the abbasìd’s golden age 183with the culture of generosity of the day as well as being a con-
tributing factor towards strengthening the relationship and harmony
between members of the community.
To clarify the unit of measurement, the above was based on the
following measures: a wasaq(bushel) consisted of sixty sa", specified
as the Prophet’s sa", five wasaqs therefore contained 300 hundred
sa". The sa"contained five and a third rutl, and the rutlwas a pound
in weight of grain of wheat (Al-Rayyis, 1977). To put it another way,
the threshold in weight was about 1,600 pounds of wheat. If there
are 2.2 lb in one Kilogramme, the threshold would be the equiva-
lent of approximately 727 kilogrammes of wheat in today’s terms.
The base of Kharàj tax was widened further by including the
lands conquered after the reign of Caliph Umar. Having looked at
the land of Iraq which had seen Caliph Umar’s rulings, Abù-Yùsuf
turned his attention to other lands which were not yet under Caliph
Umar’s administration. Once more the role of jurisprudence became
useful and the pragmatic conviction of the Œanafìin the principle
of public interest provided practical answers. In Abù-Yùsuf ’s view
the land of Basra and Khurasàn were like the land of al-Sawad, “in
my opinion”, as he says. Those lands which were conquered by force
are Kharàj lands and were subject to Kharàj tax which could be
increased or decreased, in variation from Caliph Umar’s rates.
There was one exception to the permission suggested by Abù-
Yùsuf to increase or decrease the rate of Kharàj and that was related
to lands under peace treaty. These lands should be taxed in accor-
dance with the terms of the peace treaties, which should never be
altered. The only factor that would cause a change was that if the
people of the lands under the treaty embraced Islam. In this case
one-tenth, ushr, or half of that depending upon the state of irriga-
tion, would be imposed on their lands. So “my opinion is that you
should leave them in their present condition (in accordance with the
terms of the treaty), and this is the verdict upon which your action
should be taken”, says Abù-Yùsuf.
The economic implications of muqàsamah
Compared with the fixed rate of tax, muqàsamahmay lead to reduc-
ing, or eliminating, the excess burden of taxation through reducing
the dead loss of tax. The figure below shows this effect. Assuming
that the conditions of demand and supply are as projected in the