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 ...
Contents
Preface / iv
List of Contributors / v
Introduction Richard Tapper / 1
Part I - Religious Minorities
The Baha’is Roger Cooper / 7
The Christians Harry Norris and David Taylor / 12
The Druzes David McDowall / 32
The Jews Tudor Parfitt / 35
The Kharijis/Ibadis Michael Brett / 57
The Shi‘a Chibli Mallat / 60
The Yazidis Philip Kreyenbroek / 67
Part II - Ethno-linguistic Minorities
The Azarls Farideh Garnett / 70
The Berbers George Joffe / 73
The Circassians George Hewitt / 77
The Kurds David McDowall / 79
The Turkomans David McDowall / 84
Tables and Maps / 86
PREFACE
This volume brings together a number of essays on minorities in the Middle East. The essays, by experts belonging to or associated with the Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, were originally written in early 1992 for a Report commissioned by the Research and Analysis Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The FCO requested a ‘a study of some 10,000 to 15,000 words to be an introductory guide to some of the ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East.’ The minorities were specified, as well as the proportion of the study to be devoted to each. Notably the ‘Middle East’ was defined to include the Maghreb and Iran, but not Sudan, Turkey, Afghanistan or any of the countries of the Caucasus or Central Asia. Minorities to be covered did not include, for example, Palestinians; migrant workers in the Gulf, whether Turkish or non-Middle Eastern by origin; the Afghan diaspora, especially in Iran; Zoroastrians; tribal minorities in Iran other than the Kurds.
Several of the contributions as originally submitted were considerably longer than allowed for in the specification, and some included material that was not required. The editor decided to publish the original versions, suitably edited, in the form of an Occasional Paper of the Centre.
Although some extra coverage has been included, for example relating to Turkey, the editor neither commissioned further essays on the minorities not covered, such as those mentioned above, nor attempted to make the essays conform to a standard model. Some, notably those on the Jews and the Christians, are now very much longer than the others, and than the versions in the report submitted to the FCO. Readers should therefore note that the study, even in this expanded form, still does not attempt to be a comprehensive review of all minorities in the Middle East.
The editor would like to thank Maria T. O’Shea for her invaluable assistance and support in the preparation of this study; Tony Allan for his encouragement in seeing the manuscript published; Sebastian Ballard for preparing the maps; Diana Gur for her usual efficient assistance with the production; and Pauline Rose for holding the Centre together while the Chairman devoted time to the study. Most of all, thanks are due to the contributors for producing their essays to meet fairly tight deadlines. Time constraints have meant that they have not been fully consulted at all stages of the editing process. In particular, the essay on the Christians is an amalgamation of David Taylor’s contribution which was included in the FCO Report, and Harry Norris’s study which was much longer and had a rather different focus; it is hoped that the resultant essay includes the best parts of two very fine discussions of a complex subject.
Although the editor takes responsibility for errors that may have crept into the final text, insofar as opinions are expressed in any essay they are those of the author, and are not necessarily shared either by the FCO, by the editor or by other members of the Centre.
List of Contributors
Michael Brett, Senior Lecturer in History at SOAS, has a long publication record on the history of Northern Africa, especially the Maghreb, at all periods. He maintains a strong interest in the various Khariji/Ibadi groups, including those elsewhere in the Middle East.
Roger Cooper has long experience of Iran and intimate knowledge of the Baha’is, their religion and their present situation; he is the author of the Minority Rights Group report on the Baha’is, newly updated.
Farideh Garnett is currently a postgraduate student at SOAS; of Iranian Azarbayjani origins herself, she has published extensively on recent affairs in Iran, particularly those involving women, and has recently paid a research visit to Baku.
George Hewitt, Reader in Georgian at SOAS, is one of the foremost experts on Caucasian languages, on which he has published extensively. He is well informed about all Caucasian communities, including the substantial minorities of Circassians living in various other parts of the Middle East. He heads the SOAS Centre for the Advancement of the Study of the Caucasus.
Philip Kreyenbroek is Lecturer in modern Iranian languages at SOAS and has published widely on ancient and modern Iranian religion, literature and civilization. He is particularly interested in Kurdish language, religions and society, and is currently in touch with members of the Yazidi sect in both Europe and the Middle East.
George Joffê, Research Associate of the Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, and Vice-Director of the Geopolitics and International Boundaries Research Centre at SOAS, is a well-known expert on contemporary Middle Eastern affairs, on which he conducts independent research as well as writing for the Economist Intelligence Unit. His deepest interests have been in the Maghreb, and in Berber history and society in particular.
David MacDowall is an independant researcher who has written widely on Middle Eastern affairs, particularly on minority issues. He wrote a Masters dissertation on the Druze of Syria, and has maintained a strong interest in Druze affairs; recently he has been publishing most extensively on the Kurds, including the newly updated Minority Rights Group Report.
Chibli Mallat is Lecturer in Islamic Law at SOAS, and has a strong interest in contemporary Middle Eastern legal and political affairs, particularly in the Shi‘a of Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere. His monograph on the Shi'a divine Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr will be published soon by Cambridge University Press.
Harry Norris, recently retired from his Chair of Arabic and Islamic studies at SOAS, has had the opportunity to develop his long-standing interest in the Christians of Asia and the Middle East. He organized a preliminary meeting on the subject at SOAS last spring, was a prime mover of the SOAS one-day meeting in November on Christians in the Arab World, and will coordinate further research and discussion on the theme in the coming years.
Maria O’Shea, Research Associate of the Geopolitics and International Boundaries Research Centre at SOAS, has an MA in Middle Eastern Area Studies from SOAS, and is currently conducting research for a thesis on the role of minorities in border formation in Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus. In 1991 she organized a one-day meeting on Kurdistan at SOAS.
Tudor Parfitt, Senior Lecturer in Hebrew at SOAS, has conducted research and published extensively on Jewish life from the 18th century to the present throughout diaspora and in Palestine/Israel, and on ‘exotic’ Jewish communities throughout the world. He is the author of the Minority Rights Group reports on Jews and Falashas.
Richard Tapper, Reader in Anthropology, and Chairman of the Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS, has conducted research on the history and society of various minorities in Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey, and has published widely on them, including some general and theoretical discussions of issues of ethnicity and minority-state relations.
David Taylor is currently completing his DPhil at Oxford on Syriac matters. He is greatly interested in contemporary Oriental Christianity generally, and has strong contacts with several churches.
Introduction
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 had judicial autonomy; cases which involved both a dhimmi and a Muslim would be tried before a Muslim court where the dhimmi's testimony was unacceptable.1
Historically, relations between Muslims and non-Muslims have been enormously varied: amicable and mutually beneficial in most cases and for long periods, but marked by extreme discrimination and violence on occasions which have inevitably attracted attention.
Major changes came with the intervention of European powers from the early 19th century, in particular their self-appointed role of protecting non-Muslim minorities; after World War I, French and British Mandates included this explicit duty. In modern times too, as the nature of the state in the Middle East has been transformed, and new nation-states have been created, so state institutions have pervaded whole areas of social, economic and religious life that were previously not the state’s concern. In many nation-states, such as Republican Turkey and Pahlavi Iran, new regimes have sought ‘national integration’ by imposing a national language and sometimes religion, usually those of the ruling elite and not always of the majority of the citizens. The scape-goating of minorities, though not new, has become increasingly frequent, in the present century.
One result of the growth of the state has been the politicization of religious minorities, while ethno-linguistic communities too have become more self-conscious, culturally and politically. Just as regimes differ in their policies towards minorities, so also minorities have a variety of strategies …
11 owe this paragraph to Tudor Parfltt.
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.
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