Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma is a book of regulations about Christian and Jewish subjects of Islamic rule, written by the Ḥanbalī jurist and theologian Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350). It is an important resource for historical studies of non-Muslim minorities in the Mamluk period and is often cited as a normative text in present-day Muslim discussions about Muslim-non-Muslim relations. This article gives an insight into the history of the only surviving manuscript of Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma and the unusual process by which the first printed edition was compiled. It shows that the movement of the manuscript was largely a result of Ibn Taymiyya’s and Ibn al-Qayyim’s more general popularity in specific geographic regions than the authority of the text itself, and that individuals’ religious-intellectual interests were decisive for the publication of a printed edition in 1961. It also shows that the unusual editing process impacted on the reliability of the printed editions available today, the majority of which are financed by Saudi institutions.

This article reviews the changing reception of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s (d. 751/1350) Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma between the fourteenth century and modern times. I argue that the book had little influence on legal discourse about Christian and Jewish subjects under Muslim rule when it was written and during the following centuries. However, after the publication of a printed edition in 1961 and particularly from the 1990s, Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma has become an important resource for discussions of non-Muslim minorities in a Muslim state. I attribute the altered reception to a number of factors, including the now changed status of the author and the Ḥanbalite school to which he belonged, and the new relationship between the character of the book and the expectations of its readers. Consideration of the trajectory of Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century is revealing for the insights that it offers into the changing status of Ibn al-Qayyim and the Ḥanbalite legal tradition, and the approach to non-Muslim subjecthood in Islamic legal discourse. It should also encourage caution when using this book as a source for understanding the social or legal history of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the fourteenth century.