Jizya

 ( Abbasid Caliphate ) 

• Translation: "The word ( jizya) ... is defined as the monetary amount that is taken from the People of the Book, and it is taken in exchange of guaranteeing their protection and safety, and considering them to be part of the Islamic society, such that they receive all the rights that are required by the principle of social insurance." ( online)
• Translation: "Its justification: And Islām obligated jizya on dhimmīs in parallel with the obligation of zakāt on Muslims, so that the two groups be equal, since Muslims and dhimmīs are under the shade of the same banner and they enjoy all of the same rights and they benefit from the state facilities in an equal proportion, ... (also) in exchange for defending the dhimmīs, and guaranteeing their safety in the Muslim country they live in." ( online)
• Translation: "The Companions were in their openings ( futūḥāt) making the jizya that they put on the ahl al-dhimmah in exchange for their protection and safety, and for not making them having to defend themselves and their country by themselves, and that's why they were taking it from those who can participate in military service other than those who can't such as the old and women, and so this was from them an explanation and illustration of the intended meaning (behind this word) in the Noble Book. And the Ottomans were calling it for that reason 'Tax in exchange for not participating in military service'."

• Quote: «نظير قيامهم بالدفاع عن الذميين وحمايتهم في الاقاليم الإسلامية التي يقيمون فيها.» Translation: "In exchange for (Muslims) defending dhimmis and protecting them in the Muslim lands where they live." ( online)
• (2025). 9789772252466, Maktabat Wahbah. . ISBN 9789772252466
  3rd Ed. Translation: "The jizya is as we've shown, in its primary sense, in exchange for the military protection that the Muslim country guarantees to the ahl al-dhimmah. That's why if this country was incapable of extending such protection to non-Muslims, it will have no right in taking this jizya or this tax." ( online)

Islamic jurists required adult, free, sane, able-bodied males of military age with no religious functions among the dhimma community to pay the jizya, while exempting women, children, elders, handicapped, monks, hermits, the poor, the ill, the insane, slaves, as well as musta'mins (non-Muslim foreigners who only temporarily reside in Muslim lands) and converts to Islam. Dhimmis who chose to join military service were exempted from payment. If anyone could not afford this tax, they would not have to pay anything. Sometimes a dhimmi was exempted from jizya if he rendered some valuable services to the state.

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" and states that jizya should not be collected from those who have neither income nor any property, but survive by begging and from alms. The Hanbali jurist al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā states, "there is no jizya upon the poor, the old, and the chronically ill".al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā, al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭāniyyah, p. 160. Quote: «وتسقط الجزية عن الفقير وعن الشيخ وعن الزَمِن أي» Translation: "There is no jizya upon the poor, the old, and the chronically ill." Historical reports tell of exemptions granted by the second caliph 'Umar to an old blind Jew and others like him. Quote: «وقصته رضي الله عنه مشهورة مع اليهودي الذي رآه على باب متسولاً، وهو يقول: شيخ كبير ضرير البصر، فضرب عضده من خلفه وقال: من أي أهل الكتاب أنت؟ قال: يهودي، قال: فما ألجأك إلي ما أرى؟ قال: أسأل الجزية والحاجة والسن، قال: فأخذ عمر بيده وذهب به إلى منزله فرضخ له بشيء من المنزل، ثم أرسل إلى خازن بيت المال فقال: انظر هذا وضرباءه فوالله ما أنصفناه، أن أكلنا شبيبته ثم نخذله عند الهرم، وقرأ الآية الكريمة: إِنَّمَا الصَّدَقَاتُ لِلْفُقَرَاءِ وَالْمَسَاكِينِ وَالْعَامِلِينَ عَلَيْهَا وَالْمُؤَلَّفَةِ قُلُوبُهُمْ وَفِي الرِّقَابِ وَالْغَارِمِينَ وَفِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَابْنِ السَّبِيلِ ۖ فَرِيضَةً مِّنَ اللَّهِ ۗ وَاللَّهُ عَلِيمٌ حَكِيمٌ التوبة والفقراء هم المسلمون، وهذا من المساكين من أهل الكتاب، ووضع عنه الجزية وعن ضربائه» Translation: "And his ʿUmar – May God be pleased with him – famous story with the Jew that he saw by a door begging, while stating: 'An old man, blind sight'. ʿUmar then asked him, 'So why are you begging?' 'I am begging for money', the man said, 'so I can pay the jizya and fulfill my needs'. ʿUmar took him by the hand and led him to his home and gave him gifts and money, then he sent him to the treasurer of the public treasury ( Bayt al-Mal) and said, 'Take care of him and those like him, for by God, we have not treated him fairly if we benefited from him in his younger days but left him helpless in his old age! Then he recited the verse, "Alms-tax is only for the poor and the needy, for those employed to administer it, for those whose hearts are attracted ˹to the faith˺, for ˹freeing˺ slaves, for those in debt, for Allah's cause, and for ˹needy˺ travellers. ˹This is˺ an obligation from Allah. And Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise." and the poor are amongst the Muslims and this one is from the needy amongst the People of the Book.' So ʿUmar exempted him and those like him from payment of the jizya." ( online)

• Abbasid authors who systematized earlier historical writings in which the term jizya was used with different meanings interpreted it according to the usage common in their own time.
• The system established by the Arab conquest was not uniform but rather resulted from a variety of agreements or decisions.
• The earlier systems of taxation on which it was based are still imperfectly understood.

William Montgomery Watt traces its origin to a pre-Islamic practice among the Arabian nomads in which a powerful tribe would agree to protect its weaker neighbors in exchange for a tribute that would be refunded if the protection proved ineffectual.William Montgomery Watt (1980), pp. 49–50. Robert Hoyland describes it as a poll tax originally paid by "the conquered people" to the mostly-Arab conquerors, but it later became a "religious tax, payable only by non-Muslims".Hoyland, In God's Path, 2015: p.198

Jews and Christians in some southern and eastern areas of the Arabian Peninsula began to pay tribute, called jizya, to the Islamic state during Muhammad's lifetime. It was not originally the poll tax that it would become later but rather an annual percentage of produce and a fixed quantity of goods.

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. 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.

Jizya received divine sanction in 630, when the term was mentioned in a Quranic verse (9:29). Max Bravmann argues that the Quranic usage of the word jizya develops a pre-Islamic common-law principle, which states that reward must necessarily follow a discretional good deed into a principle mandating that the life of all prisoners of war belonging to a certain category must be spared if they grant the "reward" (jizya) to be expected for an act of pardon.

In 632, jizya, in the form of a poll tax, was first mentioned in a document that was reportedly sent by Muhammad to Yemen. W. Montgomery Watt argues that the document was tampered with by early Muslim historians to reflect a later practice, but Norman Stillman holds it to be authentic.

Difficulties in tax collection soon appeared. Egyptian Copts, who had been skilled in tax evasion since Roman times, were able to avoid paying the taxes by entering Monastery, which were initially exempt from taxation, or simply by leaving the district where they were registered. This prompted imposition of taxes on monks and introduction of movement controls. In Iraq, many peasants who had fallen behind with their tax payments, converted to Islam and abandoned their land for Arab garrison cities in hope of escaping taxation. Faced with a decline in agriculture and a treasury shortfall, the governor of Iraq al-Hajjaj forced peasant converts to return to their lands and subjected them to the taxes again, effectively forbidding peasants to convert to Islam. In Khorasan, a similar phenomenon forced the native aristocracy to compensate for the shortfall in tax collection out of their own pockets, and they responded by persecuting peasant converts and imposing heavier taxes on poor Muslims.

The situation where conversion to Islam was penalized in an Islamic state could not last, and the devout Umayyad caliph Umar II has been credited with changing the taxation system. Modern historians doubt this account, although details of the transition to the system of taxation elaborated by Abbasid-era jurists are still unclear. Umar II ordered governors to cease collection of taxes from Muslim converts, but his successors obstructed this policy. Some governors sought to stem the tide of conversions by introducing additional requirements such as undergoing circumcision and the ability to recite passages from the Quran. According to Hoyland, taxation-related grievances of non-Arab Muslims contributed to the opposition movements which resulted in the Abbasid revolution. In contrast, Dennett states that it is incorrect to postulate an economic interpretation of the Abbasid Revolution. 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.

Under the new system that was eventually established, kharaj came to be regarded as a tax levied on the land, regardless of the taxpayer's religion. The poll-tax was no longer levied on Muslims, but treasury did not necessarily suffer and converts did not gain as a result, since they had to pay zakat, which was instituted as a compulsory tax on Muslims around 730. The terminology became specialized during the Abbasid era, so that kharaj no longer meant anything more than land tax, while the term "jizya" was restricted to the poll-tax on dhimmis.

Jizya was expanded by the Delhi Sultanate. Alauddin Khilji legalized the enslavement of the jizya and kharaj defaulters. His officials seized and sold these slaves in growing Sultanate cities where there was a great demand of slave labour.Fouzia Ahmed (2009), The Delhi Sultanate: A Slave Society or A Society with Slaves?, Pakistan Journal of History and Culture, 30(1): 8–9 The Muslim court historian Ziauddin Barani recorded that Qadi Mughisuddin of Bayanah advised Alā' al-Dīn that Islam requires imposition of jizya on Hindus, to show contempt and to humiliate the Hindus, and imposing jizya is a religious duty of the Sultan.

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.William Hunter (1903), , 23rd Edition, pp. 124–8 He ordered minting of coins from base metals with face value of precious metals. This economic experiment failed because Hindus in his Sultanate minted counterfeit coins from base metal in their homes, which they then used for paying jizya.Vincent A Smith, , Chapter 2, pp 236–42, Oxford University Press Muḥammad ibn Tughluq Encyclopedia Britannica (2009) In the late 14th century, mentions the memoir of Tughlaq dynasty's Sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq, his predecessor taxed all Hindus but had exempted all Hindu from jizya; Firoz Shah extended it to also include the Brahmins at a reduced rate. Futuhat-i Firoz Shahi Autobiography of Firoz Shah Tughlaq, Translated y Elliot and Dawson, Volume 3 – The History of India, Cornell University, pp 374–83 He also announced that any Hindu who converted to Islam would become exempt from taxes and jizya as well as receive gifts from him.