Mardin Declaration 2010

The city of Mardin was the subject of a fatwa (legal edict) by Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328), a great Islamic scholar of the thirteenth century, with major influence on Sunni contemporary Islam including jihadism. In the fatwa of Mardin he highlights the diverse nature of the city. Its importance lies in the fact that the plurality of its inhabitants is what defines it, over and above the religious identity of the political authority and the correct application of Islamic law. A place where different communities can live in peace and security, even though the general context of that historical period was one of conquest and conflict between different forces over the territories of the Middle East. The attack on New York’s Twin Towers in 2001 and the resulting ‘War on Terror’ meant that Muslim scholars and organisations addressed the issue of religious pluralism and tolerance to promote a counter-narrative to critique Islamic terrorism or jihadism. In this context Ibn Taymiyya’s fatwa was revisited in a conference held in the same city of Mardin, to trace back religious pluralism within territorial boundaries in Islamic tradition and jurisprudence. What relevance does this fatwa from the Middle Ages have for the twenty-first century? What influence has it exerted over events? Certainly, the survival of multi-confessional societies over the centuries could be inspiring if we take into consideration the conflicts that have impacted the recent history in Europe and elsewhere, for example, the Holocaust of Jewish, ‘Gypsy’, and other ethnic, sexual, and ideological groups; the war in former Yugoslavia; and more recently the jihadist attacks and Islamophobia. Therefore, it might be reasonable to think about the circumstances and ideas that have favored religious plurality in pre-modern times.