Paying Jizyah is a Sign of Kufr and Disgrace
Jizyah was to be paid solely to cover the cost of national defense in return for draft exemption. Interpretation of the concept beyond that involves bid'ah; there is no Qur'anic justification for causing unnecessary "disgrace" in extraction of the jizyah.
"No-one of the people of dhimma should be beaten in order to exact payment of the jizya, nor made to stand in the hot sun, nor should hateful things inflicted upon their bodies, or anything of that sort... Rather they should be treated with leniency."
- Abu Yusuf, Chief Justice (Qadhi al-Qudhaat) under Caliph Harun al-Rashid (d. 809 CE)
Zamakhshari, Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar
(d. 1144 )
Mutazili theologian, Arabic philologist, and Quran exegete of Persian origin. His Quran commentary, Al-kashshaf an haqaiq al-tanzil, exhibits his Mutazili dogmas with little attention to tradition and elaborates on lexical, grammatical, and rhetorical elements while interpreting the Quran and highlighting its miraculous inimitability. His Al-mufassal is an exhaustive exposition of Arabic grammar, and his Asas al-balagha is a dictionary of Arabic. His literary works include Maqamat, containing moralizing discourses; his diwan of poems; and Al-mustaqsa fi-l-amthal, a popular collection of proverbs.
Zamakhshari, Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar - Oxford Islamic Studies Online
Sometimes, the requirements for jizyah could be interpreted severely. In Tafsir al-kashshaf, the Mutazilah exegete al-Zamakhshari (d. 1144) assumes that the intent of the Quranic commandment was to highlight the subordinate status of the dhimmi in Muslim society. Therefore, the jizyah should be exacted as a form of humiliation. The non-Muslim should come to pay the tax walking, not riding. When he pays, he is made to stand, while the tax collector sits. The collector should seize him by the scruff of the neck, shake him, and say, “Pay the jizyah!”, cuffing him on the back of the head once the tax has been paid. A similarly hard line is taken by the modern commentator and political activist Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) in his widely read commentary, Fi ?ilal al-Qur?an. This prominent ideologist of the Muslim Brotherhood is defiantly triumphalist, claiming that jizyah amounts to a punishment for polytheism (especially for Christians) and is required before peaceful relations can be established between Muslims and the “People of the Book.” Seeing shari?ah (the divine law) as a sort of positive law, Qu?b intimates that jizyah is a recompense or protection, not from military service or external enemies, but from jihad. If it is not paid as part of a peace agreement, the Islamic state owes no obligation to non-Muslims, whether at home or abroad.
Log In - Oxford Islamic Studies Online
Paying Jizyah is a Sign of Kufr and Disgrace
Tafsir.com Tafsir Ibn Kathir
