Local Power Holders

It was not only imperial armies who were responsible of large-scale destruction and day-to-day harassment. Local lords contributed in no small measure to the picture. Local power holders could be of two types: some of them had appointment deeds from a sultan or another overlord, some of them did not.

The difference for the local population sometimes was not decisive. Some local lords were oppressive, irrespective of whether they represented the sultan or not.

The term for these local representatives of the sultan was shihna (military governor) or, in certain regions, muqta‘ (holder of an iqta‘, that is, for the purposes of the present chapter, an allotment of the taxes of a given region). In the following passage, I draw mainly from hagiographic sources. In these sources, both shihna and muqta‘ appear as the most hated persons. Thus, for example, in Daylami's account of the life of Ibn Khafif (d. 981/2), a local governor is shown adjudicating a theft case and giving an obviously unjust sentence against the shaykh which, had it been implemented, would have meant that Ibn Khafif would have had his right hand cut off.In another story, the shihna is an executioner, ready to give a man a disproportionate flogging of 1,000 lashes.^{^[123]}

In hagiographic writings on shaykhs from Khurasan, the picture is very much the same: the local shihna violently takes money from people; he steels a sheep from a butcher; it is clear to everyone that whatever a shihna owns has been acquired by illegal means. A muqta‘ is mentioned only once in the hagiographic literature. He also was a local representative of the sultan's power. Very much like the men presented as shihna, he oppressed the people: in this case, we have a story about timber needed for some building which the muqta‘ wanted to have and which his henchmen took from the mosque which the hero of the hagiography was preparing to have erected.

All these people without doubt were representatives of sultanic power - and therefore it was possible, at least in principle, to seek redress against their misbehaviour. This was evidently not the case with local lords who were lords in their own right. Such men come to the fore in the sources in many cases when the imperial order collapses, but they must have been there all along.

Among the lords who ruled in their own right, some were seen as usurpers if not adventurers. One early example is a lord in Qumis (west of Khurasan), around the year 1000. He came from an old family and thus was not an upstart, but he was an oppressor all the same. He attacked caravans, in particular the Hajj caravans which had to pass through his domain. It is difficult to decide whether this man should be seen as a robber who has taken control of a castle, or a castle lord who has chosen robbery as a way of making a living and feeding his retainers. Another such man had a castle in the region of Balkh, and from that stronghold he attacked caravans and plundered villages. The sultan - Mas‘ud the Ghaznavid (1030-40) - acted according to his duties as sultan and eliminated this figure.^{^[124]}

On the other hand, there is the example of the Kurdish lord Hasanwayh (961-79). His rule was based on a number of fortresses in the southern Zagros mountains. His people are reported to have robbed caravans, stolen cattle and seized crops in the surrounding villages. Hasanwayh himself plundered the regions around him, extorted protection money and imposed all kinds of dues, which he had invented. His nominal overlord, Rukn al-Dawla, the Buyid ruler (947-77), tolerated this conduct, apparently anxious not to lose Hasanwayh's support. When told of the mischief Hasanwayh and his men had done, he used to say: ‘The Kurds also need to eat.'^{^[125]}

It was the breakdown of sultanic regimes, however, that caused regional lords to fight for precedence and, in some cases, vie for succession.

Such situations occurred regularly, not only towards the end of a dynasty, but also during disputed successions. The fifteenth century, the period of Timurid rule in Khurasan, when the province was remarkably stable and prosperous, offers some good examples for the periods between the established rules of two consecutive dynasts. Thus, when Shahrukh b. Timur had died in 1447, stability was not reached again until several years later, in 1450-1. During these years, nearly a dozen princes vied for the throne at Herat.^{^[126]} Some years later, in 1457, a contemporary author described the situation after the death of Abu ‘l-Qasim Babur: three tax administrations and three armies all took in the annual taxes, which led to utter destruction.^{^[127]}

A graphic description of what might happen if sultanic order broke down altogether, as happened in the last years of Seljuqid rule in western Iran, can be found in Jurfadhaqani. This author describes how the continuous demands of various armies ruined the old families and the rich landowners, so that estates that had been worth 10,000 gold dinars or more were given away and no one dared take them. His home town, Jurbadaqan, was hit by two extra evils: it was situated between two capitals - the town is on the road linking Isfahan to Hamadan - and close to a number of fortresses. From each of these and from the regional capitals, taxes were levied.⁴⁴ Local lordship, therefore, could be violent lordship, arbitrary and mindless, irrespective of whether the lords were representatives of sultanic power or not.

<< | >>

↑

Source: Gordon Matthew, Kaeuper Richard, Zurndorfer Harriet (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Violence. Volume 2: AD 500-AD 1500. Cambridge University Press,2020. — 696 p.. 2020

Local Power Holders

More on the topic Local Power Holders: