“They sell the signs of God for a mean price, and turn others aside from his way: of a truth, evil is it that they do!
“They respect not with a believer either ties of blood or good faith; and these are the transgressors.”
In modern language, the word ẕimmah has frequently the meaning of conscience. (Compare Lane’s Arabic Dictionary, in loco.)
ẔIMMĪ (ذمى), a member of the Ahlu ʾẕ-Ẕimmah, a non-Muslim subject of a Muslim Government, belonging to the Jewish, Christian, or Sabean creed, who, for the payment of a poll- or capitation-tax, enjoys security of his person and property in a Muḥammadan country.
One of the most urgent duties enjoined by Muḥammad upon the Muslim or true believer, was the Jihād fī Sabīli ʾllāhi, or exertion in the road of God, i.e. warfare for the spread of Islām, amongst the infidels within and without Arabia [[JIHAD]]; thus the whole world came to be regarded as divided into two great portions, the Dāru ʾl-Ḥarb and Dāru ʾl-Islām [[DARU ʾL-HARB], [DARU ʾL-ISLAM]]—the territories of War and the territories of Peace. These two divisions, one of which represented the land of infidelity and darkness, the other that of light and faith, were supposed to be in a continual state of open or latent belligerency, until the Dāru ʾl-Islām should have absorbed the Dāru ʾl-Ḥarb and faith conquered unbelief. Infidelity, however, admits of degrees. Its worst shape is idolatry, that is, the worship of idols instead of or besides the one true God; and this, again, is a crime most abominable on the part of Arabs, “since the Prophet was sent amongst them, and manifested himself in the midst of them, and the Qurʾān was delivered down in their language.” Of an equally atrocious character is the infidelity of apostates, “because they have become infidels, after having been led into the way of faith, and made acquainted with its excellence.” In the case of neither, therefore, is a compromise admissible; they must accept or re-embrace the faith, or pay with their lives the full penalty of their crime.
With regard to the idolaters of a non-Arabic or ʿAjam country, which latter expression in the times of early Islām particularly applied to the Persian Empire, ash-Shāfiʿī maintains that destruction is incurred by them also; but the other learned doctors agree that it is lawful to reduce them to slavery, thus allowing them, as it were, a respite during which it may please God to direct them into the right path, but making, at the same time, their persons and substance subservient to the cause of Islām.
The least objectionable form of infidelity in the eyes of Muḥammad and his followers, is that of the Kitābīs or people of the Book (ahlu ʾl-kitāb), i.e. the Jews, as possessors of the Old Testament, or Taurāt, and the Christians, to whom, moreover, the Injīl (Gospel) was revealed. As they are not guilty of an absolute denial, but only of a partial perversion of the truth, only part of the punishment for disbelief is their due, and it is imposed upon them in the shape of a tribute, called poll- or capitation-tax [[JAZYAH]], by means of which they secure protection for their property, personal freedom, and religious toleration from the Muslim Government. The same privilege is extended to the Majūsī or Sabeans, whose particular form of worship was more leniently judged by Muḥammad and the Traditionists than that of the idolaters of Persia.
This is the state of things if a country inhabited by such infidels be conquered by a Muslim army: theoretically, the inhabitants, together with their wives and children, are considered as plunder and property of the State, and it would be lawful to reduce them to slavery. In practice, however, the milder course prevails, and by paying the stipulated capitation-tax, the subdued people become, in the quality of Ẕimmīs, free subjects of the conquering power, whose condition is but little inferior to that of their Muslim fellow-subjects.
The relations of an alien or Ḥarbī—that is, one who belongs to the people of the Dāru ʾl-ḥarb—to a Muslim community which he visits, in time of peace, for the sake of traffic or any other legitimate purpose, are regulated by that high conception of the duties of hospitality, which was innate with the ancient Arab, and which prompted him to defend and honour even a mortal enemy, as soon as he might have crossed as a chance guest the threshold of his tent.
On entering the territory, an alien can claim a guest’s protection from the first met Muslim, be it even the lowest peasant, and having obtained this protection, he is entitled to remain in the country unmolested for the term of a whole year. The authorities, however, must within the year give him notice that, if he should remain until its completion, capitation-tax will be imposed upon him, and in such notice the permission for his stay may be limited to some months only, if for some reason or other it should appear advisable or necessary to do so. If the alien continue in the country beyond the full or limited time prescribed, he becomes ipso facto liable to the capitation-tax, and if, after thus becoming a Ẕimmī, he be desirous of returning to his own country, he may be prevented, as now being bound to the Muslim Government by a contract of fealty. In similar manner an alien becomes a Ẕimmī upon purchasing tribute land and paying the impost on it, and is then liable to capitation-tax for the ensuing year. An alien woman turns Ẕimmīyah by marrying a Ẕimmī, because thereby she undertakes to reside in the Muḥammadan state. (See Hamilton’s Hidāyah, vol. ii. p. 196.)