Salih ibn Ali

صالح بن علي

Salih ibn Ali ibn Abdullah ibn al-Abbas, prince of the Abbasid da'wa and its first governor over Syria; in al-Baladhuri: when word reached him that a company in Mount Lebanon had complained of Ba'labakk's kharaj administrator and that the Byzantines had abetted them, he sent troops who killed their fighters, kept the rest on their religion, returned them to their villages and exiled a company of Lebanon's people — whereupon al-Awza'i wrote him his famous letter decrying punishment of the many for the sins of the few; the House of the Dyers at al-Ramla passed to his heirs, seized with Umayyad wealth.

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Dhimma (the covenant of protection)

Dhimma in al-Baladhuri is the written covenant of security granted to treaty peoples of the Book: its formula in the Prophet's letter to Najran runs 'they have God's protection and the protection of His messenger over their persons, religion, lands, wealth, absent and present', and its stipulated terms in the Najran peace include that they not be seduced from their religion or its ranks, nor levied nor tithed, and in the letter's text that no bishop be removed from his bishopric, no monk from his monasticism, no right of theirs or their images — crucifixes and icons — be altered, and no army tread their land, while whoever of them took usury the Prophet's protection was quit of him; the letter of the people of Maqna grants 'God's protection and His messenger's' with security and pardon for every blood; and the dhimma was renewed under the caliphs — Abu Bakr wrote to the people of Najran on the model of the Prophet's letter, and Uthman called them 'a people who have a dhimma' when he remitted two hundred of their hullas.

Salih ibn Ali

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Dhimma (the covenant of protection)