جزية
Jizya
A tax paid by non-Muslim adult men under Muslim rule, in return for protection and exemption from military service.
What it means
The Quran mentions it once (9:29). In the classical law, women, children, the elderly, the poor and monks were exempt, and the tax was a due in place of the military service and the zakat that Muslims owed. In return the state owed protection of life, property and worship.
Abu Yusuf’s Kitab al-Kharaj reports that when Muslim forces in Syria could not protect a town, Abu Ubayda returned the tax they had collected, saying that without protection it was not owed.
Often misunderstood as
That it was a ransom or extortion, “convert or pay”.
What the sources say
Treaties of the early period, such as that with the Christians of Najran, set a fixed sum and promise safety for their churches and clergy. The Quran’s phrase “while they are subdued” was read by some jurists, among them al-Shafi’i, as accepting the authority of the state’s law. Practice varied by time and ruler, and Muslims do not claim that every ruler honoured the ideal. Today the tax has no place in most states, where non-Muslims are citizens.