Jizya is a type of taxation levied on non-Muslim subjects by Islamic rulers. The application of jizya was varied in the course of Islamic history.
Adult, free, sane males among the dhimma community ( non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection) were required to pay the jizya while exempting women, children, elders, handicapped, the ill, the insane, monks, hermits, slaves,and non-Muslim foreigners who resided temporarily in Muslim lands.
In India, Islamic rulers imposed jizya on non-Muslims starting from the 11th century.
Hindus who converted to Islam would become exempt from taxes due to which many economically weaker males converted to Islam to evade taxation.
Jizya was later abolished by the third Mughal emperor Akbar, in 1564. However, in 1679, Aurangzeb re-imposed jizya on non-Muslim subjects in lieu of military service, a move that was sharply critiqued by many Hindu rulers and Mughal court-officials.
Jahandar Shah officially abolished it in 1712, but it was under Farrukhsiyar’s reign that the abolition was fully and effectively enforced.
The jizya is no longer imposed by Muslim states. Moderate Muslims reject the dhimma system, which encompasses jizya, as inappropriate for the age of nation-states and democracies.
