"The zakat" : alms and tax in the early Muslim tradition (7™-9™ c.)

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The vision of the theocratic state created by Muhammad, in which the spheres of sacrum and profanum constitute an inseparable whole may seem somewhat Utopian. Yet, one cannot deny the fact that in the first centuries of Islam, there were attempts to implement it. In the present article, we have tried to show how the acts of mercy, such as e.g. the giving of alms - zakat, recommended by the Koran, had gradually become an obligatory tax imposed by the Muslim state; the height of this tax had been precisely defined. It is also worth pointing out that in spite of the fact that zakat became a civic duty, it did not lose the character of a moral and religious obligation towards one’s coreligionists. On the example of the zakat alms or tax system, one can very well illustrate the phenomenon of a theocratic Muslim state. For, the legal order created by the Prophet and the first caliphs was a direct consequence of the religious injunctions. The fulfillment of all the legal norms by the Muslims had led them to the ultimate goal which was salvation. The idealistic assumption, that the mere awareness of a religious injunction, unaccompanied by this worldly penal sanction, may suffice to build an efficient fiscal system, did not stand the test of time as well as the challenges which the vast and in many cases extremely heterogeneous Muslim empire had to confront. It was Koran as well as the Hadith - that is collections of stories relating to the life of Muhammad and his disciples, making up the Sunnah, written down by Buchari, Muslim and Abu-David that formed the basis of the present analysis. Another source of the analysis was the oldest preserved legal treatise written by Abd al-Malik.