Jizya article, by S. D. Goitein, 1963

[ibn_rushd2]

I found this article on a very pertinent subject some time ago. I will post excerpts here.

S. D. Goitein also wrote a number of volumes based on the Cairo Geniza sources called A Mediterranean Society of the High Middle Ages, based on Records from the Cairo Geniza and an accompanying reader, Readings in Mediterranean Social History. There are many other books will selections from the Geniza, including 2 vols. edited by Moshe Gil in the original Judeo-Arabic. They were part of a history of Israel/Pal. from 634-1099, which the first vol. has been translated into English by Ethel Broido, and you may find it on Amazon. I think it is out of print at the moment, but it is well worth what I paid for it ($75 CDN).

Evidence on the Muslim Poll Tax from Non-Muslim Sources: A Geniza Study In JESHO: Journal for the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 6 (1963): 278-295.

[278]There is no subject of Islamic social history on which the present writer had to modify his views so radically while passing from literary to documentary sources, i.e. from the study of Muslim books to that of the records of the Cairo Geniza as the jizya or jaliya, the poll tax to be paid by non-Muslims. It was, of course, evident that the tax represented a discrimination and was intended, according to the Koran's own words, to emphasize the inferior status of the non-believers. It seemed, however, that from the economic point of view, it did not constitute [279] a heavy imposition, since it was on a sliding scale, approximately of one, two and four dinars, and thus adjusted to the financial capacity of the taxpayer.

This impression proved to be entirely fallacious, for it did not take into consideration the immense extent of poverty and privation experienced by the masses, and in particular their way of living from hand to mouth, their persistent lack of cash, which turned the "season of the tax" into one of horror, dread and misery. The provisions of ancient Islamic law which exempted the indigent, the invalids and the old, were no longer observed in the Geniza period and had been discarded by the Shafi'i School of Law, which prevailed in Egypt, also in theory. It is precisely persons of such descriptions about whose plight we read so much in our records. The payment of the poll tax constituted item number one in the budget of families with modest income, such as teachers or laborers. For a man could clothe inexpensively, he could eat at stavation level, as perhaps a very large section of the population did. But he could not escape the tax gatherer - at least not for long. If he was caught, he was beaten and suffered otherwise corporal punishment, 'uguba, and was thrown into prison, where, because of starvation and maltreatment, he faced death.

A few passages picked out at random from a mass of pertinent Geniza letters may serve as an initial illustration. A schoolmaster from Qalyub, a small town north of Cairo, who also earned some money by copying books, makes, around 1225, the following complaint to a relative in the capital. "This place does not provide me with the poll tax or clothing, and, as to food, the fees suffice only for me alone. For they amount only to five dirhams a week and I need three quarters of a dirham a day at least. Thus my income is not enough even for [280] having a robe laundered. ... The Nagid promised me a year ago that he would take care of the jaliya. But the year has passed and I have not received anything from him. I am now perplexed and pondering where to turn and where to flee." He sends four books copied by himself, hoping, somewhat faintly, that the proceeds would resolve his predicament.

An old, half-blind refugee from Ceuta, Morocco, asks, in a letter written with his own hand as he emphasizes), a countryman for a few pounds of flour in order to keep body and soul together, but this only after other friends had helped him with the poll tax. Before becoming disabled by the failing of his eyesight, he had worked as a silversmith, but his beautiful handwriting, his good Arabic, and Hebrew style, and his copious Bible quotations show him also as a man of learning.

The writer of the following letter, too, must have seen better days, for he speaks to the addressee, a personality of high standing, almost as an equal. After only a few introductory phrases, he continues: "My present state is marked by illness, infirmity, want and excessive fear, since I am sought by the controller of revenue, who is hard upon me and writes out warrants of arrest, sending 'runners' to track me down. I am afraid they will find out my hiding place. If I fall into their hands, I shall die under their chastisement or will have to go to prison and die there. Now I take my refuge with God and with you - May God save you from all misery - plase ask Shams al-Din (the director of revenue in the capital) to write a letter to al-Mahalla that they should register us as absent, for every one says: your only salvation is to be registered as absent. Furthermore, if God ordains that some money will come together for my jaliya, it sould be said that it is for the fugitives (al-harabin), for it is not mysefl alone, but my sons as well, for whom I am held responsible."

...

[281] Trying now to define in detail who was bound to pay the poll tax, or for whom it had to be paid, the illustrative passages quoted above are sufficienty to prove that poverty, old age and illness did not provide any excuse for exemption. A person was regarded as taxable long before he was capable of making a livelihood. In a settlement between a husband and his wife, date 1244, the latter undertakes to provide full board for their elder son, to let him learn the craft of silversmithery and tpay his poll tax for two years. From a query submitted to Abraham Maimonides [Moses Maimonides' son] we learn that the guardians of an orphaned minor had to pay the jaliya for full ten years, before the latter was declared by a Jewish court a major and competent to take care of his property. In a letter addressed to Moses Maimonides a person is accused of having neglected his duties as pater familias, since he had never paid the poll tax and school fees (in this sequence! ) for his two boys, one of who was seventeen and the other thirteen at the time of the complaint. [282] From a document written around 1095 it appears that the jaliya was due from the age of nine.

Whether death cancelled arrears in poll tax due was a moot point between the Muslim doctors of law. In the Geniza period it went without saying that it had to be borne by the legal heirs. Therefore we find provisions for the payment of such debts in deathbed declarations. Particularly moving is one made on a Sabbath (when no financial arrangements are allowed) which happened to be the day before the person concerned died and in which a provision is made for a payment of two dinars due for the jaliya (dated 1142 ). A responsum of Maimonides shows that even in the case of a very poor widow no exemption was made from this rule.

The members of a family were held responsible for each other's poll tax. A silk weaver fled from Old Cairo and went as far south as Aswan (now famous for its dam), since bearing such a burden for his father and three brothers was too much for him. We learn this from a letter of one of the brothers assuring him that all members of the family had paid - not without the father having spent one night in prison - and that he could now safely return. Cases of persons who had to account for a brother or for sons have been quoted before. The same applied to borthers-in-law. The poll tax was due also on travellers to non-Muslim countries to be paid from them back home. We learn about a merchant who sojourned in India nine years and finally died there that his brothers had fulfilled this duty for the whole period - a fact mentioned in the document concerned as in no way anything extraordinary. In a letter from Alexandria, a brother out in India is politely reminded to send something for his jaliya, since his father was spending money [283] for this purpose all the time. At his arrival in Alexandria after an absence of four years of which he had been kept back in Constantinople by illness for two and a half years and had suffered also shipwreck, a merchant asks his relatives in Old Cairo to tell the tax collector about his misfortunes with a request for register him as a newcomer (in order to save four years' tax ). "Promise him half a dinar or a dinar and remind him that I am Joseph who had his store beneathe the Mu'allaqa church".

More tomorrow on travelling.

[Ansar al-Zindiqi]

Great stuff! I've bookmarked it since it is a rarity from a period when people in the West could write, discuss and think about Islam honestly without fear of being branded "Islamophobic".
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Don't be a believer, but a heretic unto your own.

[kip]

HI all,
This is to request help re Jizya.
In another forum, while debating Jizya, some Islamists have asserted that Jizya was not DISCRIMINATORY. Their claim goes like this:
Muslims paid Zakat.
Non Muslims paid Jizya.

If Jizya was not more than Zakat how come Jizya is discraiminatory?

Any help to shoot down this absurdity?
It seems from the article posted above that Jizya was personal, ie every non-muslim had to pay it.
What kind of a tax was Zakat?
Did only Muslims pay Zakat, and non-Muslims were exempt from paying it?
What other form of taxation prevailed in Islamic Regimes of the past?

Any comparative figures between Zakat and Jizya?
Was Jizya levied ON TOP of other normal taxes?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thx in Advance
Kip

[Baal]