ADMINISTRATIVE THEORY AND PRACTICEsuch as the grant of the crown district of Kaskar by Khusraw Parvlz
to his cousin Narsl in about 624; or they were used as a form of
payment to supporters of the regime, such as the land grants made to
the Banii Lakhm at Hira in order to secure the desert frontier.
Some Sasanian crown land was appropriated by native landlords in
the confusion following the Islamic conquest, but the Islamic state
claimed the rest and called it ~awiifi al-ustiin. Kaskar was the first
district in Iraq to be administered by a civilian financial official (Ar.
'iimil), an-Nu'man ibn 'Amr ibn Muqarrin for 'Umar I, who thus
resembles an Islamic ustiindiir. After the battle of Nihawand in 642,
as-Sa'ib ibn al-Aqra', who was in charge of dividing the booty, was
introduced to the principle of separate royal and bureaucratic-military
income property by Persians who told him about treasures he would
not have to divide up among the army as booty but could remit in
their entirety to 'Umar I because they were royal property.146
However, ~awiifiland near Kufa was administered at first by trusted
agents (Ar. awliyii') who were chosen annually from the military
leaders, and the income went to the garrison at Kufa. These lands only
began to be treated as state property in the Sasanian fashion in the
land grants (Ar. qatii'i) made by 'Uthman to tribal leaders at Kufa
and from undeveloped land around Basra. At Kufa these grants went
to the tribal leaders who were the objects of 'Uthman's patronage.
This had the effect of creating a new Muslim Arab landed elite, which
enjoyed the income from these lands at the expense of the rest of the
Kufan tribesmen. The attitude emerging in the time of 'Uthman that
property being held by the Commander of the Faithful for the Islamic
community was at his disposal reflects an Islamic form of Byzantine
and Sas ani an concepts of domain land.
A degree of separate administration for state property was achieved
under Mu'awiya along with extensive land grants to his supporters
at Basra. His mawlii, 'Abdullah ibn Darraj, whom he put in charge
of the khariij at Kufa, was told by the dahiiqtn that the income from
~awiift lands belonging to the Sasanian monarchs and their relatives
had been reserved for them and was outside the khariij regime. With
their help, 'Abdullah recovered the Sasanian register of crown lands
that had been left behind at Hulwan by Yazdagerd III and began to
reclaim the royal property in the district of Kaskar, which had been
lost to floods in 628. Separate figures for the income from crown land
146 Dinawarl, Akhbiir a!-#wiil, pp. 145-46.