Dhimma
Also: dhimmi status, protected peoples
The developing legal framework under Islamic rule that granted protected status to certain non-Muslim communities while assigning them an inferior civic and fiscal position. Its rules varied by period and place.
The dhimma joined protection to legal subordination. Certain non-Muslim communities could retain communal worship and institutions under Islamic rule, while paying distinctive taxes and living under rules that marked an inferior status.
It was not a single finished code imposed everywhere at the moment of conquest. Treaties, fiscal practice, court decisions, and later legal literature shaped the institution over time. The document commonly called the Pact of Umar is therefore evidence for later formalization, not a simple transcript of one seventh-century settlement.