People of the Book: Difference between revisions

===The Pact of Umar===

Much has been said of the ''Pact of Umar'',<ref>Paul Halsall - [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pact-umar.html The Status of Non-Muslims Under Muslim Rule]- Medieval Sourcebook, January, 1996</ref> and much of it distinctly positive. Its non-Muslim admirers gleefully compare its contents to the treatment of religious minorities in Medieval Europe, while ignoring its influence and conformity with Islamic scriptural sources which still govern the treatment of minorities in the East today. Some non-Muslim scholars of early Islam doubt the pact's authenticity, highlighting the fact that the Islamic traditions surrounding the writing of the pact are a few hundred years removed from the actual events described, and that no contemporary sources refers to it at all. ''Sophronius''' (560  - 638 AD) authentic extant writings also refer to the Muslim conquerors in a very negative way, putting further doubts on the Muslim recollections of events.<ref> Robert Hoyland, ''Seeing Islam as Others Saw It'' (Princeton, 1996) p. 69-71</ref> Nevertheless, this article will accept its authenticity and analyse the rights and limitations placed on the Syrians, to see just how free non-Muslims really were under the Rightly-guided Caliph.