Tax Per Head - Islamic Law

Islamic Law

Jizya is a poll tax imposed under Islamic law on non-Muslims - specifically, the dhimmi ("People of the Book", i.e. Jews and Christians). The tax is levied on free-born abled-bodied men of military age. The poor are exempt, as well as those who are not independent or wealthy, such as slaves, women, children, the old, the sick, monks and hermits.

There are several legal rationales for the jizya (and its equivalent land tax, the kharaj). The common argument is that jizya was a fee in exchange for the dhimma (permission to practice one's faith, enjoy communal autonomy, and to be entitled to Muslim protection from outside aggression). Some scholars emphasize that its higher rate is also a sign of submission and acceptance of Muslim rule, and some argue humiliation for failing to embrace Islam. Other rationales assume such rights were every person's birthright (Muslim or non-Muslim), and the imposition of jizya on non-Muslims similar to the imposition of zakat (one of the Five Pillars of Islam, an obligatory wealth tax paid on certain assets which are not used productively for a period of a year) on Muslims. The rates of jizya are higher (often quite higher) than zakat.

Although jizya is designated as a poll tax, its assessment and collection is often qualified by income. For instance, Amr ibn al-As, after conquering Egypt, set up a census to measure the population for the jizya, and thus the total expected jizya revenue for the whole province, but organized the actual collection by partitioning the population into wealth classes, so that the rich paid more and the poor less jizya of that total sum. Elsewhere, it is reported customary to partition into three classes, e.g. 48 dirhams for the rich, 24 for middle class and 12 for the poor.

The differing tax rates between zakat and jizya gave an incentive for populations to convert to Islam, to benefit from the lower tax rates. However, this was not always respected by the governing authorities, who were reluctant to lose the cash revenues. In the late 7th and early 8th C., during the Umayyad Caliphate, conversions were often ignored and jizya continued being collected on Muslim converts, particularly if they were non-Arabs (e.g. Berbers, Persians), raising tensions throughout the caliphate. In 718, the Umayyad caliph Umar II strictly forbade collection of jizya from Muslim converts. However, after his death, difficulties in the caliphal treasury prompted governors to side-step the prohibitions and surreptitiously re-introduce jizya-collection on converts by other guises. The zeal of the Umayyad tax-collectors led to the eruption of two notable revolts in the 740s - the Berber Revolt in North Africa and Spain and the Abbasid Revolt in Persia - demanding the equality of all Muslims, regardless of ethnicity, and adherence to the tax rates prescribed by Islamic law.

In 1855, the Ottoman Empire abolished the jizya tax, as part of reforms to equalize the status of Muslims and non-Muslims. It was replaced, however, by a military-exemption tax on non-Muslims, the Bedel-i Askeri.