Jizya or jizyah (Arabic: جزية ǧizyah IPA: [dʒizja]; Ottoman Turkish: cizye) is a religiously required per capita tax levied by a Muslim state on non-Muslim subjects permanently residing in Muslim lands under Islamic law.[1][specify][2][3] Islamic jurists required adult, free, sane males among the dhimma community to pay the jizya while exempting the women, slaves, minors, poor, and the insane,[4][5] as well as musta'mins (non-Muslim foreigners who only temporarily reside in Muslim lands).[6] Jizya is mandated by the Quran and the Hadiths.[7][8]
The application of jizya varied throughout Islamic history. Jizya and kharaj collected from non-Muslims, were terms that were sometimes used interchangeably,[9][10][11] and together were the predominant contributor to total annual taxes collected by the Muslim officials in various Islamic states.[12][13] Jizya tax rates on non-Muslims have historically varied from being a fixed annual amount regardless of one's income,[14] to 50% of annual produce.[15] Muslims have been exempt from Jizya tax, paying a 2.5% Zakat tax on annual income instead.[16][17]
Jizya is an example of taxes that depended on the religion of the individual. Some scholars[18][19] state Jizya to be a discriminatory tax. Historically, the Jizya tax has been rationalized in Islam as a fee for protection provided by the Muslim ruler to non-Muslims, for the permission to privately practice a non-Muslim faith with some communal autonomy in a Muslim state, and as material proof of the non-Muslims' submission to the Muslim state and its laws.[16][20] Jizya has also been rationalized as a symbol of the humiliation of the non-Muslims in a Muslim state for not converting to Islam.[21][22][23]
The jizya tax was historically imposed on Jews and Christians in Arabian peninsula, the Levant, Iraq, North Africa, Caucasus and Spain, and on Hindus in South Asia into the 19th century, but almost vanished in the 20th century.[24] The tax is no longer imposed by nation states in the Islamic world, moderate Muslims consider the dhimmi system as inappropriate for the modern era,[25][26] though modern era Islamic scholars such as Abul A'la Maududi of Pakistan and Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Egypt have argued that Jizya should be re-imposed on non-Muslims in a Muslim nation.[27][28] There have been occasional reports of religious minorities in conflict zones and political instability in Muslim regions being forced to pay jizya,[24][29] such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant enforcing it in some areas they have captured.[30]
The overwhelming majority of moderate Muslims reject the dhimma system, and therefore jizya, as anachronistic, in the sense that it is inappropriate for the age of nation-states and democracies.[26]
