Some Minorities in the Middle East

Auteur :

Présentation	Table des Matières	Introduction	Identité	PDF
Some Minorities in the Middle East Richard Tapper SOAS This introduction provides a short general background and suggests some of the comparative and theoretical issues which should be borne in mind when considering the position of minorities in the Middle East. In the pre-modem Islamic Middle East, the issue of ‘minorities’ in theory concerned only religious minorities, and in particular non-Muslims. Even here, it should be noted that, for long periods in earlier Islamic history, non-Muslims constituted very much the majority of the populations of several polities, such as the early Caliphate and the early Ottoman Empire. In Islamic society, Christians, Jews, and later, Persian Zoroastrians, became dhimmis, tolerated subordinate minorities with a recognized but inferior position. Dhimma is the relationship between the Muslim state and the dhimmi. Dhimma requires the State to protect the life and property of the dhimmi, exempt him from military service and allow him freedom of worship, while in return the dhimmi was expected to pay higher taxes in the form of the jizya poll tax, not to insult Islam, not to build new places of worship, and to dress in a distinctive fashion in order not to be mistaken for a Muslim. In civil and family law non-Muslims ...


Identité
Richard Tapper Some Minorities in the Middle East SOAS Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies Occasional Paper 9 Some Minorities in the Middle East Edited By Richard Tapper With The Assistance of Maria T. O’shea Based on a report prepared for the Research and Analysis Department Foreign and Commonwealth Office SOAS Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies School of Oriental and African Studies University of London June 1992 Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies Occasional Papers ISSN 0954-1489 © 1992 Crown Copyright. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Copyright holder. Copies of this publication may be obtained from the Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H OXG. Tel 071 323 6239, Fax 071 436 3844. Printed in the Print Room of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.