Christian History Home > Issue 74 > The Pact of Umar
The Pact of Umar
Islamic protection came with a price.
By Chris Armstrong | posted 4/01/2002 12:00AM
Last Saturday, in the Kenyan town of Machakos, representatives of Sudan's northern-based Muslim government joined with a Christian-led southern rebel faction to sign a protocol that could eventually end the country's 19-year civil war. While still short of a full peace accord, the accomplishment is impressive. To reach this détente after a bloody roller-coaster ride of ethnic and religious warfare, Sudan's Muslim rulers have had to back away from a pact supposedly as old as Islam itself.
The Pact of Umar, a document purportedly signed by the second caliph, Umar I (634-44), is the source of the restrictive regulations on non-Muslims embedded in the shari'a or Islamic law. In 1983, Sudan's northern Muslim government took a fundamentalist turn and imposed the shari'a on the Christian south. This triggered the warfare that has since killed more than 2 million Sudanese and displaced millions more.
Under shari'a, both Jewish and Christian minorities (dhimmi, or literally "protected peoples") ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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