Ibn Taymiyyah On Public Revenue

Abstract

Ibn Taymiyyah (d.1327) is one of the most important Muslim reformers in the 13th century. Born in Harran, he received a traditional education at Damascus and became one of the great Islamic thinkers. Although a Hanbali jurist and theologian, his influence is not confined to any one school of Islamic thought. His expertise extended to fiqh, uṣūl al-fiqh, sufism, political thought and economics. It is therefore, useful to reflect on Ibn Taymiyyah’s achievements in economy. Ibn Taymiyyah expresses his position on public revenue in his work entitled al-Siyāsah al-Shar‘iyyah. He examines issues such as management of cash, regulation of weights, price control and public revenue. This paper will look at Ibn Taymiyyah’s account of public revenue. He says: “government revenues based on the Qur’an and Sunnah are of three types – ghanīmah, ṣadaqah and fai’.” As we will see, in classifying all sources of revenue, Ibn Taymiyyah has regarded all revenues collected by different sources and their expenditure, including all sources of income, other than ghanīmah and ṣadaqah, under the heading fai’. This paper hopes to fill the lacuna in the literature concerning ‘Property in Islamic Thought’. By interrogating crucial nodal points and perspectives into Ibn Taymiyyah’s scholarly point of view, it hopes to give primacy to other unexplored factors and processes that propelled Ibn Taymiyyah into the global arena. Reading Ibn Taymiyyah is intellectually satisfying, as he is such a challenging and genuine thinker. Whether people like him or not, Ibn Taymiyyah appears to be more relevant today than ever.