Kharāj (Arabic: خراج) is a type of individual Islamic tax on agricultural land and its produce, regardless of the religion of the owners, developed under Islamic law.[1]
With the first Muslim conquests in the 7th century, the kharaj initially was synonomous with jizyah and denoted a lump-sum duty levied upon the lands of conquered provinces, which was collected by hold-over officials of the defeated Byzantine Empire in the west and the Sassanid Empire in the east; later and more broadly, kharaj refers to a land-tax levied by Muslim rulers on their non-Muslim subjects, collectively known as dhimmi. Muslim landowners, on the other hand, paid ushr, a religious tithe on land, which carried a lower rate of taxation,[2] and zakat. Ushr was a reciprocal 10% levy on agricultural land as well as merchandise imported from states that taxed Muslims on their products.
Changes soon eroded the established tax base of the early Arab Caliphates. Additionally, a large, but unsuccessful, expedition against the Byzantine Empire undertaken by the Umayyad caliph Sulayman in 717 brought the finances of the Umayyads to the brink of collapse. Even before Sulayman's ascent to power, the powerful governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, attempted to raise revenues by demanding from Muslims a full rate of taxation, but that measure met with opposition and resentment. To address these problems, Sulayman's successor Umar II worked out a compromise in which, beginning from 719, land from which kharaj was paid could not be transferred to Muslims; instead, they could lease such land, but in that case they would be required to pay kharaj from it. With the passage of time, the practical result of that reform was that kharaj was levied on most land without regard for the cultivator's religion. The reforms of Umar II were finalized under the Abbasids and would thereafter form the model of tax systems in the Islamic state.[3] From that time on, kharaj was also used as a general term describing all kinds of taxes: for example, the classic treatise on taxation by the 9th century jurist Abu Yusuf was called Kitab al-Kharaj, i.e. The Book On Taxation.[2]
20th-century Russian orientalist, A. Yu. Yakubovski, compares the land tax system of Persian Sassanids with that of the post-Islamic Caliphate era:
A comparison between pre-Islamic documents and those of the Islamic period reveals that conquering Arabs increased the land taxation without exception. Thus, raising taxes of each acre of wheat field to four dirhams and each acre of barley field to two dirhams, whereas during reign of Khosro Anushiravan it used to be a single dirham for each acre of wheat or barley field. During the later stage of the Umayyad Caliphate, landowners were paying from one fourth to one third of their land produce to the state as kharaj.[4]
In the Ottoman Empire, kharaj evolved into haraç, a form of poll tax on non-Muslim subjects. It was superseded by cizye.[citation needed]
^Böwering, Gerhard, ed. (2013). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton University Press. p. 545. ISBN 978-0691134840.
^ abLewis (2002), p. 72
^Lewis (2002), p. 79–80
^N. V. Pigulevskaya, A. Yu. Yakubovski, I. P. Petrushevski, L. V. Stroeva, A. M. Belenitski. The History of Iran from Ancient Times to the End of Eighteenth Century (in Persian), Tehran, 1967, p. 161.
Kharāj (Arabic: خراج) is a type of individual Islamic tax on agricultural land and its produce, regardless of the religion of the owners, developed under...
Kharaj Mukherjee or Kharaj Mukhopadhyay is an Indian actor. He completed his early education from St. Lawrence High School, Kolkata He made his debut in...
exempted those who could not afford to pay from the Jizya. Together with kharāj, a term that was sometimes used interchangeably with jizya, taxes levied...
Biswas & Benny Biswas. Two officers from Kolkata Police, Jishu Narang and Kharaj Sahu are keeping an eye on Bob Biswas because unknown to Bob and his family...
allotted to the state. Kharaj was a tax on agricultural land. Initially, after the first Muslim conquests in the seventh century, kharaj usually denoted a...
synonymous use of the terms kharaj and jizya in the historical sources. The general view suggests that while the terms kharaj and jizya seem to have been...
against government officials. The remit of the dīwān al-kharāj now included all land taxes (kharāj, zakāt, and jizya, both in money and in kind), while another...
based on Rajkumar Maitra's cartoon character, Bagalamama. The film stars Kharaj Mukherjee, Riddhi Sen, Rajatava Dutta, Aparajita Adhya and Ditipriya Roy...
Hazra, Payel Sarkar, Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan in lead roles while Kharaj Mukherjee, Biswanath Basu, Shantilal Mukherjee and Manasi Sinha appears...
while all Muslims who cultivated conquered lands were liable to pay the kharaj (land tax). Since avoidance of taxation incentivized both mass conversions...
Kharaj Mukherjee, Puneet Issar and Ashish Vidyarthi in lead roles. It is a remake of Telugu Movie Loukyam. Jeet as Aditya Koel Mallick as Rai Kharaj Mukherjee...
the chief judge (qadi al-qudat) during reign of Harun al-Rashid. Kitab al-Kharaj, a treatise on taxation and fiscal issues facing the state, is his most...
per thousand Teind Tithe Fiscus Judaicus Leibzoll Temple tax Tolerance tax Jizya Kharaj Khums Nisab Zakat By country Business portal Money portal v t e...
others, called "Kharaj Pancham" sitar) the playable strings are strung in this fashion: Chikari strings: Sa (high), Sa (middle), and Pa. Kharaj (bass) strings:...
Payel Sarkar and Dev as the lead pair of the film withsupporting roles by Kharaj Mukherjee, Ritwick Chakraborty, Biswajit Chakraborty, Aritra Dutta Banik...
per thousand Teind Tithe Fiscus Judaicus Leibzoll Temple tax Tolerance tax Jizya Kharaj Khums Nisab Zakat By country Business portal Money portal v t e...
Adarsh [@taran_adarsh] (18 February 2019). "Ishaa Saha, Sreelekha Mitra, Kharaj Mukherjee, June Maliah and Saurav Das... First look poster of #Bengali film...
Saha and Kharaj Mukherjee in lead roles. The film received poor critical reviews. Saheb Bhattacharya Mumtaz Sorcar Ena Saha Rajatava Dutta Kharaj Mukherjee...
the tax excluded the poor, women, children and the elderly. (see below) kharaj - a land tax initially imposed only on non-Muslims but soon after mandated...
Guddu Paoli Dam Paran Bandyopadhyay Ishaa Saha Payel Sarkar Rajatava Dutta Kharaj Mukherjee Biswanath Basu Manasi Sinha Poorna Banerjee of The Times of India...
words jizya, kharaj, sadaqa, and zakat were often used interchangeably in early Islamic writings. At one point in the Qur'an, the term kharāj is used to...
paying a jizya. In addition, the old Sassanid "land tax" (known in Arabic as Kharaj) was also adopted. Caliph Umar is said to have occasionally set up a commission...
Global Information
