ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY AND PRACTICEincidentally preserved the Sasanian relationship between taxes and the
support of the army.
The removal of the frontier further and further to the east during
the seventh century transformed the military functions of the governors
in Iraq from those of a general in the field at the time of the conquest
to those of a ~Uit~rY:l<:!ministrator who appointed subordinates, es-
tablished an urban police force (Ar. shurta), and sent contingents of
troops to the eastern frontier and against rebels. In addition, the amlr
acted as paymaster for the garrisons in the cities of Iraq. Because of
his appointment of officials to collect taxes and to distribute them
fairly among those who were entitled to them, the Sasanian division
between military and financial responsibilities survived at the level
below the amlr. Responsibility for justice was also eventually separated
from the combined responsibilites of the amlr, and from about 660
onwards amlrs appointed their own judges (Ar. sg. qat/i). Thus, the
outlook and expectations which allowed the mutual reinforcement of
Sasanian and Islamic concepts of government are revealed in the report
which 'Amr ibn Ma'dikarib is said to have made to the caliph 'Umar
I (634-44) about the administrative record of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqa~
at Kufa: "He divides the shares equitably, judges cases justly, and
leads the bands successfully."21
By the time of Mu'awiya (660-80), a more developed, authoritarian
political theory had emerged. The main statements of these concepts
of government are associated with Ziyad ibn Abihi, who was governor
of all of Iraq and the east for Mu'awiya from about 669 until 673.
They are contained in Ziyad's inaugural speech (Ar. khutba) at Basra
in 665, in the fourfold inscription in the corners of the public audience
hall he built at Kufa in about 670, and in the panegyric in his praise,
which was composed by J:laritha ibn Badr al-Ghudani. There is also
a body of aphorisms and anecdotes that may be apoc~p_~al but con-
form to the general image tradition had of him.
These statements base political power on divine legitimation. Ter-
minology ascribed to Ziyad corresponds to the usages of the Sufyani
period, and in fact, provides a good deal of the evidence for Sufyani
usage, in which the regime was called the government of God (A.lAr.
sultan Allah), the military forces were called the army of God (A.lAr.
21 Baladhurl, Futulp, p. 279. The background of this report lies in the complaints
made by the Kufans that Sa'd did not perform the ?alat (Ar. for the Muslim act of
worship) well and was unjust to members of the tribe of Asad in dividing the booty
(Tabarl, Ta'rzkh, I, 2594; Zotenberg, Chronique, III, 472, 474).