Dhimmi in the context of "Mandaeism"

Minorities in Turkey form a substantial part of the country's population, representing an estimated 25 to 28 percent of the population. Historically, in the Ottoman Empire, Islam was the official and dominant religion, with Muslims having more rights than non-Muslims, whose rights were restricted. Non-Muslim (dhimmi) ethno-religious groups were legally identified by different millet ("nations").

Following the end of World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, all Ottoman Muslims were made part of the modern citizenry or the Turkish nation as the newly founded Republic of Turkey was constituted as a Muslim nation state. While Turkish nationalist policy viewed all Muslims in Turkey as Turks without exception, non-Muslim minority groups, such as Jews and Christians, were designated as "foreign nations" (dhimmi). Conversely, Turk (term for Muslims) was used to denote all groups in the region who had been Islamized under Ottoman rule, especially Muslim Albanians and Slavic Muslims.

The Varlık Vergisi (Turkish: [vaɾˈɫɯk ˈvɛɾɟisi], "wealth tax" or "capital tax") was a tax mostly levied on non-Muslim citizens under the Republican People's Party (CHP) government in Turkey in 1942, with the stated aim of raising funds for the country's defense in case of an eventual entry into World War II. The underlying reason for the tax was to inflict financial ruin on the minority non-Muslim citizens of the country, end their prominence in the country's economy and transfer the assets of non-Muslims to the Muslim bourgeoisie. It was a discriminatory measure which taxed non-Muslims up to ten times more heavily and resulted in a significant amount of wealth and property being transferred to Muslims.

The ethnonym Turk (Greek: Τούρκοι/Tourkoi, Serbo-Croatian: Turci/Турци, Macedonian: Турчин, Bulgarian: Турчин, Albanian: Turqit) has been commonly used by the non-Muslim Balkan peoples to denote all Muslim people in the region, regardless of their ethno-linguistic background. Most of the Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, however, were indeed ethnic Turks. In the Ottoman Empire, the faith of Islam was the official state religion, with Muslims holding higher rights than non-Muslims. Non-Muslim (dhimmi) ethno-religious legal groups were identified by different millets ("nations").

Turk was also notably used to denote all groups in the region who had been Islamized during the Ottoman rule, especially Muslim Albanians and Slavic Muslims (mostly Bosniaks). For the Balkan Christians, converting to Islam was synonymous with Turkification, succumbing to "Ottoman rule and embracing the Ottoman way of life," hence "to become a Turk". In South Slavic languages, there are also derivative terms, which are seen as more offensive towards Bosniaks, such as poturiti, poturčiti and poturica (all essentially meaning "Turk" or "to turkify").

By the time the Ottoman Empire rose to power in the 14th and 15th centuries, there had been Jewish communities established throughout the region. The Ottoman Empire lasted from the early 12th century until the end of World War I and covered parts of Southeastern Europe, Anatolia, and much of the Middle East. The experience of Jews in the Ottoman Empire is particularly significant because the region "provided a principal place of refuge for Jews driven out of Western Europe by massacres and persecution."

Jews and Christians were considered dhimmi by the majority Muslim population of the Ottoman Empire. Muslims in the Ottoman Empire used the Qur'anic concept of dhimmi to place certain restrictions on Jews living in the region. For example, some of the restrictions placed on Jews in the Ottoman Empire were included, but not limited to, a special tax, a requirement to wear special clothing, and a ban on carrying guns, riding horses, building or repairing places of worship, and having public processions or public worship.

The Jewish Golden Age in Spain began shortly after the Muslim conquest in the 8th century and lasted until the Christian Reconquista resulted in the expulsion of Jews by the 15th century. During this period, Jews living in what was collectively called al-Andalus (Muslim-ruled Spain and Portugal) experienced relative tolerance, prosperity, and socio-cultural integration within the broader Muslim society that had come to dominate the region. Owing to this environment, Jewish culture flourished and several Jews rose to prominence in scholarly and religious spheres, including Maimonides, Hasdai ben Shaprut, Shmuel ha-Nagid, Solomon ben Judah, and Judah ha-Levi. The Jewish community of al-Andalus also contributed greatly to the Muslim world's advancements in astronomy, medicine, and science.

Jews under Muslim authority in Spain and Portugal were designated as dhimmi (Arabic: ذمي)—a legally protected class of non-Muslim subjects—in exchange for paying jizya (جِزْيَة) and accepting certain restrictions. Although they still held a second-class status relative to Muslims, the dhimmi framework in al-Andalus gradually allowed for the development of stability and co-existence that was otherwise uncommon in Jewish history in Europe; Jews were able to occupy a variety of positions in government and diplomacy, medicine, and science, while also playing a key role in the Muslim world's transmission of classical knowledge to Christian Europe. Further, the Jewish Golden Age in Spain brought about remarkable achievements in Hebrew poetry, religious scholarship, grammar, and philosophy. Some historians, however, view this to be more of a myth.

People of the Book, or Ahl al-Kitāb (Arabic: أهل الكتاب), is a classification in Islam for the adherents of those religions that are regarded by Muslims as having received a divine revelation from God, generally in the form of a holy scripture. The classification chiefly refers to pre-Islamic Abrahamic religions. In the Quran, they are identified as the Jews, the Christians, the Sabians, and—according to some interpretations—the Zoroastrians. Beginning in the 8th century, this recognition was extended to other groups, such as the Samaritans (who are closely related to the Jews), and, controversially, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, among others. In most applications, "People of the Book" is simply used by Muslims to refer to the followers of Judaism and Christianity, with which Islam shares many values, guidelines, and principles.

Historically, in countries and regions following Islamic law, the religious communities that Muslims recognized as People of the Book were subject to a legal status known as dhimmi, meaning that they had the option to pay a special head tax called jizya in exchange for being granted the privilege to practice their faith and govern their community according to the rules and norms of their own religion. Jizya was levied on all mentally and physically capable adult males from these recognized non-Muslim communities. Practitioners of non-recognized religions were not always granted this privilege, although many later Islamic states, particularly those in the Indian subcontinent, amended their laws to extend the application of dhimmi status beyond the originally designated Jewish and Christian communities.