Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T10:55:42.025Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Zakāt, Citizenship and the State: The Evolution of Islamic Religious and Political Authority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 August 2014

‘ABD al-RAHMAN al-SALIMI
‘ABD al-RAHMAN al-SALIMI*
Affiliation:
Royal Asiatic Society, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this essay I will demonstrate the way in which the relationship between political authority and religious authority evolved throughout the history of Islam; and point out where religious rule gave way to the creation of nation states. I will map corresponding changes in Zakāt collections, among various nation states, to support my argument in favour of a continued separation of religious and political functions in contemporary nations with Muslim majority populations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 57 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Calder, Norman, “Zakāt in Imāmī Shī’ī jurisprudence from the tenth to the sixteenth century A.D”, BSOAS, XLIV (1981), pp. 469–480 Google Scholar; also Zysow, Aron, “Khumas” ; Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition henceforth(“E12”) (Leiden, 2012)Google Scholar.

2 “EI2” in Zakat, (eds) Zysow, A.; Myer, Anne E., “Islamization and taxation in Pakistan”, Islamic Reassertion in Pakistan, edited Weiss, Anita. M., (Syracuse, 1986), pp. 59–77 Google Scholar; G. Clark, “Pakistan's zakat and ‘ushr as welfare system”, in Islamic Reassertion in Pakistan, pp. 79–95; Scott, James. C., “Resistance without protest and without organization. Peasant opposition to Islamic zakat and the Christian tithe”, in Comparative Studies in Society and History, XXIX,3, (1987), pp. 417–452 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Muhammad, Abdul Aziz bin, Zakat and rural development in Malaysia, (Kuala Lumpur, 1993), pp. 105–130 Google Scholar; Al-‘Azbāwī, al-Mawārid al-māliyya al-Islāmiyya wa ’l-ḍarā’ib al-mu‘aṣira ma‘a aḥkām wa-taṭbikāt al-zakat wa-’lḍarā’ib bi ’l-mamlaka ‘arbiyya al-su‘ūdiyya (Cairo, 1976), pp. 81–140.

3 “EI2”, “Zakat”. A. Zysow; Bashear, S., “On the origins and meaning of zakat in early Islam”, in Arabica, XL, 1, (1993), pp. 84–113 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 “Muḥammad Ibn Sa‘d, K. al- Ṭabqāt al-Kabīr”,(ed.) Eduard Sachau (Leiden, 1904–21), p. 115; Allāh, M. Hamīd, Majmū‘at al-wathā’iq al-siyāsiyya li ’l-‘ahd al-nabawī wa ’l-khilāfa al-rāshida (Beirut, 1969), pp.169–177 Google Scholar; Watt, William Montgomery, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford, 1956), p. 238 Google Scholar.

5 For more details on al- Ṭabarī's accounts on the conquest of Arabia; see al- Ṭabarī, The History of al- Ṭabarī, translated by Ismail. K. Poonawala (New York, 1993), ix, p. 164; The History of al-Tabarī, translated by Fred M. Donner (New York, 1993),x, p. 18; also see; al-Balādhurī, Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā, Futūḥ al-Buldān, (ed.) de Goeje, Michael Jan, (Leiden, 1866), pp. 64–65 Google Scholar; Shoufani, Elias S., Al-Riddah and the Muslim Conquest Arabia (Toronto, 1972), pp. 20–35 Google Scholar; Simonsen, J. B., Studies in the genesis and early development of the Caliphal taxation system (Copenhagen, 1988), pp. 26–39 Google Scholar; Donner, Fred M., The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, 1981), pp. 82–90 Google Scholar .

6 Al- Ṭabarī, x, p.16.

7 Qudāma, ‘Abd Allāh b. Aḥmad Ibn, al-Kāfī, (ed). al-Shāwīsh, Zuhīr, (Beirut, 1988), i, p. 328 Google Scholar.

8 Schacht, Josef, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1950), pp. 199–201 Google Scholar.

9 al-Jahshiyārī, Abī ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abdūs, Kitāb al-wuzarā’ wa-al-kuttāb, (ed.)al-Saqqā, Muṣṭafā et al (Cairo, 1928), p. 60 Google Scholar.

10 al-‘Azīz al-Durī, ‘Abd, al-Nużum al-Islāmiyya (Baghdad, Wizart al-Ma‘ārif, 1950), p. 182 Google Scholar; also the more interesting details on the government function to poor help and relief; Crone, Patricia, God's Rule (New York, 2004), pp. 307–308 Google Scholar; also, Crone, Patricia, Medieval Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, 2004)Google Scholar.

11 al-Ḥusayn, Rā‘ī al-Numayrī ‘Ubayd b., Dīwān Rā‘ī al-Numayrī, (ed.) Weipert, Reinhard (Beirut, 1980), pp. 213–243 Google Scholar.

12 b. Ādam al-Qarshī, Abū Yūsuf Yaḥayā, Kitāb Al-Kharāj, (ed.) Shākir, Aḥmad Huḥammad (Cairo, 1964), p. 95 Google Scholar; also see Abū ‘Ubayda al-Qāsim b. Sallām, (ed.) Muḥammad Ḥāmid al-Fiqī (Cairo, 1934). Both are Translated into English as Taxation in Islam and provided with an introduction and notes by A. Ben Shemesh (Leiden, 1958–1969).

13 al-Azīz al-Dūrī, Abd, al-‘Aṣr al-‘Abbāsī al-awwal: dirāsah fī al-tārīkh al-siyāsī wa-al-idārī wa-al-mālī, al-Ṭalī‘ah, Dār (Beirut, 1988) p.64 Google Scholar; Patricia Crone, God's Rule, pp. 304–305.

14 Al-Dūrī, al-Nużum, pp.137–170;

15 Abū Yūsuf Yaḥyā b. Ādam, K. al-Kharāj, p. 34; also more details in Tabataba’ī, Hossein Modarressi, Kharāj in Islam (London, 1983)Google Scholar; Madelung, Wilferd, ‘Shiite Discussion of the Legality of the kharāj, in Proceeding of the Ninth Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, (ed.) Peters, R. (Leiden, 1981), pp.193–202 Google Scholar.

16 Abū Yūsuf Yaḥyā b. Ādam, K. al-Kharāj, p. 21.

17 Gibb, H. A. R., “The fiscal rescript of ‘Umar II”, in Arabic, II (1955), pp. 1–16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Forand, P.G., “Notes on ‘Ušr and Maks”, in Arabica, XIII (1966), pp. 137–141 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 See Johansen, B., The Islamic Law on land Tax and Rent; The Peasants Loss of Property Rights As Interpreted in the Hanafite Literature of the Mamluk and Ottoman Period (London, 1988)Google Scholar.

19 Abū Yūsuf Yaḥyā b. Ādam, K. al-Kharāj, p.29.

20 al-Ṣāwī, Muḥammad b. Ismā‘īl, Sharḥ Dīwān Jarīr (Cairo, 1353), p. 389 Google Scholar.

21 See also Patrice Crone, God's Rule, pp. 291–292.

22 See also al-Balādhurī mentioned that during the military camping sent to Ḥijaz by Marwān b. al-Ḥakam (reign 623–685) against al-Balādhurī, ‘Abd Allah b. Zubayr., Ansāb al-Āshrāf, v.5, (Jerusalem, 1936), p.151 Google Scholar.

23 al-Dūrī, Abd al-Azīz, al-‘Aṣr al-‘Abbāsī al-awwal: dirāsah fī al-tārīkh al-siyāsī wa-al-idārī wa-al-mālī (Beirut, 1988), p. 64 Google Scholar.

24 al-Shujā‘ī, Shams al-Dīn, Tārīkh al-Malik al-Nāṣir Muḥammad b. Qalāwūn al- Ṣāliḥī wa-awlādihi, (ed.) Schafer, Barbara (Wiesbaden, 1977), i, pp. 73–81 Google Scholar.

25 Al-Salimi, Abdulrahman S, Identifying the (Ibāḍī/Omani) Siyar , in Journal of Semitic Studies, LV, (2010), pp. 115–162 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Al-Salimi, Abdulrahman S, Themes of Ibāḍī/Omani Siyar, in Journal of Semitic Studies, LIV, 2, (2009), pp. 475–514 CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Hamilton Gibb puts forward the thesis that Islam has no notion of ‘state’. State structures that came into being under Islam bore the names of the families who ruled them — the Umayyads, the ‘Abbasids, the Fatimid, the Ottomans, etc. Frontiers were not seen as defining sovereignty or nation; borders were used to define land tax (kharāj) and the alms tax (zakāt) that could be collected. The land area of the state and its sovereign control, therefore, did not define a legally recognised citizenry. Gibb, H. A. R., ‘The Evolution of Government in Early Islam’, in Studia Islamica, IV (1955), pp. 1–17 Google Scholar.

28 al- Ṣāliḥī, Muḥammad b. Yūsuf, Subal al-Hadī wa al-rashād fī sīrat khayr al-‘ibād, (ed.) al-Mawjūd, ‘Ādil Aḥmad ‘Abd & Mū‘awd, ’Alī Muḥammad, V.3 (Beirut, 1993), p.128 Google Scholar .

29 See Saudi Memorial of 1955, Memorial of the government of Saudi Arabia: Arbitration for the Settlement of the Territorial Disputes between Muscat and Abu Dhabi on the One Side and Saudi on the other, (Cairo, 1955).

30 al-Māwardī, Abū ’l-Ḥasan ‘Alī b. Muḥammad b. Ḥabīb, al-Aḥkām al-Sulṭāniyya, Kitāb wa-l-wilāyāt al-dīniyyah, (ed.) by al-Baghdādī, Aḥmad Mubārk, (Kuwait, 1989)Google Scholar, translated notably by Fagnan (Algiers, 1915) under the title of Traité des Statuts gouvernementaux.

31 See also Gibb, H. A. R., Al-Mawardī's theory of the Khilafah, in Studies on the civilization of Islam (Boston, 1962), pp. 151–165 Google Scholar; Some consideration on the Sunni theory of the Caliphate, in Studies on the civilization of Islam (Boston, 1962), pp. 191–194; Rosenthal, Erwin. I. J., Political thought in medieval Islam (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 27–37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Grunebaum, Gustave E. von, Islam; essays in the nature and growth of the cultural tradition, (2nd edition) (London, 1961), pp. 65–68 Google Scholar.

33 See Chapters 12 and 13 in al-Māwardī's work; also Patrice Crone, God's Rule, pp. 303–304.

34 Crone, Patrice, God's Rule, pp. 286–315 (New York, 2004)Google Scholar.

35 Schmidt, Nathaniel, Ibn Khaldun, historian, sociologist and philosopher (New York, 1930), pp. 31–57 Google Scholar; Mahdi, Muhsin, Ibn Khaldūn's philosophy of history (London, 1957)Google Scholar; Rabī‘, Muhammad Mahmoud, The political theory of Ibn Khaldūn, (Leiden, 1967)Google Scholar.

36 See Chapter 3, Muqaddimah by Muḥammad, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad b., Tārikh Ibn Khaldūn, V,1, (Beirut, 1965)Google Scholar; The Muqaddimah : an introduction to history/Ibn Khaldûn; translated Franz Rosenthal (Princeton, 1967).

37 Abd al-Azīz al-Dūrī, al-Nużum al-Islāmiyya, pp. 190–198.

38 Ibn Khaldūn,al-Muqqadimah, p. 227.

39 Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqqadimah, p. 227.

40 Ashur, Muhammad al-Tahir Ibn, Ibn Ashur: A Treatise of Maqsid al-Shariah (Virginia, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Boogert, Maurits H. van den, The capitulations and the Ottoman legal system: qaḍis, consuls, and Beraths in the 18th Century (Leiden, 2005)Google Scholar.

42 Black, Antony, The History of Islamic Political Thought from Prophet to the Present (Edinburgh, 2001), pp. 308–340 Google Scholar.

43 Hourani, Albert, A History of the Arab Peoples (New York, 1991), pp. 353–388 Google Scholar.

44 Belkeziz, Abdelillah, The State in Contemporary Islamic Thought: A Historical Survey of the Major Muslim Political Thinkers in the Modern Era (London, 2009), pp. 241–267 Google Scholar.

45 Enayat, Hamid, Modern Islamic Political Thought (London, 2005), pp. 111–139 Google Scholar.

46 Black, The History of Islamic Political Thought from Prophet to Present, pp. 81–91.