Muhammad's Failed Policies

মধ্যযুগের মুসলিম শাসকেরা কেন সবাইকে মুসলমান বানাননি? নবী মুহাম্মদের ভ্রান্ত, অমানবিক নীতি ছিল অবাস্তব, অদূরদর্শী

The thinking of Prophet Muhammad was very narrow, centered on a specific region whose people again had no permanent state structure, no connection with outside civilizations or empires. Beyond the settlements, food, economy, and sexual desires of the nomadic tribes of the hot, harsh, famine‑stricken Arabia, Prophet Muhammad could not think of anything universal. As a result, Islamic rulers themselves discarded many of his policies in the face of reality, and instead of spreading Islam by the sword as he envisioned, they focused on keeping non‑Muslims alive. A deep observation of the history of medieval Islamic empires shows that “economic and political pragmatism” was far more important to the rulers than the ideological or religious expansionist policies of Prophet Muhammad and Allah. To preserve revenue (jizya) and maintain the continuity of the slave economy, rulers often moved away from blanket conversion policies; this was not any beauty or generosity of Islam — it can be clearly proven with historical facts, data, and specific examples.

Umayyad Caliphate: Forced Imposition of Jizya on Converts

According to Islamic theoretical rules, if someone accepts Islam, the jizya tax is supposed to be waived. But during the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE), when non‑Muslims in conquered regions (Egypt, Persia, Mesopotamia) began converting to Islam in large numbers to evade taxes, the state fell into an unprecedented economic crisis. When this economic model — based on imposing jizya on non‑Muslims instead of a productive economy — began to fail, the officials of the caliphate themselves started to panic.

Hajjaj ibn Yusuf’s policy (Iraq and Persia):
The Umayyad governor of Iraq, Hajjaj ibn Yusuf (694–714 CE), saw that Persian farmers were abandoning their lands, moving to cities, and accepting Islam to escape jizya. This halted agricultural production and emptied the treasury. Hajjaj then blatantly disregarded Prophet Muhammad’s policy and ordered that new Muslims (mawali) must continue paying jizya and kharaj (land tax) as before, and they were forcibly sent back to their villages.

Egypt’s governor Hayyan ibn Shurayh:
In the early 8th century, so many people in Egypt converted to Islam that a massive revenue deficit emerged. Governor Hayyan wrote to Caliph Umar ibn Abd al‑Aziz complaining, “Because of conversions to Islam, jizya is decreasing; it is impossible to keep the treasury functioning.” (Source: The History of the Coptic Patriarchs).

According to modern historians such as Dr. Khatib al‑Baghdadi and others, in the Umayyad era, although nearly 70% to 80% of people in Persia and North Africa wanted to convert to Islam in the early centuries due to tax pressure or social reasons, many of them were not legally granted the economic privileges of full Muslims because the state prioritized protecting its treasury.

Delhi Sultanate: Ziauddin Barani and the “Jahandari” Policy

During the Delhi Sultanate, the theoretical ulama (religious scholars) constantly pressured the sultans to convert all Hindus of India by the sword. But the sultans knew very well that doing so would collapse the economy.

The debate between Sultan Alauddin Khalji and Qazi Mughisuddin:
In Ziauddin Barani’s famous work Tarikh‑i‑Firozshahi, there is a historical dialogue. Qazi Mughisuddin urged Sultan Alauddin to harshly suppress Hindus according to Sharia. Alauddin replied directly that he did not run the state by religious theory, but by what was politically and economically beneficial. Khalji imposed heavy taxes (kharaj and jizya) on Hindus but made no attempt to convert them, because Hindu farmers were the main source of the Sultanate’s revenue.

Ziauddin Barani’s frustration (Fatawa‑i‑Jahandari):
Barani, the chief thinker of the Sultanate, was extremely hardline. In his book, he harshly criticized the sultans, writing that instead of destroying the kafirs (Hindus), the Muslim sultans of Delhi were allowing them to live in royal cities, taking taxes from them, and turning their protection into a source of income. This historical document itself proves that rulers abandoned religious policy in favor of economic policy.

Mughal Era: Pillars of Revenue and Aurangzeb’s Contradictions

The Mughal dynasty ruled India for nearly 350 years primarily through the pragmatic use of tax structures.

Akbar’s tax reforms:
Emperor Akbar abolished the jizya tax entirely in 1564. He realized that in a multi‑religious country, imposing this tax on the majority population would destroy political stability. He strengthened the general revenue system instead of jizya.

Aurangzeb’s re‑imposition of jizya in 1679 (data):
Although Aurangzeb is often seen as extremely hardline, modern historians (such as Harish Chandra and Satish Chandra) have shown that the primary reason for re‑imposing jizya in 1679 was the severe economic crisis caused by the Deccan wars.

Revenue data:
According to Mughal records (such as Mirat‑i‑Ahmadi), during Aurangzeb’s reign, jizya accounted for about 4% to 15% of total revenue (depending on region). In commercial cities like Ahmedabad, the huge income from jizya was spent directly on military expenses. If Aurangzeb had converted everyone to Islam, he would not have received this massive additional military fund.

Slave Trade and the Economic Necessity of “Continuous Supply”

According to Islamic law (Sharia), no free Muslim can be enslaved or sold in the slave market. The only legitimate way to obtain slaves was through war against non‑Muslims (ghanimah) or importing slaves from non‑Muslim regions.

Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni’s brutal slave trade:
The historian al‑Utbi (a contemporary of Mahmud) wrote in his Tarikh‑i‑Yamini that after the Peshawar campaign of 1001–1002 CE, about 500,000 (five hundred thousand) Indians were taken to Ghazni as slaves. The supply of slaves in Ghazni’s markets became so high that the price of a common laborer fell to just a few dirhams.

Conversion of slaves vs. economic value:
A large portion of these slaves were sold in Central Asian and Middle Eastern markets, earning Ghazni enormous foreign revenue. If this huge population had been forcibly converted to Islam in Sindh or Punjab, then according to Sharia, enslaving or selling them would have been illegal. As a result, the slave‑based commercial economy of the Ghazni empire would have collapsed completely.

Historical Conclusion

All these examples and data prove that the theoretical policy of military expansion through the sword in the early era of Prophet Muhammad became completely unrealistic and impossible for running vast and permanent medieval empires. The advantage of Islam is that its rulers can create different interpretations of Islam according to political needs. Islam is not so much a spiritual religion as it is a political cult, whose primary goal is to seize and maintain state power at any cost.

To run a permanent empire, one needs daily revenue of millions, the labor of hundreds of thousands of workers, and international trade. Muslim rulers quickly realized that the religious passion of “converting everyone to Islam” was far less profitable and practical than “sustaining the empire on the production and taxes of non‑Muslims.” And this economic interest triumphed over the policy of the sword.