DOI: 10.11648/j.ijls.20260903.13 ISSN: 2640-1908

The Institutionalization of Social Distance: Reconsidering Classical Islamic Classifications of Non-muslims in Light of the Qur'anic Vision of Humanity

Mark Gabriel
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This article examines the historical transformation of the non-Muslim from a human being addressed within the Qur’an’s universal moral vision into a legal category defined by later Islamic jurisprudence. Drawing on textual, historical, and conceptual analysis, it argues that classical juristic classifications such as dhimmī , muʿāhid , mustaʾmin , and ḥarbī emerged within specific historical contexts shaped by imperial governance, military conflict, taxation, treaty-making, and communal administration. Although these categories served important regulatory functions in medieval Muslim societies, their continued transmission contributed to the institutionalization of social distance between Muslims and non-Muslims. The article distinguishes between revelation and jurisprudence, arguing that the Qur’an’s primary vocabulary concerning humanity is ethical and universal rather than administrative and classificatory. The Qur’an speaks of humankind, the children of Adam, human dignity, justice, mercy, freedom of conscience, moral responsibility, and mutual recognition. By contrast, later legal discourse often approached non-Muslims through inherited categories of status and political relationship. The central claim is not that classical jurists acted without sincerity or intellectual sophistication, but that legal frameworks developed for medieval societies should not be treated as timeless definitions of human relationships. In contemporary pluralistic societies shaped by citizenship, constitutional equality, religious freedom, and shared civic belonging, inherited classifications require critical re-examination. The article therefore proposes a Qur’anic framework for Muslim-non-Muslim relations rooted in human dignity, justice, mercy, freedom, accountability before God, and cooperation in goodness. It concludes that sustainable reform must arise from within the Islamic tradition itself, not through the mere importation of external frameworks, and that recovering the Qur’an’s vision of the human person offers a more faithful and constructive foundation for human coexistence in the modern world.

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