: New Studies in the
Archaeology and Early History of Bahrain (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1983), 17196;
S.P. Brock, Syriac writers from Beth Qatraye, ARAM 1112, 19992000, 8596.
10 Still useful is J. Beaucamp and C.J. Robin, Le christianisme dans la pninsule Arabique
daprs lpigraphie et larchologie, Travaux et mmoires 8, 1981, 4561. For biblio-
graphy on the famously persecuted Christian community at Najrn, see now the articles
collected in Beaucamp et al. (eds), Juifs et Chrtiens en Arabie. For the introduction of
Christianity there in the mid-fifth century, see the chapter in that volume by C.J. Robin,
Nagrn vers lpoque du massacre: notes sur lhistoire politique, conomique et institu-
tionnelle et sur lintroduction du christianisme (avec un rexamen du Martyre dAzqr),
647.
11 For Christianity in Arabia in general, see J.S. Trimingham, Christianity among the Arabs
in Pre-Islamic Times (London: Longman, 1979); in the border regions of Syria, Palestine
and Iraq, see now G. Fisher, Between Empires: Arabs, Romans, and Sasanians in Late
Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 3471; S. Fars, Christian monas-
ticism on the eve of Islam: Kilwa (Saudi Arabia) new evidence, Arabian
Archaeology and Epigraphy (AAE) 22/2, 2011, 24352.
on enigmatic references in a few lines of Arabic poetry, and also argued that
Theodore, consecrated in 54243 CE as the bishop of hirt d-tayy, undertook
a mission, albeit it unsuccessfully, to spread Christianity in western Arabia.12
This is all rather speculative, however, and the presence of anything more than
a few individual Christians in pre-Islamic Mecca and Medina is yet to be securely
demonstrated. Late antique sources for episcopal geography are totally silent on
the H ijz (north of Najrn), and one later, perhaps fifth-/eleventh-century
Christian Arabic author, Amr b. Matt, explicitly states that Christianity never
penetrated the H ijz because the missionaries were too preoccupied with the
kings of Kinda and Yemen.13 That said, as speculative as the evidence is, it is
worth noting that Waraqa b. Nawfal, cousin of Muhammads first wife
Khadja, was apparently a convert to Christianity, and that the pre-Islamic
Kaba is reported to have contained an image of Jesus and Mary.14
Judaism was perhaps even more successful than Christianity in the Arabian
Peninsula, at least in the H ijz.15 An increasingly vivid picture of Judaism in
south Arabia is growing, mainly thanks to epigraphic and archaeological discov-
eries; the Himyarite rulers, who publicly promulgated a form of monotheism
from the late fourth century CE, are now widely assumed to have favoured
Judaism.16 The existence of pre-Islamic Jewish communities in the H ijz is
not so well attested in contemporary literary sources, although it may be import-
ant that two third-century CE rabbis are said to have considered it worth their
while to travel to al-H ijr (Hegra)/Madin S lih to improve their Aramaic.17
12 For the monasteries, see I. Shahd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century
(Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1989), 2945; for Theodore, I. Shahd, Byzantium
and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, 2 vols in 4 parts (Washington DC: Dumbarton
Oaks, 19952009), I/ii, 7618, 8507.
13 S.K. Samir, The Prophet Muhammad as seen by Timothy I and other Arab Christian
authors, in D. Thomas (ed.), Syrian Christians under Islam: The First Thousand
Years (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 84. It would seem, therefore, that when the same author cred-
its the famous Mr Mr with the introduction of Christianity to the Arab lands (bild
al-arab), this was not necessarily meant to include the H ijz: Amr b. Matt, Akhbr
fatrikat kurs al-mashriq min Kitb al-Mijdal, ed. H. Gismondi, Maris Amri et Slibae
de patriarchis Nestorianorum commentaria, 2 vols (Rome: De Luigi, 189699), II, 1.
14 C.F. Robinson, Waraka b. Nawfal, EI (second edition), XI, 1423; al-Azraq, Akhbr
Makka, ed. R. Malhas, 2 vols (Beirut: Dr al-Andalus, n.d.), I, 1659. For a recent dis-
cussion of the meagre evidence for Christians in Mecca and Medina which surveys much
earlier scholarship, see G. Osman, Pre-Islamic Arab converts to Christianity in Mecca
and Medina: an investigation into the Arabic sources, Muslim World 95/1, 2005, 6780.
15 See in general G.D. Newby, A History of the Jews of Arabia: From Ancient Times to
Their Eclipse under Islam (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988).
16 For example, C.J. Robin, Le judasme de H imyar, Arabia 1, 2003, 97172; C.J. Robin,
H imyar et Isral, Comptes rendus des sances de lanne: acadmie des inscriptions et
belles-lettres, 2004, 831908. For epigraphic and archaeological attestations of what was
possibly a synagogue at Qana, see G.W. Bowersock, The New Greek inscription from
South Yemen, in J.S. Langdon et al. (eds), : Studies in Honor of
Speros Vryonis, Jr., 2 vols (New Rochelle: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1993), 38; A.V.
Sedov, Temples of Ancient H adramawt (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2005), 16571.
17 Midrash Rabbah 79.7 (on Gen. 33:19), cited by R.G. Hoyland, Mount Nebo, Jabal
Ramm, and the status of Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Old Arabic in Late Roman
Palestine and Arabia, in M.C.A. Macdonald (ed.), The Development of Arabic as a
Written Language (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010), 40.
254 HARRY MUNT
The sixth-century CE historian Procopius also noted that on the island of Iotabe,
perhaps at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, Hebrews had lived from of old in
autonomy, but in the reign of this Justinian they have become subject to the
Romans.18 More importantly, inscriptions from some sites in the northern
H ijz (especially al-Ul and al-H ijr/Madin S lih) covering a period at least
between the first century BCE and the fourth century CE may attest to the presence
of Jewish communities.19 Jews in several settlements in north-west Arabia
especially in Khaybar, Fadak, Taym, and Wd al-Qur and in Medina are
well attested in Islamic sources, particularly in the context of the Prophets cam-
paigns but also elsewhere.20 Fred Astren has suggested that Muslim historians
assumptions about the existence of Judaism in pre-Islamic Arabia may in fact
have been based on where Jews were still to be found in their own times;21
Adhruh in southern Jordan, about nine miles east of Petra, offers a good example
of a town whose inhabitants were said by one Muslim scholar Ibn Sad (d. 230/
845) to have been Jews in 9/630, but for which archaeology has only uncov-
ered evidence of Christianity.22 The epigraphic evidence does, however, suggest
that Jews did live in some of these settlements in pre-Islamic times, and so it
seems likely that if an early Muslim ruler had wanted to remove Christians
and Jews from the Arabian Peninsula, or even just from the H ijz, there
would have been some to expel.
How were the expulsions presented?

There is not space here to discuss all the reports and narratives about the expul-
sions found across the sources, but some attempt to show the kinds of material to
be dealt with is important.23 To start with what is probably our earliest source,
the Quran testifies to a limited attempt at expulsion. Q 9:28 states:24
O believers, the idolaters (al-mushrikn) are indeed unclean (najas); so let

them not come near the Holy Mosque (al-masjid al-harm) after this year
18 Procopius, Wars, I.xix.34.

19 R.G. Hoyland, The Jews of the Hijaz in the Qurn and in their inscriptions, in G.S.
Reynolds (ed.), New Perspectives on the Qurn: The Qurn in Its Historical Context
2 (London: Routledge, 2011), 91116.
20 A good introductory survey is Newby, History, 4996; for the Jews of Medina, see esp.
M. Lecker, Zayd b. Thbit, A Jew with two sidelocks: Judaism and literacy in
pre-Islamic Medina (Yathrib), Journal of Near Eastern Studies 56/4, 1997, 25973.
There has been a debate, at least since the second/eighth century, on the origins of
this Jewish community in the H ijz, particularly in Medina, and whether their origins
lie in Jewish immigration from the lands to the north or in conversion among local tribes;
see for example M. Gil, The origin of the Jews of Yathrib, JSAI 4, 1984, 20324.
21 F. Astren, Re-reading the Arabic sources: Jewish history and the Muslim conquests,
JSAI 36, 2009, 93.
22 Ibn Sad, Kitb al-T abaqt al-kabr, ed. E. Sachau et al., 9 vols (Leiden: Brill, 190440),
I/ii, 38; Z. al-Salameen et al., New ArabicChristian inscriptions from Udhruh, southern
Jordan, AAE 22/2, 2011, 23242.
23 For other useful modern overviews, see Fattal, Statut lgal, 8591; Ferr, Muhammad
a-t-il exclu; Schller, Exegetisches Denken, 31334.
24 The translation is Arberrys (slightly adapted).
of theirs. If you fear poverty, God shall surely enrich you of His bounty, if
He will; God is All-knowing, All-wise.
Unfortunately, the sense of this verse depends upon interpretation: who exactly
are the idolaters (mushrikn) involved, and what is the Holy Mosque
(al-masjid al-harm) which they can no longer approach? It is possible that
mushrikn used here refers only to non-monotheists, although a verse slightly
later (Q 9:30) may lend some support to including Jews and Christians
among those criticized in this verse. Classically, al-masjid al-harm would
apply only to the area surrounding the Kaba in the centre of Mecca, but
some early exegetes and jurists interpreted it as meaning the whole Meccan
haram, an area considerably larger which extended several miles in each direc-
tion.25 This is an interpretation of the Qurans use of al-masjid al-harm for
which some modern scholars have expressed support.26 Even so, however, it
still leaves us only with idolaters (mushrikn) being expelled from a very
small part of the H ijz. Another verse in this sra (Q 9:17) criticizes non-
believers for attending to Gods mosques (m kna li-l-mushrikn an
yamur masjid Allh shhidn al anfusihim bi-al-kufr), but what this
meant in particular at the time is difficult to say now.27
Later scholars did refer to Q 9:28 in their discussions of the presence of
non-Muslims in Arabia and the H ijz,28 but they also went far beyond its seem-
ingly limited objectives. The Yemeni hadth collector and jurist, Abd al-Razzq
al-S ann (d. 211/827), provides a sizeable and relatively early collection of
relevant traditions, and for these reasons the following summary will be
drawn principally from his collection.29 (This is by no means to suggest that
Abd al-Razzqs collection of traditions was exhaustive or that they are neces-
sarily earlier or in any way more reliable than those transmitted by other scho-
lars.30) Within Abd al-Razzqs collection, as well as the no two religions
25 For example, al-Shfi, Kitb al-Umm, ed. R.F. Abd al-Mutta lib, 11 vols (al-Mansra:
Dr al-Waf, 1422/2001), V, 418; Abd al-Razzq, al-Musannaf, ed. H .-R. al-Azam, 11
vols (Beirut: al-Majlis al-Ilm, n.d.), X, 356 (no. 19356), where the opinion is ascribed to
At b. Ab Rabh (d. 115/73334); al-Jass s, Ahkm al-Qurn, ed. M.S . Qamhw, 5
vols (Beirut: Dr Ihy al-Turth al-Arab, 1412/1992), IV, 27881.
26 H. Lammens, Les sanctuaires prislamites dans lArabie occidentale, Mlanges de
lUniversit Saint-Joseph 11, 1926, 423, 107; G.R. Hawting, The origins of the
Muslim sanctuary at Mecca, in G.H.A. Juynboll (ed.), Studies on the First Century
of Islamic Society (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), 368.
27 For a classical commentary, see al-T abar, Jmial-bayn f tawl al-Qurn, 3rd ed.,
13 vols (Beirut: Dr al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1420/1999), VI, 3345.
28 And also occasionally to Q 5:2, on which see Schller, Exegetisches Denken, 3303.
29 Abd al-Razzqs traditions can be found within his Musannaf, VI, 518 (nos 997795);
X, 35662 (nos 1935674). On the circumstances of transmission which led to the doub-
ling up of many traditions dealing with non-Muslims in volumes VI and X of the edited
text of Abd al-Razzqs Musannaf, and for a persuasive argument that most of its tradi-
tions on the topic of non-Muslims at least probably were circulated by Abd al-Razzq,
see H. Motzki, The author and his work in the Islamic literature of the first centuries: the
case of Abd al-Razzqs Musannaf , JSAI 28, 2003, 171201.
30 Relevant traditions can also be found in, for example, al-Shaybn, Muwatta al-imm
Mlik: riwyat Muhammad b. al-H asan al-Shaybn, ed. A.-W. Abd al-Latf, 3rd ed.
(Cairo: Wizrat al-Awqf, 1407/1987), 2845 (nos 8734); Yahy al-Layth,
256 HARRY MUNT
report mentioned earlier, there are traditions which refer to bans on Jews and/or
Christians, and sometimes all non-Muslims, from residing in the peninsula/land
of the Arabs ( jazrat/ard al-arab), or just from the H ijz, or sometimes even just
from one or more of Medina, Khaybar and Najrn. It is most usually Umar b.
al-Khatt b who is deemed responsible for the expulsion, but often Prophetic
statements are invoked to support his actions. To give one example:31
Abd al-Razzq Mamar [b. Rshid] al-Zuhr [Sad] b.

al-Musayyab: The Messenger of God (s) said, No two religions should
come together in the land of the Arabs (ard al-arab), or the land of the
H ijz. So Umar inquired after that until he had found conclusive proof
(al-thabt) for it. Al-Zuhr said, So because of that Umar expelled them.
Some traditions allow concessions Umar is said, for example, to have permit-
ted Jews and Christians to enter Medina for business for up to three days but at
least one actually extends the prohibition to every misr (which can be under-
stood loosely here as a major Muslim settlement). At least two traditions, the
first included within Abd al-Razzqs collection but the second to be found
in Ibn Ab Shaybas (d. 235/849) Musannaf, both of which have similar
isnds (predominantly Meccan) and report the opinions of the Medinan
Companion Jbir b. Abd Allh, have very interesting exceptions to the rule.32
In the first, commenting on the mushrikn banned from al-masjid al-harm in
Q 9:28, Jbir said, Except those who are slaves or one of the ahl al-jizya;33
in the second, when asked if Zoroastrians (al-majs) could enter the haram,
al-Muwatta li-imm dr al-hijra Mlik b. Anas: riwyat Yahy b. Yahy al-Layth

al-Andalus, ed. B.A. Marf, 2nd ed., 2 vols (Beirut: Dr al-Gharb al-Islm, 1417/
1997), II, 4701 (Kitb al-Jmi, nos 1719); al-T aylis, Musnad (Hyderabad: Dirat
al-Marif al-Nizmiyya, 1321/190304), 31 (no. 229); Ibn Ab Shayba, Musannaf, ed.
H . al-Juma and M. al-Luhaydn, 16 vols (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 1425/2004),
XI, 3467 (Kitb al-Siyar, bb 71; nos 3353441); Ab Ubayd, Kitb al-Amwl, ed.
M.Kh. Harrs, 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dr al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1406/1986 [reprint]),
esp. 10610; Ibn Sad, T abaqt, II/ii, 44; Ahmad, Musnad, 6 vols (Cairo: al-Matbaa
al-Maymniyya, n.d.), I, 29, 32, 87, 1956, 222; III, 345; VI, 2745; al-Tirmidh,
al-Jmial-sahh, ed. A.M. Shkir, M.F. Abd al-Bq and K.Y. al-H t, 5 vols (Beirut:
Dr al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, n.d. [reprint]), IV, 1334 (Kitb al-Siyar, bb 43);
al-Drim, al-Sunan, ed. Kh.S. al-Alam and F.A. Zamarl, 2 vols (Beirut: Dr
al-Kitb al-Arab, 1407/1987), II, 3056 (Kitb al-Siyar, bb 55); Ab Dwd,
Sunan, ed. I.U. al-Das and . al-Sayyid, 5 vols (Beirut: Dr Ibn H azm, 1418/
1997), III, 26675, 27981 (Kitb al-Kharj wa-al-imra wa-al-fay, abwb 224,
28); al-Bukhr, Kitb al-Jmial-sahh, ed. M.L. Krehl and T.W. Juynboll, 4 vols
(Leiden: Brill, 18621908), II, 72 (Kitb al-H arth wa-al-muzraa, bb 17); 2945
(Kitb al-Jizya, bb 6); III, 185 (Kitb al-Maghz, bb 83).
31 Abd al-Razzq, Musannaf, VI, 53 (no. 9984); X, 359 (no. 19367).
32 On Jbir b. Abd Allh (d. between 68/68788 and 79/69899), see al-Mizz, Tahdhb
al-kaml f asm al-rijl, ed. B.A. Marf, 35 vols (Beirut: Muassasat al-Risla,
140213/198292), IV, 44354. The other shared links in the isnd are the Meccans
Ab al-Zubayr (d. before 128/74546) and Ibn Jurayj (d. c. 14951/76669), on
whom see respectively al-Mizz, Tahdhb, XXVI, 40211; XVIII, 33854.
33 Abd al-Razzq, Musannaf, VI, 53 (no. 9982).
Jbir replied, If they are people under our protection, then yes (amm ahl
dhimmatin fa-naam).34
It is clear enough then that there were a relatively wide variety of options to
be found within the traditions transmitted in discussions of this issue. How were
the conflicting options resolved? To a great extent they were not, and it should
be noted from the start that conflicting opinions on this question have remained
present throughout the centuries. Some scholars could select certain traditions
upon which to base their interpretation, others could choose others; even
where the same traditions were selected interpretations could vary considerably,
particularly concerning the precise area covered by the expulsion. To start with,
we can compare the treatment of this question in two hadth collectors works
which are not particularly comprehensive (on this particular question). The
first, the Sunan of al-Drim (d. 255/868) includes only the following tradition:35
Affn Yahy b. Sad al-Qatt n Ibrhm b. Maymn, a Kufan

Sad b. Samura b. Jundab his father, Samura Ab Ubayda b.
al-Jarrh: One of the last things the Messenger of God (s) said was,
Expel the Jews from the H ijz and the inhabitants of Najrn from the
Arabian Peninsula.
This seems a relatively minimalist position, especially when compared to

al-Tirmidhs (d. 279/892) two traditions on the subject in his chapter specific-
ally on the expulsions, which both have the Prophet state that he would have
expelled Jews and Christians (the implication in one being all of them; in
the other it is explicitly spelled out that only Muslims would remain) from the
Arabian Peninsula.36
Other jurists, whose works focused more on deriving and explaining rules
from a range of sources, rather than simply transmitting traditions, also came
up with a variety of opinions and took their discussions beyond the confines
of the traditions.37 Al-Shfi (d. 204/820), eponymous founder of the classical
Shfi school (madhhab) of Islamic law, held that non-Muslims could not enter
the Meccan haram at all, and they could not move to the H ijz permanently
although they could temporarily visit H ijz settlements (except, of course,
Mecca) for up to three days. Other parts of the Arabian Peninsula, however,
including Yemen, were open to them.38 The H anaf madhhab, however,
34 Ibn Ab Shayba, Musannaf, XI, 347 (Kitb al-Siyar, bb 71; no. 33540).
35 Al-Drim, Sunan, II, 3056 (Kitb al-Siyar, bb 55).
36 Al-Tirmidh, Jmi, IV, 1334 (Kitb al-Siyar, bb 43).
37 On this, see esp. Fattal, Statut lgal, 868; Ferr, Muhammad a-t-il exclu, esp. 5965,
where he translates a discussion on the topic from Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyas (d. 751/
1350) Ahkm ahl al-dhimma. For a relatively early survey of varying jurists opinions
on this question, see al-T abar, Ikhtilf al-fuqah, ed. J. Schacht, Das konstantinopler
Fragment des Kitb Ihtilf al-fuqah des Ab afar Muhammad ibn arr at-T abar
(Leiden: Brill, 1933), 2336.
38 Al-Shfi, Umm, V, 41823. For a later Shfi discussion, see al-Mward, al-H w
al-kabr, ed. A.M. Muawwad and .A. Abd al-Mawjd, 20 vols (Beirut: Dr
al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 141416/199496), XIV, 3349; al-Mward, al-Ahkm
al-sultniyya wa-al-wilyt al-dniyya, ed. M.F. al-Sirjn (Cairo: al-Maktaba
258 HARRY MUNT
which traced its origins back to the Kufan jurist Ab H anfa (d. 150/767), is said
by several non-H anafs to have allowed non-Muslims into the entire Arabian
Peninsula, including Mecca, although they could not settle in that town.39 The
Mliks, named after their Medinan eponym Mlik b. Anas (d. 179/795), held
that the total ban on settlement of all non-Muslims applied to the entire
Arabian Peninsula.40 The actual legal positions held within the schools of law
were rather more various than these generalizations suggest, and it should be
noted that several H anaf sources express very clearly the wish that
non-Muslims should not settle in Arabia, but could only enter for trade.41
Some scholars took traditions proscribing non-Muslims from the H ijz and/or
the Arabian Peninsula much further, and applied them in legal discussions of
other issues. Ahmad b. H anbal (d. 241/855) was asked why he denied the
legal right of pre-emption (shufa) to Jews and Christians and replied,
Because the Prophet (s) said, Two religions should not join in the Arabian
Peninsula.42 A handful took such traditions to great lengths and used them
to suggest that non-Muslims should not, in fact, be allowed to reside in any
town in which Muslims were the majority population. Muhammad b. al-H asan
al-Shaybn (d. 187/803 or 189/805), for example, is held to have said: Nor
should Dhimms be permitted to reside in cities inhabited by Muslims, for [as
stated in a Tradition] the Apostle expelled them from Madna, and it is related
concerning [the caliph] Al [b. Ab T lib] that he expelled them from
Kfa.43 The famous jurist, Quranic exegete and historian, Ab Jafar
al-Tawfqiyya, 1978), 1889. Some doubt has been expressed concerning the date of
composition of the Kitb al-Umm usually attributed to al-Shfi, and Norman Calder
has suggested that a great deal of material may have continued to enter the text at the
very least through the third/ninth century; see his Studies in Early Muslim
Jurisprudence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 6785.
39 Al-Mward, al-H w al-kabr, XIV, 334, 336; al-Mward, al-Ahkm al-sultniyya,
1889; Fattal, Statut lgal, 878; Ferr, Muhammad a-t-il exclu, 62.
40 Fattal, Statut lgal, 87; Ferr, Muhammad a-t-il exclu, 60. For an example of a broad
Mlik definition of the exclusion zone, see Ibn Rushd al-Jadd, al-Bayn wa-al-tahs l
wa-al-sharh wa-al-tawjh wa-al-tall f masil al-mustakhraja, ed. M. H ajj et al., 20
vols (Beirut: Dr al-Gharb al-Islm, 14047/198487), XVII, 50.
41 For example, al-Sarakhs, Sharh al-siyar al-kabr, 4 vols (Hyderabad: Dirat al-Marif
al-Nizmiyya, 133536/191618), III, 2578; al-Ksn, Badi al-sani f tartb
al-shari, 7 vols, 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dr al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1406/1986), VII, 114.
That reports attributed to Mlik himself sometimes contradict the claims that all
non-Muslims were expelled from all settlements of the H ijz, see Schller,
Exegetisches Denken, 321.
42 Ab Bakr al-Khalll, Ahl al-milal wa-al-ridda wa-al-zandiqa wa-trik al-salt
wa-al-farid min Kitb al-Jmi, ed. I.H . Sultn, 2 vols (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Marif,
1416/1996), I, 195 (no. 330); al-Kawsaj, Kitb al-Masil an immay ahl al-hadth
Ahmad b. H anbal wa-Ishq b. Rhwayh, ed. T .F. al-H ulwn, 3 vols (Cairo: al-Frq
al-H adtha, 1426/2005), III, 234 (no. 2832). On Ahmads attitude towards
non-Muslims more generally, see T. Sizgorich, Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity:
Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2009), 23171.
43 M. Khadduri, The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybn s Siyar (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Press, 1966), 2778. As with al-Shfis Kitb al-Umm, Calder has questioned the dating
of many works usually attributed to al-Shaybn to his lifetime; see his Studies in Early
al-T abar (d. 310/923), may have been one of the scholars who interpreted these
non-Muslims in Arabia traditions in the broadest possible way; if a fairly exten-
sive citation of his opinion on this matter in a treatise by Taq al-Dn al-Subk
(d. 756/1355) can be treated as reliable, he too used these traditions to argue
in detail for non-Muslims to be forced out of anywhere where the Muslims
were the majority population.44
Non-Muslims in Arabia and the H ijz after the Rshidn period

This brief survey has demonstrated that in spite of the existence of traditions
which unanimously banned non-Muslims from entering the H ijz and, some-
times, the entire Arabian Peninsula, the range of opinions on this topic held
by Muslim scholars over the first four centuries AH varied considerably. In
this light it should come as no surprise, as noted by several modern scholars,
that other sources (historical, biographical, geographical) continued to mention
or allude to the existence of non-Muslim communities within Arabia, and even
within the H ijz, throughout the pre-modern period.45 The Christian community
of east Arabia seems to have flourished well into the Islamic era.46 Christianity
is still attested in south Arabia in the third/ninth century, and in Najrn one of
the towns specifically singled out in many accounts for the expulsion of its
non-Muslim inhabitants as late as the fourth/tenth century.47 Jewish commu-
nities, of course, remained in Yemen throughout the centuries until the
Muslim Jurisprudence, 3966; cf., however, in part B. Sadeghi, The authenticity of two
2nd/8th century H anaf legal texts: the Kitb al-thr and al-Muwatta of Muhammad b.
al-H asan al-Shaybn, Islamic Law and Society (ILS) 17/34, 2010, 291319.
44 See esp. Ward, Fragment. For some further discussion of the question of where, out-
side of the H ijz or Arabia, non-Muslims could legitimately reside, see M. Levy-Rubin,
Shurt Umar and its alternatives: the legal debate on the status of the dhimms, JSAI
30, 2005, 17480; M. Fierro Bello, A Muslim land without Jews or Christians:
Almohad policies regarding the protected people, in M.M. Tischler and A. Fidora
(eds), Christlicher Norden muslimischer Suden: Ansprche und Wirklichkeiten von
Christen, Juden und Muslimen auf der iberischen Halbinsel im Hoch- und
Sptmittelalter (Mnster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2011), 23147.
45 For other discussions, see for example I. Friedlaender, The Jews of Arabia and
the Gaonate, Jewish Quarterly Review (JQR) 1, 191011, 24952; Tritton, Caliphs,
1756; Fattal, Statut lgal, 8890; Newby, History, 97108; Schller, Exegetisches
Denken, 3268; A. Elad, Community of believers of holy men and saints or commu-
nity of Muslims? The rise and development of early Muslim historiography, Journal of
Semitic Studies (JSS) 47/2, 2002, 2967, n. 200.
46 As well as those studies cited above, n. 9, see also J.M. Fiey, Diocses syriens orientaux
du Golfe Persique, in Mmorial Mgr Gabriel Khouri-Sarkis (18981968) (Leuven:
Imprimerie orientaliste, 1968), 20919; D. Kennet, The decline of eastern Arabia in
the Sasanian period, AAE 18/1, 2007, 8994; R.A. Carter, Christianity in the Gulf dur-
ing the first centuries of Islam, AAE 19/1, 2008, 71108; R. Payne, Monks, dinars and
date palms: hagiographical production and the expansion of monastic institutions in the
early Islamic Persian Gulf , AAE 22/1, 2011, 97111.
47 Beaucamp and Robin, Christianisme, 567. On the expulsion of the Najrns, see esp.
Lecker, Najrn Inc.
260 HARRY MUNT
foundation of the modern state of Israel, although their presence in that region
was not always without controversy.48
The evidence for the H ijz is patchier, but there is still plenty to go on. A few
examples here will suffice. When the Umayyad caliph al-Wald b. Abd al-Malik
(re-)constructed the Prophets Mosque in Medina in the late first/early eighth
century, several sources, including Medinas local historian Ibn Zabla (d.
after 199/814), mention that he had non-Muslim artisans brought to that town
from Byzantium to undertake the work; Ibn Zabla made several scandalous
allegations about what these artisans got up to in Medina, including attempting
to urinate on the Prophets tomb and putting up the image of a pig above some
of the arches in the qibla wall.49 In a perhaps far-fetched anecdote, Musab b.
al-Zubayr (brother of the late first-/seventh-century caliphal claimant Abd
Allh b. al-Zubayr) apparently toured Medina with a son of the Jewish
Exilarch (ibn ras al-jlt).50
These are only examples of non-Muslims visiting the H ijz, but there is also
further evidence that they resided there too throughout the pre-modern period;
again I will provide just a few examples.51 Although the Meccan Ibn Jurayj
(d. c. 14951/76669) had claimed that by his time there were only Muslims
in Khaybar, during a discussion of the outbreak of Al b. Muhammads rebel-
lion with the Zanj in the year 255/86869, al-T abar notes that a Jew from
Khaybar (rajul yahd khaybar) called Mndawayh came to Al and claimed
to have found his description in the Torah.52 Khaybar is one of the H ijz
towns that is specifically mentioned in many reports about Umar b.
al-Khatt bs expulsion of non-Muslims. The famous Radhanite Jewish mer-
chants were, according to Ibn Khurraddhbih (wr. late third/ninth century),
still using the west Arabian ports of al-Jr and Jedda on their route from
Clysma/al-Qulzum down the Red Sea.53 In the midlate fourth/tenth century
the geographer al-Muqaddas described the settlement of Wd al-Qur,
48 S.D. Goitein, The Jews of Yemen, in A.J. Arberry (ed.), Religion in the Middle East:
Three Religions in Concord and Conflict, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1969), I, 22635; Y. Tobi, The Jews of Yemen: Studies in Their History and
Culture (Leiden: Brill, 1999). The existence of Jews in Yemen seemed to cause particular
problems in the eleventh/seventeenth century; see Ibn Ab Rijl, al-Nuss al-zhira f
ijl al-yahd al-fjira, ed. A.-H. al-Tz, Majallat al-majma al-ilm al-irq 32/34,
1981, 378400; al-Maghrib, Risla f baq al-yahd f ard al-Yaman, ed. and trans.
M. Fabbro, Islamochristiana 16, 1990, 6790.
49 Al-Samhd, Waf al-waf bi-akhbr dr al-musta f, ed. Q. al-Smarr, 5 vols
(London: Muassasat al-Furqn, 1422/2001), II, 26870.
50 M. Gil, The Babylonian encounter and the exilarchic house in the light of Cairo Geniza
documents and parallel Arab sources, in N. Golb (ed.), Judaeo-Arabic Studies:
Proceedings of the Founding Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies
(Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997), 157.
51 For more examples, see the studies cited in n. 45.
52 Ibn Shabba, Tarkh al-Madna al-munawwara, ed. Y.S.-D. Bayn and A.M. Dandal, 2
vols (Beirut: Dr al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1417/1996), I, 113; al-T abar, Tarkh al-rusul
wa-al-mulk, ed. M.J. de Goeje et al., 3 parts in 13 vols (Leiden: Brill, 18791901), III,
1760.
53 Ibn Khurraddhbih, Kitb al-Maslik wa-al-mamlik, ed. M.J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill,
1889), 153; M. Gil, The Rdhnite merchants and the land of Rdhn, Journal of
the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17/3, 1974, 3089.
known in his day as Qurh. He started his discussion of this then important settle-
ment by saying, There is not in the H ijz today a town (balad) more splendid,
flourishing or populated, nor with more merchants, properties (amwl) and crops
(khayrt) after Mecca than this. He ended his account of the H ijzs second lar-
gest (albeit only briefly) town noting, It is dominated by Jews.54
It is not only Muslim sources that preserve evidence for these non-Islamic
Arabian communities. Some Gaonic responsa indicate that Jews still resided
in Wd al-Qur and Taym at least, and the undated Arabic-language inscrip-
tions in Hebrew script from northwest Arabia (the area around al-Ul) are prob-
ably best regarded as having been engraved well into the Islamic period.55 If one
very strange source is to be believed (and it is an enormous if), there was even
a metropolitan bishop of the Church of the East based in Medina (Yathrib) in the
early seventh/thirteenth century.56
Muslim scholars were considerably confused in their attempts to match defi-
nitions of the H ijz or the peninsula/land of the Arabs both by the fact that there
was no precise agreement on the exact towns for which specific historical expul-
sions of non-Muslims were reported, and by the realities of continued
non-Muslim habitation in many towns which could easily be included within
many definitions of those areas.57 One nice example among many concerns
54 Al-Muqaddas, Ahsan al-taqsm f marifat al-aqlm, ed. M.J. de Goeje, 2nd ed.
(Leiden: Brill, 1906), 834; see also M. Lecker, Wd al-K ur, EI (second edition),
XI, 1819; Elad, Community, 297, n. 200. A century or so later, Ab Ubayd
al-Bakr (d. 487/1094) suggested that Jews had first settled in Wd al-Qur after the
destruction of Thamd: al-Bakr, Mujam m istajam, ed. M. al-Saqq, 4 vols (Cairo:
Matbaat Lajnat al-Talf wa-al-Tarjama wa-al-Nashr, 136471/194551), I, 43.
55 Friedlaender, Jews, 251; J. Mann, The responsa of the Babylonian Geonim as a
source of Jewish history, JQR 7/4, 191617, 489; Hoyland, Jews, 1023, 1124.
56 This source is the so-called Statistique indite de lancienne glise chaldo-nestorienne
[= Taqwm al-kanis al-nustriyya], ed. and trans. P. Aziz (Beirut: Imprimerie catholi-
que, 1909), 8 for Medina. (I am very grateful to Muriel Debi for providing me with a
copy of this text.) Modern scholars seem somewhat divided over the usefulness of the
information provided in this source, which was written after the turn of the seventeenth
century CE. J.M. Fiey, for example, noted that, Cet ouvrage est dailleurs un factum tar-
dif sans aucune valeur historique; see his Comment loccident en vint parler de
Chaldens, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 78/3, 1996, 167, n. 29. Others, how-
ever, have given more weight to it, including R. Aigrain, Arabie, in A. Baudrillart et al.
(eds), Dictionnaire dhistoire et de gographie ecclsiastiques, vol. 3 (Paris: Librairie
Letouzey et An, 1924), col. 1333; C.J. Robin, Arabia, Christians and Jews in, in
A. Vauchez et al. (eds), Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, 2 vols (Cambridge: James
Clark & Co., 2000), I, 8990. If this Statistique indite were shown to contain generally
reliable information, it would certainly shed remarkable new light on an otherwise totally
hidden Christian community; as well as the metropolitan bishop at Medina and one at
S an, it also mentions a number of other Arabian bishops (including at Najrn and
Ukz), and a host of more minor officials and sizeable Christian communities. I have
not spent much time working with this source, but my current feeling is that its informa-
tion on the H ijz at least seems most likely to be spurious, although if this is the case it is
just as interesting that someone thought it worth inventing.
57 On early Islamic geographical definitions of the H ijz and other constituent parts of the
Arabian Peninsula, see also H. Lammens, Lancienne frontire entre la Syrie et le
H idjz (notes de gographie historique), Bulletin de lInstitut Franais dArchologie
Orientale 14, 1918, 6996; A. al-Wohaibi, The Northern Hijaz in the Writings of the
Arab Geographers, 8001150 (Beirut: al-Risalah, 1973), 1731; S. Bashear, Yemen
262 HARRY MUNT
the following three reports, the first taken from al-Baldhurs (d. 279/892) Kitb
Futh al-buldn, the second from al-Wqids (d. 207/822) Kitb al-Maghz,
and the third from Ab Dwds (d. 275/889) Sunan:58
[1] Abd al-Al b. H ammd al-Nars H ammd b. Salama Yahy b. Sad

Isml b. H akm Umar b. Abd al-Azz: Umar b. al-Khatt b
expelled the inhabitants of Fadak, Taym and Khaybar.
[2] When it came to the time of Umar may God be pleased with him he
expelled the Jews from Khaybar and Fadak. However, he did not expel the
inhabitants of Taym and Wd al-Qur because they are within Syria.
What is beyond Wd al-Qur towards Medina is considered the H ijz,
and what is behind that within Syria.
[3] Ab Dwd al-H rith b. Miskn was read to (quria al al-H rith . . .)
while I was witnessing Ashhab b. Abd al-Azz Mlik: Umar
expelled the population of Najrn, but that of Taym was not expelled
because it is not part of the lands of the Arabs (bild al-arab). As for
the wd [i.e. Wd al-Qur], I think that those Jews there were not expelled
because they were not thought to be part of the land of the Arabs (ard
al-arab).
Some further traditions specify that the Jews of Khaybar were removed from that
settlement to Taym.59 Faced with this confusion, it seems that some legal
scholars hedged their bets a little and offered conflicting definitions themselves.
Ahmad b. H anbal was apparently one such jurist:60
Abd Allh b. H anbal his father his uncle: The Arabian Peninsula
( jazrat al-arab) means Medina and what is next to it, because the
Prophet (s) expelled the Jews [from there] and they are not allowed to res-
ide there.
Abd Allh b. Ahmad: I heard my father tell the Prophets (s) hadth, No
two religions should remain in the Arabian Peninsula ( jazrat al-arab),
and his explanation was, What was not controlled by the Persians or
Romans (m lam yakun f yad frs wa-al-rm). Al-Asma said,
Everything that is below the limits (atrf) of Syria.
in early Islam: an examination of non-tribal traditions, Arabica 36/3, 1989, 32761;

M. Lecker, Biographical notes on Ibn Shihb al-Zuhr, JSS 41/1, 1996, 5861; J.
Rets, The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads
(London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 4851. For a detailed discussion of the problems
faced by Muslim scholars confronting this particular question, see also Schller,
Exegetisches Denken, 32234.
58 Al-Baldhur, Kitb Futh al-Buldn, ed. M.J. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1866), 345;
al-Wqid, Kitb al-Maghz, ed. J.M.B. Jones, 3 vols (London: Oxford University
Press, 1966), II, 711; Ab Dwd, Sunan, III, 281 (Kitb al-Kharj wa-al-imra
wa-al-fay, bb 28).
59 For example, Abd al-Razzq, Musannaf, VI, 55 (no. 9989); al-Bukhr, Jmi, II, 72
(Kitb al-H arth wa-al-muzraa, bb, 17).
60 Al-Khalll, Ahl al-milal, I, 1278 (nos 1434).
It seems that as far as many legal and legally-minded scholars were concerned,
the limits of the H ijz/Arabian Peninsula were often defined by the limits of con-
temporary non-Muslim residence, and not vice versa. That is to say, many
(although by no means all) scholars seemed to have assumed that all the
non-Muslims had been expelled from the H ijz/Arabia during the early decades
of the Muslim community, and therefore anywhere they still resided could not be
within the H ijz/Arabia. This rather pragmatic and circular understanding also,
of course, ensured that no further expulsions were necessary. The large and pros-
perous Jewish community of al-Muqaddass day could be left in place because
Qurh/Wd al-Qur was outside the H ijz, and this was in turn proven by that
communitys existence.
That early Islamic legal scholars seem to have constructed a definition of the
H ijz/Arabian Peninsula to fit in with the geography of the expulsions as
opposed to suggesting expulsions that fitted with an already conceived definition
of the H ijz/Arabian Peninsula can be demonstrated by comparing it to defini-
tions of the H ijz created by specialists in other branches of knowledge. The
H ijz could be defined in many different ways according to taste. For the famous
early theologian, al-H asan al-Basr (d. 110/728), the H ijz was almost a non-
terrestrial entity, which guards over (hajaza al) the rivers and trees, and
will be [the location of] the gardens on the Day of Resurrection.61 This is,
of course, in part a lexicographical definition based around one meaning derived
from the root h-j-z, and other lexicographers also offered definitions based
around the root meaning.62
Perhaps the clearest evidence that jurists were constructing geographical defi-
nitions on the back of legal traditions is that geographers offered further defini-
tions which, since many may have been less inclined to care as much about the
apparent expulsion of non-Muslims, were often far more extensive than those of
the legal scholars. Al-Muqaddas included his majority Jewish town Qurh within
the H ijz as well as settlements further north, such as al-H ijr/Madin S lih; he
actually placed Adhruh, about 300 miles north-west of Qurh, on the border
between Syria and the H ijz. (Another source also has Ayla, at the north-east
corner of the Red Sea, as part of the H ijz.63) To the south, he included
Najrn whose Christian inhabitants many sources have as expelled in the
early Islamic decades within Yemen and not in the H ijz at all.64 The conflict
between traditions on the expulsion of non-Muslims and many definitions of the
Arabian Peninsula and the H ijz led a large number of legal scholars to alter
their definitions of the H ijz. Not only does this make it hard to justify using
sources which discuss these apparent expulsions in working out early Islamic
definitions of Arabia and the H ijz; it also suggests that a group of later scholars
61 Al-Bakr, Mujam, I, 11 (reading al-jinn, the gardens, instead of the published

al-hinn).
62 For example, al-Khall b. Ahmad (attrib.), Kitb al-Ayn, ed. M. al-Makhzm and
I. al-Smarr, 8 vols (Baghdad: Dr al-Rashd, 198085), III, 70; al-Isfahn, Bild
al-arab, ed. S .A. al-Al and H . al-Jsir (Riyadh: Dr al-Yamma, 1388/1968), 1416;
al-Bakr, Mujam, I, 1112.
63 Ibn H azm, Jamharat ansb al-arab, ed. A.-S.M. Hrn, 7th ed. (Cairo: Dr al-Marif,
2010), 421.
64 Al-Muqaddas, Ahsan al-taqsm, 6870, 178.
264 HARRY MUNT
were loath to accept that what had by their day become a clear Prophetic com-
mand was not being obeyed, and/or keen to remove the possibility of further
impractical attempts at removing non-Muslims from those parts of the
Arabian Peninsula in which they were firmly established.
Was there actually an expulsion?

This is far from the only case where the theoretical regulations outlined by
Muslim jurists were not fully adhered to in practice. Goitein noted another
example that applies to Islamic law on dealing with non-Muslims:65
According to a proviso in one of the oldest sources of Muslim law, no

churches or synagogues were to be established in the new towns founded
by the conquerors, an injunction that soon was understood to mean that no
new non-Islamic houses of worship were to be erected anywhere in Islamic
territory. In fact, however, numerous churches and synagogues existed in
Fustat and Baghdad at a time when the power of Islam was at its height,
and even Cairo, which was founded in 969, soon had its own churches
and synagogues.66
Nonetheless the contradictions discussed so far in the evidence for non-Muslim

residency in the H ijz into the Islamic period should make modern scholars
question whether there was ever an historical attempt (or attempts) to remove
non-Muslims from the H ijz, at least by anyone with the authority and power
to do so. There are certainly serious problems with the claims that
Muhammad and/or Umar b. al-Khatt b were responsible for any attempted
expulsions. Muhammad may well have expelled the three famous Jewish tribes
the Ban Qaynuq, Ban al-Nadr and Ban Qurayza from Medina, but it is
hard to accept that, if he were personally responsible for more widespread expul-
sions, later reports would so widely attribute that action to someone else. That
somebody else is, in the extant material, most commonly Umar b. al-Khatt b,
but there are some indications that his later, Umayyad, namesake, Umar b.
Abd al-Azz (r. 99101/71720), may have been considered a more important
candidate at an earlier stage.
If Umar b. Abd al-Azz had been the caliph first associated with measures
taken against Arabias non-Muslims, then it is simple enough to see how later
sources could easily have attributed his action deliberately or accidentally
to Umar b. al-Khatt b. This suggestion is partially supported by the fact that
on occasion Umar b. Abd al-Azz appears as the last link before Umar b.
al-Khatt b in the isnds of the traditions discussed above.67 It is more firmly
65 S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgement in One Volume, rev. and ed. J.
Lassner (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 146. See further Levy-Rubin,
Shurt Umar, 17480; Ward, Fragment, 4157.
66 There is also plenty of archaeological and material evidence for continued church build-
ing; see, for example, R. Schick, The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine
to Islamic Rule: A Historical and Archaeological Study (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1995).
67 For example, al-Baldhur, Futh, 345.
supported by the existence of traditions which have Umar b. Abd al-Azz the
ultimate source for the Prophets ruling on the expulsion of non-Muslims from
Arabia rather than Umar b. al-Khatt b.68 Such a confusion of Umars did occur
in other circumstances; both are on record as having issued various parts of what
later came to be known as the shurt Umar.69
At least one report, preserved in Ibn Ab Shaybas Musannaf, offers very
strong support for the suggestion that the Umar originally associated with expul-
sions of non-Muslims from Arabia was the Umayyad caliph:70
Yazd b. Hrn Ibn Ab Dhib: He witnessed Umar b. Abd al-Azz

expel the ahl al-dhimma from Medina during his caliphate, and sold
their slaves to the Muslims (wa-ba ariqqahum min al-muslimn).
Ibn Ab Shaybas next tradition has an otherwise unidentified Umar expel the
mushrikn from the Arabian Peninsula because of a Prophetic statement on
this;71 given the preceding tradition, this Umar could be the Umayyad caliph.
There are still problems with the actions ascribed to Umar b. Abd al-Azz.
One is that several of the traditions where he appears in the isnd also emphasize
that Muhammad took against the Jews and/or Christians because they made reli-
gious buildings out of the tombs of their Prophets.72 Since Umar b. Abd
al-Azz was, before he became caliph, famously the governor of Medina who
oversaw the incorporation of Muhammads tomb within the Prophets Mosque
during the caliphate of al-Wald b. Abd al-Malik, it is hard to imagine him
ordering the expulsion of non-Muslims from Arabia for this reason. It should
also be made clear that, even if any caliph had issued an order for the expulsion
of non-Muslims from the H ijz, the current state of modern scholarship on the
extent of the power and authority of the Umayyad and early Abbasid caliphates
would suggest that he would not have had the means to enforce the measure in
practice, and so it is no surprise that non-Muslim communities in the Arabian
Peninsula continue to be attested for the fourth/tenth century and beyond.73
That the size of those communities waned slowly but surely presumably has
much to do with the same processes of gradual conversion to Islam, perhaps
helped along by intermarriage, that we see in other conquered regions.
Whether or not anyone tried to expel non-Muslims from the H ijz, reports
arguing for this did enter circulation at some point, and it is hard to imagine
that this would have happened during the first/seventh century, at a time
when the nascent Muslim community had not yet had much time to work out
68 For example, Abd al-Razzq, Musannaf, VI, 54 (no. 9987); Yahy al-Layth, Muwatta ,
II, 470 (Kitb al-Jmi, no. 17); al-Shaybn, Muwatta , 285.
69 Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims, esp. 5898.
72 For example, Yahy al-Layth, Muwatta , II, 470 (Kitb al-Jmi, no. 17): ittakhadh
qubr anbiyihim masjid.
73 For a possibly more successful attempt at expelling non-Muslims from a part of the
Islamic world, see Fierro Bello, Muslim land.
266 HARRY MUNT
what really distinguished them from their non-Muslim neighbours.74 It was dur-
ing the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries that many of the better-known
actions against non-Muslims were being taken.75 Traditions and narratives
be they preserved, invented or altered of what had happened, or should
have happened, in the Muslim communitys earliest decades played a key role
in these later interactions between Muslims and non-Muslims, as can be demon-
strated by the discovery of what was said to be a copy of the Prophets agree-
ment with the inhabitants of Najrn as late as 265/87879.76 It is within this kind
of milieu that ideas about the expulsion of non-Muslims from parts of Arabia
can more comfortably be understood to have taken hold. Not only would this
fit better with the history of the development of Muslim/non-Muslim relations;
research over the last few decades has shown how it was only by the late first/
seventh century that the H ijz, with Mecca at its centre, was starting to gain its
absolute primacy as the premier Islamic holy land.77
The H ijz as Islamic holy land and communal boundaries

Perhaps the most important question remains: why did the idea that the Prophet
and his caliphal successors had expressed and eventually acted upon a wish to
expel non-Muslims from the H ijz enter the discourse on Muslim/non-Muslim
interactions and, more importantly, continue to play a relatively important part
in many scholars contributions to that discourse? No doubt there are several
ways of approaching such a problem. Here I would like to propose one possible
solution that builds on a growing trend in recent research in late antique history
to emphasize the significance that was placed upon the establishment of bound-
aries both theoretical and sometimes physical between different religious
communities. Sacred spaces played a demonstrably meaningful role in such
communal delineations and against this background it makes a certain sense
that the discomfort of Muslim scholars with the presence of non-Muslims in
the H ijz would increase over time together with the ever more firmly perceived
sanctity of that region and its two principal towns, Mecca and Medina.
74 Such was already suggested a century ago by L. Caetani, Annali dellislam, 10 vols
(Milan: Ulrico Heopli, 190526), II/i, 507: In verit, la esclusione dei non musulmani
della penisola arabica fu un prodotto del fanatismo religioso del II e III secolo delle
Higrah. Il sentimento era ancora prematuro ai tempi di Maometto, quando forse pi di
quattro quinti degli Arabi ancora non erano musulmani.
75 See the references above, n. 2; also the recent study of L. Yarbrough, Upholding Gods
rule: early Muslim juristic opposition to the state employment of non-Muslims, ILS 19/1,
2012, 1185.
76 Chronicle of Siirt, part 2, fasc. 2, ed. and trans. A. Scher and R. Griveau, Patrologia
Orientalis 13, 1919, 60110.
77 Again the bibliography is too large to cite in full here, but see especially Bashear,
Yemen, and many articles by G.R. Hawting, including The Umayyads and the
H ijz, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 2, 1972, 3946; Origins of
the Muslim sanctuary; The H ajj in the second civil war, in I.R. Netton (ed.),
Golden Roads: Migration, Pilgrimage and Travel in Mediaeval and Modern Islam
(Richmond: Curzon, 1993), 3142. Also now S.J. Shoemaker, The Death of a
Prophet: The End of Muhammads Life and the Beginnings of Islam (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), esp. 197265.
Much recent research has considered how the various religious communities
of the late antique Near East shaped their group identities and worked out what
connected them with or distinguished them from other religious groups.78 An
attempt to work out what distinguished ones own group from others was one
of the most important parts of what has been called identity formation and
the drawing up of communal boundaries, and in particular working out
what distinguished ones own group from those that were in other respects
quite similar. As Jonathan Z. Smith has nicely put it:79
The otherness of the common housefly can be taken for granted, but it is
also impenetrable. For this reason, its otherness is of no theoretical inter-
est. While the other may be perceived as being either LIKE-US or
NOT-LIKE-US, he is, in fact, most problematic when he is TOO-
MUCH-LIKE-US, or when he claims to BE-US. It is here that the real
urgency is called forth not by the requirement to place the other, but
rather to situate ourselves. It is here, to invoke the language of a theory
of ritual, that we are not so much concerned with the drama of expulsion,
but with the more mundane and persistent process of micro-adjustment.
This is not a matter of the far, but, preeminently, of the near. The prob-
lem is not alterity, but similarity at times, even identity. A theory of the
other is but another way of phrasing a theory of the self.
Sacred spaces, and access to those spaces, have throughout history played an
important role, not only in such efforts at drawing up boundaries between religious
communities, but also in demonstrating one communitys superiority over another.
There are plenty of examples of this from pre-Islamic late antiquity and only a few
can be given here. Hagith Sivan has noted that Mt Gerizim was the territory that
stood at the heart of the controversy which marked and marred relations between
Samaritans and Christians, and the emperor Zeno (r. 47491 CE) famously built a
church on its summit and banished Samaritans from approaching it in retaliation for
one of their revolts.80 Jews are repeatedly said to have been banned from Jerusalem,
at least by the emperors Hadrian (r. 11738 CE), Constantine (r. 30637 CE),81 and
78 For example, S. Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); J.M. Lieu, Christian Identity in the
Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Sizgorich,
Violence and Belief; Sizgorich, Monks and their daughters: monasteries as
MuslimChristian boundaries, in M. Cormack (ed.), Muslims and Others in Sacred
Space (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 193216.
79 J.Z. Smith, What a difference a difference makes, in J. Neusner and E.S. Frerichs (eds),
To See Ourselves as Others See Us: Christians, Jews, Others in Late Antiquity
(Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 47.
80 H. Sivan, Palestine in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 10742
(quote from 111).
81 Although cf. in part O. Irshai, Constantine and the Jews: the prohibition against entering
Jerusalem history and hagiography, Zion 60, 1995, 12978 (Hebrew with English
summary at xxi).
268 HARRY MUNT
Heraclius (r. 61041 CE),82 and Jerome in his late fourth-century CE commentary on
Zephaniah demonstrated how Christians could use this to emphasize victory over
their Jewish rivals.83 Over the fifth and sixth centuries CE, a succession of increas-
ingly hostile Christian imperial edicts were passed concerning the maintenance of
synagogues, culminating in an isolated law of the emperor Justinian I (r. 52765)
addressed to the Praetorian Prefect of Africa in 535 CE which stated that we do not
grant that their synagogues shall stand, but want them to be converted in form to
churches.84 From the late fourth century CE as Christian attitudes towards the
so-called pagans became more hardened, their shrines and sanctuaries were a prin-
cipal target. Temples all across the Roman Near East were closed, demolished and
converted to churches: there is an apparent example of the latter already from the
reign of Constantine at Mamre, to the north of Hebron, and two other famous
instances that can stand for many others involved the Marneion in Gaza in the
early fifth century CE and the Serapeum in Alexandria in 391 CE.85 An edict of
391 CE issued to the Prefect and Count of Egypt in the aftermath of the closure
of the Serapeum banned all entrance into the temples.86
Early Muslims recognized that they shared a great deal in common with Jews
and Christians, and therefore, of course, also strove hard to identify what distin-
guished them from Jews and Christians, especially as they established contacts
on an ever-increasing number of levels with the non-Muslim inhabitants of the
conquered territories. Holy places played a very important part in this. Umar b.
al-Khatt b is said to have reiterated the ban on Jews from Jerusalem in his treaty
with the Christian inhabitants of that city.87 Abd al-Maliks well-known appro-
priation of the site of Temple Mount for his new Dome of the Rock and his son
82 R.G. Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessas Chronicle and the Circulation of Historical

Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press,
2011), 84.
83 J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London: Duckworth,
1975), 1667.
84 Novellae no. 37, discussed and translated in A. Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial
Legislation (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), 3819 (no. 62); further discus-
sion at 734 of the development of legislation concerning synagogues. There is some arch-
aeological evidence for the conversion of synagogues into churches at roughly this time. For
example, the synagogue at Jerash in modern Jordan was paved over and converted into a
church in 53031 CE; see J. Moralee, The stones of St. Theodore: disfiguring the pagan
past in Christian Gerasa, Journal of Early Christian Studies 14/2, 2006, 192.
85 Mamre: Sozomen, Ecc. Hist., II.4. Marneion: Mark the Deacon (attrib.), Vie de
Porphyre, vque de Gaza, trans. H. Grgoire and M.-A. Kuegner (Paris: Socit
ddition Les Belles Lettres, 1930), 6384, 924. Serapeum: C. Haas, Alexandria
in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1997), 15969, 207. For an interesting discussion of the symbolic
uses of pagan temples by Christians at Jerash, based on archaeological and epigraphic
evidence, see Moralee, Stones of St. Theodore.
86 Codex Theodosianus XVI.10.11, translated by C. Pharr in The Theodosian Code and
Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952);
also discussed in Haas, Alexandria, 1656. Book XVI of the Codex Theodosianus is full
of legislation regulating the maintenance and use of, as well as the access to, pagan temples,
synagogues and the churches of heretics.
87 Al-T abar, Tarkh, I, 2405; M. Levy-Rubin, Were the Jews prohibited from settling in
Jerusalem? On the authenticity of al-T abars Jerusalem surrender agreement, JSAI 36,
2009, 6381.
al-Walds equally well-known appropriation of the Church of St John for his

new mosque in Damascus both also speak to the importance of sacred spaces
in relations between communities.
It is in this context that we should place the continuing discussions over
whether or not non-Muslims could enter the H ijz. As the H ijz increased in
stature as Islams premier holy land, access to it became an important part of
the emerging definitions of what it meant to be a Muslim; likewise, keeping
non-Muslims away from it even if only theoretically became one important
boundary between Muslims and others. In part this may have been an attempt to
ensure the permanent purity of Islams central sacred site at Mecca; the Quran
stresses the impurity of the mushrikn as reason for keeping them away from
al-masjid al-harm. Al-Shfis division between Meccas haram, which no
non-Muslim should enter, and the rest of the H ijz, which they could enter tem-
porarily, also supports this idea. That the idea of the H ijz or Arabia as an
Islamic holy land was an important communal boundary is highlighted specific-
ally by some traditions. Several place some emphasis on the point that after the
expulsions only Muslims would remain.88 Others insist that the reason behind
the Prophets order of the expulsion of non-Muslims was that the land belongs
to God and His Messenger (s).89 By the fifth/eleventh century, al-Mward
(d. 450/1058) was particularly explicit about the H ijzs sanctity being the rea-
son why no non-Muslim could reside there, and Meccas extreme sanctity being
why they could not even enter.90 A slightly younger contemporary of his,
al-Sarakhs (d. c. 483/109091), suggested that the measures aimed at prevent-
ing non-Muslims from residing in Arabia were justified by respect for the
Prophet, whose birthplace was Arabia.91 This would also explain how reports
which earlier seem to have focused at least equally on expulsions from Najrn
and the northern H ijz oases came increasingly to be used to make the case
for prohibiting non-Muslim access to Mecca and Medina, an injunction which
remains in place today.
Whether or not any significant groups of non-Muslims had ever been forcibly
expelled from any H ijz or Arabian settlements is important, but becomes less
so for our understanding of the continuing attention paid to traditions and opi-
nions discussing the expulsion(s). It was the H ijzs progressively central role
as Islams holy land which meant that, in theory at least, it should be off-limits
to non-Muslims. How those non-Muslims who did travel there, or even resided
there, dealt with this theoretical communal boundary whether indeed it
impacted upon their lives in any way at all would be fascinating to know,
but unfortunately, since they have left so little literature of their own, we are
unlikely ever to do so.
88 For example, Abd al-Razzq, Musannaf, VI, 54 (no. 9985); X, 359 (no. 19365);
al-Tirmidh, Jmi, IV, 134 (Kitb al-Siyar, bb 43); Ahmad, Musnad, I, 29, 32; III,
345; Ab Ubayd, Amwl, 107 (no. 271).
89 For just a few examples, Ab Dwd, Sunan, III, 268 (Kitb al-Kharj wa-al-imra
wa-al-fay, bb 22); al-Bukhr, Jmi, II, 72 (Kitb al-H arth wa-al-muzraa, bb 17);
II, 2945 (Kitb al-Jizya, bb 6).
90 Al-Mward, al-H w al-kabr, XIV, 3367.
91 Al-Sarakhs, Sharh, III, 257.

Munt SOAS No Two Religions PDF

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Munt SOAS No Two Religions PDF

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Bulletin of SOAS, 78, 2 (2015), 249269. SOAS, University of London, 2014.

doi:10.1017/S0041977X14001049 First published online 24 November 2014

No two religions: Non-Muslims in the early

As is clear, however, from an investigation of the earliest extant discussions

Religions of pre-Islamic Arabia

How were the expulsions presented?

O believers, the idolaters (al-mushrikn) are indeed unclean (najas); so let

18 Procopius, Wars, I.xix.34.

Abd al-Razzq Mamar [b. Rshid] al-Zuhr [Sad] b.

al-Muwatta li-imm dr al-hijra Mlik b. Anas: riwyat Yahy b. Yahy al-Layth

Affn Yahy b. Sad al-Qatt n Ibrhm b. Maymn, a Kufan

This seems a relatively minimalist position, especially when compared to

Non-Muslims in Arabia and the H ijz after the Rshidn period

[1] Abd al-Al b. H ammd al-Nars H ammd b. Salama Yahy b. Sad

in early Islam: an examination of non-tribal traditions, Arabica 36/3, 1989, 32761;

61 Al-Bakr, Mujam, I, 11 (reading al-jinn, the gardens, instead of the published

Was there actually an expulsion?

According to a proviso in one of the oldest sources of Muslim law, no

Nonetheless the contradictions discussed so far in the evidence for non-Muslim

Yazd b. Hrn Ibn Ab Dhib: He witnessed Umar b. Abd al-Azz

The H ijz as Islamic holy land and communal boundaries

82 R.G. Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessas Chronicle and the Circulation of Historical

al-Walds equally well-known appropriation of the Church of St John for his

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen