ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY AND PRACTICEA position with similar responsibilities appears very early in Islamic
military administration. The assignment of persons who could write
and count to divide the booty among the members of the conquering
Muslim armies seems to reflect Sasanian practice, although it must be
admitted that the situation demanded that someone perform the di-
vision in some way. We are told thar-even in the time of MuQ.ammad,
his own share of the booty was recorded by Mu'ayqib ibn Abi Fa-
tima.85 Ziyad himself began his career this way. He had been born to
a pair of Persian and Byzantine slaves at Ta'if in western Arabia, where
he was raised as an Arabized mawlii of the tribe of Thaqif and learned
how to write and to count. As a young man in 635 he went along on
the expedition of 'Utba ibn Ghazwan to lower Iraq, where he was
put in charge of dividing the booty which was taken at Furat. 'Utba
paid him two dirhams per day and Baladhuri describes him as a servant
boy (Ar.ghuliim) wearing a slave lock.^86 In 637, after the fall of the
Sasanian capital of Mada'in, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqa~ appointed 'Amr
ibn 'Amr ibn Muqarrin to collect the treasures in the White Palace,
the royal residences, and the rest of the houses in the city,87 Another
mawlii of Thaqif, as-Sa'ib ibn al-Aqra', who was with the Basran
army that conquered Khuzistan, collected the booty from the fortress
(Ar. qa~r) of the Persian nobleman Hurmuzan. Later as-Sa'ib provided
liaison for 'Umar I (634-44), who, because he knew how to write
and to count, sent him with the Iraqi Muslim army that defeated the
Persians at Nihawand in western Iran in 642. Afterwards, he divided
the booty among those who had participated in the battle and remitted
one-fifth to the Commander of the Faithful.^88
But booty is an irregular and uncertain source of income at best
and hardly suitable for the sole support of a standing army. The heart
of Sasanian military administratjon, the means by which income from
taxes was redistributed to the professional bodies of mercenary sol-
diers, was the muster roll listing the men capable of military service.
It entitled them to be provided with horses, weapons, provisions, and
pay by the state. Ya'qiibi describes the system under Khusraw Anii-
Melanges d'archeologie et d'histoire 16 (1896),42,260; Scher, "Histoire nestorienne,"
II(l), 154.
85Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi, 'Iqd, IV, 161; Tha'alibi, The Lata'if al-ma'arif of Tha'alibl,
tr. C. E. Bosworth (Edinburgh, 1968), p. 57.
86 Baiadhuri, Ansab, I, 489; idem, Futub, p. 343; Dinawari, Akhbar at-tiwal, p. 232;
H. Lammens, "Ziad ibn Abihi, vice-roi de i'Iraq," Rsa IV (1911-12), 23.
87 Tabari, Ta'rlkh, I, 2444.
88 Dinawari, Akhbiir at-#wal, pp. 140, 143, 146.