The shurut of the 'Umarites

A lively trade has been ongoing about Islamic caste-law, experienced by nonMuslims as the dhimma. As so often, the "counter-jihad" lines up with the soi-disant "Islamic State": they agree the shurut 'Umar is authentic and a righteous-model for the true Muslim ruler over kitabi subjects. Non-Muslim apologists for Islam point instead to the Astinameh. Weirdos like me look to Ibn Jurayj, or the treaties.

A decade ago or so Milka Levy-Rubin published on the shurut claiming it for the 'Abbâsids, al-Mutawakkil specifically. This (doomed) caliph had promoted a comprehensive dhimmi law in Baghdad and Samarra. Some clauses parallel the shurut. Luke Yarbrough brings more evidence, perhaps all the evidence; his paper concludes otherwise.

Al-Mutawakkil's dynasty had long been at odds with the ahl al-Sunnat, reasoning that as caliphs the Banû 'Abbâs were God's shadow on Earth. In fairness to the caliphate, some legal-schools were truly toxic, starting with the violent Awza'iya. Where caliphs endorsed a Sunnite's usul, as with Shaybani, it was often to gather support against the likes of Awza'i. More-often the caliph in those days went so far as to judge the Quran itself as an emanation of Divine will, which God might choose to abrogate at any time.

Al-Mutawakkil had conceded - famously - this last point: God would never abrogate Quran. But that concession didn't mean the caliph had to like it.

Yarbrough argues that the shurut was available to this caliph - but that it was a Sunnite document. This explains, to Yarbrough, the wide divergences between the shurut and the caliph's law, at least as wide as their agreements. Al-Mutawakkil rather preferred Shi'a law (and as temporary-marriage proves, the Shi'ites had taken some 'Abbasi rules in turn). Levy-Rubin had already noticed agreements between the caliph's sumptuary provisions and the laws of the Sasanians (and Brahmins I'll add).

The shurut is, then, something of a manifesto by a political-party; one decidedly sidelined in the 'Iraq, although it may have enjoyed some popularity there and also in old Emesa out west. As such a document it owes more to the apocalyptic genre than to anything real. Even the more-arrogant later caliphs, like post-Buyid Muqtadi on the eve of the Crusade, preferred to cite al-Mutawakkil's law or, at most, specific 'Umari ahadith; they never cited this "pact" long-suspect. Only under the Mamluks did an Islamic state adopt it formally.