PEOPLEthere is no indication of what these distinctions might have involved,
the dahaqfn as a class had the prerogative of riding the kind of horse
called a birdhawn (Syr., des trier) and of wearing golden rings.^43 They
were also included among those who could wear the qalansuwwa.^44
Although it is impossible to identify five separate grades of dahaqtn,
there was an important practical distinction between those who lived
in towns and administered their estates as absentee landlords and those
who lived on their estates in the countryside.
One of the best examples of the pattern of town residence by nobles
with rural property at the end of the Sasanian period is the family of
Mihramgushnasp/Giwargis. His father had been ustandar of Nasibin;
his grandfather had been prefect of New Antioch for Khusraw Anii-
shirvan; and although the family possessed the village of Paqorya in
Naneshtar (Nistar) in the Sawad, Mihramgushnasp owned a house in
the capital and had put a Christian overseer in charge of his villages
and other property.45 Although he was a member of the high nobility,
the same pattern was followed by the dahaqtn who lived at Anbar4^6
and Hira. At the time of the conquest, the dahaqtn of Hira possessed
estates (Ar. cjiya; on the other side of the Euphrates in the territory
of Amghishiya.^47
Outside of the towns, a lower grade of dahaqtn was scattered
throughout the villages and rural sub districts for which they were
responsible. There are references in the context of the conquest to the
"dahaqtn of the villages" in the countryside around Amghishiya;48 in
the territory between Hira and Kaskar;49 to dahaqtn in Dast-i May-
san;50 and to the Persians of Maysan and the Kuwar Dijla who were
led in the defense of their lands by a notable of Abazqubadh named
43 BaJadhuri, Futu/;, p. 271. The dahiiqln were also in charge of the list of young men
liable for military service from which they procured recruits for the infantry (L0kke-
gaard, Islamic Taxation, p. 169). Altheim and Stiehl (Asiatischer Staat, pp. 134-35,
140-41) regard the establishment of the dahiiqln as part of the restoration under
Khusraw I Aniishirviin. As landed aristocracy, they provided cavalry for the army.
44 Tabari, Ta'rtkh, I, 2067. Even the Nestorian catholicos Sabhrisho' (596-604) wore
a qalansuwwa (Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," 11(2), 492, 494).
45 Braun, Persischer Martyrer, p. 223; Hoffmann, Persischer Martyrer, p. 95.
46 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, I, 2203.
47 Baliidhuri, Futu/;, p. 251.
48 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, I, 2037.
- Ibid., I, 2030. The royal land grant of Nahraban was 'made to Abiin and Biin! in
the late Sasanian period, and their children were there at the time of the conquest
(Yiiqiit, Buldiin, IV, 757-78).
50 Baliidhuri, FutU/;, p. 342.