Islamic Roots of the Millet System

Even though this might seem paradoxal to those most keen stereotypes of the contemporary popular image of Islam as hermetic and sectarian, the pattern of drawing people together while protecting the individuals’ freedom of beliefs is part of the anthropological DNA of the religion. Within its a context of emergence and expansion and with regard to the inner endless subdivisions of the Islamic faith, the principle of pluralism was naturally forged.
One of the best illustrations of its institutionalization can be found in the previously discussed Millet System established in the Ottoman Empire that doubtlessly contributed to making this regime “highly legitimate” for Muslims as well as for non-Muslim due to the “dual role of religion as an institution and a system of beliefs” . Indeed, the Muslim religious life and law encompassed within the same institutional framework didn’t hinder a state law to stand beside in this bureaucratically organized empire , opening the way for this “system of autonomous self-government under religious leader” of the millets (in arabic « millah », which can be found in the Qur’an as meaning “religion, nation, community, or rite” ).
Since “Islamic beliefs constitute the vocabulary of political action” , this part of the paper will focus on the Islamic roots of this pluralist and toleration-based system. The principle of toleration is clearly pronounced in the Qur’an. For example in Sûrat al-hujurât (The Dwellings, verse 49:3) we can read “O’ Mankind [...] made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another” which implies the need for a common respect. Indeed, despite the absence of literal term for the word “tolerance” in the Qu’ran, Hadith and ‘Fiqh, show that religious coercion (“‘ikrâh”) ...

... middle of paper ...

...on 22 July 2013. Accessed on April 16 2014 at http://psc.sagepub.com/content/39/8/733
- EMON Anver M., “The Limits of Constitutionalism in the Muslim world: History and Identity in Islamic Law”, New-York Law School, Islamic Law and Law of the Muslim World Research Paper Series 08-09, 37 pages. Accessible at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=[1086767]

- MUDDATHIR Abd Al-Rahim, “The Development of Fiqh in the modern Muslim World”, Kuala Lumpur: Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (IKIM), 1996.
 Internet:

- English translation of Chapter 49, sûrat l-hujurât (The Dwellings) of the Qur’an by Sahih International on the “Qur’anic Arabic Corpus” website: http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=49&verse=13

- Translation from Arabic to English by Sahih International, on the electronic version of the Qur’an accessed on April 30th at: http://quran.com/2/256