Ḥimāya Revisited

Abstract

In 1956, Claude Cahen’s study “Notes pour l’histoire de la ḥimāya was published in the Melanges Louis Massignon. Cahen assumed that protection (ḥimāya) was first sought and granted for land holdings (against fiscal claims), and that the institution then evolved to a personal relationship which no longer necessarily involved land holdings. This subject, of eminent importance for understanding protection, protectors and proteges in early (and later) Islamic history, has not gained the attention it certainly deserves.The article takes another look at Cahen’s sources; it tries to extend the source basis. The article shows various uses of the term, in particular the ways ḥimāya appointments were used in the Buyid period to integrate leaders on the nomad periphery into government structures. The article also takes the investigation beyond Cahen’s time frame, into the 12th century: Cahen thought that the term and the institution did not play a great role in that period any longer, but in eastern Iran especially, it was later used for illegal and undesired practices. In a concluding part, I’ll have a look at the use of the term and the institution in the Mongol period.