Membership in the preferred category—not equal personhood—determines legal rights, political authority, and social standing. AdvertisementIn the Islamic political order, the distinction begins in the Qur’an itself. The protected non-Muslim receives aman—security of life and property—but not equal legal standing. The favored community did not simply enjoy greater privileges; it derived its identity from occupying a superior legal status. On the legal status of dhimmis and the differential allocation of legal rights under classical Islamic law, see Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law (Umdat al-Salik), trans.