The Fair Logic of Jizyah (?!?)

Leave it to Islamic subjectivists to summon the fog with terms like "fair logic" when applied to jizyah. Islam On Line has a section where readers send in questions, and experts "answer." You just have to read some of this stuff to appreciate it.

Here's a sample, edited to remove the superfluous. Someone who is not Muslim wrote in with a question about jizyah:

IslamOnline-Ask About Islam,The Fair Logic of Jizyah

Question: I recently had a discussion with a non-Muslim friend about the jizyah (ransom) that non-Muslims have to pay in Islamic states. Is it discriminatory? Why do non-Muslims have to pay such a tax? Who has to pay it and how is it calculated? Thank you. Date 2005/3/3

Name of Consultant Jasser Auda
Content of Reply

As-salamu
`alaykum, Ahmed.

Thank you for your question.

Before addressing this question, we need to differentiate between actions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that were carried out based on some specific (in this case, political) situation, and other actions that are considered as essential part of the divine message of Islam, without which the message would be deviated.

There is a verse in the Qur'an that mentioned this tax, jizyah. The verse says what means:

*{Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the jizyah (tribute, tax) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.}* (Al-Tawbah 9:29)

However, it is important to ask two questions here: What is the wisdom behind that tax, which was the reason behind legislating it? The wisdom behind the tax/jizyah paid by non-Muslims to the Islamic state was fairness. This is for two reasons:

First, Muslims were paying zakah (the annual charity) to the Islamic state, which was used for all sorts of services and social welfare. Zakah is an Islamic act of worship, but it is only for Muslims. It was fair to make non-Muslim citizens of the same state pay a similar (in fact, smaller) amount as a tax, since zakah is not taken from them as it is taken from Muslims. Jizyah was calculated in different ways throughout different areas (a certain amount of money, certain percentage of the crops, etc), but it was consistently less than the zakah, which every Muslim had to pay anyway.

In addition to that, this tax was paid in exchange of protection of these non-Muslim communities (i.e., military protection) and exemption of their men from joining the Islamic army. It was not fair to ask these non-Muslim citizens to fight with Muslims against fellow believers of their same religion.

Then, do all the above make jizyah an eternal Islamic obligation, exactly like zakat? The answer is no! We need not to confuse between Islam as a civilization and Islam as a religion, to make a general point.

...Scholars no longer apply the rule of jizyah or exempt non-Muslims from serving their countries’ armies. The context now is different and therefore, the ruling differs and jizyah no longer applies.


Salams.

Here is truly taqiyya and kitman combined. The simplest and most complete rebuttal to this propaganda is to be found in Mr. Robert Spencer's new book, The Myth of Islamic Tolerance.

It's astonishing how much damage ignorance causes when a book like Mr. Spencer's simply erases the ignorance forever.

The Islam On Line explanation explains nothing. It just white-washes history and facts.

Even the Koranic verse gives the whole mess away "...until they pay the jizyah (tribute, tax) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." Those conquered by Muslim hoards who were not enslaved or killed outright and did not convert to Islam, became dhimmis and lived under a slavery called dhimmitude, a state of being subdued, as in conquered. As the Islamists said and say, these people are to be chronically humiliated. They ransom their lives with Jizyah, not out of fairness, but out of fear for their lives. The purpose of the jizyah is to support the lazy Muslims who eschew productive work.

"Fairness" was never an issue. What is "fair" to Muslims fits no objective definition in any language of the world, past or present. The jizyah was not to balance out the zakah. The zakah was a pillar of Islam but did not carry the pain of death; the jizyah did and does.

Furthermore, the jizyah was not to compensate for dhimmis being exempted from the Muslim army. They could not mix with Muslims and were forbidden to join their armies unless they converted. "Protection" was not the issue, since the dhimmis were objects of plunder at all times BY MUSLIMS. The jizyah was and is EXTORTION, and it worked only if Muslims did not experience some imagined insult to their pseudo-self-esteem or have some other whim strike them to justify their killing dhimmi men, women, and children, just-for-the-hell-of-it.

Lastly, "scholars" may not apply the jizyah these days, but Muslims damned sure do. They will not hesitate either to kill you or make you live in dhimmitude today, and tomorrow, just as they did yesterday and do today.

This is a good example of why it is impossible to trust what Muslims say--about anything. For example, at this time, there is much chatter in the news about whether the al-Zarkawi has or has not been wounded in Iraq, and just what significance it has. Who cares? You can't believe anything they say. We keep doing what we need to do, regardless of what they say.

Take President Reagan one more step: Do not trust, and always verify for yourself.