TAXESand Talmudic scholars were allowed to declare themselves to be at-
tendants of the fire in order to share that privilege.^51 The rabbis who
collected the poll tax from the Jews for the state were in a position
to exempt themselves. By the fourth and fifth centuries, attempts by
the state to subject Christian monks to the poll tax were beginning to
provoke resistance. The conflict over the taxation of monks, priests,
and notables who happened to be Christian and who claimed exemp-
tions similar to the Magian hirbadhs and notables was still a live issue
in the late sixth and early seventh centuries.
The arguments over whether or not monks capable of working
should be subject to the poll tax survived in the Islamic legal tradition.^52
However, the leaders of the Christian community took advantage of
the fluid conditions following the conquest to secure their own ex-
emption from the poll tax locally long before it was recognized in
theory. Shortly after the conquest, under 'Umar I, priests and deacons
at Kaskar were required to pay the poll tax. Rabban Theodore, a
teacher at Kaskar, petitioned the 'amil of the district and got an
exemption for them in writing. 53 About mid-century, the metropolitan
bishop of Beth Garme (Bajarma), SabhrIsho', who had cured the two
demon-possessed daughters of the governor, asked for and received a
written exemption from the poll tax for monks, priests, and students
(anyone who wore wool, whether tonsured or not).54 We are also told
of a monk named Du'an in the Sawad who, together with his village,
was exempt from the poll tax.^55 By the time of Mu'iiwiya, the Muslim
regime was appointing members of local communities to collect taxes,
and in 676 Nestorian canon law forbade a Christian tax collector to
collect the poll tax (kesaf resha) from a bishop.56
COLLECTIONAt least three alternative mechanisms, prevailing in different districts
or at different times, appear to have been used to distribute the re-
sponsibility for collecting taxes in late Sasanian and early Islamic Iraq.
51 Newman, Agricultural Life, p. 169. Goodblatt ("Poll Tax," pp. 263, 289) argues
that rabbis were subject to the poll tax in the fourth century.
52 Abii Yiisuf, Kharaj, p. 188.
53 Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," II(2), 598-99. Nu'man ibn 'Amr ibn Muqarrin was
'amil of Kaskar from about 637 until 642.
54 Ibid., pp. 632-33.
55 Ibn Rustah, A'laq, p. 105.
56 Chabot, Synodicon, pp. 225-56, 490.