‘Men Like the Franks’: Dealing with Diversity in Medieval Norms and Courts

Until recently, an enquiry into crossconfessional exchanges would have naturally started with the amān charts and similar documents, the diplomatic formulation of the socalled ‘treaties of commerce.’ And indeed, this is despite the fact that historians of Islam have long since pointed out the problematic nature of such artifacts, contesting the idea that amān treaties and similar artifacts were real, bilateral agreements and even questioning the very idea of Islamic diplomacy. Recent research insists on the heterogeneous nature of these documents, which grouped together a diverse array of institutions, such as the truce and the safeconduct, and also highlights the perils of understanding medieval treaties in light of the later, uneven Ottoman ‘capitulations.’1 One is struck by the importance attached to such diplomatic artifacts by Western historiography, an interest that does not seem to have declined in recent years. One argument that is often cited is that these texts depart from the basic postulates of legal theory, such as the imposition of taxes considered illegal by sharīʿa, the reliance on written documents as proof, or the unbeliever’s status in Islamic lands and the duration of his stay.