Fatima.Mernessi_The-Forgotten-Queens-of-Islam-EN

172 The Arab Queens
In his manual on good government, al-Jahiz advises the leader of
a community to make use of spies. He says that the good king
should 'know the secret thoughts of his entourage and his family
and keep spies around them in particular and around the people in
general'. 56 To those of his readers who still doubt the legitimacy of
such a practice, he recommends that they read the letters that 'Umar
'addressed to his governors and their agents, whose lives were so
well documented that each of them was suspicious of his closest
relatives and his most intimate friends'. 57 Al-Jahiz gives a list of
caliphs who practised espionage with great success - caliphs such as
Mu'awiya, the first Umayyad; and Harun al-Rashid, with whom
espionage reached the limits of refinement and became an art. 58
But although the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs made use of information,
both in time of war and in time of peace, never did it result
in the systematic physical liquidations that the Egyptians knew under
al-Hakim. The possibility of finding oneself at fault increased sharply
with the augmentation of prohibitions that no longer concerned
exceptional acts, but ordinary acts like eating, dressing up, and
going out for a drink or a stroll.
After the dogs, the women, and the physical restrictions, al-
Hakim sought a new magical solution to the very grave economic
problems that were shaking the country. He targeted the dhimmi,
the 'protected ones', that is, the Jews and Christians. Breaking with
a tradition of tolerance, al-Hakim forbade them the purchase and
consumption of wine, even for religious ceremonial. He destroyed
their places of worship and ordered their cemeteries profaned. And
this despite the fact that the non-Muslim population was institutionally
under the protection of the Muslim caliph. The Christians
and Jews, who are called ahl al-kitab, people of the book (of
Scripture), had certain privileges, especially the right to practise
their religion and to live according to their own laws.
Under the reign of al-Hakim they were the object of innumerable
public persecutions and humiliations. As with women, the prohibitions
against the non-Muslims had to do with the body, clothing,
and space. He forced the Christians and Jews when in the bath to
wear a badge that distinguished them from Muslims. He compelled
the Christians to wear a cross and the Jews a small bell hung around
the neck. Then he imposed on them the wearing of black belts and
black turbans and head veils. Christians were compelled to wear a
large wooden cross around the neck; they were also forbidden to
ride horses, leaving them to use more lowly mounts such as donkeys.
All the high Jewish and Christian officials were dismissed and some