ADMIN I STRA TIONbury a grave robber alive, cut off the hand of a man who killed with
an iron weapon, burn an arsonist alive, and if a man suspected of
robbery was brought to him without the stolen goods in his possession,
he gave him three hundred lashes. His methods were so effective that
sometimes forty nights went by without anyone being brought to him;
so al-I:Iajjaj put him in charge of the shurta of Kufa, as wel1.^264
Thus, from the time of Mu'iiwiya on, the main mechanisms for
control and enforcement in the Sasanian system resurfaced in an Is-
lamic administrative context: the ~ajib, public and private audiences,
the ma~alim court, confidential agents, a communication and transport
network, bodyguards, and urban police. The fundamental conflict
between security and the accessibility needed to ensure justice, which
was built into these practices, came along with them. The delegation
of responsibility to reliable subordinates tended to put the system at
the mercy of the ruler's judgment through his choice of those in whom
to place his trust. This problem was never solved, and we have noticed
more than once that misplaced confidence could result in betrayal.
This problem may be illustrated and summarized best by the experi-
ence of Yiisuf ibn 'Umar, who had put Ziyad ibn Salil). in charge of
the night-watch (Ar. ~irasa) and of the keys to the gates of Wasit in
- When Ziyad deserted to the 'Abbasis during the siege of the city,
Yiisuf is supposed to have exclaimed: "Who can I trust today after
Ziyad?" and appointed Tariq ibn Qudama to head the ~irasa, giving
him the keys to the gates because of his trust in him.^265
To a certain extent, the recognition of the need for an ethical di-
mension was institutionalized by the employment of judges who ad-
ministered religiously sanctioned law as a check on other local officials,
by giving them overlapping secular duties, especially in finance admin-
istration, and by giving thein positions at court to advise the ruler.
The Magian priesthood performed these duties under the Sasanians,
as did Muslim qat;izs at least from the time of Mu'awiya. Theories of
administrative ethics that were developed under Islamic rule combined
the secular and religious heritage of the Sasanians with Islamic ideals
and practical solutions to immediate problems. Even this contained
its own difficulties, and the literature on this subject is concerned with
how to deal with the anomaly of the unjust judge.
264 Ibid., V, 19; Ibn Qutayba, 'Uyun, I, 16. This list obviously is related to the law
and order promises in Ziyad's inaugural khutba at Basra.
265 DinawarI, Akhbar aNiwai, pp. 368-70. Soldiers of the guard were proverbial for
their treachery (Tha'alibI, Lata'if, p. 185).