AHL AL-ḎIMMA VS. AHL AL-KITĀB IN ISLAM: SYNONYMS OR DIFFERENT TERMS?

Abstract

This paper is inspired by the dichotomy in the characteristics of the terms ahl al-ḏimma ‘people under protection’ designating the religious groups under the protection of an Islamic administration, and ahl al-kitāb ‘people of the Book’ used for the religious groups who have a revealed scripture (the Old or New Testaments, the Avesta) in the modern literature on Islam, where the prevailing narrative sees them as two separate terms whereas some studies point to their near synonymy. Our study is based on the behaviour of the two concepts in works of classical Arabic literature (based on the CLAUDia historical corpus of Arabic). On the grounds of the collocations connected with the two concepts, the data supports the thesis of two distinct terms with rather little contextual overlap, where ahl al-ḏimma is used mainly for practical and formal aspects of the life of the above-described people within Islamic society, and ahl al-kitāb serves as a designation of the representatives of opposing religions in theological debates.