I'm curious about revenue collection in the early Caliphate states. My understanding is that they largely maintained the existing Roman and Sassanian tax structures in their new regions, which gradually transformed into a land tax and the poll tax on adult non-Muslim men of military age, the jizya.
My question is, was the jizya a significant enough revenue stream to the state that officials would rather have the tax income from a non-Muslim than a new convert? Were there significant barriers to entry into the new religion? Especially in the early days of the Umayyads when a large proportion of the population were non-Muslim. It seems like a really interesting situation where faith and money are directly pitted against each other.
I'm happy to hear about this dynamic in any Islamic nation throughout history, but figured these specific locations would be most relevant as they would be the first and biggest nations to deal with this.
Hello,
An Ottoman History MA here. The question you raised is a valid one and one point in every Islamic civilizations history, argued and solved in one way or another. If you are specifically asking for Umayyad Caliphate, I believe an excerpt from, one of the greatest Islam Academics, Marshall G. S. Hodgson's Venture of Islam could be an answer to you. " They did not encourage, and even discouraged, conversions to Islam from the subject populations; but this was in conformity with the most common view of Islam among Muslims. Islam, among the several revealed religious allegiances, was the one that should guide those in command among men, and these should be the Arabs, to whom Islam was properly given. "^(1) Bear in mind that this excerpt is about Marwanid Umayyads, however it does change from time to time, place to place and even ruler to ruler. To demonstrate further another excerpt from post-Marwanid rule may be useful: " Though he disparaged jihad for plunder, 'Umar II was eager to persuade frontier princes to become Muslims, if necessary by the lures of interest. Sometimes because dhimmis assessed the taxes, and latterly because governors like al-Hajjaj had been unwilling to admit Muslim converts, especially of the lower class (whom he wanted to stay on the land as labourers to boost agriculture), many upper class dhimmis had continued to be free of poll tax while many less powerful Muslims continued to pay it. Umar II insisted that all dhimmis and no Muslims pay the poll tax (to which the term jizyah was eventually restricted)."^(2) Therefore my point would be that: All political entitities whether they are muslim or not, rationalize their movements according to their circumstances. If it is economically feasible for a ruler to not extract taxes in order to gain the favor of certain parties than a ruler would do that and if it is socially feasible for a ruler to not convert his non-muslim communities so that he can gain liquidity for his immediate needs than he would also do that. For your other questions, I would need to write a proper at least 60-70 pages of thesis to answer them all, so I highly recommend you to read Venture of Islam. There you can find answers to nearly all of your questions regarding to Islam, Islamic civilization, Islamic tax practices, etc.
1- Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization Vol.1 The Classical Age of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), pg. 226.
2- Ibid, pg. 269-270.