366 brian a. catlos
under Islamic rule became more elaborate and entrenched. Across the Islamic
Mediterranean, Christian and Jewish communities developed symbiotic, interdepend-
ent relationships with Muslims.
Meanwhile, in the first two centuries of Islam, Muslim religious identity coalesced
and Islamic law and doctrine was elaborated. The ideal position of Islam in regard
to religious minorities, or the “protected peoples,” was based both on Scripture and
the precedents of the Prophet and the first caliphs, but reflected the exigencies of the
conquest. Qur’anic injunctions exhorted Muslims to fight the People of the Book
(only) until they were prepared to render tribute, while the so-called “Pact of
Umar”—a spurious document attributed to the second caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab
(634–644)—purportedly laid down the conditions of submission of the Christians of
Syria at the time of the conquest. This was taken also as a precedent for the treatment
of Jewish communities. The “Pact” mandated, inter alia, the prohibition of building
churches, and of vocal demonstrations of faith, the wearing of certain clothes and
hairstyles, the prohibition of bearing of arms, and other restrictions aimed at reinforc-
ing the subordination and humiliation of dhimmis. In reality it represents a later
idealization of the ad hoc agreements made by local commanders across the Islamic
world; such conditions were rarely imposed or observed (Tritton, 1970; Cohen,
1999). Essentially, dhimmis were enjoined to pay special taxes, typically the jizya (poll
tax), and kharaj (a land tax) in exchange for an exemption from military service. In
time other restrictions were introduced, such as the prohibition from serving in
Islamic administrations, or from riding on horseback, but such rules were imple-
mented only in certain locales and at certain times, and were frequently disregarded
altogether (Hoyland, 2004; Eddé et al., 1997).
Significant Christian minority communities in Syria and Palestine included Syriac
monophysites, Greek Orthodox (or “Melkites”), Armenian Christians, and monothe-
lete Maronites (emerging at some point after the eighth century). In Egypt, the native
Copts lived alongside a smaller Melkite population, and eventually a tiny but extremely
powerful Armenian Christian community. In northwest Africa (Ifriqiya and the
Maghrib) whatever native Catholic population persisted after the conquest was added
to by Melkite and Armenian immigrants, although by the late-twelfth century these
communities had all but disappeared. In the Iberian Peninsula local Catholics, largely
cut off from developments in the Latin West, came to be known as Mozarabs (from
musta’rab, or “want-to-be-Arab”). This term was in reference to their linguistic
acculturation and adoption of Arabo–Islamic quotidian cultural practices—a charac-
teristic of most subject Christian and Jewish communities. The Islamic conquest of
Sicily and parts of Italy brought a significant population of Greek Orthodox and a
smaller population of Catholics under Muslim rule; whereas the Seljuq conquest of
Anatolia in the late eleventh century brought greater numbers of Orthodox and
Armenians into the world of Islam. At about this time, enclaves of Latin traders began
to appear in port towns and entrepôts, while the Ottoman conquest of Anatolia and
expansion into the Balkan peninsula and the lower Danube region beginning in the
fourteenth century established substantial populations of Greek Orthodox, Catholic
and Slavonic Christians under Muslim rule.
There were significant Jewish minority communities across the Islamic
Mediterranean; some were the descendants of Roman-era communities, particularly in
Syria, Palestine and Egypt, some were likely Berber converts, others had come from