a chapter headed as follows: “Jizyah and concluding of peace with ahl al-ḥarb (those at war with the Muslims)” (Bu. 58:1), Continuing, he is more explicit, remarking under the same heading: “And what is related in the matter of taking jizyah from the Jews and the Christians and the Magians (Majūs) and the non-Arabs (‘Ajam).” The rule of the jizyah was thus applicable to all enemy people, and the Holy Prophet’s own action shows that treaties subject to the payment of jizyah were concluded, not only with the Jews and the Christians but also with the Magians. It would be seen from this that the words ahl al-Kitāb used in 9:29, quoted above, must be taken in the wider sense of followers of any religion. But jizyah, which was originally a tribute paid by a subject state, took the form of a poll-tax later on in the time of ‘Umar; and the word also applied to the land-tax which was levied on Muslim owners of agricultural land. The jurists, however, made a distinction between the poll-tax and the land-tax by giving the name of kharāj to the latter. Both together formed one of the two chief sources of the revenue of the Muslim state, the zakāt paid by the Muslims being the other source.

Jizyāh was not a religious tax

European writers on Islām have generally assumed that, while the Holy Qur’ān offered only one of the alternatives, Islām or death, to other non-Muslims, the Jews and the Christians were given a somewhat better position, since they could save their lives by the payment of jizyah. This conception of jizyah as a kind of religious tax whose payment entitled certain non-Muslims to security of life under the Muslim rule, is as entirely opposed to the fundamental teachings of Islām as the myth that the Muslims were required to carry on an aggressive war against all non-Muslims till they accepted Islām. Tributes and taxes were levied before Islām, and are levied to this day, by Muslim as well as non-Muslim states, yet they have nothing to do with the religion of the people affected. The Muslim state was as much in need of finance to maintain itself as any other state on the face of this earth, and it resorted to exactly the same methods as those employed by other states. All that happened in the time of the Holy Prophet was that certain small non-Muslim states were, when