PERSIANSIt is worth noticing that these lower levels of the Persian social
hierarchy survived much longer in the region of Persian settlement in
upper Iraq, among Christian Persians, than they did in the Sawad. In
lower Iraq, all surviving Persian notables tended to be treated as da-
haqfn, although the distinction between those who lived in town and
those who lived in the countryside survived. Here dahaqfn kept their
land by converting to Islam. In one account, a dihqana in the subdistrict
of Nahr Malik became a Muslim and was allowed to remain on her
land if she paid the tax on it.ls4 'All is said to have exempted a dihqan
at 'Ayn Tamr from paying the poll tax when he converted to Islam,
but he still was required to pay the land taxYs In 658 there is a
reference to a native of the Sawad named Zadhanfarriikh, who was
a Muslim dihqan in the subdistrict of Niffar.^156 At the same time, the
dahaqfn appear to have enjoyed greater local authority and inde-
pendence than ever before (or since). The combined effects of the
aristocratic reaction that attended the fall of Khusraw Parviz in 628,
and the way that dahaqfn were able to secure recognition for their
position and privileges from the Muslims at the time of the conquest,
tended to increase the power and independence of this class. This was
true especially in the fluid conditions immediately following the con-
quest, when they treated lands that had been granted to them by the
Sasanian state as their own private property and even seized some of
the abandoned Sasanian crown lands for themselves. The mid-seventh
century was the heyday of the dahaqfn in the Sawad.
These circumstances had two important consequences that ulti-
mately proved fatal to the dahaqfn as a class in lower Iraq. In the first
place, they established ties of common interest with the Muslim Arab
aristocracy in the garrison cities, but in the process some of the rural
dahiiqfn compromised their own position by selling their lands to
Muslims and putting themselves under the protection (Ar. taljr'a) of
some powerful Mu~lim patron. Such arrangements were symbolized
for the jurists by the story of a dihqan who offered to sell his land to
'Abdullah ibn Mas'iid, who would only agree to buy it provided the
dihqan continued to pay kharaj.157 While this situation prevailed in
the Sawad of Kufa, around Basra, where landowners near Furat be-
came Muslims in order to keep their lands or relinquished them to
154 Ya~ya ibn Adarn, Khariii, p. 5I.
155 Ibid., p. 52.
156 TabarI, Ta'rzkh, I, 3423, 3424.
IS7 Ya~ya ibn Adarn, Kharii;, p. 49.