Minority Rights in Islam: From Dhimmi to Citizen in Shireen T. Hunter and Huma Malik (eds.) Islam and Human Rights: Advancing a US-Muslim Dialogue

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Author: Recep Senturk

Publisher/Publication: Center for International and Strategic Studies

DOI/ISBN: 0892064714

This chapter explores how the different Islamic legal traditions dictated the relations between the state and the non-Muslim communities, particularly in relation to the right of personhood (dhimma). It analyses the Universalistic and the Communalist school of Muslim Jurists from the classical period, before studying the millet system that the Ottoman Empire used, which was based on the Universalistic school of Islamic Jurisprudence, and how this changed with the Ottoman reforms and the Ottoman constitution. The author notes that adopting a more secular approach does not mean more freedom for minority groups, and that countries that nowadays have based their legal system on Shari’a, they have chosen more restrictive interpretation towards their minorities, and not the Universalist approach of the Ottoman Empire.