Islamic taxes

Islamic taxes are taxes sanctioned by Islamic law. They are based on both "the legal status of taxable land" and on "the communal or religious status of the taxpayer".

Islamic taxes include

The taxes stipulated by Islamic law generally did not generate enough revenue even for the limited expenditures made by pre-modern governments, and rulers were forced to impose additional taxes, which were condemned by the ulema.

According to scholar Murat Çizakça, only zakat, jizya and kharaj are mentioned in the Buktasira.[clarification needed]

Kharaj

The Kharaj (poll tax) was implemented early in Arab rule of Egypt as a tax placed on crop lands. Absorbed from the taxation systems under the Byzantines, the Kharaj was a 10% land tax measured in either surface area of crop land or the yield with additional value placed on ease of irrigation. Paid in cash or kind with no system to compensate farmers experiencing a lower yield, making cash the more forgiving method of payment. The taxed percentage of the farmers crop was impacted by the type of crop sown however the crops were zoned by the government not allowing farmers to choose the type of crop they cultivated. Agriculture on the Nile was so well regulated that the government knew how much revenue to expect from the Kharaj in advance based on measurements of Nile flooding from years prior.

Following a large increase in conversion in Khurasan the local governments left to be run by the Dahaqin (the leader of arab ruled persian settlements) the Dahaqin were having a hard time meeting their quotas and increased payments required on land taxes. This led to a mass revolt which after subsiding left the Dahaqin humiliated and led to them alleviating the fixed land tax from the Kharaj and taxing the “weak converts” the jizyah.

Ushr

Ushur or ushr (Arabic: عشر), in Islam, is a 10% tax on the harvests of irrigated land and 10% tax on harvest from rain-watered land and 5% on land dependent on well water. Caliph Umar expanded the scope of ushr to include border trade tax. It literally means a tenth part, and it remained in practice in Islamic ruled territories from Spain and North Africa through India and Southeast Asia through the 18th century. Ushur was applied on traders, at a rate of 10% of the value of the merchandise that was either imported or exported across the border controlled by the Islamic state. It applied to non-Muslim traders as well, who were residents of the Islamic state (dhimmi), as well as to non-Muslim traders who were foreigners and wished to sell their merchandise inside the Islamic state. Historical medieval era trade documents between Oman and India, refer to this tax on ships arriving at trade port as ashur or ushur. Ushr and Jizya would grant non-Muslims a privilege in war time, i.e. non-Muslims could not be obliged to join in military activities in the event of a war. By paying taxes, non-Muslims were protected by the Islamic law from any harm (dhimmi- the protected one), as opposed to Muslims who had to pay Zakat as well as were obliged to join in military activities in order to protect Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Böwering, Gerhard, ed. (2013). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton University Press. p. 545. ISBN 978-0691134840.
  2. ↑ "The Eight Kinds of People Who Receive Zakat".
  3. ↑ Abdel-Haleem, Muhammad (8 Sep 2010). Understanding the Qur'ān: Themes and Style. I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd. pp. 70, 79. ISBN 978-1845117894.
  4. ↑ Abou Al-Fadl, Khaled (2002). The Place of Tolerance in Islam. Beacon Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-8070-0229-2. . When the Qur'an was revealed, it was common inside and outside of Arabia to levy poll taxes against alien groups. Building upon the historical practice, classical Muslim jurists argued that the poll tax is money collected by the Islamic polity from non-Muslims in return for the protection of the Muslim state. If the Muslim state was incapable of extending such protection to non-Muslims, it was not supposed to levy a poll tax.
  5. ↑ Jizyah The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (2010), Oxford University Press, Quote = Jizyah: Compensation. Poll tax levied on non-Muslims as a form of tribute and in exchange for an exemption from military service, based on Quran 9:29.
  6. ↑ Marín-Guzmán, Roberto (1994). "The 'Abbasid Revolution in Central Asia and Khurāsān: An Analytical Study of the Role of Taxation, Conversion, and Religious Groups in Its Genesis". Islamic Studies. 33 (2/3). Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad: 227–252. ISSN 0578-8072.
  7. ↑ Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza (2001). Islamic Leviathan : Islam and the Making of State Power: Islam and the .... Oxford University Press. p. 144. ISBN 978-0-19-514426-0. Retrieved 11 September 2014. islamic taxes.
  8. ↑ Fauzia, Amelia (21 February 2013). Faith and the State: A History of Islamic Philanthropy in Indonesia. BRILL. p. 78. ISBN 978-9004233973. Retrieved 11 September 2014.
  9. ↑ A. Zysow; R. Gleave (2004). "KHUMS". In Bearman, P. J.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 12, Supplement (2 ed.). Brill. pp. 531–5. ISBN 90-04-13974-5.
  10. ↑ Vikør, K. S. (2000), Jihād,'ilm and taṣawwuf: Two Justifications of Action from the Idrīsī Tradition, Studia Islamica, No. 90 (2000), 153-176
  11. ↑ Patricia Crone (2013). "Traditional political thought". In Böwering, Gerhard (ed.). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton University Press (Kindle edition). p. 557.
  12. ↑ Çizakça, Murat (2011). Islamic Capitalism and Finance: Origins, Evolution and the Future. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 162. ISBN 9780857931481.
  13. ↑ Cooper, Richard S. (1976). "The Assessment and Collection of Kharāj Tax in Medieval Egypt". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 96 (3). American Oriental Society: 365–382. doi:10.2307/599056. ISSN 0003-0279.
  14. ↑ Cooper, Richard S. (1976). "The Assessment and Collection of Kharāj Tax in Medieval Egypt". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 96 (3). American Oriental Society: 365–382. doi:10.2307/599056. ISSN 0003-0279.
  15. ↑ Marín-Guzmán, Roberto (1994). "The 'Abbasid Revolution in Central Asia and Khurāsān: An Analytical Study of the Role of Taxation, Conversion, and Religious Groups in Its Genesis". Islamic Studies. 33 (2/3). Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University, Islamabad: 227–252. ISSN 0578-8072.
  16. 1 2 Volker Nienhaus (2006), Zakat, taxes and public finance in Islam, in Islam and the Everyday World: Public Policy Dilemmas (Editors: Sohrab Behdad, Farhad Nomani), ISBN 978-0415368230, pp. 176–189
  17. ↑ HJ Paris, Finances Publiques at Google Books, Vol. 44, pp. 88-90
  18. ↑ Olivia Remie Constable (1996), Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0521565035, pp 126-134
  19. ↑ Roxani Eleni Margariti, Aden & the Indian Ocean Trade: 150 Years in the Life of a Medieval Arabian Port, University of North Carolina Press, ISBN 978-0807830765, pp. 128-133
  20. ↑ Ushr at EthicalInstitute.com