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I have often encountered, in person and on radio shows, Muslims who claim that the jizya, the special tax required of non-Muslim dhimmis under Islamic law, was actually less than zakat, the Muslim obligation of charitable giving. This is patently absurd on the face of it, of course, since innumerable respected historians (including A.S. Tritton, Maxime Rodinson, and Bat Ye'or) have noted that it was money from the dhimmis, not from Muslims, that financed the early Islamic empires; indeed, Muslims paid nothing at all into the state treasury in the days when there were large populations (i.e., in Egypt and Syria) of conquered dhimmi Christians. Rodinson even points out in his biography of Muhammad that at certain times conversions to Islam were forbidden, as they were destroying the tax base! If the jizya had really been less than zakat, human nature being what it is, we would have seen large-scale conversions of Muslims to Christianity in the great Islamic empires -- but of course we don't, because who would want to exchange the position of the dominator for that of the dominated?
Nevertheless, today people read propaganda like Edward Said instead of history like Bat Ye'or, Tritton, and Rodinson, so they may be misled by this that recently appeared at IslamOnline (thanks to Ali Dashti for the link):
Non-Muslims are called dhimmis and were required to pay a levy or jizya. The jizya was not paid as a bribe for practicing their faith, but rather as compensation for not serving in the army, protection for Crusading armies and tribal warfare. While most so-called journalists scream that the jizya is a tool of inequality, they fail to see that there is a tax levied on Muslims as well, the zakat, which non-Muslims are not required to pay.
This assumes that jizya and zakat are equivalent, and other Muslims assert, as I have said, that the jizya is actually less than zakat. So let's look at the record:
For non-Muslims in Muslim societies, there was not just jizya, but kharaj, the land tax. Tritton in The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects equates the two: "Hafs, another governor of Egypt, announced that all dhimmis who abandoned their religion would be free from kharaj, which is jizya" (pp. 35-6). It is important to remember the two names because while the jizya was generally set at a fixed amount by the jurists (although this was highly adjustable), the kharaj was another matter. In the Hedaya, an Islamic legal manual, in a discussion about the purchase of land by a dhimmi, it declares: "it is lawful to require twice as much of a Zimmee [dhimmi] as of a Mussulman [Muslim], whence it is that, if such an one were to come before the collector with merchandise, twice as much would be exacted of him as of a Mussulman" (Hedaya I.vi).
Also Andrew Bostom has sent me these illuminating extracts:
The voluntary character of the zakat contribution as a religious duty is emphasized by Qudama in the beginning of Chapter Thirteen, where he states that Muslims are trusted with the declaration of what is due from them, in contradistinction to other taxes which are compulsory and pursuable. The Saudi law by charging Muslims with this religious tax is following the old precepts who lay down that the rate of the tax is fixed in accordance with the persons from whom it is collected, i.e., from a Merchant of a foreign country 10 per cent, from a merchant of an allied country 5 per cent, and from a Muslim 2.5 per cent.
That's from A. Ben Shemesh, Taxation in Islam Volume II, Qudama b. Ja’far’s Kitab Al-Kharaj. Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1965, p. 14.
And this:
There is a desire to equate Zakat with Jiziyah to emphasize the fairness of the Islamic fiscal system. The Muslims pay Zakat and the non-Muslims Jiziyah. But the analogy is fallacious. The rate of Zakat tax is as low as 2.5 per cent and that on the apparent property only. All kinds of concessions are given in Zakat with regard to nisah or taxable minimum. In its collection no force is applied because force vitiates its character. On the other hand, the rate of Jiziyah is very high for the non-Muslims- 48, 24, and 12 silver tankahs for the rich, the middling and the poor, whatever the currency and whichever the country. Besides, what is central to Jiziyah is the humiliation of infidel always, particularly at the time of collection. What is central in Zakat is that it is voluntary; at least it cannot be collected by force. In India Zakat ceased to be a religious tax imposed only on the Muslims. Here Zakat was levied in the shape of customs duties on merchandise and grazing fee on all milk-producing animals or those which went to pasture, and was realized both from Muslims and non-Muslims. According to the Islamic law, ‘import duties for Muslims were 5 per cent and for non-Muslims 10 per cent of the commodity’. For, Abu Hanifa, whose Sunni school of law prevailed in India, would tax the merchandise of the Zimmis as imposts at double the Zakat fixed for Muslims.
From K.S. Lal, Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India, Delhi, 1999, pp. 139-140.
Note that both have jizya as double the rate of zakat, as per The Hedaya.
And of course the bottom line is that radical Muslims who are working to impose Sharia on Muslim and non-Muslim states, will endeavor also to reimpose the jizya. In the name of the equality of rights of all people, this must be resisted.
Posted by Robert at September 20, 2004 8:41 AM
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Who the hell are they to think ANYONE owes them anything. I do not pay unless I am getting something in return, and what I would be getting from them I dont want. Nothing in life is free, I dont expect others to pay my way through life. Perhaps this is why muslims are so comfortable on the welfare rolls, they feel that the infidels owe them.
Posted by: USAgirl![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 20, 2004 9:39 AM
Islamists say "jizya is "fair." That is not surprising since these are the same people who think cracking open a persons head for having unmarried sex is a fair idea...
They also think that Mohammads mass rape of women after he committed genoicde was a fair idea.
The questions is if these are fair ideas according to their moral code what are unfair ideas.
OH...sorry forgot...Islamists think unfair is giving people freedom/democracy and human rights and feminism...gee sorry forgot. Silly me. Have got to remember that good is really evil. Is hard for me to do Islamist doublethink brainwashing on myself. I don't go to a fundamenatlist mosque five times a day.
Posted by: obl r us at September 20, 2004 9:51 AM
Hang-on...treating people equally is unfair according to islamists too... BUT
TREATING PEOPLE UNEQUALY IS FAIR according to islamists.... God this Islamist brainwashing is giving me a headache.
at September 20, 2004 9:57 AM
All the world countries should start treating "muslim dhimmis"(minorities) in non-islamic countries in t6he same way as a form of protest.
Demolish all mosks or have them converted into hotdog stands, pork factories churches,synagoguess and buddhist temples buddhist,
or allow jewish graffitti artists to spray anti-islamic phrases in hebrew and name tags allover them.
Theres no way Dhimmicratic countries of western Europe will allow this so maybe we could persuade Serbia ,the Czech republic and Christian majority african countries to set the trend.
Muslims everywhere :
The only thing the rest of the world owes you...... is vengeance!!!
at September 20, 2004 10:18 AM
Jizya is a blood ransom. It merely suspends the Muslims' right to kill the dhimmi for another year.
Posted by: Setanta at September 20, 2004 10:31 AM
Fair and just taxing disregards all such qualifiers. The tax should be the same for all. (Hmmmm. Perhaps the U.S. tax code should be revised.) Never-the-less, the Jizya can not be characterized as either fair or just!
Posted by: epg at September 20, 2004 11:11 AM
If jizya is fair because Infidels to not serve in 'Crusading armies' then surely a special tax on Muslims, particularly Muslim State's who aid global jihad, is also fair, simply to pay for increased security measures and other military operations: and that tab is at the hundreds of billions and running.
Muslims should surely see the sense in that. How could they not?
And how in the world do people in the West NOT see the justice in such demands?
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, and all individuals living in Western countries who have benefitted from these economies should be forced to pay (unless they are Infidels themselves and hence also targets of the jihad). Why not?
Posted by: JTF at September 20, 2004 12:42 PM
Two additional remarks. The payment of the jizyah was not only to collect revenue on which the Islamic state depended, but had to be made in conditions, as Lal says but that are not detailed in the quotation above, would demonstrate to one and all, Muslim and dhimmi alike, the inferior status of the dhimmi. The dhimmi was supposed to appear with the payment, and in many places he would be struck on the side of jaw, or otherwise. Not, that is, merely symbolically. In India where Hindus had to pay both zakat and jizya, one practice deserves mentioning (this may be in Lal, or on Sarkar, or elsewhere): the Hindu, treated as a kind of dhimmi even though, as a polytheist, he did not actually count as a member of the ahl al-Kitab or "people of the Book" (who, therefore, could be allowed to survive, and not convert, as long as they fully complied with their dhimmi status), would find that a Muslim would spit into his open mouth -- quite a sign of his status.
There is something else. The payment either of jizyah, or the land-tax, kharaj, is only the best-known of the many disabilities, economic, political, and social, which dhimmis had to endure. Examples include the requirement that clothing of Christians and Jews, and their dwelling-places, bear marks indicating that they were either Christians or Jews. The zunnar, or belt, often blue, of the Christians, or the yellow star of the Jews (Hitler borrowed his idea from the "tolerant" court of Abbasid Baghdad), helped to identify people. And why would not need to identify them? Well, suppose one of them did not obey the rules pertaining to dhimmis. For example, dhimmis could not ride on horses, but only on donkeys, and only side-saddle, and they had to dismount whenever they came upon a Muslim. Dhimmis could not repair or build new houses of worship. Dhimmis could not testify against Muslims in court, so if there were any quarrel, the Muslim would always win. And there were of course always the threat that if even a single dhimmi did not fulfill an obligation, or violated some prohibition, not only he, but his entire community could suffer.
Of course, even with this the massacre of whole communities -- such as that of all the Jews in Grenada in 1066 -- still went on, despite the payment of the "protection money" (Islamic defenders phrase it, rather cunningly, as "money spent for protection" -- as if the Christians and Jews were merely paying for the local police, or fire department, rather than paying Muslims off for "protection" against Muslims themselves, who otherwise would be even harsher, and possibly kill those not conforming to the requirements of dhimmitude.
Among the Christians in the Balkans, and Bulgaria, the Ottoman Turks practiced the devshirme, the forced levy (kidnapping, really, by the Ottoman state) of Christian males to be trained up for service to the Ottomans. Although some (e.g. Bernard Lewis) present this as a rather innocuous fate, and Lewis goes so far as to suggest that Muslim parents were envious of the Christian children who were "recruited" (Lewis' preposterous word) by the Ottomans (sounds more like agents from Istanbul fanned out, offering fat contracts in the manner of a Yankees agent in Santo Domingo than it what it really, and heart-rendingly, was -- but then Lewis has never fully confronted the Ottoman treatment of non-Muslims, instead offering couleur locale, and some nunc pro tunc backdating of Kemalism). While everyone finds reason to admire Kemal Pasha (and his friendshp with his dentist, Dr. Grunberg), and everyone is grateful that the Jews booted out of Spain so cruelly sought, and found refuge in, among other places (remember a little place called Amsterdam, and some of those portraits of rabbis by Rembrandt?), and of course in Salonika (where these Sephardic Jews replaced a previous group of Jews who had much earlier been forced to leave by the Ottomans) and elsewhere, gratitude has its limits, or should, in the historian who prides himself on his icy objectivity.
The most comprehensive statement of dhimmitude can be found in the works of Bat Ye'or, especially "Islam and Dhimmitude," and above all, in its calm, Antoine Fattal's Le statut legal des non-musulmanes aux pays d'Islam." (I think I have the title right, but the last part may be off). Unfortunately, it remains to be translated into French -- apparently, those who know of it either are hiding its existence, or are of the old school, and assume all graduate students know French. But this is a book for everyone -- not least for those people presuming, in American law schools, to teach something they call "Islamic Law" but which is really theology. They at least ought to give a full accounting of how, under the Shari'a, non-Muslims are to be treated -- it is of increasing relevance today. It may be Europe's future. Why not find out now what that future holds in store?
Posted by: Hugh at September 20, 2004 1:17 PM
The jizya, along with all the other attributes of dhimmitude, should be banned as an affront to the equal rights guaranteed persons under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UNHRC and human rights organizations should be spearheading resistance to this discrimination.
Posted by: Mike at September 20, 2004 1:47 PM
One other thing about the jizya that places its unfair nature in perspective. Islam's apologists describe it as money for protection and justify it by saying that Christians weren't required to fight in Muslim armies, etc. and so make it an analogue of the zakat.
But proceeds from the zakat went to help the Muslim community. Proceeds from the jizya went for the aggrandizement of the Muslim community as well - jizya money was never spent for the improvement or upkeep of dhimmis. Their leaders had to levy further taxes on them for the upkeep of dhimmi communities.
Posted by: scissor at September 20, 2004 3:42 PM
A far more accurate comparison of the jizya would be to the money people "voluntarily" paid to the Mafia for "protection", not to the zakat.
Posted by: Mike at September 20, 2004 4:07 PM
Islam ok's the killing or women, children and unarmed men, so whats a little tax.
Posted by: Bar at September 20, 2004 7:15 PM
They basically dehumanize all non-Muslims from day one. That is why they feel such vile practises are fair. To them, we are nothing. Less than nothing. This is why we can be murdered and/or humiliated, and that's okay in their twisted minds.
What a disgusting belief system, this Islam is. Absolutely disgusting.
Posted by: feralee at September 20, 2004 7:54 PM
Someone once pointed out that whereas Christians (especially Calvinists) noted that Adam worked even in innocency (tilling and keeping the ground; naming the animals), Islam views the world as a playground. It seems that Islam's a religion for arrested adolescents who want at least a few responsible adults around (dhimmi) from whom they can squeeze a little money now and then.
Posted by: Kepha1 at September 21, 2004 9:48 PM
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