Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Wil van Beek, Hazrat Inayat Khan: 

Master of Life, Modern Sufi Mystic (New York: Vantage 

Press, 1983); Inayat Khan, The Heart of Sufism: Essen-

tial Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan (Boston: Shambhala 

Publications, 1999); Franklin Lewis, Rumi Past and 

Present, East and West: The Life, Teaching and Poetry 

of Jalal-al-Din Rumi (Boston: Oneworld Publications, 

2000); Jane I. Smith, Islam in America (New York: 

Columbia University Press, 1999).

kharaj 

(Arabic)

The  kharaj was a tax levied by the Islamicate 

state, generally on the land, as opposed to a poll 

tax, or 

jizya

. It was once thought that the distinc-

tion between the land tax and poll tax was clear 

cut and absolute; however, numerous historical 

studies have shown conclusively that, throughout 

Islamic history, the terms kharaj and jizya were 

used interchangeably. As it is formulated in the 

K  430  

Khan, Inayat

---

Umayyad period (seventh to eighth centuries), 

however, it seems that the term kharaj was used 

to designate land conquered militarily rather than 

taken by treaty, and therefore to be permanently 

taxed at a rate higher than would apply to other 

lands. This would become especially important 

with increasing 

conversion

 to Islam, which might 

have threatened the fiscal stability of the state. 

Until the modern period a tax on the land was 

the most important source of revenue for most 

Islamicate governments.

During and after the first Arab-Islamic con-

quests in the seventh century, conquered lands 

were sometimes distributed to the Muslim con-

querors, and these lands were not subject to the 

kharaj but to the considerably lower taxation of 

zakat, technically alms, but collected as a tax 

from Muslim subjects. As the pace of conversion 

to Islam increased in the following centuries, it 

would have been financially ruinous to allow 

converts to pay the lower zakat rate rather than 

the higher rate originally paid by the conquered 

peoples. Therefore, it was likely in the third 

century of Islam, when Islamic law (the 

sharia

) 

itself was entering its maturity and, coinciden-

tally, conversion to Islam was increasing, that 

the jurists codified the definition of kharaj as a 

tax imposed on lands conquered militarily. In 

principle, such land would always be taxed at the 

higher rate, regardless of the religious disposition 

of its cultivator.

Nonetheless, the reality of taxation varied 

widely. Methods of computing the kharaj were 

inconsistent. The tax might be collected in pro-

duce or in money, and it often amounted to one-

third of the land’s income. Worse, perhaps, for 

the peasants was the leeway allowed, especially 

in times of weak central control, to the tax collec-

tors, who could impose fees of their own, which 

might exceed the kharaj itself. In cases where the 

kharaj was overly burdensome, peasants might 

flee the land. Because the tax was generally levied 

on a collective body such as a village, however, it 

would not be easily reduced in case of disaster or 

of flight from the land. In effect, the only way to 

escape the tax was to leave the land, but this did 

not reduce the tax that the remaining cultivators 

had to pay. While the rulers could cancel the land 

tax in times of famine or during failed harvests, 

they did so at their discretion.

Kharaj per se is no longer collected in Mus-

lim countries, although farmers are still taxed 

by states. The end of kharaj is not very clearly 

demarcated in i

ran

 and i

ndia

. The British began 

to reform the tax system in the late 18th century 

in India, whereas kharaj in Iran continued to be 

collected into the 20th century. The Ottoman 

Empire abolished the kharaj and jizya in 1856 as 

part of the t

anzimat

 reforms by which citizenship 

began to replace the communal model of societal 

organization.

See also 

agricUltUre

; 

colonialism

; U

mayyad

c

aliphate

.

John Iskander