Iranian Empire and Caucasian Borderlands 15logical college known to have existed in the region was in Derbent.
Even if it functioned as an instructional center for local Muslims, it
could not have served adherents of both the Sunni and Shia sects.
Nor do the local chronicles give any example of religious authorities
playing a role in the turbulent events of the eighteenth century. On
one occasion when the dispute between a khan and his subjects was
largely religious—the oppression of Sunni inhabitants of Shakki by a
Shii khan who ruled with the support of Nader Shah—it was not the
religious leaders but the begs and village administrators who rallied
the opposition and eventually started a rebellion.
The largest social group in the eastern Caucasus was the peasantry.
Since the land itself was considered the property of the khans or
begs, all peasants were tenants. Still, the more numerous category of
peasants, the rayats, had some property of their own. They usually
owned their own homes, tools, and animals. In at least one khanate,
Qarabagh, there was an attempt to bind the ray at to the land. How-
ever, such a change was virtually unenforceable since depopulation
produced much vacant farmland and there was always the possibility
of flight to the forests, mountains, or another khanate. The less ad-
vantaged peasants, the ranjbars, were bound to the landlords and
could be moved from village to village. They owed the same rents
and corvee services as the ra'yats and in addition had to work the
landlord's demesne, the entire product of which belonged to the
landlord.
Slavery also existed in east Caucasian society. The leading slave
raiders in the late eighteenth century were the Lesghis and other
tribes of Daghestan. Georgian women in particular were highly
sought after as slavewives. Three late-eighteenth-century khans
married Georgian slaves, and one of the most persistent foes of Rus-
sian expansion in the Caucasus, Sheikh 'Ali Khan of Derbent-Qobbeh,
was the son of an Armenian slavewife. Although boys were also en-
slaved, there is no indication that they were used to fill administra-
tive posts or serve in the army as they were in other parts of the Is-
lamic world.
Although some of the principalities of this region were stronger
and more prosperous than their neighbors, the overall impression
produced by this region in the late eighteenth century was one of
decay. Qobbeh and Yerevan were the most prosperous khanates in
the region. By the 1790s, Shirvan had made a surprising recovery
from decades of external and internal warfare. The other economic
leader was Baku, but it had to spend a large proportion of its consi-
derable wealth to import food and pay "protection money" to power-