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!

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7 comments:

Unknown said...

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Peter @ Enviroman said...

Dear Malaysia Women in Malaysia,

Thank you for responding to my comment by a post and thank you for the links. Currently I have a few tasks I need to complete, and it is just impossible for me to do all the things I want to do and which is waiting for me to do. However, this issue the Islamic state being pushed down the throat of non-Muslim in Malaysia troubles me and I will put responding to this at a higher priority for I welcome opportunity to discuss the issue. I will save the URL of this post, come back and follow the links later. I don't know how long your offer to review this post will last, but if it is still there when I come back, I will likely respond to this post in my blog Guide to Malaysia, which was planned as a blog to help promote Malaysia, but because of developements that I consider crucial, I have started publishing posts which can be considered political and which you may or may not agree with.

In any case, I look forward to coming back to this post again sometime in the future.

Peter (Blog*Star)
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Peter @ Enviroman said...

Dear Malay Women in Malaysia,

I have responded to your post at Do non-Muslim have a say over the issue of Malaysia becoming an Islamic state?. I have linked to this post, and if it is possible, I will also appreciate a link back to that post as I welcome comments from you and your readers on this issue.

Peter a.k.a. enviroman
Enviroman Says
(floods in England, polar ice and ice caps at moutain peaks melting, I think more severe and frequent hurricanes in US, rain when it is supposed to be a dry season in my country, someone from Queensland recently contacted me if I noticed the weather changing. I replied when I was young I had to sleep under the blanket, but now I sleep topless. If I remembered, he said it is freezing in tropical Queensland and now he has to sleep under a blanket. Please folks, take good care of our one and only Spaceship Earth which have no lifeboat. It may not affect us severely now, but it has every chance of severely affecting our future generations. Then they will have lots to be "thankful to us)

Peter @ Enviroman said...

Hi Saidul,

Thanks for approving my comments. I have saved the URL of your posts where I made comments and was looking forward to reading your response. I was disappointed to see that you do not respond to comments.

I responded to this post at Should non-Muslims have a say about Malaysia becoming an Islamic State? (it was not a "pay for review" post) and was looking eagerly for your or your learned Muslim friends response, but was disappointed that there were none, neither in this blog nor in my blog. Anyway, at least there was no "Islamicphobia" comment as in one of my post in another blog.

Perhaps you have no time. But then, at least respond with a "sorry, I do not have the time" comment.

BTW I don't know if you would be willing to watch this Video on Al Jazeerah. It shows an Arab. Perhaps you may want to make a post to respond to what she said.

Peter (Blog*Star)
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SAS, second great-grandson of Kulup Lembang said...

Hello there Peter,

I have read your response to my post but I abstain myself from responding for I’m waiting for some other Muslims to do that first. Else, it would like as if both of us are at war or something. 

Yeah, I’m just as disappointed too, Peter. I guess Malaysians are not ready to discuss matters of religion openly. Let us wait and see what would happen in the next couple of weeks.

As for your very disturbing video that you had linked earlier, I’m totally disgusted with it. That Arabic lady (is her really Arabic?) was obviously pissed off by something but it would not be fair to attack Islam like that. She herself should go back and read our Noble Quran all over again.

Peter, like any other religion in the world, we too do have some bad Muslims. Such bad Muslims gave non-Muslims bad impression of Islam. One must not pass judgment on Islam simply based upon the actions of a few bad Muslims.

By the way, Peter. Let’s not start attacking each others’ religions. As any other good Muslims, I’m more than capable of defending my religion and faith from such attacks, InsyAllah. I truly welcome any good talks and discussions on comparative religion but initiating an attack on another’s religion is not my cup of tea. Such offensive approach would not solve any problems. Matters of religion must be discussed with an open heart and mind. We simply cannot let our emotions run amok. Else, we would end up being no better than the Jews themselves.

Let me round off my comment with the following famous Hadith:

'Abdullah bin Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him, reported:
Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: The best of my Ummah will be those of my century, then those who will come after them, then those who are next to them. Then people will come, whose witness will precede the oath and the oath will precede the witness.

Hadith number in Sahih Muslim [Arabic only]: 4599

Explanation for this Hadith can be found HERE.

SAS, second great-grandson of Kulup Lembang said...

Dear Peter,

In the end, I decided that it would be best for everyone if I fully respond to your linked video.

You can read my full response on it right HERE.

Manature said...

Hi Saidul,

Hope you don't censor this post as I don't consider it an insult or an attack on Islam. It is about the same thing you are discussing. I am hoping for your comments about whether some of the things mentioned in this post is right or wrong: Non-Muslims under Islamic state. It is important to us as it looks like whether we like it or not, Malaysia is heading in the direction of an Islamic state, and some of the things mentioned are disturbing if true.

Peter (Blog*Star)
Blogger Tips and Tricks

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