Daniel J. Pipes

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Equality versus rights

Reader comment on item: The Middle East's Tribal Affliction
in response to reader comment: Equality

Submitted by Kris (Canada), Feb 16, 2008 at 15:53

Ahmad, you are avoiding giving straight answer. How the anwer to my question about equality can be "YES" if in the next sentence you grant me only 100% of rights the infidel has in a Muslim country? You are not saying, I presume that under sharia a non-Muslim has the same rights in the Islamic country as a Muslim?

Since the time of Abu Hanifa, the author of foundamental religious concepts the orthodox tradition of Islam is that the world is divided into two components: dar al-Islam, the house of Islam and dar al-Harb, the house of war. The non-Muslim inhabitants of the dar al-Harb are called harbi, (in dar al-Islam they are called dhimmi).

Dar al-Harb or parts of it were historically or are currently called sometimes different names:

Dar al-Kufr "house of infidels" or "domain of disbelief",

Dar al Hudna "house of calm",

Dar al-'Ahd "house of truce" ,

Dar al-Sulh "house of treaty",

Dar al-Dawa "house of invitation",

Dar al-Amn "house of safety".

Abu Hanifa had been born several decades after the death of the Prophet. All these terms are (maybe except dar al-Kufr used by the Prophet to refer to the Quraish-dominated society of Mecca) therefore newer than the Quran and the Hadith.

Do they, however, appear in sharia?

Straight answer "yes" or "no" will be sufficient. No, qualifiers, please.


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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

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