Income Sources of the Islamic Government and Their Distribution;Case Study: Plan of Cash Distribution of Subsidies

Using a comprehensive approach, this paper tries to shed light on all financing sources of an Islamic government. We examine the Islamic jurisprudential and historical texts and discuss the ownership and consumption of each one of the sources separately. In addition, this research tries to extract different implications which could have its influence on precision in ownership and consumption of public fund's (bayt-ul-maal) resources in the plan of cash distribution of subsidies and classification of the receivers.The results, achieved through an analytical-descriptive method, show that all sources of income of an Islamic government can be divided into two categories: Imam's Fund (bayt-ul-maal-e-Imam) and Muslim's Fund (bayt-ul-maal-e-Muslimeen). The first one belongs to the leader of the state as a ruler's property and it can be distributed as and how he deems beneficial. The second one belongs to all Muslims and all have an equal right to it.The implications of this division for the subsidy plan and the classification of receivers is that, most of the financial sources of this plan are obtained from sales of petrol and other petroleum products. These products like oil are extracted from oil wells which are minerals and, according to the opinion popular amongst Islamic jurists; they are graded as 'anfaal' and belong to Imam's Fund (bayt-ul-maal-e-Imam). Therefore, from a juristic-historic view,the plan to distribute cash subsidies is free of any objections. Similarly the classification of receivers is also acceptable and the government, as a representative of the Islamic state, is not obliged to pay equal subsidies to all.