Note 14 — I The Eleventh Century

Richard Gottheil gives the contents of a fatwa on the appointment of Dhimmis to office dated about A. D. 1126 and given by one Ahmad ibn Al Husain. “To place an infidel in authority over a Moslem would never enter the mind of one who had a sound heart. He who does so must either be a godless fellow or be ignorant of Moslem law and practice. He attempts to prove that a Dhimmi (i. e. Jew or Christian) is not even to be used as a scribe, a money-changer, or a butcher; citing passages from the Koran and the Traditions” (“Festschrift Ignaz Goldziher von Carl Bezold,” Strassburg, 1911, pp. 203-208).