INTRODUCTIONto the ethnolinguistic and religious categories they used to identify
themselves and each other.
The section on administration will be divided into separate discus-
sions of administrative theory and practice, taxation, and the geo-
graphical units of administration. This section will pre.sent a point-
by-point comparison between the late Sas ani an and early Islamic
administrative systems in Iraq, including political theories and ad-
ministrative ethics. The late Sasanian administrative system is not as
familiar as it ought to be. It is an important example of the highly
centralized absolutist traditions of Late Antiquity. Although it was
similar to the contemporary Byzantine system in many ways, it was
closer than the Byzantine system to the administrative traditions that
developed among Muslims and were spread by them. It is generally
assumed that early Islamic administration followed a Byzantine model
merely because the political capital at Damascus in Syria lay in former
Byzantine territory. A tendency also exists to associate the revival of
Persian culture and administrative traditions with the advent of the
'Abbiisi dynasty in the mid-eighth century simply because the 'Abbiisi
movement arose in the province of Khurasan in north-eastern Iran
and established its imperial capital at Baghdad near the former Sa-
sanian capital in Iraq. The section on administration is intended to
demonstrate two things: that Sasanian administrative institutions, as
they were adapted by Muslims during the seventh century, continued
to be developed after the Islamic conquest, and that this happened in
Iraq (as well as in the other eastern provinces) at least a century earlier
than is usually assumed.
The fact that descriptions of the Sasanian administrative system and
political theory were preserved in Arabic literature is important in
itself. But because both the system and the theory continued to be
developed and became increasingly rationalized and consistent under
Islamic rule, the theoretical expressions assigned to the Sasanians in
Arabic literature are very likely to be products of the ninth century
or later. Quotations of statements by Sasanian rulers such as Ardashir
I (226-41) or Khusraw Aniishirviin, which occur in Arabic literature,
need not be taken as authentic third-century or sixth-century expres-
sions. Such statements are more important for the ideas they contain
and indicate that the people who expressed them felt that they were
appropriate to the Sasanian political tradition of authoritarian rule.
The second section is basically ethnographic and will deal with the
people of Iraq according to ethnolinguistic categ~>ries. The major di-