1 Humphreys, R. Stephen, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991)Google Scholar, 255.

2 Cohen, Mark R., Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008), xxii–xxiiiGoogle Scholar.

3 Al-Mutawakkil's attitude towards non-Muslims has been the subject of much discussion among scholars. However, it is worthwhile quoting his harsh measures against the dhimmīs as recorded by Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī: “In this year [235/850], al-Mutawakkil gave orders that the Christians and the dhimmīs in general be required to wear honey-colored hoods (taylasān) and girdles (zunnār); to ride on saddles with wooden stirrups and with two balls attached to the rear… . He gave orders to destroy their churches which were newly built and to take the tenth part of their house. If the place was large enough, it was to be made into a mosque; if it was not suitable for a mosque, it was to be made an open space. He forbade their employment in government offices and any official business where they would have authority over the Muslim. He forbade their children to attend Muslim schools or that any Muslim should teach them.” See Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh al-rusul wa al-mulūk (ed. Muḥammad Abū al-Faḍl Ibrāhīm, ) (Cairo: Dār al-maʿārif, 1968), 9: 171–2Google Scholar.

4 Lambton, Ann K. S., State and Government in Medieval Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981)Google Scholar, 83.

5 H.A.R. Gibb, “Al-Māwardī's theory of the Khalīfah”, Islamic Culture 11/3, 1937, 300. Gibb argues that al-Māwardī wrote this book as an attempt to assert the authority of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs against the Buwayhid emirs who were in effective control of their state.

6 Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥabīb al-Māwardī, , al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya (Cairo: Matbaʿa muṣtafā al-bābī al-ḥalabī, 1966)Google Scholar, 23.

7 Ibid., 25.

8 Ibid., 27.

9 Ibid.

10 Muḥammad ibn Talḥah Abū Sālim, , al-ʿIqd al-farīd lil-malik al-sa'īd (Cairo: n.p., 1892)Google Scholar, 145. I would like to thank Mr Luke Yarbrough, a PhD candidate at Princeton University, for his insightful comment on the translation of the phrase ʿathra lan tuqāl.

11 Abū al-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Mālik ibn ʿAbdillah al-Juwaynī, , Ghiyāth al-umam fī iltiyāth al-zulam (ed. Abd al-ʿAẓim al-Dayb, ) (Cairo: Matbaʿa al-nahḍa, 1981)Google Scholar, 156.

12 Ibid., pp. 156–7. The last sentence is the translation of “lā tatarā'ā nārāhumā”. According to E. W. Lane, this phrase means: “The Muslim may not dwell in the country of the believers in a plurality of gods, and be with them so that each of them shall see the fire of other”, see Lane, Edward William, An Arabic-English Lexicon (London: Williams and Norgate, 1863)Google Scholar, 1:1000.

13 Abū Yaʿlā Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Farrā', , al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya (Cairo: Matbaʿa muṣtafā al-bābī al-ḥalabī, 1966)Google Scholar, 32.

14 Al-Juwaynī, Ghiyāth al-umam fi iltiyāth al-ẓulam, 157.

15 al-Mulk, Niẓām, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings, tr. Darke, Hubert (London: Routledge, 1960)Google Scholar, 164.

16 Haddad, Wadi Zaidan, “Ahl al-Dhimma in an Islamic state: the teaching of Abū al-Ḥasan al-Māwardī's al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya”, Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 7/2, 1996CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 175.

17 Hitti, Philip, History of the Arabs (London: Macmillan, 1937)Google Scholar, 234.

18 See Otto Friedrich August Meinardus, Christians in Egypt: Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Communities, Past and Present (Cairo: American University Press, 2006)Google Scholar, 29; Arnold, T. W., The Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith (New Delhi: Adam Publishers, 2002), 63–4Google Scholar; Tritton, A. S., The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1970), 19–20Google Scholar.

19 Tritton, The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects, 19.

20 In his Wuzarā' al-Naṣrāniyya wa-kuttābuhā fi al-Islām, Louis Cheikhu lists seventy-five Christian viziers and 300 secretaries under the Islamic empire up to the year 1517.

21 Putmann, Hans, L'Eglise et L'Islam sous Timothée I (780–823) (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1975)Google Scholar, 104.

22 The disjunction between dhimmīs' political rights in theory and the reality of their political participation in the state administration has been discussed by Fattal, Antoine in his Le statut légal des non-musulmans en pays d'Islam (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1958), 232–63Google Scholar. See also Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, 65–8.

23 Qāshā, Al-Abb Suhayl, al-Masīḥiyyūn fī al-dawla al-Islāmiyya (Beirut: Dār al-Malak, 2002)Google Scholar, 322.

24 A. S. Tritton, The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects, 22.

25 See Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Qalqashandī, Subh al-aʿshā fī sinā'a al-inshā (Cairo: al-Muassasah al-Miṣriyya al-ʿāmma, n.d.), 13:368.

26 ʿAlī Ḥusnī al-Kharbūtī, al-Islām wa ahl al-dhimma (United Arab Emirates: Lajna al-taʿrif bi al-Islam, n.d.), 144.

27 Al-Abb Suhayl Qāshā, al-Masīḥiyyūn fī al-dawla al-Islāmiyya, 81.

28 Sulaymān, Mary ibn, Akhbār fatārika kursi al-mashriq (Rome: Excudebat C. de Luigi, 1899)Google Scholar, 80.

29 Ibid. See also Camille Hechaime in his introduction to Louis Cheikhu, Wuzarā' al-Naṣrāniyya wa-kuttābuhā, 18.

30 ʿAlī Ḥusnī al-Kharbūtī, al-Islām wa ahl al-dhimma, 144.

31 See Suhayl Qāshā, al-Masīḥiyyūn fī al-dawla al-Islāmiyya, 322.

32 Abū al-Ḥasan al-Hilāl ibn al-Muḥassin ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṣābī, , Tārīkh al-wuzarā' (ed. Amedroz, H. F.) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1904)Google Scholar, 95.

33 Fattal, Le statut légal des non-Musulmans.

34 T.W. Arnold, The Preaching of Islam, 63.

35 Abū al-ʿAbbās Shams al-Dīn Ibn Khāllikān, Wafayāt al-a'yān wa anbā' abnā' al-zamān, (ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās) (Beirut: Dār al-sādir, 1984), 4: 45.

36 On Faḍl ibn Marwān, Ibn Nadīm (d. 995) notes: “al-Faḍl ibn Marwān ibn Māsarjis, the Christian. He served al-Ma'mūn and al-Muʿtaṣim, acting as vizier. After these two, he also served several other caliphs. Although he had little grasp of learning, he showed great intelligence in the service of the caliphs. Among his books were: Things Observed and Traditions Known by Eye Witness, Seen and Quoted”. See The Fihrist of al-Nadim, tr. Dodge, Bayard (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970)Google Scholar, 278. For a detailed discussion of Faḍl ibn Marwān, see al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-rusul wa al-mulūk, 9: 18–22; Dominique Sourdel, Le Vizirat ʿAbbāside de 749 à 936 (132 à 324 de l'hégire) (Damascus: Institut français de Damas, 1959–60), 28–35.

37 Tafarraʿta yā Faḍl bin marwān faʿtabir * fa qablaka kāna al-Faḍl wa al-Faḍl wa al-Faḍl

According to Ibn Khāllikān, the three Faḍls mentioned in these lines were: Faḍl ibn Yahyā al-Barmākī, Faḍl ibn al-Rabīʿ, and Faḍl ibn Sahl. See Ibn Khāllikān, Wafayāt al-aʿyān, 4: 45.

38 Sourdel, Le Vizirat ʿAbbāside de 749 à 936, 247.

39 Al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-rusul wa al-mulūk, 9: 19.

40 Ibid.

41 Staffa, Susan Jane, Conquest and Fusion: The Social Evolution of Cairo A.D. 642–1950 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977)Google Scholar, 70.

42 Zaydan, Jurji, Umayyads and ʿAbbāsids, tr. Margoliouth, D.S. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1907)Google Scholar, 167.

43 See al-Imad, Leila S., The Fātimid Vizierate, 969–1172 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1990)Google Scholar, p. 71. Such a period of high favour led to jealousy and hatred on the part of Muslims, many of whom could not bear to see unbelievers in authority. Sarcasm is plain in a quotation from a contemporary poet: “Become Christian, for Christianity is the true religion! Our time proves it so. Worry not about anything else: Yaʿqūb, the vizier, is the Father: al-ʿAzīz, the Son, and Faḍl, the Holy Ghost”. See al-Athīr, Ibn, al-Kāmil fī al-tārīkh, (ed. Tornberg, C.J.) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1876)Google Scholar, vol. ix, 117. Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī cites a similar lampoon: “The Jews of our times have reached the goal of their desire and come to rule. Theirs is the dignity, theirs the money! Councillors of the state and princes are made from them. O people of Egypt! I give you advice: become a Jew, for Heaven has become Jewish!” See al-Suyūṭī, , Ḥusn al-muḥāḍara fī tārīkh Miṣr wa al-Qāhira (Cairo: Matbaʿa idārat al-watan, 1968)Google Scholar, 2: 201.

44 Ibid., 80.

45 Cohen, Mark R. and Somekh, Sasson, “In the court of Yaʿqūb ibn Kīllis: a fragment from the Cairo Geniza”, The Jewish Quarterly Review 80/4, 1990CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 248.

46 Al-Imad, The Fātimid Vizierate, 89–91.

47 Lev, Yaacov, “The Fātimid vizier Yaʿqūb ibn Kīllis and the beginning of the Fātimid administration in Egypt”, Der Islam 58, 1981CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 238; cf. Fischel, Walter J., Jews in the Economic and Social Life of Medieval Islam (London, 1937)Google Scholar.

48 Lev, “The Fātimid vizier Yaʿqūb ibn Kīllis and the beginning of the Fatimid administration in Egypt”.

49 Ibn Khāllikān, Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa anbā' abnā' al-zamān, 7: 34.

50 Mark R. Cohen and Sasson Somekh argue that, according to a Geniza document, members of the Jewish community were upset with him for allowing ridicule to be made of a Jewish prayer book during one of his majlis (the vizier's weekly court). Their dismay shows that usually he was, or was expected to be, an advocate for the Jewish community. See Cohen and Somekh, “In the court of Yaʿqūb ibn Kīllis: a fragment from the Cairo Geniza”, 283–314.

51 Lev, “The Fātimid vizier Yaʿqūb ibn Kīllis and the beginning of the Fātimid administration in Egypt”, 247–8.

52 See al-Suyūṭī, Ḥusn al-muḥāḍara fī tārīkh Miṣr wa al-Qāhira, 2: 129.

53 Samir, Samir Khalil SJ, “The role of Christians in the Fātimid government services of Egypt to the reign of al-Ḥāfiẓ”, Medieval Encounters 2/3, 1996Google Scholar, 177.

54 Al-Imad, The Fātimid Vizierate, 109–19.

55 Vatikiotis, Panayiotis J., The Fātimid Theory of State (Lahore: Institute of Islamic Culture, 1981)Google Scholar, 97.

56 Quoted in Al-Imad, The Fātimid Vizierate, 48. Here we can see that there is a disjunction between the theoretical vizierate outlined by Ismaili scholars and the Fātimid experience. In theory, there can be no delegation of imāmī powers in the Fātimid state, but in reality, the Fātimid experience was in many respects very different from al-Kirmānī's theory of the theocratic state. Both Ibn Kīllis and Bahram were exercising unlimited powers that fitted the category of vizierate of delegation, rather than vizierate of execution. This was also the case with Faḍl ibn Marwān during the ʿAbbāsid era, as discussed earlier.

57 See Lambton, State and Government in Medieval Islam, 95–6.

58 Grafton, David D., The Christians of Lebanon: Political Rights in Islamic Law (New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 2003), 35–6Google Scholar.

59 Kremer, Alfred von, The Orient under the Caliphs, translated by Bukhsh, S. Khuda from Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, first published in 1877 (India: University of Calcutta, 1920)Google Scholar, 220.

60 Babinger, Franz, “Wazir”, in Houtsma, M.Th. et al. (eds), The Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1934)Google Scholar, 6: 1135.

61 Hitti, History of the Arabs, 318. The list of authors holding the same opinion could be easily extended. In this regard I should like to mention one book especially devoted to the question; Bowen, Harold, The Life and Times of ʿAli ibn ʿĪsā: “The Good Vizier” (1928)Google Scholar. In his book Bowen states: “The designation vizier, of Persian origin, had been introduced by the ʿAbbāsids, who had modeled their Court procedure as closely as possible on that of the Sassanians” (p. 14).

62 Morony, Michael G., Iraq after the Muslim Conquest (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984)Google Scholar, 71; cf. Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings, 178–80. For a detailed discussion of the historical development of the vizierate during ʿAbbāsid times, see al-Yuzubkī, Tawfīq Sultān, al-Wizāra: Nash'atuhā wa-taṭawwuruhā fī al-dawla al-ʿAbbāsiyya (132–447) (Baghdad: Mosul University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

63 Goitein, S. D., “The origin of the vizierate and its true character”, Islamic Culture 16, 3–4 (1942)Google Scholar, and reappears in his Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968)Google Scholar, 169.

64 Goitein, “The origin of the vizierate and its true character”, 182.

65 Ibid., 191.

66 Sourdel, Le Vizirat ʿAbbāside de 749 à 936 (132 à 324 de l'hégire), 41–61.

67 For a discussion of the early development of the vizierate, see Kimber, R. A., “The early ʿAbbāsid vizierate”, Journal of Semitic Studies 38/1, Spring 1992, 65–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 Kimber, “The early ʿAbbāsid vizierate”, 84.

69 It is related that the caliph al-Manṣūr formally ordered his entourage to wear the Persian tall, black, conical hat (qulansuwa) and banned the use of the turban, which was worn previously. Meanwhile, the costumes of the Sassanid kings were imitated and garments decorated with golden inscriptions were introduced. Government officials were also encouraged to wear black, which was a symbol of the ʿAbbāsids (the Umayyad colour had been white). For a detailed discussion of how Persian culture found its way into the early ʿAbbāsid court and society, see Shakib, Mahmood, The Influence of Persian Culture during the Early ʿAbbāsid Times, unpublished Ph.D dissertation (University of Washington, 1982)Google Scholar.

70 Hugh Kennedy is right when he says: “Umayyads had had secretaries, and under the early ʿAbbāsids this office developed into the office of vizier”. See Kennedy, Hugh, When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2005)Google Scholar, 36.

71 Tritton, The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects, 25. In fact, there were fewer Ismaili viziers than the other religious groups combined: twenty-nine non-Ismailis to twenty-three Ismailis. Among the non-Ismailis were seven Christians, three Jews, eleven Sunnis, six Shiis, one “Unitarian” (tawḥīdī, perhaps Druze?), one Muslim without a madhhab and eight unknown. See Al-Imad, The Fātimid Vizierate, 71.

72 Lev, Yaacov, State and Society in Fātimid Egypt (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991)Google Scholar, 190.

73 Cited in Khalidi, Tarif, Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 89–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 Arnold, The Preaching of Islam, 64.

75 Mary ibn Sulaymān, Akhbār fatārika kursi al-mashriq, 84; see also Louis Cheikhu, Wuzarā' al-Naṣrāniyya wa kuttābuhā fi al-Islām, 27.

76 See Lapidus, Ira M., “The separation of state and religion in the development of Early Islamic society”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 6, 1975, 363–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crone, Patricia, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Medieval Polity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 Zaman, Muḥammad Qasim, Religion and Politics under the Early ʿAbbāsids: The Emergence of the Proto-Sunni Elite (Leiden: Brill, 1997)Google Scholar, 11.

78 I would like to thank Professor Mark Cohen for driving me to this important point. It would be interesting to discuss the significance of dhimmī viziers and secretaries for the non-Muslim communities themselves, but this would make another article.

79 Lewis, Bernard, The Arabs in History (London: Hutchinson's University Library, 1950)Google Scholar, 58.