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thisislife2yesterday at 8:10 PM1 replyview on HN

I have no idea what country's legal system you referring to. My broad understanding is that most Islamic empires allowed the minorities to retain their own personal laws on some legal matters (marriage, divorce, inheritance etc) as Sharia laws were largely Islamic, for muslims. From today's modern perspective many things that was done by many former empires of the past would be problematic. Like I said, you will only get a warped view of history if you try to analyse it by applying modern principles. By and large, for their time, Islamic empires were largely egalitarian towards their citizens. (The Ottoman empire's secular history undermines sharia claims - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/oct/07... ). If you want to judge them by their worst examples, you can ofcourse "prove" the worst that you imagine of them.

> Imagine Utah taxing non-Mormons because they don’t tithe

Mormons don't pay their tithe to the government. In the Islamic empire, it was the government that collected the 'tithe' from the muslims after calculating their wealth. So you can imagine how disgruntled muslim citizens would have been, every year, when the tax collector only came to collect money from them and not from the non-muslims. It was this kind of social unrest that lead to the imposition of the Jizya on non-muslims.


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nickffyesterday at 8:19 PM

From the linked Wiki: “Restrictions included residency in segregated quarters, obligation to wear distinctive clothing, public subservience to Muslims, prohibitions against proselytizing and against marrying Muslim women, and limited access to the legal system (the testimony of a Jew did not count if contradicted by that of a Muslim). Dhimmi had to pay a special poll tax (the jizya), which exempted them from military service, and also from payment of the zakat alms tax required of Muslims.”

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