Jizya
[14][22][23] Together with kharāj, a term that was sometimes used interchangeably with jizya,[24][25][26] taxes levied on non-Muslim subjects were among the main sources of revenues collected by some Islamic polities, such as the Ottoman Empire and Indian Muslim Sultanates.
"[36] According in Encyclopedia Iranica, the Arabic word jizya is most likely derived from Middle Persian gazītak, which denoted a tax levied on the lower classes of society in Sasanian Persia, from which the nobles, clergy, landowners (dehqāns), and scribes (or civil servants, dabirān) were exempted.
[42] The historian al-Tabari and the hadith scholar al-Bayhaqi relate that some members of the Christian community asked ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab if they could refer to the jizya as sadaqah, literally 'charity', which he allowed.
[46][47] Michael G. Morony states that:[48][The emergence of] protected status and the definition of jizya as the poll tax on non-Muslim subjects appears to have been achieved only by the early eighth century.
[49] Similarly, Thomas Walker Arnold writes that jizya originally denoted tribute of any type paid by the non-Muslim subjects of the Arab empire, but that it came later on to be used for the capitation-tax, "as the fiscal system of the new rulers became fixed.
[53] The Arabic lexicographer Edward William Lane, after a careful analysis of the etymology of the term "Jizya", says: "The tax that is taken from the free non-Muslim subjects of a Muslim government whereby they ratify the compact that assures them protection, as though it were compensation for not being slain".
[72] The Christian tribe of al-Jurajima, in the neighborhood of Antioch, made peace with the Muslims, promising to be their allies and fight on their side in battle, on condition that they should not be called upon to pay jizya and should receive their proper share of the booty.
[91] Whereas Abū Ḥayyān states "they are so described because their way [of acting] is the way of those who do not believe in God,"[91] Ahmad Al-Maraghī comments:[92][F]ight those mentioned when the conditions which necessitate fighting are present, namely, aggression against you or your country, oppression and persecution against you on account of your faith, or threatening your safety and security, as was committed against you by the Byzantines, which was what led to Tabuk.2.
The closest and most viable cause must relate to jizya, that is, unlawfully consuming what belongs to the Muslim state, which, al-Bayḍāwī explains, "it has been decided that they should give,"[91][93] since their own scriptures and prophets forbid breaking agreements and not paying what is due to others.
According to Abdel-Haleem, the latter must be the correct interpretation as it is already assumed that the People of the Book did not believe in Muḥammad or forbid what he forbade, so that they are condemned for not obeying their own prophet, who told them to honour their agreements.
[99] In contrast, Abdel-Haleem writes that this notion of humiliation runs contrary to verses such as, Do not dispute with the People of the Book except in the best manner (Q 29:46), and the Prophetic ḥadīth,[100] 'May God have mercy on the man who is liberal and easy-going (samḥ) when he buys, when he sells, and when he demands what is due to him'.
"[101][102][103] This understanding is reiterated by the Hanbali jurist Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, who interprets wa-hum ṣāghirūn as making all subjects of the state obey the law and, in the case of the People of the Book, pay the jizya.
[75] The Hanafi scholar Abu Yusuf wrote, "slaves, women, children, the old, the sick, monks, hermits, the insane, the blind and the poor, were exempt from the tax"[106] and states that jizya should not be collected from those who have neither income nor any property, but survive by begging and from alms.
"[115][116] The 14th century Hanbali scholar Ibn Qayyim wrote, "And there is no Jizya upon the aged, one suffering from chronic disease, the blind, and the patient who has no hope of recovery and has despaired of his health, even if they have enough.
[127][128] Shelomo Dov Goitein states that the exemptions for the indigent, the invalids and the old were no longer observed in the milieu reflected by the Cairo Geniza and were discarded even in theory by the Shāfi'ī jurists who were influential in Egypt at the time.
Ennaji and other scholars state that some jurists required the jizya to be paid by each in person, by presenting himself, arriving on foot not horseback, by hand, in order to confirm that he lowers himself to being a subjected one, and willingly pays.
[181] During the Tabuk campaign in 630, Muhammad sent letters to four towns in the northern Hejaz and Palestine to urge them to relinquish maintenance of a military force and rely on Muslims to ensure their security in return for payment of taxes.
[182] Moshe Gil argues that the texts represent the paradigm of letters of security that would be issued by Muslim leaders during the subsequent early conquests, including the use of the word jizya, which would later take on the meaning of poll tax.
[186][187] The nature of Byzantine taxation remains partly unclear, but it appears to have involved taxes computed in proportion to agricultural production or number of working inhabitants in population centers.
The notion of an Iranian population staggering under a burden of taxation and ready to revolt at the first opportunity, as imagined by Gerlof van Vloten, "will not bear the light of careful investigation", he continues.
[197] During the early 14th century reign of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, expensive invasions across India and his order to attack China by sending a portion of his army over the Himalayas, emptied the precious metal in the treasury of the Sultanate.
[209][208][210][211] The specific amount varied with the socioeconomic status of a subject and tax-collection were often waived for regions hit by calamities; also, monks, musta'mins, women, children, elders, the handicapped, the unemployed, the ill, and the insane were all perpetually exempted.
[216][217][page needed] The Ottoman state also collected Jizya from Muslim and non-Muslim groups they registered as Gypsy (Kıpti), such as Roma in Western Anatolia and Balkans and Abdals, Doms and Loms in Kastamonu, Çankırı-Tosya, Ankara, Malatya, Harput, Antep, and Aleppo no later than late 17th century.
[81] Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Egypt also held that position in the mid-1980s;[224] however, he later reconsidered his legal opinion on this point, stating: "[n]owadays, after military conscription has become compulsory for all citizens—Muslims and non-Muslims—there is no longer room for any payment, whether by name of jizya or any other.
"[225] According to Khaled Abou El Fadl, moderate Muslims generally reject the dhimma system, which encompasses jizya, as inappropriate for the age of nation-states and democracies.
[234] According to Bernard Lewis, available evidence suggests that the change from Byzantine to Arab rule was "welcomed by many among the subject peoples, who found the new yoke far lighter than the old, both in taxation and in other matters".
[239] Other early 20th century scholars suggested that non-Muslims converted to Islam en masse in order to escape the poll tax, but this theory has been challenged by more recent research.
[240] The Pact of Umar, which stipulated that Muslims must "do battle to guard" the dhimmis and "put no burden on them greater than they can bear", was not always upheld, but it remained "a steadfast cornerstone of Islamic policy" into early modern times.
"[241] In his essay, ethnographer Shelomo Dov Goitein highlighted the limitation of studying the potential economic and other adverse social consequences of the jizya without any reference to non-Muslim sources:[242] There is no subject of Islamic social history on which the present writer had to modify his views so radically while passing from literary to documentary sources, i.e., from the study of Muslim books to that of the records of the Cairo Geniza as the jizya...or the poll tax to be paid by non-Muslims.
This impression proved to be entirely fallacious, for it did not take into consideration the immense extent of poverty and privation experienced by the masses, and in particular, their persistent lack of cash, which turned the "season of the tax" into one of horror, dread, and misery.In 2016, Muslim scholars from more than 100 countries signed the Marrakesh Declaration, a document that called for a new Islamic jurisprudence based on the recognition of civic nationalism based governments, implying that the dhimmī system is inapplicable in the modern era in relation to the time of the writing of the Qur'an.
