Through Force or Faith? — Page 15
Refutation of the Allegations Made Against Islam 15 Abdullah bin Rawahah ra , for the collection of the revenue. Due to the influence of his teachings, Abdullah bin Rawahah would use such consideration in the division of the harvest that he would divide up the harvest and then give the right to the Jews to choose the portion they liked first and he would take the portion that was left behind for himself. ( Ab u D a w u d, Kitābul-Buyū ‘, Chapter regarding al-Masaaqah) As I have said earlier, due to the precepts and the practices of the Holy Prophet s as , Hadrat Umar ra was extremely concerned about the rights and the comfort of the non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state. He used to urge his governors to take special care of Dhimm i s [non-Muslim wards] and also used to inquire directly if they had any complaints. Thus, on one occasion, when a delegation of Dhimm i s presented itself to Umar ra , the first ques- tion Umar ra asked of them was whether they had any hardship on account of the Muslims. They replied, ‘We have not seen any- thing but the goodness of sincerity and kind treatment from the Muslims’. ( T abar i , vol. 5, p. 2560) When Syria was conquered, Muslims collected tax from the Christian population of Syria. But shortly thereafter, the threat of war by the Roman empire rose again, due to which the Muslim emir of Syria, Abu Ubaidah ra , refunded the tax and said, ‘As we cannot guarantee your rights due to war, it is therefore not jus- tified that we keep this tax with us’. Seeing this, Christians could not help but pray for the Muslims and responded, ‘May God give you triumph over the Christians and may you become the rul- ers of this country again’. ( Ab ū Y ū suf, Kitābul-Kharāj, pp. 80–82, Fut ūh ul-Buld ā n, [Origins of the Islamic State] by Ibn J a bir al-Bal ā dhurī, p. 146)