Boyle J.A. The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE

SALJUQ

EMPIRE

230

joined Tekish in his rebellion.

Nizam

al-Mulk complains of an attempt

made by one of Malik-Shah's entourage, probably towards the end of

his reign, to induce him to

economize

on military expenditure and cut

down the

size

of his army. He points out that the strength of the empire

lay

in proportion to the strength of the sultan's army, and that if men

were

dismissed

they would be a potential centre of disorder and

rebellion.

Generally speaking, it would

seem

that in the later period

the standing army decreased and numbered only

10-15,000. Against

this the number of troops mustered by the amirs tended to increase.

The army was accompanied by a military bazaar and a host of camp

followers.

Berk-Yaruq,

when he came to Isfahan in Jumada I 495/1102,

was reported to have

been

accompanied by

15,000

horses and

100,000

camp followers. The army did not always move with its followers,

however.

When Alp-Arslan marched against the Byzantines and

defeated them at Mantzikert in

463/1071, for example, he sent his

baggage

and women to Tabriz.

The provisioning of the army as it moved through the country was

matter of no small difficulty.

Nizam

al-Mulk recommended that

fodder

and stores should be kept at different places in the country

through which the

ruler

was likely to pass with his army. Land was to

be acquired in the neighbourhood, and its produce, when not required

the army, was to be

sold

and the proceeds remitted to the treasury.

Under Malik-Shah this plan was followed to

some

extent; later it

probably

fell into disuse. Whereas Malik-Shah

does

not appear to have

suffered

any major obstacle to the provisioning of his army, the later

sultans encountered difficulties.

The pay of the standing army and of the amirs who provided

contingents for the

royal

army was controlled by the Military Inspec-

tion Office, the

divdn-i

ard

(also called the

diwdn

al-jaish)^ which was a

department

of the central divan (see below). They were paid

partly

cash

and

partly

by drafts on the revenue

and by iqta's.

Nizam

al-Mulk

urged that the wages of the soldiers who did not have iqta's should be

held liquid, that they should be paid at the right time, and if possible

the sultan in person. In practice their pay was often in

arrears,

though

Siydsdt-Ndma

p. 144.

Bundari states that Nizam

al-Mulk

would allot to

soldier

{jundT)

1,000 dinars annually,

half of which would be on a town in Asia Minor (Rum) and half on a place in the most

distant part of

Khurasan;

and that the total would be paid immediately without any charge

(p.

55). Cf.

also

Akbbdr

al-daulat

al-Saljuqiyya

p. 68. Houtsma thinks, probably rightly,

that i ,000 dinars is a scribe's error for 100 dinars.

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE

SALJUQ

EMPIRE

231

part

of it was commonly given to them at the outset of a campaign.

After

the death of Malik-Shah difficulties in financing the army became

frequent; and insubordination in the army was especially notice-

able from this time onwards. This stringency was due

partly

to the

fact

that there was a decrease in the directly administered

area,

and

hence a decrease in the revenue

coming

into the treasury; and

partly

to the fact that civil war had brought about a general decline in

prosperity.

In addition to their regular pay the soldiers received ad hoc

payments

such

accession

gratuities and presents on special occasions,

as well as a share of the booty taken in battle.

Bundari's

well-known statement that

Nizam

al-Mulk introduced the

practice

of granting iqta's to the soldiery is manifestly untrue. Such

grants

were already common practice under the Buyids.

What

Nizam

al-Mulk

probably did was to regularize the practice and in

some

measure

to unify the "military" and the "administrative" iqta'. Both existed

under

the Buyids, but the "administrative" iqta

was the exception

then, whereas under the Saljuqs it became the dominant type of iqta'

and the most important institution of their empire. In order to appre-

ciate its nature and the way it developed, the earlier history of the iqta

must be briefly considered.

The iqta

emerged in the fourth/tenth century against a background

of change in the economic and social environment (though not in the

purpose of government) of the 'Abbasid caliphate. As it evolved, in

response to the state's dominant need to finance its operations and to

pay

its civil and military officers, the iqta'

seized

upon and transformed

two institutions: the amirate or provincial government on the one hand;

and,

on the other, the tax

farm,

whether the daman or the

qabala

which

was an undertaking to pay the tax quota of a community,

assessed

at a

fixed sum and paid according to the lunar

year.

The provincial govern-

ment had its vicissitudes. Eventually the difficulty of finding money to

pay

the officials of the bureaucracy and the army led to a breakdown of

the administrative system and a wholesale extension of the farming of

the taxes. Already by the death of the Caliph al-Ma'mun in

218/833

the

balance between the civil and military arms of the administration had

been upset, and the money received from the farming of taxes

soon

ceased

to be sufficient to pay the army leaders and their troops. As the

revenue

came in with increasing

irregularity,

the practice grew of

assigning

the taxes, not to the tax-farmers, but to the military them-

selves.

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE OF THE SALJUQ EMPIRE

232

Once

a military leader was

assigned

the right to collect the taxes of a

large

area, it became relatively easy for him to establish his

semi-

independence. Moreover, when the taxes still failed to

come

in regu-

larly,

rights over the land itself were then

assigned

to him: in other

words,

the tax-farm swallowed up the land-revenue

system

and in turn

became assimilated to the provincial government.

These

grants to

the military were known as iqta'. The militarization of the state was

marked not only in Iraq and the neighbourhood under the Buyids, but

also in the east under the Samanids and more especially under the

Ghaznavids. The growing tendency of the military to be

occupied,

not

only with the

arts

of war, but also with administration, obscured to

some

extent the true nature of the iqta' system, the origins of which

were

bureaucratic and not feudal.

In still earlier times hereditary grants of

mbr land were called iqta

whereas non-hereditary grants made from land other than kharaj land

were

called ttfma.

Land that paid a fixed sum to the treasury and was

immune from the entry of the tax-collector was called tghdr; and an

annual but renewable tax-free grant was called tasvij. Both were made

kharaj

land. The iqta's granted to the military under the Buyids were

probably

made mainly on

kharaj

land and not 'ushr land, though by that

time the distinction between

these

two types had

become

somewhat

blurred.

They were thus an

extension

of the ighar and tasvij

rather

than

the original iqta'. In fact, jurists

such

as Mawardi distinguish between

the new and the old iqta' (which were properly grants of 'ushr land),

calling the latter iqfd* al-tamlik and the former iqtd

al-istighldl.

The

difference between them was that the iqta

al-tamlik was a grant of

ownership, its purpose the

extension

of cultivation, whereas the iqta'

al-istighlal was a grant of the usufruct, and its purpose was remuneration

for

services.

Under the Buyids the men to whom the new type of iqta

, the

military

iqta', was granted did not normally live in the area granted to

them, but merely sent their agents to collect their revenues. In theory

these

iqta's were not hereditary but were subject to periodic redistri-

bution. The holder had to perform military service and was theoretically

subject to detailed regulations and inspection. The amirs who held

these

iqta's had no responsibility for the payment of the soldiery, who

'Ushr

land

was

land

which

paid

land

tax at the

rate

one-tenth

of the

produce;

kharaj

land

paid

at a

higher

rate.

The

classification

lands

on the

basis

these

two

rates

was an

intricate

problem;

see F. Lokkegaard, Islamic Taxation in the

Classic Period

(Copen-

hagen,

1950),

pp. 72 ff.

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE

SALJUQ

EMPIRE

233

received iqta's or pay from the state. A provincial governor distributed

the area under his jurisdiction as iqta's, but he did this as an official of

the state and not because the area formed

part

of his private domain.

Legally the

possession

of an iqta' did not give the

muqta'

(the holder or

grantee) any juridical rights over the inhabitants, but in practice there

were

widespread usurpations by the military under the Buyids. More-

over,

the tendency for the functions of the provincial governor, the

provincial

military commander, the tax-collector, the tax-farmer, and

the muqta' to be combined in one person led to the emergence of large

properties

virtually independent of the central government. The ten-

dency for the

facto

powers of the muqta' to increase was also streng-

thened by the fact that governors frequently received

some

areas in

their

provinces by way of iqta's; in

such

cases

they combined in these

districts their

economic

power as muqta' with their functions as

governor,

and tended to exercise the powers of both throughout the

province.

There were also

cases

under the Buyids where a muqta' was

given, in addition to his functions as muqta', the administrative duties

and obligations of a provincial governor; but this type of iqta' was

the exception in Buyid times, and did not

become

widespread until the

Saljuq

period.

The "military" iqta' under the Buyids was controlled by the military

divan,

the diwdn

al-jaish,

at whose head was the

'arid

or muster-

master. Thus the military divan was concerned not only, or even

primarily,

with military administration, but

rather

with the fiscal value

(

ibra)

and characteristics of each iqta', and with the re-allocation of

iqta's as they fell vacant.

This intimate connexion between the

assess-

ment of taxes and the levy of troops continued in the Saljuq period;

but as the "military" iqta' became assimilated to the "adminis-

trative"

iqta', the careful estimate of the exact fiscal value of each tended

to be replaced by an approximate value; eventually the iqta' came to be

defined not by fiscal value but by service; and then, through usurpation,

became an hereditary domain over which the muqta' had govern-

mental prerogatives.

Throughout the Saljuq empire there was considerable variety of

practice as well as of terminology, and the term

iqta'

used

in the

Cf. C. Cahen,

L'Evolution

de Piqta' du ix

au xiii

siecle

Annates

E.S.C.

(1953),

pp.

35-6.

See further my article, "Reflexions on the

iqta*"

Arabic

and

Islamic studies

honor

Hamilton

A. R.

Gibb,

ed. George Makdisi (Leiden, 1965), pp. 358-76.

Cf. C. Cahen, pp. 36-7.

Cf. C. Cahen, p. 43.

INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE SALJUQ EMPIRE

234

sources to cover a number of different types of grants. Thus it was used

to mean (i) a grant on the revenue, or a grant of land for (a) military

service

and (b) in lieu of salary; (2) the grant

a district, and jurisdiction

over

it, to Saljuq maliks, amirs, and others, which was virtually a grant

provincial government; (3) a tax farm (though this is more often

referred to as daman); and (4) the grant

(a) a personal estate and (b) an

allowance

or pension. Iqta's to the sultan's

wives

and other Saljuq

women,

to the caliph, and to members of the religious classes

fall

into

the last category. It must not be assumed, however,

that

all iqta's

fall

neatly into one or other of these categories, or

that

all iqta's belonging

to the same category necessarily conformed to the same pattern. There

was

no doubt a general tendency to

accepted precedent, which

resulted in a general similarity of usage, but this does not exclude the

possibility

of a variety of special provisions according to circumstances.

Nizam

al-Mulk, discussing the relations of the muqta's to the

population, states:

Let

those who hold tqfd's, know

that

they have no authority over the peasants

beyond

this,

that

they should take the due amount which has been assigned

to them from the peasants in a good way, and

that

when they have done so

the peasants shall be secure in their persons, and their money,

wives,

children, goods, and farms shall be secure and the muqta's have no claim

over

them... Let the muqta's know

that

the country and the subjects

(ra'iyyat)

all belong to the sultan. The muqta's, who are set over them, and

the governors {ydlidn) are Hke

sbahtias

in relation to the subjects, as the king

to others [i.e. those subjects not on assigned lands].

Though

it would seem from the above

that

Nizam al-Mulk has pri-

marily in mind the "military" iqta

, his coupling of the muqta' with

the

vali

suggests

that

he was discussing something rather different from

the "military" iqta

of the

Buyid

period. In another passage he states

that

if attention were ever drawn to the ruin and dispersal of the

inhabitants

any district, the matter should at once be investigated and

the condition of the muqta' and 'dmil inquired into, in order to prevent

the land becoming waste, the peasants dispersing, and money being

levied

unjustly.

This suggests

that

the idea of increasing cultivation

had to some extent been carried over from the old iqta' al-tamlik to the

new

type of iqta' which was developing under the Saljuqs; and, further,

that

the "military" and the "administrative" iqta' were becoming

assimilated to each other. This is borne out by Bundari's statement

Siyasat-Nama, p. 28.

Ibid. p. 119.

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE

SALJUQ

EMPIRE

that

Nizam al-Mulk, seeing the disorder of the country and the

irregularity of the payment of taxes, assigned the country to the

soldiers (ajndd), handing over to them its produce so

that

they had an

interest in its prosperity.

It is

thus

difficult in Saljuq times to make a

clear

distinction between the "military" and the "administrative"

iqta'. All grants were entirely a

matter

of grace, and revocable at

will

the sultan.

Grants of "administrative" iqta's to Saljuq maliks do not differ

materially from similar grants to the great amirs, though in the former

it is possible to see the influence of the custom of the steppe, according

to which the ruling khan did not exercise power, to the exclusion of

the other members of his family but

rather

as the head of a council of

elders. The Saljuq malik normally resided in the area assigned to him.

These

grants were not intended to be permanent, but a tendency arose

for

different branches of the family to regard certain districts as their

own

iqta

. In the case of the Saljuqs of Kirman, Rum, and Syria, this

led

to the establishment of

three

independent kingdoms.

When he appointed Malik-Shah as his vali 'ahd in 458/1066, Alp-

Arslan

gave iqta's to various members of his family: Inanch

Yabghu

received

Mazandaran; Sulaiman b. Da'ud received Balkh, his sons

Arslan-Arghu

and Arslan-Shah were given Khwarazm and Marv

respectively;

Alp-Arslan's brother Ilyas received Chaghaniyan and

kharistan; Mas'ud b. Er-Tash had Baghshur, and Maudud b. Er-Tash

had Isfizar. On his deathbed Alp-Arslan made further assignments. He

bestowed upon his son

Ayaz

what had formerly belonged to Da'ud in

Balkh,

and he also earmarked for him

500,000

dinars; but the fortresses

in those districts he assigned to Malik-

Shah, and he gave Fars and

Kirman to Qavurt b. Da'ud, allocating to him also a sum of money.

These

and similar grants made by later sultans are referred to in the

sources as iqta's. They were in all cases simply delegations of authority

and did not contain any implication of vassalage or permanent rights,

though these were sometimes usurped. The duties delegated were the

normal duties of a Muslim ruler, including the patronage of religion

and of the religious classes, preservation of public order, holding or

supervising the mazalim court, collecting taxes, and paying salaries and

allowances.

In some cases the duty of consultation was also enjoined

upon the malik. This derived from two sources: the custom of the

steppe and the Quranic principle of "Consult them in affairs". The

P. 55.

235

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE

SALJUQ

EMPIRE

236

terms

of the grant varied. In most cases complete financial control was

given

to the malik, in the sense

that

all revenue was collected by him.

He was usually instructed not to increase taxation, and was in any case

limited in this by local custom and Islamic theory. The degree to which

he could sub-assign the area

under

him varied.

San

jar, reinstating

Mahmud b. Muhammad after his rebellion in

513/1119,

appears to have

acted exceptionally when he retained Ray as a precaution in case

Mahmud should rebel again.

During the reign of Mas'ud b. Muham-

mad, Ray was also excluded from the area he ruled, and was assigned

Sanjar to al-Muqarrab

Jauhar.

It was subsequently held by the latter's

mamluk

'Abbas,

whom Mas'ud killed in

541/1146-7.

Similarly,

the assignments made to the great amirs, which were also

delegations of some or all the ruler's normal duties within the area

assigned,

are usually referred to in the sources as iqta's when they are

in the western

provinces,

and their holders are called muqta's. Occasion-

ally

the term vdli is used, apparently as a synonym for muqta'. In

Khurasan, Gurgan, and in the neighbouring districts, these grants

during Sanjar's reign were known by the traditional

terms

for a

provincial

government,

vtlaya,

'amal^

riydsa, and niydba, and the term

iqta' appears to have been used in a more specific sense, corresponding

rather

to the "military" iqta'. Each iqta' was supposed to bring in a

definite sum of money, in

return

for which the holder furnished the

ruler with a specified number of troops; and a register of the iqta's

and of the number of troops the muqta's were supposed to furnish was

kept in the divan. Thus the diploma issued by Sanjar's divan to

Adud

al-Dln for the

office

of governor of Gurgan required him to

look

carefully into the iqta's according to their original descriptions,

and to recover for the divan anything

that

had been fraudulently

incorporated into someone's iqta' without his or the sultan's permission.

Any

grant

that

had fallen into disuse was not to be conferred on a new

holder without the sultan's order.

In the early period of Saljuq expansion much of the country was

administered by the former local ruling families who acted first as

Saljuq

tributaries, and finally, so far as they retained

part

or the whole

their possessions, as Saljuq governors or muqta's. These governor-

Ibn al-Athir, al-Kdmil fi'l-tarlkh, ed. C J. Tornbefg (Leiden,

1851-76),

vol. x,

pp. 388-9. Hamd

Allah

Mustaufi in the

Tdrlkh-i

Gu^Jda

states

that

Sanjar kept something

in the possession

his divan in every district (ed. E. G. Browne, Gibb Memorial Series,

London,

1910),

vol. xiv, p. 458).

'Atabat

al-kataba.

p. 31.

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE

SALJUQ

EMPIRE

237

ships,

like the grants to the amirs, are also called in the sources iqta's,

and the conditions under which they were granted were virtually the

same as for the amirs.

From the death of Malik-Shah, an increasing

amount of the country was alienated from the central government as

"administrative" iqta's granted to the amirs, until finally the area

directly

administered by the sultan became almost negligible. These

grants also derived from the absolute sovereignty of the sultan and

were

entirely arbitrary, subject to re-grant at irregular intervals and

to revocation without cause. The holder owed the obligation of

obedience

and service to the sultan. He

was

required to furnish the sultan

with

troops, and also with money when called upon to do so. In the

event

of his making fresh conquests, he was probably expected to

remit something in cash or kind to the sultan. There was no obligation

protection or maintenance on the

part

of the sultan, nor was there a

contract involving mutual fealty.

The

extent to which the muqta' exercised financial control varied.

Nizam

al-Mulk's exposition in the Siydsat-Ndma

gives

the impression

that

it was limited; and Bundari's statement, concerning Nizam al-

Mulk's

alleged practice of assigning the pay of the military on different

districts (p. 55) suggests

that

either considerable areas of the empire

were

that

time directly administered, or

that

the central government

retained control over all or some of the provincial taxes. Usually,

however,

despite the statement of Nizam al-Mulk, the muqta' prob-

ably

exercised complete financial control over an " administrative"

iqta'. Moreover, within his iqta

he was able to make sub-assignments to

his own

followers;

and their relation to him was similar to

that

existing

between

him and the sultan. Amirs who attained to a status of semi-

independence as local rulers freely assigned the area under their

control. There were also muqta's who farmed out the taxes of some of

the territory assigned to them. They usually had freedom of choice in

the appointment of administrative officials in their assignments. If the

muqta' held an extensive area, of necessity he appointed deputies and

subordinate officials to act for him; and the fact

that

the muqta' was

often

absent from his iqta' on military campaigns with the sultan, or on

the sultan's behalf, also sometimes made it necessary for him to appoint

a deputy to act for him.

means were devised by the central government to maintain

The iqta's granted as personal estates to members of former local ruling families fall

into a different category.

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE

SALJUQ

EMPIRE

control over the "administrative" iqta' or to prevent a muqta"s in-

justice or rebellion except the

threat

of superior forces. In theory the

oppressed could seek redress from the sultan, but in practice the latter

was

accessible only if he happened to be passing through the area or its

neighbourhood. Ibn al-Athir relates a case of two men from

Lower

Iraq

demanding redress from Malik-Shah in 485/1092 against their

muqta' Khumar-Tegin, the shahna of Baghdad, who, they alleged, had

extorted 1,600 dinars from them. Malik-

Shah dismissed Khumar-

Tegin

from his iqta', returned the money to the plaintiffs, and

gave

them both an additional 100 dinars.

Nizam al-Mulk states

that

the

muqta' should be forbidden from preventing his subjects coming to

court to demand redress, and he should be punished and his iqta'

cancelled

if he does so.

Acts

of usurpation were common; and as the power of the amirs

increased, the grant of an "administrative" iqta' tended to become

merely

the recognition of an amir's possession of a district. Further,

the sultan would sometimes play off one amir against another by

assigning

the same district to them simultaneously; and frequently an

amir had to take possession of his iqta' by force. In theory the grant of

an "administrative" iqta' was not hereditary; but as their power grew,

a hereditary tendency appeared, and several amirs transferred their

iqta's to their sons or dependants by inheritance or by disposing of

them by testament.

Certain

court

offices

had particular districts attached to them as

iqta's to provide for their upkeep, or else the iqta's were a special

charge on the revenue of a particular district. Thus the tasb-khdna (the

royal

pantry) in the time of Malik-Shah was a charge on the kharaj of

Khwarazm,

and the jdma-khdna (Royal Wardrobe) on the revenue of

Khuzistan.

Atsiz,

who was the tash-ddr of Malik-Shah, eventually

established virtual independence in Khwarazm and founded an inde-

pendent dynasty. Various

officials

were also paid by grants of land or

grants on the revenue, both also known as iqta's. A number of the

shahnas of Baghdad, for instance, held Takrit as an iqta'. Wasit and

Hulwan

at different times were also held as an iqta' by the shahnas

Baghdad. The

vizier

was paid in

part

by iqta's (see below, p. 261).

Ibn Balkhi states

that

in his time

(i.e.

during the reign of Muhammad b.

Malik-Shah),

Jahrum,

in Fars, was

part

of the allowances

(mavdjib)

the

vail

'ahd;

but this may have resembled the kind of iqta' granted as

Vol.

x, p. 144.

Siydsat-Ndma,

p. 28.

Fdrs-Ndma,

p. 131.

238

INTERNAL

STRUCTURE

OF THE

SALJUQ

EMPIRE

239

a pension or allowance

rather

than

the iqta' attached to a particular

office.

The

iqta' system did not in itself involve decentralization or even a

relaxation of the authority of the central government. Under a strong

ruler it contributed to the strength and cohesion of the state, but under

a weak ruler it led to political disintegration. When, after the death of

Malik-Shah,

the muqta's began to establish their semi-independence by

usurpation, the link between the sultan and his subjects became

increasingly tenuous. Thus by abuse the system contributed to the

political

disintegration

the empire, but not necessarily to its economic

decay,

since the individual muqta' was restrained, by self-interest if

nothing else, from reducing his iqta' to a state of ruin; indeed, he often

succeeded in transforming it into a virtually hereditary domain.

Also

abuse the system contributed to the growth of "private" armies,

and to the virtual subjection

the peasantry; but against this the muqta'

protected them from both the depredations of neighbours and the

extortions of government

officials.

After

the death of Malik-Shah it became increasingly common for

iqta's to be granted to maliks who were still

boys,

in which case the

land was administered by the malik's atabeg. The atabegate was an

institution belonging especially to the Saljuq period, though its origins

are possibly to be sought in the social organization and customs of the

Turkmen. The first well-attested grant of the title

atabeg

is the one to

Nizam

al-Mulk by Malik-Shah when he succeeded to the throne.

According

to the Akhbar al-daulat

al-Saljiiqiyya,

Alp-Arslan

also had an

atabeg during the lifetime of his father, in the person of Qutb al-Din

Kul-Sarigh

(

PQizil-Sarigh)

;

and Ibn

Khallikan

states

that

when Chaghri

Beg

Da'ud appointed Nizam al-Mulk to look after

Alp-Arslan,

he said

to the boy, " consider him as a parent and do not disobey his counsels ".

this was so, it would seem

that

the atabegate in its original form was

primarily a social institution, and

that

the later and more familiar form

was

an aberration due to the militarization of the state. All or most of

the later atabegs, with the exception of

Ali

b. Abi 'All al-Qummi, who

was

one

Berk-Yaruq's

atabegs, were amirs. Normally, too, the atabeg

was

married to the mother of the malik who was entrusted to his care.

The

atabegate as it developed under the Saljuqs had two aspects,

Ibn al-Athir, vol. x, p. 54. See also Cahen's article "Atabak", in

Encycl.

Islam,

new ed.

Pp. 28-9.

Vol.

413.