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 iran and india. 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 tanzimat reforms by which citizenship
began to replace the communal model of societal
organization.
See also agricUltUre; colonialism; Umayyad
caliphate.John IskanderFurther reading: Fred Donner, “Review of Studies in the
Genesis and Early Development of the Caliphal Taxation
System,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 51 (January
1992): 63–65; Ann Lambton, Landlord and Peasant
in Persia (London: Oxford University Press, 1953);
Hossein Modarressi Tabatabai, Kharaj in Islamic Law
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1983); A. Ben Shemesh, Taxation in
Islam. 3 vols. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1958, 1965, 1969).Khawarij (Kharijites)
The Khawarij were the first sectarian movement
in Islamic history. They emerged in 657 c.e. at the
battle of Siffin, a site on the Euphrates between
syria and iraq, where the caliph ali ibn abi talib
(d. 661) was fighting to assert his authority over
the recalcitrant governor of Syria, Muawiya. After
Ali’s decision to arbitrate an end to the dispute, a
group of his previous supporters withdrew from
his ranks, taking as their watchword “Only God
can judge” (i.e., God, not man, decides human
affairs), and declaring their opposition to bothKhawarij 431 J