If I don't like my government, should I be free from paying taxes?
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Allah's failure to communicate.
- Thread starter stevecanuck
- Start date
If I don't like my government, should I be free from paying taxes?
InvestigateTruth
Well-Known Member
The Quran forbids to make distinction between God and Messenger:
"Lo! those who disbelieve in Allah and His messengers, and seek to make distinction between Allah and His messengers, and say: We believe in some and disbelieve in others, and seek to choose a way in between, Such are disbelievers in truth; and for disbelievers We prepare a shameful doom" 4:150-151
So, Muslims are not supposed to make any distinction between God and the Messenger. When the Messenger says a Hadith, that is the same as what God says, because the Messenger is only saying what God taught Him.
InvestigateTruth
Well-Known Member
So, Shia is not Islam?
stevecanuck
Well-Known Member
The only way to try to legitimize the jizya is to pretend it's just another tax. It's not. It's a penalty paid for the crime of not being Muslim.
stevecanuck
Well-Known Member
You are the master of convoluted logic. In essence you are claiming the one thing that Allah hates more than anything else, which is to equate anyone or anything to him. How many verses tell you not to take partners with Allah, yet here you are doing that very thing by saying there's no distinction. Do you really not see that?
Is this from hadiths or conclusion from Quran?
stevecanuck
Well-Known Member
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Sometimes I can only shake my head in wonder at the things you say.
stevecanuck
Well-Known Member
Verse 9:29 spells it out in no uncertain terms.
Explain.
Nabi and Rasool although almost every Nabi is a Rasool and almost every Rasool is a Nabi are two different roles. They intersect but sometimes a Nabi is not a Rasool or it happens to be the case sometimes a Rasool is not a Nabi.
stevecanuck
Well-Known Member
And full circle. This shows that Allah did not make himself clear. With every post you verify the OP.
Are we done here yet?
stevecanuck
Well-Known Member
I did. Read 9:29. It explains the jizya.
I probably won't respond to many more posts unless you come up with something better than your previous efforts.
Up to you brother. I try to explain the issue of locks and sorcery and Satan and how hadiths heal and manifest the clear recitation.
According to Quran, what do sins and dark magic and Devils have to do with each other?
Hard hearts - they take phrases of God out of their place. Why and how does this take place?
Why soft hearts are immune to this?
I know you don't believe, but if you are going to give Quran a chance to guide, you have to listen to it's paradigm of guidance.
Salam
I've read it many times, I can't read your mind.
InvestigateTruth
Well-Known Member
No problem. God had manifested in Muhammad. God manifests in His messengers. So, when the Quran says, not make any distinction between God and His Messenger is because, while God is God, and Muhammad is Muhammad, yet, God has chosen to be manfested in Muhammad.
Here is Hadith, so, you know I'm not making things up:
"Allah (mighty and sublime be He) said: Whosoever shows enmity to someone devoted to Me, I shall be at war with him. My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works so that I shall love him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks."
The Hadith tells us, God can become every part of a person's body. So, in this sense there is no distinction between God and His Messenger, and here is the evidence from the Quran:
"And you did not kill them, but it was Allah who killed them. And you threw not, [O Muhammad], when you threw, but it was Allah who threw that He might test the believers with a good test. Indeed, Allah is Hearing and Knowing" 8:17
This verse says, when Muhammad threw shafts at enemies, it was not Muhammad, but it was God who threw, meaning, Muhammad and God are the same in this sense that the Will of God became manifested from the person of Muhammad.
stevecanuck
Well-Known Member
It explains jizya. If you don't think so, please tell me how it doesn't. Be specific.
I agree it references it. Does it explain it fully, maybe, maybe you have to put it in over all context of Quran and think of other verses to get what it is. And you also have to understand norms of speech in Arabic.
Here is a good book: Jihad, The Holy War of Islam and Its Legitimacy in the Quran
I will quote the part of Jiziya, but I suggest you read whole book. It will help you understand how to analyze Quran better and more holistically.
The final issue to be discussed is jiziyah, i.e. tribute. In one of the Qur’anic verses, it has been revealed that we are to fight the People of the Book, or those who do not have real faith, unconditionally, or until they pay jiziyah. What is jiziyah? Is the meaning of jiziyah some kind of “protection money” or “dangled?” Were the Muslims who took jiziyah in the past taking protection money?
Protection money, seen from any angle, is injustice and oppression and the Qur’an itself negates injustice in all its forms. Jezyah finds its root in the word jaza. Jaza in the Arabic language is used both for reward and for punishment. If jiziyah in this context means recompense or punishment, then it can be claimed that its meaning is “protection money” or “danegeld,” but if it means a reward, which it does, then the matter changes.
Previously we said that some have claimed that jiziyah is fundamentally a non-Arabic word. They say that it is originally Persian, that it is the Arabicized form of the Persian word “gaziyeh,” the name of a head-tax which was first introduced by the Persian king, Anoushiravan, and that when this word reached the Arabs, the “gaf” (“G”) was changed into a “jim” (“J”) in accordance with the normal rule. So, the Arabs, instead of saying “gaziyeh”, called it “jiziyah.”
Thus, jiziyah means a tax, and paying taxes is not the same as extorting protection money. The Muslims too must pay taxes and the only difference is between the actual types of taxes that the Muslims have to pay and those the People of the Book have to pay. There is no proof however, for this view, that the origin of the word is not Arabic.
Furthermore, we have no immediate interest in this word. Whatever the root of the word may be, what we must do is find out the nature of jiziyah from the laws that Islam has introduced for it, and by which it is defined practically.
To put it in a different way, we must look to see whether Islam considers jiziyah to be a reward or a punishment. If in return for the jiziyah, Islam makes certain undertakings, gives us certain services, then the payment of the jiziyah is its reward. If, however, it takes the jiziyah without giving anything in return, then it is a kind of protection money.
If there is a time when Islam tells us to take jiziyah from the People of the Book without giving anything in return, tells us just to take money from them or otherwise fight them, then it ought to be considered protection money. Taking protection money means taking the right to use force. It means that the strong tell those who are weaker to give a sum of money if they want to be left alone and if they do not want interference or their security be destroyed.
If, on the other hand, Islam says that it places an undertaking before the People of the Book and in return for that undertaking they are to pay jiziyah to Islam, then in this case, the meaning of jiziyah is as a reward, whether it is an Arabic word or a Persian word. What we must pay attention to is the nature of the law, not the nature of the word.
When we perceive the essence of this law, we notice that jiziyah is for that group of the People of the Book who live under the protection of the Islamic state, who are subject to the Islamic state. The Islamic state has certain duties towards its nation and likewise, the latter has its respective duties towards the Islamic state, and the first of these is to pay taxes to maintain the state budget.
These taxes include that which is taken as zakat and that which is taken as other than zakat in the form of various taxes that the Islamic government introduces in accordance to the best Islamic interests. All these must be paid by the people. In case they do not, then the Islamic government would automatically not be able to function. There is no governmental budget which is not fully or partly financed by the people. All governmental budgets are sustained directly or indirectly by taxes.
The second duty of the citizens is to provide soldiers and undertake sacrifices for the sake of the state. There may be future dangers when the citizens of the state must help in its defense. If the People of the Book are living under the protection of the Islamic state they are not bound to pay those Islamic taxes and are not bound to take part in jihad, even though any advantages resulting from the jihad will also benefit them.
Accordingly, when the Islamic government secures the safety of a people, whether they are their own people or not, and places them under its protection, it requires something in return. This may be financial or other than financial. Instead of zakat and the other taxes, and even instead of soldiers, the Islamc government requires jiziyah from the People of the Book.
In early Islam, it was such that whenever the People of the Book volunteered to come and fight in the ranks of the Muslims in the interests of the Islamic state and the Muslims, the latter didn't collect the jiziyah. Since they were not bound to provide soldiers, but had come forward and volunteered to fight, the money they were due to pay, the jiziyah, was theirs, and the Islamic state could not rightfully take it.
In the commentary on the Qur’an called “Tafsir al-Menar,” there are many accounts from various history books of how the early Muslims took jiziyah instead of soldiers, and how the People of the Book used to be told that since they were living under the protection of the Islamic state and of the Muslims, but sent no soldiers (the Muslims would themselves not accept them), then instead of sending soldiers, they had to pay the jiziyah. And if once in a while the Muslims in certain instances found confidence in them and accepted their soldiers, they no longer took jiziyah from them.
According to this, whether or not jiziyah is Arabic or Persian, whether it is from jaza or from gaziyah, this much is clear: from its legal meaning it is a reward to the Islamic government from its non-Muslim citizens from the People of the Book, in return for the services that it performs for them and in return for them not having to provide the state with soldiers and not having to pay taxes.
Now the first problem of how and why Islam stops its jihad for the sake of jiziyah becomes clear. The answer is provided by the question, “Why does Islam want jihad?” It does not want jihad for the sake of the imposition of belief. It wants jihad for the removal of barriers. When the other side tells us that it has no wish to fight us, and that it will not create a barrier to the call of tawhid, and keeps to its word, it is to be ruled in accordance with this verse:
«But if the enemy incline towards peace, do thou (also) incline towards peace» (8:61)
If they have been humbled, and manifest a mind and heart of peace and compromise, then we are not to be severe anymore.
We are not to say, “Oh no. We do not want peace, we are going to fight.” Now that they have come forward to live in peace and concord, we too must announce the same thing. Of course, now that they want to live with us under our protection, but do not have to pay any of the Islamic taxes, nor provide any soldiers, and neither do we have any confidence in their soldiers, then, in return for our services and protection, we take a simple tax from them called jiziyah.
Some Christian historians like Gustav Le Bon and George Zaydun have discussed this issue in detail. Will Durant in Vol. II of his series “The History of Civilization” has also discussed the Islamic jiziyah and tells us that the Islamic jiziyah was so trivial an amount that it was even less than the taxes the Muslims themselves paid and thus there was never any question of exaction.
stevecanuck
Well-Known Member
Whoa! Let me stop you right there. There is absolutely nothing in Islam to suggest that. Several verses refer to Mohamed as his messenger and nothing more. To manifest himself in a mortal is an entirely different level that is not even remotely hinted at.
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"not more then a Messenger" never was in context of his rank or specialness or his link to God or whether God and Messengers are linked, or that light of God is manifested through them, but always revealed, in that, he isn't going to bring Angels or bring miracles to the degree of day of judgment level (though he did show a lot of miracles), and that he is not going to force people to believe, it has to do with the limit that he is going to show miracles and explain things clearly, but up to God to guide them.
He can't decide to guide who he wishes, even though he is the leader and guide, whoever God misguides, has no guide.
InvestigateTruth
Well-Known Member
Well, I quoted Hadith and verses. I agree most Muslims do not believe that God manifested Himself in the Person of Muhammad. But, is Islam defined according to what Quran and Hadith says or it is defines as what the majority of Muslims define it?
If you say it is defined by majority of Muslims, then see this Hadith from Muhammad:
“The Jews split into seventy-one sects, one of which will be in Paradise and seventy in Hell. The Christians split into seventy-two sects, seventy-one of which will be in Hell and one in Paradise. I swear by the One Whose Hand is the soul of Muhammad, my nation will split into seventy-three sects, one of which will be in Paradise and seventy-two in Hell.” It was said: “O Messenger of Allah, who are they?” He said: “The main body.”
Sunan Ibn Majah 3992 - Tribulations - كتاب الفتن - Sunnah.com - Sayings and Teachings of Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سلم)
In this Hadith, it is said, 72 out of 73 sects of Islam are false and will enter Hell. Only one will be in Paradise, "the main body", is a translation of (الجماعة), is an allusion to those who will recognize the Mahdi.