Throughout history, taxes have been charged on the funniest things. In 1660 England placed a tax on fireplaces, and in 1696 on the number of windows in one’s house – the latter only repealed in 1851. There have been taxes on soap, bricks, hats, wallpaper and candles. Russia’s King Peter even placed a tax on beards in 1705.
Indeed, taxation has always been a topic of debate in history and unpopular taxes have resulted in protests, riots and even revolutions. In 1882 Britain monopolised the sale of salt and charged tax on it, which led to the famous Salt March by Gandhi in British-occupied India.
In more recent history, Margaret Thatcher’s government dissolved over protests against her introduction of a poll tax. Her successor John Major repealed the tax in 1991.
Here in the 21st century, things are even worse today. There are taxes on almost everything, both direct and indirect, from VAT to income tax, transfer tax, excise duty, carbon tax, road tax, property tax – you name it. Oh, the audacity of those who claim they are living in a free world!
The argument for taxation is essentially about generating revenue for the expenditure of the state. In light of this, Islam gives mankind a comprehensive and specific system of taxation: in short, instead of taxing income (except in a few rare circumstances) Allah orders taxation on savings and wealth.
In Islam, if someone blocks the circulation of wealth in society by storing all his gold in banks, he gets taxed on that saving. This tax is one of the pillars of Islam and is called Zakah.
It’s a simple rule of economics that when wealth circulates in society, it creates business opportunities, trading and availability of services because your expenditure is someone’s income. Thus when savings are taxed, people are encouraged to spend more. A person may have a big income as well as a big family so needs to spend more, whereas another person may have a smaller income but greater savings – in most systems, the person with greater income is taxed more in spite of his greater needs.
The most important aspect of the clash between Islam and the west lies in an interesting aspect of generating revenue. This is understood from the translation of the saying of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who said: “Muslims are partners in three things: in water, pastures and fire.” This means that all our utilities and natural resources are to be considered public property in Islam. The Islamic state can only charge an administration fee in relation to these utilities to generate revenue, or sell resources like oil to other friendly nations, which brings in huge revenues.
At present, however, we find that multinational oil companies are reaping the benefits of this wealth in collaboration with the agent rulers of the Muslim world such as the House of Saud, and the now discarded Saddam and Gaddafi (and the present NTC). They are the ones benefiting from this wealth at the expense of the people of these lands.
It’s been alleged that the King of Saudi Arabia has $20bn in his private bank accounts. Other reports accused Gaddafi of investing billions of dollars of Libyan oil wealth in Europe and America. Most fascinatingly, the New York Times reported in November last that, according to a study, the biggest public companies in the US pay little if any federal tax. The same thing happens in all other countries under capitalism, including Ireland, where energy resources benefit companies instead of the people.
Now you must understand why we believe Islam is the enemy of these Muslim leaders and oligarchs who create different kinds of taxes to keep the fraud of the modern nation state running. Humanity is suffering today under the weight of these unjust bills and taxes. This is why Muhammad said “the tax man is in the fire of Hell.”
Qasim Afridi is a member of the think tank Glór Moslamach
glormoslamach@gmail.com
