Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c8.s2.12

c8.s2.12

Such a hateful tax in which insult was added to economic injury, was resented by the Hindus more than any other imposition. Originally, Jiziyah applied to non-Muslim scriptuaries like Jews and Christians. The bigoted and fanatically inclined jurists hold that the idolaters do not come within the purview of Jiziyah, and the only alternatives open for them are either conversion to Islam or death.⁷⁵ However, the Sunni jurists Abu Hanifa and his disciple Abu Yusuf permit its imposition on the non-Muslims even if they be idolaters.⁷⁶ India was inhabited by idolaters primarily. Application of Jiziyah to them was, in a way, a matter of kind concession, from the Muslim point of view. But the Hindus resented it throughout. They knew that it was meant to humble and humiliate them. When Firoz Tughlaq (1351-1388 CE) levied Jiziyah on the Brahmans, they represented to the Sultan that they had never before been asked to pay it land to put up with the indignity attached to it. The Sultan, writes Shams Siraj Afif, "convened a meeting of the learned Ulama and renowned Mashaikh and suggested to them that an error had been committed: the Jiziyah had never been levied from Brahmans; they had been held excused, in former reigns. The Brahmans were the very keys of the chamber of idolatry, and the infidels were dependent on them (*kalid-i-hujra-i-kufr und va kafiran bar ishan muataqid una*). They ought therefore to be taxed first. The learned lawyers opined that the Brahmans ought to be taxed. The Brahmans then assembled and went to the Sultan and represented that they had never before been called upon to pay the *Jiziyah*, and they wanted to know why they were now subjected to the indignity of having to pay it. They were determined to collect wood and to bum themselves under the walls of the palace rather than pay the tax. The Sultan replied that they might burn and destroy themselves at once for they would not escape from the payment. The Brahmans remained fasting for several days at the palace until they were on the point of death. The Hindus of the city then assembled and told the Brahmans that it was not right to kill themselves on account of the *Jiziyah*, and that they would undertake to pay it for them."⁷⁷