Islamic taxes

Islamic taxes are taxes sanctioned by Islamic law.^[1] They are based on both "the legal status of taxable land" and on "the communal or religious status of the taxpayer".^[1]

Islamic taxes include

• zakat - one of the five pillars of Islam. Only imposed on Muslims, it is generally described as a 2.5% tax on savings to be donated to the Muslim poor and needy.^[1][2] It was a tax collected by the Islamic state.
• jizya - a per capita yearly tax historically levied by Islamic states on certain non-Muslim subjects—dhimmis—permanently residing in Muslim lands under Islamic law, the tax excluded the poor, women, children and the elderly.^[1][3][4][5] (see below)
• kharaj - a land tax initially imposed only on non-Muslims but soon after mandated for Muslims as well.^[1]
• ushr - a 10% tax on the harvests of irrigated land and 10% tax on harvest from rain-watered land and 5% on Land dependent on well water.^[2] The term has also been used for a 10% tax on merchandise imported from states that taxed the Muslims on their products.^[6] Caliph `Umar ibn Al-Khattāb was the first Muslim ruler to levy ushr.^{[citation needed]}

The taxes stipulated by Islamic law generally did not generate enough revenue even for the limited expenditures made by pre-modern governments, and rulers were forced to impose additional taxes, which were condemned by the ulema.^[7]

According to scholar Murat Çizakça, only zakat, jizya and kharaj are mentioned in the Buktasira.^{[8][clarification needed]}