At Opinion Duel (thanks to all who sent this in) there is a revealing debate on this topic between Andrew McCarthy and Mansoor Ijaz. McCarthy is impressively well-informed — perhaps he has been reading Jihad Watch? — and politely eviscerates Ijaz’s dissembling apologetics.
Dissembling apologetics? You heard me. Ijaz explains Qur’an 9:29 as referring to alms that all must pay, which outrages its obvious and traditional interpretation as mandating a special tax to be levied only on the People of the Book.
Read it all. (It goes from the bottom up.)