Friday Special! Rights of non-Muslims in an Islamic state!

Folks!

Today’s post is in response to a long comment left by one of my readers yesterday. He has left me with some good questions about Islam and as a Muslim; I would try my best to answer them. I like the questions posed by my reader so much that today I made the decision to answer them as part of my weekly Friday Special segment.

Let us hear what my reader had said first. He said, quote:

“Dear Malay Women in Malaysia,

I subscribe to this blog because I once read a post in Yahoo beritamalaysia group that interested me. While we are in the same camp in our disenchantment with our current ruling Barisan, I am disturbed by the frequent mention of "Islamaphobia" whenever a non-Muslim discuss Islamic issues. There was a mention in one of your post, I can't remember which one. The one I can remember is my own post where I discussed the Islamic state issue. From what I know of the glorious past Islamic Spain which was a center of learning and knowledge in the midst of backward medivial Europe dark ages, I know from references that in such a state, not all citizens are equal. Muslim have the most rights. People of the Book (Christians, Jews) are dhimmis have less rights and have to pay tax to the Islamic authorities. I would like to know the status of people not of the book, and would appreciate if you can enlighten me.

If Malaysia really become an Islamic state like the Islamic Spain, Christian in Malaysia will have to pay 3 taxes - the normal Income tax, the tithes to the Church (which is not deductible from Income Tax) plus a tax to the Islamic authorities, while the Muslim only have to pay 2 taxes - zakat and Income Tax (which is reduced because the zakat is deductible from Income tax).

There are real issues like non-Muslim couples married under civil law where complications arise when one party convert to Islam and the other half does not. There is the issue of whether the Civil court or the Syariah court have jurisdiction over the divorce, custody of children, the religion of the underaged children, alimony, the distribution of property and inheritance. From what I know, non-Muslim cannot inherit estate of Muslim who have passed on to the next world. I made a post discussing this and got a comment - "Congratulations, you have Islamophobia"

So can you blame non-Muslim here who are concerned over recent developments.

I fully realise I am no expert on Islamic matters and will like to hear your response and correction where I am wrong.”

Boy! This is not going to be easy! :-)

But after my second look on the questions, Alhamdulillah… It would not be too difficult for me to answer them since the answers had been provided by some good Muslims long time ago in the internet. :-)

All right, first of all my reader had asked me about the rights of non-Muslims in an Islamic state. My reader also asked about taxes (the right term should be Jizyah) that non-Muslims have to pay to Islamic authorities. Believe me, I can go into great details about this but I would rather let IslamWeb Dot Net to do the explaining for me today. Feel free to read the following links that I have provided down below:

1. This should help non-Muslims understand Jizyah better.
2. This Fatwa should help non-Muslims understand that under Islamic rule, the Islamic authorities cannot simply impose taxes on their citizens.
3. This Fatwa meanwhile should help non-Muslims understand more about their rights as citizens of an Islamic state.

As you can see, a truly wealthy Islamic state could not simply impose taxes on their citizens. In the end, the whole thing would be fair for all Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Muslims would pay Zakah and non-Muslims on the other hand would pay Jizyah. Both communities would ultimately contribute fairly on equal terms to their Islamic nation. Beautiful, isn’t it? :-)

The next question that my reader had asked is a futile one. I’m afraid that there is no away around it for the time being here in Malaysia. Secular and Islamic laws can never coexist. Whenever those two clashes, confusion would seeps into the minds of Muslims and non-Muslims alike. That is why we have so many problems here. In all honesty, I could not really blame our non-Muslims here in Malaysia for being so concern about it. The non-Muslims are living under one law and the Muslims are living on another. How the hell can we see things eye to eye? :-(

This is what you get when a bunch of ignorant Muslims got together with some ‘mat salehs’ that happened to be our past colonial masters in the 1950s and they then made the decision to have a false Islamic state that is actually filled with secular filth in 1957!

It is a stupid formula that is destined to fail!

The only way to prevent this from happening ever again is to submit wholly to Islamic laws and jurisprudences (Shari’a) and thrash all those secular laws to Putrajaya’s giant thrash bins. :-)

By the way, it is not only the non-Muslims that cannot inherit things from Muslims; Muslims also cannot inherit anything from the non-Muslims. It goes both ways. By looking at it from one perspective, my reader unknowingly gave everyone an appalling description of Islam.

Usamah bin Zaid, may Allah be pleased with him, reported:
Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: A Muslim is not entitled to inherit from a non-Muslim, and a non-Muslim is not entitled to inherit from a Muslim.

Hadith number in Sahih Muslim [Arabic only]: 3027

Related Post:
Democracy sucks! We Muslims knew that long time ago!

Technorati Tags: islam, malaysian, malaysia, muslims