Can polytheists be dhimmis?

[جوري]

The rules are the same for ALL!

 

[attica]

Hi Independent,
Yes, that's exactly what I want to know - with one small difference. It may be that the manner of treatment of polytheists was handed down by oral or written tradition (just that the written tradition was not Quran or Hadith) or was based on precedent (like in common law caselaw) - e.g. polytheists in country X were treated in a certain way in the seventh century so, without having any specific written or oral teaching about how they should ideally be treated being available to conquerors of another country which contained polytheist populations, they decided to overtly follow the precedent of what the rulers of country X in this matter did.
Thanks!

 

[aamirsaab]

This might help:

During the Umayyad period when Muslims entered Sindh (now western Pakistan), they saw Hindus and Buddhists in that area. Muhammad ibn al-Qasim, the commander of the Muslim armies at that time, sent a letter to the Caliph asking him how he should treat them. The Caliph called a meeting of the `ulama’ (scholars) and told them that the armies had met people who are neither Christians nor Jews. How should they be treated in Islam? The `ulama’ gave their fatwa that these people should be treated like the People of the Book with the exception that Muslims will not marry their women and will not eat the meat slaughtered by them. This is the position that Muslims took with other groups as well when they came into contact with them in other lands."



Taken from:
http://208.43.71.196-static.reverse...tions-and-jihad/relations-during-peace/175803

 

[attica]

Thanks for that aamirsaab. However, I am uncertain whether Buddhists or Hindus are truly polytheists in the sense that there are gods in Buddhism but they are not really considered that important compared to Buddha, who himself is not a god, and all Gods in Hinduism are representations of one God, in my understanding.
Do you have any similar references relating to polytheist peoples from non mainstream religions - e.g. animists (ok, I suppose they are pantheists rather than polytheists) or worshippers of a pantheon of Gods with no unifying principle such as one can see in Hinduism, such as the Nordic gods (I know there were some commercial contacts between the Arabs and the Vikings, so I wonder whether there might be some information out there about how the Viking religion was seen by Muslims).

 

[aamirsaab]

Thanks for that aamirsaab. However, I am uncertain whether Buddhists or Hindus are truly polytheists in the sense that there are gods in Buddhism but they are not really considered that important compared to Buddha, who himself is not a god, and all Gods in Hinduism are representations of one God, in my understanding.
Do you have any similar references relating to polytheist peoples from non mainstream religions - e.g. animists (ok, I suppose they are pantheists rather than polytheists) or worshippers of a pantheon of Gods with no unifying principle such as one can see in Hinduism, such as the Nordic gods (I know there were some commercial contacts between the Arabs and the Vikings, so I wonder whether there might be some information out there about how the Viking religion was seen by Muslims).

In An-dalus, Vikings would have been known as fire-worshippers, so would be included under the polytheist umbrella. There is a concept in Islam called Qiyas, which allow us to use analogical reasoning/deduction. Long story short, Vikings and other polytheistic types (that may or may not fit neatly as Buddhism or Hinduism etc) would clearly go under the same umbrella term of dhimmis.

Further reading:
http://www.nordicway.com/search/Vikings in the East.htm

 

[attica]

Ok, that clears it up, thanks for that.