Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Daniel C. Dennett, Jr., Conversion and 

the Poll Tax in Early Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard 

University Press, 1950); S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean 

Society, Vol. 2. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 

1971); Jørgen Bæk Simonsen, Studies in the Genesis 

and Early Development of the Caliphal Taxation System

(Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1988).

John the Baptist

 

(early first century 

c

.

e

.)  for 

Muslims, an exemplary prophet who appears in the 

Quran and many subsequent Islamic sources

John the Baptist, the desert prophet who baptized 

J

esUs

 (see, for example, Matt. 3; Mark 1; Luke 

3), is known in Islamic tradition as Yahya ibn 

Zakariyya, meaning John the son of Zechariah.