Churches in Muslim lands: Ibn Taymiyya’s Mas’alat al-kanā’is

Abstract

Presentation and annotated translation of the Mas’alat al-kanā’is from Taqī al-dīn Aḥmad b. Taymiyya. In this fatwā, written between 1301 and 1306, the famous Ḥanbali jurist approaches the question of the churches in Cairo and other places that were closed in 1301 by order of the Mamluk sultan al-Nāṣir Muḥammad b. Qalāwūn. Accompanying the fatwā is a passage from the Egyptian historian al-Maqrīzī in which he narrates the incident that caused the closing of the churches and the restoration of ʻUmar’s stipulations concerning the dimmis.