Abstract Prof. Dr. Hugh Kennedy
“ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURES, CONCEPTS, APPROACHES, AND COMPARISONS”
Nov. 27-29, 2014, Universität Hamburg
Abstract
“Military and Economy in the Administration of the Empire”
In the first part of this paper I shall examine how the payment of the military was a determining factor in the administration of the early Islamic state in the period of ‘Islamic Late Antiquity’ and how bureaucratic structures developed to manage this. I shall then consider the resource base of the Abbasid caliphate in the ninth and early tenth centuries, looking at the yields of kharaj taxation and the rents (mustaghallāt) of the state lands and the relative importance of each of these. I shall also consider issues of core and periphery in the financial administration of the time. I shall then consider how the financial crises of the early tenth century led to the disintegration of this resource base, the state lands being sold off at much reduced prices and the income from public taxation being “privatised” in the form of iqṭāʿ grants. Finally I shall make a few points about the comparison of proto-feudal institutions in Islam and the Latin West.