Mawali

Mawali (Arabic موالي, of singular مولى / Maula ), is a central concept of Arab tribal society of pre-Islamic and early Islamic period. He refers to those persons who in a protection ratio ( WALA ʾ ) were one of the Arab tribes or clans. The term is usually translated as "clients".

Due to the protective relationship in which the client with a patron who was also called Maula, entered, a relationship was established with the relationship in particular which was punishable by law. So the patron and his agnates were in the case that the client invited a blood guilt upon himself, obliged to pay the blood money. Conversely, they had, if the client was killed entitled to blood money over the community of responsibility ( ʿ aqila ) of the offender. The client was not normally be required to pay blood money, but he was sure a disadvantage compared to his patron in inheritance law. Namely, while in the case of his death the saint inherited his fortune, he was not entitled to inherit in the event of the death of his patron. Even at the level of the Wala name ʾ ratio knocked down, because usually took over the mawali the Nisba of the tribe or clan, to which they were connected by this relationship.

In pre-Islamic times, most mawali were freedmen. The protection ratio in which they were to their former masters, was called Wala ʾ al - ʿ itāqa ( " protection ratio of release ").

In the time of the Arab-Muslim conquests created new wala ʾ ratios. Many non- Arabs who had fought on the side of the lost Persian Empire were forced to convert to Islam. In such conversions, the rule was that the one in which they had embraced Islam, her patron was. Such Wala Wala ʾ ʾ ratio was al -Islam called. In other cases, the convert completed the conversion to Islam independently and joined only after a patron at. This ratio was called Wala ʾ at- Tiba ʿ a ( " protection ratio of succession" ). Basically was possible that a client renounced his patron and a new wala ʾ ratio with a different strain was received, but the company was such a change rather hostile.

Mawali soon took himself along with Arab tribes to conquest part. However, they have usually received a significantly lower wages than the Arab fighters. In the Umayyad they were separate from the tribes to which they belonged, recorded in a special register ( Dīwān ). In general, the mawali were treated by the Arabs as second class citizens - they had to continue the jizya, actually had to pay the infidels, and were often kept away until the end of the Umayyad dynasty of posts in government and the military.

Mawali played a not unimportant role in various insurgencies. To support, for example, al - Mukhtar ibn Abī ʿ Ubaid in his pro - Alid uprising in Kufa 685-687 primarily on mawali, which he also paid their own pay. In the early 8th century, the Murdschi ʾ a movement in which the mawali began to fight for their rights in Khorasan and Transoxiana. In North Africa, the political opposition of the Berber organized against Arab supremacy in the Kharijite movements of Ibadis and Sufriten. They made from 739 revolts against the Umayyads and were able to conquer large territories of North Africa until the end of the 8th century. Also in the chorasanischen insurgency of Abu Muslim who brought the Abbasids to power, mawali played an important role.