INTRODUCTION 

 

Bismillāhir Rahmānir Rahīm, As-salāmu ʿAlaykum wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuh. Peace be upon you brothers and sisters. 

 

Welcome back to the Muslim Converts Channel! Nothing is more contentious nowadays when it comes to Islam than what the Western media calls “Shariʿah law.” The Shariʿah literally means “the way” and is simply another word for Islamic law.  

 

The Shariʿah is God’s will upon mankind and their way to spiritual discipline and salvation in God. The Sharīʿah covers all aspects of life, from the day you were conceived in the womb up until after your death when you are buried.  

 

It is an all-encompassing system of organizing one’s life. As you’ve guessed it till now, the Sharīʿah isn’t just about punishments or asking women to cover themselves, those are only tiny parts of Islamic law.  

 

The Shariʿah also has to do with prayers, charity to the poor, taking care of orphans, marriage, helping the environment, dealing with the old and sick, and much much more.  

 

Just like the Shariʿah has something to say about Muslims, it has something to say about non-Muslims as well. It regulates the lives of Muslims who live under non-Muslim countries as well as non-Muslims who live in Muslim countries.  

 

In this lesson, we will be looking at two major issues of the law: 1) how the Shariʿah regulates the rights and obligations of Muslims living under non-Muslim governments and 2) what rights and obligations it frames for non-Muslims living under Islamic governments.  

 

BODY OF TEXT 

 

 In a hadith from the Prophet Muhammad (s) he is reported to have said: “Whenever you see a funeral procession, stand up till the procession goes ahead of you”.  

 

One day a funeral procession passed in front of him and he stood up. Some protested and complained that it was the coffin of a Jew, he said, "Is it not a living being (soul)?"  

 

The Messenger of Allah (s) also used to visit non-Muslims who were sick, including Christians and Jews.  

 

This historical background of how the Prophet Muhammad (s) related to non-Muslims is a key basis that informs much of the Shariʿah’s treatment of non-Muslims. We say this from the perspective of the Sharīʿah as understood by his Ahl al-Bayt (as) and not the violent and uneducated understanding of the Shariʿah by fringe groups that have taken up much of the media’s attention today. 

 

The Shariʿah and Non-Muslims 

 

The Qur’an is clear that no one can be forced to convert to Islam. Allah says: 

 

“Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things.”  (Chapter 2, verse 256). 

 

Non-Muslims, just like Muslims, who live peacefully, have inalienable rights under the Shariʿah. These means that non-Muslims have the right to work, live in safety, access to healthcare, right to property and inheritance and all the basic rights that Muslims have.  

 

Muslims have no right to be cruel or disrespectful to non-Muslim minorities living in their countries. The Messenger of Allah (s) once said: 

 

"Beware!  Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim minority (dhimmi), curtails their rights, burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will; I (Prophet Muhammad) will complain against the person on the Day of Judgment." 

 

In another hadith, the Prophet (s): 

 

“Whoever kills a person who has a truce with the Muslims will never smell the fragrance of Paradise.” 

 

Under the Shariʿah, Muslims are obliged to pay two taxes, namely the zakat and the khums taxes. If non-Muslims are living under an Islamic government, they are not obliged to pay these two taxes as they are specific to Muslims. By the way, a non-Muslim living under and Islamic government is called a dhimmi, meaning “protected person.”  

 

Here we are differentiating between a Muslim majority country and an Islamic government because not all Muslim majority countries have Islamic governments where the Sharīʿah is the official, real and supreme law of the land. 

 

However, a Muslim government may impose another tax on them called the jizyah tax. The jizyah tax is not applicable to the poor among the non-Muslims and is only applicable to the male head of the household.  

 

The jizyah tax predates Islam and can be rooted in Zoroastrian Persia before the coming of Islam. When Islam spread to Persia early in Islam, Muslims imposed a tax system that was already there. In fact, the word jizyah is not even an Arabic word, but taken from the old Persian word gazīd or gazīt meaning poll tax. 

 

When non-Muslims pay the jizyah tax, they are not obliged to come to the defense of the country that they are living in. In other words, they don’t need to join the army whereas Muslims must join the army if their land is attacked.  

 

Muslims living in non-Muslim Majority Countries 

 

The Shariʿah obliges Muslims to obey all rules when living under a non-Muslim government as long as the rules don’t explicitly and directly ask them to disobey God. For example, if a government were to ask a Muslim to stop praying, the Muslim would be under no obligation to follow it. In cases of extreme hostility, the Shariʿah may ask or request that the Muslim leave the country. 

 

As far as we know, this isn’t the case with most non-Muslim countries, especially those in the West. Muslims are therefore urged to obey all traffic rules, tax laws, and conduct themselves as peaceful and productive citizens of their country.  

 

Remember that the Shariʿah is much, much more than just political laws. If you look at manuals of Islamic law, you will notice that most of their pages are devoted to prayer, fasting, marriage, and all sorts of rules and regulations that you can practice anywhere in the world. So if you are living in the United States, there is nothing keeping you from living your life as a full Muslim all the while obeying the countries laws and living as an upstanding citizen.  

 

Until Next Time, Thank you for watching. As-salāmu ʿAlaykum wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuh