Organizational Power II: Fiscal Administration

The earliest fiscal arrangements saw local Roman and Sasanian practice co-opted to pay the Arab-Muslim armies. Tax was coordinated from the new provincial capitals, overseen from Medina and, after 661, from Damascus.

The best evidence is from Egypt, where the arid climate has preserved local administrative papyri in large numbers. These indicate significantly continuity of Roman agrarian and fiscal administration at all but the most elite levels. Receipts for regular fiscal demands, and references to correspondence with senior figures in the new Arabian elite, reflect systematic taxation based on continuation of the Roman model. However, the presence of Greek terms of non-Egyptian origin implies oversight from the Syrian metropolis after 661; coordination with the imperial center even before then is indicated by the diversion of the annona (grain supply) to Medina (and then Damascus), and by the importance of Egyptian naval resources to Mediterranean campaigns.^[1037]

Nonetheless, the devolved administration continued to place great power over revenue in the provincial governors' hands. The majority of revenues were spent within the provinces rather than returned to the center, and the literary sources are full of stories about the governors' personal enrichment through fiscal abuses. Indeed, the torture of an outgoing governor by his replacement in order to extract embezzled revenue is a recurrent motif. In fact, the governor needed this revenue to maintain his position: as an outsider to provincial networks, financial patronage was the basis of his power. His biggest outlay was paying the provincial garrison, but “ashraf [tribal leaders], visitors, potential rebels, family, friends, poets, and other hangers-on” all also had to be paid. Only then could a fixed sum be returned to the imperial center.^[1038]

Despite the inefficiencies in the system, tax revenues returned to the metropolis sustained the caliphs and their armies from the seventh century into the ninth century.

The majority of this tax was collected in precious metal coins and redistributed in payments to the imperial army: the Syrians in Umayyad times, and then the Khurasanians, Transoxianans, and Turks in the Abbasid period.^[1039] (Although, like the provincial governors, the caliphs also had to support a wide array of other courtiers and clients, through both cash and gifts.) On precise numbers, the sources do not inspire great confidence. However, the annual income of the Abbasid treasury between 788 and 814 is consistently reported as being between 467,170,000 and 520,272,000 dirhams.^[1040] (For comparison, in ca. 670, 56,000,000 dirhams are said to have been spent within Iraq, from a total tax yield there of 60,000,000; and in ca. 724—an exceptional year in Egypt—about 14,000,000 dirhams are said to have been spent there, from a total yield of 48,000,000.^[1041]) Payment in kind did continue alongside coinage: thousands of tons of grain are mentioned, alongside items crucial to maintaining the prestige of the royal court: a list from 788 lists the silk and wool robes for high-status ceremonial gifts in the Middle Eastern tradition, but also fruits and sweets, clay for chancery seals, and slave-girls.^[1042]

Tax reform and reorganization punctuate the history of the early caliphate. Although the precise extent of the transformation remains disputed, a sudden change in the volume of material evidence, supported by the testimony of the literary sources, suggests that the victory of the Marwanid Umayyads in the second civil war (683-692) prompted an important step change in the fiscal capacity of the empire.^[1043] During and after ‘Abd al-Malik's reign, censuses and cadastral surveys became more frequent and sometimes took place simultaneously in more than one province; anguish in the Syriac sources for the late seventh and early eighth centuries suggest that these reforms yielded results. Indeed, the pressures of taxation prompted flight from the land, and various administrative innovations, including passports (sijillat), along with severe punitive regimes, were introduced.^[1044] The reform of the precious metal coinage in the 690s, which was the medium for the collection of a significant proportion of tax revenue,^[1045] also reflects increased organizational power.

By the 720s a standard epigraphic form, carrying Quranic text, was used in mints across most of the Caliphate.^[1046]

The Abbasids were able to secure higher revenues than the Marwanids, not least through direct control of Iraq, in which they invested heavily during the eighth century.^[1047] Beyond Iraq, Egyptian papyri and parchments from Khurasan and Bactria show consistency in fiscal practice and terminology at each end of Abbasid territory.^[1048] The steady income recorded for the early Abbasid period also suggests that the system functioned consistently until the fourth civil war of 810-819. After then, damage to the Sawad and the loss of provinces caused a fall in annual revenue of about 100,000,000 dirhams. This decline worsened rapidly after the 860s, when independent local elites became the beneficiaries of key centers of agricultural production, with only Iraq left for the Abbasids. However, the Sawad's fragile canal system had failed, thanks to long-term mismanagement, civil war, and the insurrection of the slaves who worked it. A 75 percent decline in revenue there between 788 and 915 brought the imperial taxation system to an end.^[1049]

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Source: Bang Peter F., Bayly C.A., Scheidel Walter (eds.). The Oxford World History of Empire. Volume Two: The History of Empires. Oxford University Press,2020. — 1352 p.. 2020

Organizational Power II: Fiscal Administration

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