A close reading of two poetical sources provides new data on the reforms of the fiscal schedule of the Abbasid state in the ninth century. This paper reconstructs the calendrical complications in those Abbasid regions that followed Iranian administrative tradition and its solar calendar without intercalations. Two reforms were issued under al-Mutawakkil and al-Muʿtaḍid to correct the fiscal schedule of these regions. A panegyric by al-Buḥturī allows us to confirm and contextualize al-Mutawakkil’s reform in the final years of his caliphate. A few verses by Ibn al-Muʿtazz give a significant description of the close connection between al-Muʿtaḍid’s reform of the Iranian New-Year’s day and the construction of his public figure.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
al-Ābī, Abū Saʿd Manṣūr b. al-Ḥusayn. 1991. Nathr al-Durr. edited by M.ʿA. Qaran. Cairo: Al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿAmma lī-l-Kitāb.
Ali, Samer Mahdy. 2006. Reinterpreting Al-Buḥturī’s ‘Īwān Kisrā Ode’: Tears of Affection for the Cycles of History. Journal of Arabic Literature 37/1: 46-67.
Ali, Samer Mahdy. 2005. Singing Samarra (861-956): Poetry and the Burgeoning of Historiography upon the Murder of al-Mutawakkil. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 6: 1-23.
Anonymous. 1971. Akhbār al-Dawla al-ʿAbbāsiyya, ed. al-Dūrī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, and ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Muṭṭalibī. Beirut: Dār al-Ṭalīʿa.
Arberry, Arthur J., trans. 1955. The Koran Interpreted. London: Allen & Unwin.
al-ʿAskari, Abū Hilāl. 1987. Kitāb Al-Awāʾil. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya.
Al-Bīrūnī, Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad. 1879. The Chronology of Ancient Nations: An English Version of the Arabic Text of the Athar-ul-Bâkiya of Albîrûnî. or “Vestiges of the Past.” London: W. H. Allen & Co.
Al-Bīrūnī, Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad. 1923. al-Āthār al-Bāqiya ʿan Qurūn al-Khāliya, ed. E. Sachau. Leipzig: Otto Harassowitz.
Borroni, Massimiliano. 2017. Il Nuovo Giorno Dell’impero. Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari.
Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. 2012. Wahb. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_1327.
Boyce, Mary. 2009. Nowruz I. in the Pre-Islamic Period. in Encyclopædia Iranica online edition, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nowruz-i.
Bray, Julia. 2010. Ibn Al-Muʿtazz and Politics: The Question of the Fuṣūl Qiṣār. Oriens 38: 107-143.
al-Buḥturī, Abū ʿUbāda al-Walīd b. ʿUbaydallāh. 1963. Dīwān, ed. Ḥasan Kāmil al-Ṣayrafī. Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif.
Bulliet, Richard W. 1994. Islam: The View from the Edge. New York: Columbia University Press.
Busse, H. 1967. Das Hofbudget des Chalifen al-Muʿtaḍid billāh (279/892-289/902). Der Islam 43: 11-36.
Campopiano, Michele. 2019. Land Tenure, Land Tax and Social Conflictuality in Iraq from the Late Sasanian to the Early Islamic Period (Fifth to Ninth Centuries Ce). In Authority and Control in the Countryside: From Antiquity to Islam in the Mediterranean and Near East (6th-10th Century), ed. A. Delattre, M. Legendre, and P. Sijpesteijn. Leiden: Brill: 464-499.
Canard, Marius. 1946. Akhbâr ar-Râdî Billâh wa ʾl-Muttaqî Billâh (Histoire de La Dynastie Abbaside de 322 ò 333/934 à 944). Alger: Imprimeries « La Typo-Litho » et Jules Carbonel Réunies.
Carter, Michael G. 1998. Ibn Fāris Al-Lughawī. in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. J. S. Meisami and P. Starkey. London; New York: Routledge: vol. 1, 325.
Cobb, Paul M. 1999. Al-Mutawakkil’s Damascus: A New ʿAbbāsid Capital? Journal of Near Eastern Studies 58(4): 241-257.
Cristoforetti, Simone. 2003. Izdilāq: miti e problemi calendariali del fisco islamico. Venice: Cafoscarina.
Cristoforetti, Simone. 2014. On the Era of Yazdegard III and the Cycles of the Iranian Solar Calendar. Annali Di Ca’ Foscari. Serie Orientale 50: 143-156.
De Blois, François. 1996. The Persian Calendar. Iran 34: 39-54
Dennett, Daniel C. 1950. Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
Donohue, John J. 2003. The Buwayhid Dynasty in Iraq 334H./945 to 403H./1012: Shaping Institutions for the Future. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Dozy, Reinhart. 1881. Supplément Aux Dictionnaires Arabes. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Eilers, Wilhelm. 1953. Der alte Name des persischen Neujahrsfestes. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz.
El-Cheikh, Nadia Maria. 2013. The Harem. In Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court, ed. Maaike van Berkel, Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy, and Letizia Osti. Leiden; Boston: Brill: 165-186.
Essid, Yassine. 1995. A Critique of the Origins of Islamic Economic Thought. Leiden: Brill.
Ghareeb, Edmund A., and Beth Dougherty, eds. 2004. Historical Dictionary of Iraq. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford: Scarecrow Press.
Glagow, Rainer. 1968. Das Kalifat des al-Mu’tadid Billah (892-902). Bonn: Unpublished PhD Thesis.
Gordon, Matthew S. 2001. The Breaking of a Thousand Swords: A History of the Turkish Military of Samarra, A.H. 200-275/815-889 C.E. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Houtsma, Martijn Theodoor. 1875. De strijd over Het Dogma in den Islâm tot op el-Ash’ari. Leiden: S.C. van Doesburgh.
Ibn al-Athīr, ʿAlī ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Jazarī. 1965. Kitāb al-Kāmil fī al-Taʾrīkh. Beyrut: Dār Ṣādir; Dār Bayrūt.
Ibn Fāris, Abū Ḥusayn Aḥmad. 1951. Kitāb al-Nayrūz. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Lajnat al-Taʾlīf wa al-Tarjama wa al-Nashr.
Ibn al-Muʿtazz. n.d. Dīwān, ed. Karam al-Bustānī. Cairo: Dār al-Shurūq.
Katbi, Ghaida Khazna. 2010. Islamic Land Tax—Al-Kharaj: From the Islamic Conquests to the Abbasid Period. London; New York; New York: I.B. Tauris.
Kennedy, Hugh. 2003. Caliphs and Their Chroniclers in the Middle Abbasid Period (Third/Ninth Century). In Texts, Documents and Artefacts: Islamic Studies in Honour of D.S. Richards, ed. C. F. Robinson. Leiden; Boston: E.J. Brill: 17-35.
Kennedy, Hugh. 2004. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the 6th to the 11th Century. 2 edition. London: Routledge.
Kennedy, Hugh. 2011. The Feeding of the Five Hundred Thousand: Cities and Agriculture in Early Islamic Mesopotamia. Iraq 73:177-199.
al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. ʿAlī. 1996. Taʾrīkh Baghdād Wa Dhuyūluhu. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya.
Lang, Carl. 1886. Muʿtaḍid als Prinz und Regent, ein historisches Heldengedicht von Ibn El Muʿtazz. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft 40; 41: 563-611; 232-279.
Løkkegaard, Frede. 1978. Islamic Taxation in the Classic Period: With Special Reference to Circumstances in Iraq. Philadelphia: Porcupine Press.
Mattock, John N. 1994. A Political Poem of Ibn Al-Muʿtazz. Occasional Papers of the School of Abbasid Studies 4: 51-61.
al-Miskawayh, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad al-maʿrūf bī. 1914. Kitāb Tajārib al-Umam, ed. H.F. Amedroz and B. Atlaw. Cairo: al-Muthannā.
Morony, Michael G. 2011. ʿArab II. Arab Conquest of Iran. in Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition (2011), http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/arab-ii.
Osti, Letizia. 2012. Notes on a Private Library in Fourth/Tenth-Century Baghdad. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 12: 215-223.
Osti, Letizia. 2013. Culture, Education and the Court. In Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court, ed. Maaike van Berkel, Nadia Maria El-Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy, and Letizia Osti. Leiden; Boston: Brill: 187-214.
Osti, Letizia. 2015. Al-Ṣuli and the Caliph: Norms, Practices and Frames. In Il dialogo nella cultura araba: strutture, funzioni, significati (VIII-XIII secolo). Giornate Internazionali di Studio IX Colloquio Internazionale Medioevo Romanzo e Orientale (Catania, 14-15 giugno 2012), ed. M. Cassarino and A. Ghersetti. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino: 167-180
Paul, Jürgen. 2013. Where Did the Dihqāns Go? Eurasian Studies 11: 1-34.
Pinto, Olga. 1932. Al-Fatḥ b. Ḫāqān, favorito di al-Mutawakkil. Rivista degli studi orientali 13/2: 133-149.
al-Ṣābiʾ, Hilāl b. al-Muḥassin. 1904. Tuḥfat al-Umarāʾ fī Taʾrīkh al-Wuzarāʾ, ed. H.F. Amedroz. Beirut: n.p.
Sahillioğlu, Halil. 1999. Années Sıvış et Crises Monétaires dans l’Empire Ottoman. Trans. N. Godneff. In Studies on Ottoman Economic and Social History. Istanbul: Organization of the Islamic Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture IRCICA: 193-221.
Serrano, Richard A. 1997. Al-Buḥturī’s Poetics of Persian Abodes. Journal of Arabic Literature 28/1: 68-87.
Shimizu, Makoto. 1966. Les finances publiques de l’Etat ʿabbāsside. Der Islam 42: 1-24.
Sourdel, Dominique. 2012. Ibn K̲h̲āḳān. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, online edition, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0329.
al-Ṣūlī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā. 1935. Akhbār al-Rāḍī Bi-llāh wa al-Muttaqī Bi-llāh aw Taʾrīkh al-Dawla al-ʿAbbāsiyya min Sanat 322 Hijrī ilā Sanat 333 Hijrī, ed. J.H. Dunne. London: Cairo: Lazace & Co.
al-Ṭabarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr. 1964. Taʾrīkh al-Rusul wa al-Mulūk, ed. M.G. de Goeje. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
al-Ṭabarī. 1970. The History of Al-Tabari Vol. 27: The ʾAbbasid Revolution A.D. 743-750/ A.H. 126-132. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
al-Ṭabarī. 1989. The History of Al-Tabari Vol. 34: Incipient Decline the Caliphates of Al-Wathiq, Al-Mutawakkil, and Al-Muntasir A.D. 841-863/A.H. 227-248. Albany: State University of New York Press.
al-Ṭabarī. 1990. The History of Al-Tabari, Vol. 38: The Return of the Caliphate to Baghdad: The Caliphates of al-Muʾtadid, al-Muktafi and al-Muqtadir A.D. 892-915/A.H. 279-302. Albany: State University of New York Press.
al-Tanūkhī, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan b. Abī al-Qāsim. 1978. Nishwār al-Muḥāḍara wa Akhbār al-Mudhākira, ed. ʿAbūd Al-Shalkhī. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir.
Taqīzādah, Ḥasan. 2011. Il computo del tempo nell’Iran antico, ed. Simone Cristoforetti. Rome: ISIAO.
Tor, Deborah G. 2007. Violent Order: Religious Warfare, Chivalry, and the ʿAyyār Phenomenon in the Medieval Islamic World. Istanbuler Texte Und Studien 11. Würzburg: Orient-Institut Istanbul.
Treadwell, W. Luke. 2001. Notes on the Mint at Samarra. In A Medieval Islamic City Reconsidered. An Interdisciplinary Approach to Samarra, ed. C.F. Robinson. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 141-156.
Van Bladel, Kevin. 2012. Barmakids. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Three, online edition, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_24302.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 241 | 42 | 0 |
Full Text Views | 19 | 5 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 51 | 13 | 2 |
A close reading of two poetical sources provides new data on the reforms of the fiscal schedule of the Abbasid state in the ninth century. This paper reconstructs the calendrical complications in those Abbasid regions that followed Iranian administrative tradition and its solar calendar without intercalations. Two reforms were issued under al-Mutawakkil and al-Muʿtaḍid to correct the fiscal schedule of these regions. A panegyric by al-Buḥturī allows us to confirm and contextualize al-Mutawakkil’s reform in the final years of his caliphate. A few verses by Ibn al-Muʿtazz give a significant description of the close connection between al-Muʿtaḍid’s reform of the Iranian New-Year’s day and the construction of his public figure.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 241 | 42 | 0 |
Full Text Views | 19 | 5 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 51 | 13 | 2 |