The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c24.s5.2

c24.s5.2

**What is Jizya.** *Jizya* or poll tax was charged from non-Muslims only. There is a difference of opinion among scholars about the nature of this tax. Some maintain that it was a religious tax levied on the non-Muslims “in return for which they received protection of life and property and exemption from military service, as non-Muslims were not entitled, according to orthodox jurists, to live in a Muslim country.” Some of the modern Muslim scholars, however, hold that it was a secular tax charged from non-Muslims, as they were exempt from military service, which every Musalman, at least in theory, was liable to render to the State. Early Muslim jurists divided taxes into two groups—religious taxes and secular taxes—and they included *jizya* in the latter category. The religious tax was the *zakat* or the *sadqah*, which was charged from Muslims only. As *jizya* was not charged from the Muslims and as there was no fixed rule that its proceeds should be spent for religious purposes only, it was included by Muslim jurists among the secular taxes. The view that *jizya* is a secular tax on the basis of the above classification is evidently untenable. Whatever might have been the original intention with which this tax was levied in Islamic lands outside India, there is no doubt that, by the time the Arabs conquered Sindh, *jizya* had acquired a religious significance. It was imposed on the non-Muslims as the State gave them “protection of life and property and exemption from military service,” and the Sultans considered it to be a religious duty to realise this tax rigorously. Those of our modern writers who hold this tax to be secular conveniently forget the first part of the injunction, namely, the protection of life and property of the *zimmis*, and emphasize only the latter part, namely, exemption from military service. It is clear from the history of the Mughul period that the vassal Hindu rajas who furnished military assistance to the Mughul emperors in the time of Babur and Humayun and in the early days of the reign of Akbar and throughout that of Aurangzeb, were not exempt from the payment of *jizya*. We know definitely that the ruler of Udaipur was required to cede a certain part of his territory in lieu of *jizya* while, at the same time, he had placed a contingent of his troops at the disposal of Aurangzeb. It is, thus, obvious that *jizya* had a religious colour about it. The ruling of *qazi* Mughis-ud-din of Bayana about this tax has already been given in a former chapter. It will be too much in view of the facts of the history of the entire period to maintain that *jizya* was a secular tax like *Turush ka danda* or any other poll tax.