Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

I agree that humans can be greedy, etc. But that's why we have a judicial system. When you look at history, the Islamic scholars took their faith extremely seriously. Their accounts and biographies are not something you'd find in Western texts, but those exceptional people truly did exist. And because of them, we had things like the Islamic Golden Age.

The governments today have way more money on their hands don't they? Especially with the insane taxation rates we see. You allude to this point when you mention secular welfare systems. But history shows otherwise when Islam was applied.

> Umayyad had a variety of religions of persons overseen by their caliphate

Islam was the dominant religion, and the majority of the population were Muslims. The non-Muslims had to pay Jizya (limited to able men, i.e. not women, children, old men, or religious priests).

One of the categories of people who are eligible to receive Zakat, are those whose hearts are inclined toward Islam. Other than that, I don't think non-Muslims receive it. That being said, poor and needy non-Muslims are definitely eligible for charity (Sadaqah), and it is the responsibility of a functioning government to ensure that its population is well taken care of. Islam guarantees the rights of non-Muslims, and is very strict about it.

> I'd also be interested in seeing the citation that poverty didn't exist under this caliphate.

I didn't claim that no poverty existed in the entire Caliphate. As you know, the Caliphate spanned several regions and districts. I mentioned the Iraqi district, but I came across this question[1], which mentions that the mayors of the Libiyan and Tunisian regions wrote to Umar ibn AbdulAziz that they could not find a needy person to give them Zakat, so he responded to give it to the poor among the Jews and Christians. They replied that still no one took it, and they were no needy among them, so Umar replied to leave it in the market for anyone to take as they need. When still no one took it, Umar ordered to purchase slaves and free them.

I'll have to validate the authenticity of this specific account, but the notion that during Umar's rule, in certain districts there were no poor people left to accept Zakat is established.

> If I wanted to enforce Zakat via inflation, I would mandate people to hold their money in bank

Ah I see. It's prohibited in Islam to hold someone's money against their will, so there goes that :)

[1] https://islamqa.info/ar/answers/182393/%D8%AD%D9%83%D9%85-%D...

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/sohojt/mela...

Yes and I think the level of money and trust the government holds is a source of massive failure. I think those practicing Islam should be free to distribute their Zakat directly to poor or their select organizations that aid poor, rather than being forced to give it to a central authority. Otherwise one central authority has a monopoly on distribution of Zakat, which can lead to many inefficiencies and failures.

>One of the categories of people who are eligible to receive Zakat, are those whose hearts are inclined toward Islam. Other than that, I don't think non-Muslims receive it. That being said, poor and needy non-Muslims are definitely eligible for charity (Sadaqah), and it is the responsibility of a functioning government to ensure that its population is well taken care of. Islam guarantees the rights of non-Muslims, and is very strict about it.

Again I think it's wonderful that people are offered this kind of charity. I'm a little skeptical that the system under the caliphate could have prevented all poverty or that the poverty that remained wasn't solved by collecting Jizya from non-muslims and then distributing Zakat only to those whose hearts are inclined toward Islam. I admit I do not understand much of the history of Muslim Caliphates or nations, so I'm unable to really ascertain where islamqa.info gets its source from, but I doubt we have very good record of income distributions under this caliphate. But hey, I don't have any proof that there were poor, so maybe it's true.

I do thank you for digging up your source in this matter, and it is interesting to note some points on records of history.

> Ah I see. It's prohibited in Islam to hold someone's money against their will, so there goes that :)

A reasonable prohibition, one I extend to involuntary taxes and forced centrally collected charity.

Thank you for your viewpoint here, as it's one I rarely see living in the west.

Of course. I did not want to get into such complications. This was more of a Fermi estimate to compare the amount a Zakat would raise in the US.

> It's strictly superior to have a system based on Zakat than the insane income taxes that we have today.

Maybe - remember that the US government pays for more besides bare welfare for the needy. Also the Islamic Zakat pays for more than welfare - also administration of Zakat (reasonable, but should be kept as low as possible) and Islamic missionary efforts (I don't think the US should redirect its welfare to "spreading liberty and democracy").

Even in Islam, there were more taxes than Zakat[1] - at the very least, a tax on harvests (corporate income or business reciepts tax) and a land tax - because Islamic governments also have other responsibilities besides charity. It would stand to reason that the federal and state governments would also continue to collect other taxes to support other government responsibilities. Also remember that inflation (certainly that intentionally engineered by the central bank) is effectively a wealth tax.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_taxes