TAXESuniformity, and theoretical refinement extending from the beginning
of the sixth to the end of the eighth centuries; they were not merely
adopted or altered from Sasanian practices. Before the sixth century,
poll taxes were mainly apportioned as part of the tribute taxes on
towns and assessed on the basis of the estimated population. The best
evidence comes from the Talmud, which describes the Sasanian poll
tax (A. kraga) on both Jews and non-Jews as a personal debt owed
by the entire urban population-men, women, and children-to the
state and for which their individual freedom, labor, and property were
mortgaged. Those unable to pay it were obliged to work off the debt
in service of whoever might pay it for them. Only the Magian priests
and the attendants of the fire temples were exempt.^32 Firiiz is said to
have levied a general poll tax (Syr. kesaf resha) over his entire empire
at the end of the fifth century in order to ransom his son Qubadh
from the Hephthalites,33 and the memory of a fixed poll tax (Ar. jizya
on heads) before the reign of Aniishirvan survived in Arabic tradition.^34
It was Aniishirvan, however, who imposed a regular, annual poll tax
of four, six, eight, or twelve dirhams paid in three installments on the
male population between the ages of twenty and fifty, according to
their status. Members of the royal family, the high nobility, soldiers,
hirbadhs (N.P.), bureaucrats, and others in royal service were all ex-
empt and therefore agreed to its imposition.^35 The expectation that
most people paid the lowest rate is borne out by the report of the
Chinese Buddhist travel er and pilgrim, Hsiien-tsang, whose journey
to India began in 629 and ended in 645, that in Persia each family
was subject to a tax of four silver coins per man.^36
When they conquered the Sawad, the Muslims are said to have
taken the "kharaj of Kisra on the heads of men according to their
possessions."3? At first, arrangements were made with local notables
based on the Sasanian rates. In the sub districts of the Sawad of Kufa
Saliiba, the dihqan of Baniqya and Basma came to terms with Khalid
ibn al-Walid for four dirhams per head, as did the dihqan of Zawabi
32 D. Goodblatt, "The Poll Tax in Sasanian Babylonia: The Talmudic Evidence,"
JESHO 22 (1979), 234, 238, 246, 264; Neusner, History, p. 309; Newman, Agricultural
Life, pp. 168-69, 172-75, 178; Rodkinson, Talmud, XII, "Baba Metzia," 181 (=73b).
33 Wright, Joshua the Stylite, p. 8.
34 Tabarl, Ta'rtkh, I, 960.
35 Dlnawarl, Akhbar a!-{iwal, pp. 72-73; Tabarl, Ta'rikh, I, 962.
36 S. Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western World (London, 1884), Il, 279; M. S.
Julien, Memoires sur les contrees occidentales (Paris, 1857), n, 179.
37 Tabarl, Ta'rikh, I, 2371.