Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Sheikh Al-Haj Daoud Ahmed Faisal, 

Islam the True Faith, the Religion of Humanity (Brooklyn, 

N.Y.: Islamic Mission of America, 1965); Adib Rashad, 

Islam, Black Nationalism & Slavery: A Detailed History

(Baltimore: Writer’s Inc., 1995); Malachi Z. York, Shaikh 

Daoud vs. W. D. Fard (Eastonton, Ga.: Holy Tabernacle 

Ministries, n.d.).

dar al-Islam and dar al-harb

 

(Arabic, 

House of Islam and House of War)

Dar al-Islam and dar al-harb are concepts used in 

medieval Islamic legal and political thought to dif-

ferentiate territories under Muslim rule where the 

sharia

 is followed from those that are not. In the 

dar al-Islam, the sharia was observed, and non-

Muslim residents were to be given “protected” 

(

dhimmi

) status as long as they paid their taxes 

and did not act to subvert the Islamic religious 

and political order. Non-Muslims were allowed to 

enter Islamic territories temporarily from the dar 

al-harb for peaceful purposes, such as commerce 

and diplomacy, after they had received a guarantee 

of security from a Muslim in the dar al-Islam.

Any territory where Muslim rule and the sharia 

did not prevail was classified as the dar al-harb.

According to jurists, Muslims were obliged to bring 

it under Islamic rule, either through surrender by 

treaty or through conquest in 

Jihad

.  c

onversion

was not the primary intent of this doctrine, how-

ever. The concept was not expressed in the q

Uran

and 

hadith

, but it was grounded in the early histor-

ical experience of the Islamic community (

umma

) 

as it expanded by conquest under the leadership of 

m

Uhammad

 from its base in m

edina

 into the rest of 

the Arabian Peninsula. Under his successors, this 

expansion extended to the rest of the Middle East 

and North Africa, a

ndalUsia

, and significant parts 

of Asia. At the height of the a

bbasid

  c

aliphate

(10th century), the dar al-Islam was a broad swath 

of territory that reached more than 4,000 miles 

from the Atlantic coasts of Spain and northwest 

Africa in the west to the eastern borderlands of i

ran

and a

Fghanistan

. The world outside this territory, 

therefore, was considered the dar al-harb.

The 

Ulama

 adapted this polarized concept 

of the world to changing historical realities. For 

example, Shafii jurists recognized a House of 

Truce (dar al-sulh), which allowed for peaceful 

relations with non-Muslim powers as long as they 

agreed to pay taxes to Muslim authorities. When 

Muslim lands fell under the control of non-Mus-

lims, jurists instructed Muslims living there to 

either fight or remove themselves to the dar al-

Islam. This was what Maliki jurists recommended 

to Muslims in the territories of Andalusia that 

had been taken by Christian armies during the 

Reconquista. It was also the view held by leaders 

of revivalist movements in British India, such as 

the Tariqa-i Muhammad (Muhammadan Path) led 

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