DAR AL-SULH. According to the Shafi`i school of law there exists, apart from the territory of Islam (ddr al Islam) and the territory of war (ddr al-harb), a third category called territory of treaty (dar al-sulh, also called ddr al-`ahd or ddr al-muwdda`ah). This is territory whose inhabitants have concluded an armistice with a Muslim government on the condition that they retain the possession of their lands and pay in exchange a certain amount of money or goods to be levied on the land. The other madhhabs (schools of law) hold that this kind of territory is either ddr Isldm or dar harb, depending on whether sovereignty belongs to the Muslims or not. However, within the Hanafi madhhab, Muhammad alShaybani (d. 804) also accepted the existence of territory of truce (ddr al-muwdda’ah) as a separate category. On the strength of this view, theOttoman Empireused the concept in its foreign policy. Countries with whom the sultan had concluded a truce were called territories of truce. They could not be attacked, and their inhabitants could not be enslaved or killed. In some modern writings that present the jihad doctrine as Muslim international law, dar al-sulh is equated with the territory of friendly nations.
[See also Dar al-Harb; Dar al-Islam; Jihad.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kruger, Hilmar. Fetwa and Siyar: Zur internationalrechtlichen Gutachtenpraxis der osmanischen Seyh iil-Islam vom 17. bis 19. jahrhundert unter besonderer Berucksichtigung des “Behcet ul-Fetava.”Wiesbaden, 1978.
Peters, Rudolph. Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History.The Hague, 1979.
RUDOLPH PETERS
