Iqta
Iqtaʿ ( Arabic إقطاع, DMG Iqṭāʿ 'allotment') is a form of military fiefdom that was particularly widespread in Persia , Iraq and Syria .
With increasing costs for the army of professional soldiers, the Abbasids began to give officers "concessions" (lease contracts) instead of paying them at the end of the 9th century. These entitle them to collect taxes, customs duties and other charges on their own account in the assigned areas. For this, the officers had to maintain and equip a certain number of soldiers. When the yields declined, they received the leased land as their property. This created a real estate officer shift. The power of the military was strengthened by the establishment of the Atabeg .
This freed the rulers from the costs of maintaining and equipping the soldiers, but also deprived the ruler of a large part of the tax income of his empire. In addition, the soldiers' loyalty to the officers who provided for them increased.
The importance of Iqta for further social and political development in the Middle East is assessed very differently. The proponents of the thesis of "Islamic feudalism" assume that heredity and increased feudalization will soon set in, since a landowning military aristocracy developed, which also increasingly took on tasks in civil administration. This fueled an increasing political fragmentation in the Middle East that reached its peak in the 12th century. Local commanders in cities and fortresses had a de facto independence over their territories.
Opponents of this thesis point out that the ruler set the iqta assignments and also determined which officers and local notables received which iqta areas. The officers and notables owed their powers only to the assignment of central power, ie they had no power base of their own. In the West, the feudal system basically represented the construction of a social organization, in contrast to the Iqtaʿ system stood for the disintegration of the central order.
literature
- Sato Tsugitaka: State and Rural Society in Medieval Islam. Sultans, Muqta's, and Fallahun . Brill, Leiden 1997, ISBN 978-90-04-10649-9
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mohamed Ali El-Saleh: Trade and Economic Structure of Syria in the Age of the Crusades. Dissertation in the Department of Economics, University of Tübingen 1974, p. 14f
- ↑ Tsugitaka 1997, pp. 10f
- ↑ Tsugitaka 1997, pp. 152-161
- ↑ Mohamed Ali El-Saleh: Trade and Economic Structure of Syria in the Age of the Crusades. Dissertation in the Department of Economics, University of Tübingen 1974, pp. 40, 145