Economy of Caliphate
- Anupam Dixit
- Jul 27, 2020
- 2 min read
Land Ownership in Islamic Empire :
Agriculture was the principal occupation of the settled populations in the newly conquered territories so they did not change. 2. Newly conquered urban areas, such as Iran and Iraq, had big land owners and from Sassanian the tax was collected by these big land owners on behalf of the state.
There were areas that transformed from pastoral to settled agricultural system,Land was owned by whole village.
When Islam conquered these areas, many big estate owners abandoned their land which were confiscated and handed over to Muslim Elites specially to Caliphs Family.
State had overall control on agricultural land and was a major source of income. Taxation:
Land tax on non-Muslim population was known as Khiraj and was 1/5 to 1/2(half) of the produce.
Ushra was the land tax levied on irrigated land cultivated by Muslims and was 1/10th of the produce.
Jajia was a tax levied on non-Muslim subjects of Islamic land but Poor, Old, women and children were exempted from the tax.
Initially the tax on non-Muslims was higher than Muslim cultivators, a major reason for non-Muslims to convert to Islam to save taxation but this reduced the income of state and later caliphs implemented equal taxation. Iqta :
After 10th century, caliphs allowed their officials to claim their salaries from taxes. These officers had to collect taxes and their salary amount from the assigned areas and pay a certain amount of tax to the central treasury after deducting their salary. State Sponsorship and subsidies
State was interested in increasing its income. political stability enabled state to divert large investment in agricultural infrastructure such as digging up wells, installation of Noria or the (waterwheels) and digging new canals.
State also encouraged people to cultivate new lands and to encourage this practice they provided agriculture loans called Taquavi for seeds, irrigation, tools and tax rebates.
Through peasant initiatives and state support, cultivable land expanded and productivity rose ,even in the absence of major technological changes.
Many new crops such as cotton, oranges, bananas, watermelons, spinach and brinjals (badinjan) were grown and even exported to Europe.
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