A.H. 15.
was not merely to receive the capitulation of Jerusalem appears from the fact that he did not apparently make directly for that City, but went first to Al-Jābiya in the confines of Damascus. The purpose of his coming was to set the whole government of the country upon a sound basis, to revise the treaties and fix the taxes upon real and other estate, and the mutual relations of conquerors and conquered to each other.
Land tax.For the purposes of taxation the land was divided into two classes, ʿoshrīya, i.e. tithable, and kharājīya. By the former were indicated those countries in which the inhabitants had embraced Islām from the commencement, which had been cleared by the Muslims, and which had been conquered and redivided amongst them. The second included those of which the inhabitants had submitted under treaty. ʿOmar had from the first the intention of considering the whole of Syria as a conquered province, and of distributing it amongst the Muslims. On the advice, however, of Moʿādh ibn Jebel it was all made kharājīya, with the exception of a small quantity of which the owners had gone away and which was given by election to some Muslims, or which consisted of uncultivated land, without legal holder, which Muslims had taken up. The conquest had made the country a public domain, ager pudblicus, of which the occupant had only the usufruct (possessio), for which he paid annually to the State for every jarīb (a piece of land 60 cubits × 60, but varying in different countries) a certain quantity of fruit or a ground-rent in money (kharāj). The sale of such land alienated only the usufruct, since the domain (riḳāb al-ard) belongs to the State. Consequently the kharāj continues to be collected whether the owner turns Muslim or not.
Poll-tax.In addition to this tax on land (census soli) the new Muslims—in Syria, Christians, Jews, and Samaritans—had to pay a capitation tax (census capitis) or jizya. Learned Moḥammadans consider this tax as a ransom from death accorded to the "people of the book" (including in this term Magians as well as Christians and Jews), in opposition to idolaters, who have to choose between conversion and the sword. The jizya is not payable by women, children, or persons incapacitated, but only by men capable of bearing
