ADMINISTRATIONestablished for seven kinds of produce: one dirham per jarib (Ar. 1592
square meters) of wheat; the same for barley; five-sixths of a dirham
per jarib of rice; eight dirhams per jarib of grapevines; seven dirhams
per jarib of clover (Ar. ritiib); for dates, one dirham per four (iirisi
(N.P.) palms and one dirham per six daqal (A.) palms; and one dirham
per six fruit trees. These taxes were collected in three installments each
year, one-third every four months.^2
Everything else was exempt, including fallow land and date palms
standing alone outside of groves or gardens. It was also Sasanian policy
to remit the costs of cultivation to landlords in case of crop failure.
This practice is cited at least by way of analogy in Islamic law to
justify remitting the land tax when the crops had been destroyed by
a natural disaster.^3
Modern scholarship, with the blessing of Islamic tradition, has tended
to assert that the Sasanian taxation system in the Sawad was taken
over by the Muslims in the time of 'Umar I who, with only minor
changes, consciously and intentionally based the post-conquest land
taxes on the existing Sasanian system. But a comparison of the above
rates with those established by the Muslims in the Sawad following
the conquest gives the impression of three important differences be-
tween Islamic and Sasanian agricultural taxes: the rates were raised,
additional kinds of produce were taxed, and the arrangements for
taking part of the tax in kind were regularized.
Sasanian subjects owed taxes, provisions, and services to the state
and its officials. L0kkegaard suggests that part of the land tax was
collected in kind but that cultivators were given the option of paying
it in cash or of transporting produce equal in value to a state depot.^4
Such provisions supported the Sasanian royal court and system of
military supply and seem to have been taken as a fraction of the yield
on crown lands even after the sixth-century reforms. The Muslim
system preserved the relationship between taxes· taken in kind and
provisions for the army while including units of capacity in the rate
system itself. According to Qudama, "there was once a levy called al-
arziiq, [M.P., provisions] imposed monthly on each of the ahl al-
dhimma [Ar., protected people]: in aI-Iraq fifteen sii'[A.] of wheat ...
together with the duty of billeting a Muslim soldier for three days.
2 Dinawari, Akhbiir at-tiwiil, pp. 72-73; Jahshiyari, Wuzarii'; pp. 5-6; Mas'iidi,
Muriij, I, 309-10; Tabari, ·Ta'rikh, I, 960-62; Ya'qiibi, Ta'rikh, I, 186.
3 N. Aghnides, Mohammedan Theories of Finance (New York, 1916), p. 360; Khad-
duri, Islamic Law of Nations, pp. 146,270.
4 Lmkkegaard, Islamic Taxation, p. 119; Tha'aJ.ibi, Ghurar, pp. 609-10.