Jizya


Jizya, or jizyah, is a type of taxation levied on non-Muslim subjects of a state governed by Islamic law. The Quran and hadiths mention jizya without specifying its rate or amount, and the application of jizya varied in the course of Islamic history. However, scholars largely agree that early Muslim rulers adapted some of the existing systems of taxation and modified them according to Islamic religious law.
Historically, the jizya tax has been understood in Islam as a fee for protection provided by the Muslim ruler to non-Muslims, for the exemption from military service for non-Muslims, for the permission to practice a non-Muslim faith with some communal autonomy in a Muslim state, and as material proof of the non-Muslims' allegiance to the Muslim state and its laws. The majority of Muslim jurists required adult, free, sane males among the dhimma community to pay the jizya, while exempting women, children, elders, handicapped, the ill, the insane, monks, hermits, slaves, and musta'mins—non-Muslim foreigners who only temporarily reside in Muslim lands. However, some jurists, such as Ibn Hazm, required that anyone who had reached puberty pay jizya. Islamic Regimes allowed dhimmis to serve in Muslim armies. Those who chose to join military service were also exempted from payment; some Muslim scholars claim that some Islamic rulers exempted those who could not afford to pay from the Jizya.
Together with kharāj, a term that was sometimes used interchangeably with jizya, 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. Jizya rate was usually a fixed annual amount depending on the financial capability of the payer. Sources comparing taxes levied on Muslims and jizya differ as to their relative burden depending on time, place, specific taxes under consideration, and other factors.
The term appears in the Quran referring to a tax or tribute from People of the Book, specifically Jews and Christians.
Followers of other religions like Zoroastrians and Hindus too were later integrated into the category of dhimmis and required to pay jizya. In the Indian subcontinent the practice stopped by the 18th century with Muslim rulers losing their kingdoms to the Maratha Empire and the British East India Company. It almost vanished during the 20th century with the disappearance of Islamic states and the spread of religious tolerance. The tax is no longer imposed by nation states in the Islamic world, although there are reported cases of organizations such as the Pakistani Taliban and ISIS attempting to revive the practice.

Etymology and meaning

Commentators disagree on the definition and derivation of the word jizya. Ann Lambton writes that the origins of jizya are extremely complex, regarded by some jurists as "compensation paid by non-Muslims for being spared from death" and by others as "compensation for living in Muslim lands."
According to 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, and scribes were exempted. Muslim Arab conquerors largely retained the taxation systems of the Sasanian and Byzantine empires they had conquered.
Shakir's English translations of the Qur'an render jizya as 'tax', while Pickthall and Arberry translate it as "tribute". Yusuf Ali prefers to transliterate the term as jizyah. Yusuf Ali considered the root meaning of jizya to be "compensation," whereas Muhammad Asad considered it to be "satisfaction."
Al-Raghib al-Isfahani, a classical Muslim lexicographer, writes that jizya is a "tax that is levied on Dhimmis, and it is so named because it is in return for the protection they are guaranteed." He points out that derivatives of the word appear in some Qurʾānic verses as well, such as:
  • "Such is the reward of those who purify themselves"
  • "While those who believed and did good deeds will have the best of rewards"
  • "And the retribution for an evil act is an evil one like it, but whoever pardons and makes reconciliation – his reward is from God"
  • "And will reward them for what they patiently endured a garden and silk "
  • "and be repaid only according to your deeds"
Muhammad Abdel-Haleem states that the term poll tax does not translate the Arabic word jizya, being also inaccurate in light of the exemptions granted to children, women, etc., unlike a poll tax, which by definition is levied on every individual regardless of gender, age, or ability to pay. He further adds that the root verb of jizya is j-z-y, which means 'to reward somebody for something', 'to pay what is due in return for something' and adds that it is in return for the protection of the Muslim state with all the accruing benefits and exemption from military service, and such taxes on Muslims as zakat.
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. Based on this historical event, the majority of jurists from Shāfiʿīs, Ḥanafīs and Ḥanbalīs state that it is lawful to take the jizya from ahl al-dhimmah by name of zakāt or ṣadaqah, meaning it is not necessary to call the tax that is taken from them by jizya, and also based on the known legal maxim that states, "consideration is granted to objectives and meanings and not to terms and specific wordings."
According to Lane's Lexicon, jizya is the tax that is taken from the free non-Muslim subjects of an Islamic government, whereby they ratify the pact that ensures them protection.
Michael G. Morony states that:
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. This came as a result of growing suspicions about the loyalty of the non-Muslim population during the second civil war and of the literalist interpretation of the Quran by pious Muslims.
Jane Dammen McAuliffe states that jizya, in early Islamic texts, was an annual tribute expected from non-Muslims, and not a poll tax. 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."
Arthur Stanley Tritton states that both jizya in west, and kharaj in the east Arabia meant 'tribute'. It was also called jawali in Jerusalem. Shemesh says that Abu Yusuf, Abu Ubayd ibn al-Sallām, Qudama ibn Jaʿfar, Khatib, and Yahya ibn Adam used the terms Jizya, Kharaj, Ushr and Tasq as synonyms.
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".

Rationale

Payment for protection

According to Abou Al-Fadl and other scholars, classical Muslim jurists and scholars regard the jizya as a special payment collected from certain non-Muslims in return for the responsibility of protection fulfilled by Muslims against any type of aggression, as well as for non-Muslims being exempt from military service, and in exchange for the aid provided to poor dhimmis. In a treaty made by Khalid with some towns in the neighborhood of Hirah, he writes: "If we protect you, then jizya is due to us; but if we do not, then it is not due." Early Hanafi jurist Abu Yusuf writes:
In accordance with this order, enormous sums were paid back out of the state treasury, and the Christians called down blessings on the heads of the Muslims, saying, "May God give you rule over us again and make you victorious over the Romans; had it been they, they would not have given us back anything, but would have taken all that remained with us." Similarly, during the time of the Crusades, Saladin returned the jizya to the Christians of Syria when he was compelled to retract from it. 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. The orientalist Thomas Walker Arnold writes that even Muslims were made to pay a tax if they were exempted from military service, like non-Muslims. Thus, the Shafi'i scholar al-Khaṭīb ash-Shirbīniy states: "Military service is not obligatory for non-Muslims – especially for dhimmis since they give jizya so that we protect and defend them, and not so that he defends us." Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani states that there is a consensus amongst Islamic jurists that jizya is in exchange for military service. In the case of war, jizya is seen as an option to end hostilities. According to Abu Kalam Azad, one of the main objectives of jizya was to facilitate a peaceful solution to hostility, since non-Muslims who engaged in fighting against Muslims were thereby given the option of making peace by agreeing to pay jizya. In this sense, jizya is seen as a means by which to legalize the cessation of war and military conflict with non-Muslims. In a similar vein, Mahmud Shaltut states that "jizya was never intended as payment in return for one's life or retaining one's religion, it was intended as a symbol to signify yielding, an end of hostility and a participation in shouldering the burdens of the state."