Abbasid Economics

Factor Markets in Early Islamic Iraq, c.
600-1100 AD
Author(s): Bas van Bavel, Michele Campoplano and Jessica Dijkman
Source: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient , 2014, Vol. 57, No. 2,
Theme issue: Emerging and Declining Markets for Land, Labour and Capital: Iraq from
c. 700 BC to c. 1100 AD (2014), pp. 262-289
Published by: Brill
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JOURNAL OF THE ECONOMIC AND
SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE ORIENT 57 (2014) 262-289
Factor Markets in Early Islamic Iraq, c. 600-1100 AD

Bas van Bavel
Utrecht University
bj.p.vanbavel@uu. nl
Michele Campopiano
University of York
michele. campopiano@york. ac. uk
Jessica Dijkman
Utrecht University
j.dijkman@uiLnl
Abstract
This paper reconstructs the organization and development of factor markets in early
medieval Iraq. It shows that from the late Sasanian period on, and accelerating in the
early Islamic period, there was a relatively unrestricted functioning of markets for
goods, labour, and capital. This stimulated market exchange, associated with growing
monetization of the economy, especially in the towns, but also in the countryside,
even though coercion remained more pronounced there. We hypothesize that these
developments brought economic dynamism but simultaneously increased inequality
and furthered the rise of new, powerful elite groups, causing the decline of the same
markets.
Keywords
Factor markets - exchange of land, labour, and capital - early Islamic Iraq - early
Middle Ages - Abbasid period
* For their comments on an earlier draft of this paper, we would like to thank Maaike van
Berkel (uva, Amsterdam) and Michael Morony (ucla), and the anonymous referees whose
serious comments have stimulated us to revise this paper.
© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2014 | DOI 10.1163/15685209-12341349

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FACTOR MARKETS IN EARLY ISLAMIC IRAQ, C. 600-1100 AD 263
1 Introduction
This paper investigates the development of factor markets in

pre-industrial examples of market economies in western Euras
early Middle Ages. We aim to offer a coherent, long-term
markets, which has been missing up to now, while we will ref
to extract new information from the primary sources. To be su
are available and could be mined for additional information. E
umentary evidence for early medieval Iraq, as provided by th
preceding periods, is almost entirely lacking and fiscal sou
are near absent, many legal treatises, handbooks, geograph
chronicles, and narratives from this era have been preserv
hold only scattered information on prices, wages, interest rat
umes, which makes it difficult to reconstruct accurately fluc
or land prices, to assess the integration of markets, or to esti
land, labour, and capital transacted through the market. T
contain a wealth of qualitative information on the organizatio
ing of factor markets.
We hope that the coming years will see a systematic exam
sources, but before embarking on such a course of research, it
we establish a firm foothold by combining the findings of pr
into a coherent overview and formulating an hypothesis on th
markets in early medieval Iraq.1 In keeping with the purp
issue of JESHO we bring together information from sev
studies - most of which discuss factor markets only marg
them from a specific angle, or focus on one aspect of a sin
only - in order to integrate them into an overview. At the end
tion we venture a hypothesis on the interaction between the
factor markets and social and political relations in early medi
we hope, may serve as a point of departure for more systema
on primary source material.
There are compelling reasons to study factor markets in ear
as this region possessed a highly dynamic economy, in wh
and exchange of land, labour, and capital was, to a great e
through the market. In the eighth and ninth centuries, Iraq w
economically most advanced area of western Eurasia. Thi
instance, by the high urbanization rate in Iraq, which reflect
1 For factor markets more generally and their role in economic and so
the introduction to this volume.
JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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264 VAN BAVEL ET AL.
society to generate agraria

tryside can be only roughl
stantial. Recent research sug
the population may have liv
culture, in architecture and
to claim the title of intellec
ample availability of surplus
of tribute to the caliph - tri
empire - but Iraq also exp
be inferred from various
advanced technology employ
neering, the high level of
non-agricultural activities
1986: 82-84; Shatzmiller 199
of increasing market exchan
here but became more impo
ization and specialization, in
with the focus of this volum
and limit ourselves to the
equally thriving in this per
In part, developments in ea
in the late Sasanian period. A
tribution to this issue of jes
that Iraq at that time was p
extension of agricultural l
sources clearly demonstrate
tal, and a growing supply of
coins remaining in use up to
The relevant developments t
the early medieval period be
2 Land Tenure and Land Sales
Fiscality and the Role of the State

In early medieval Iraq the state always had a major stake in landed prope
the sense that it could claim much of the revenues of the land thr
2 Estimates by Eltjo Buringh of Utrecht University, based on Buringh's dataset of urba

opment in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between 800 and 1800.
JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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substantial taxes. The late Sasanian period had laid the foundation of the sys-
tem of land-tax extraction that was used after the Arab conquest. The admin-
istrative reforms accomplished under Khusraw I (531-579), which specifically
pertained to the Sawâd of Iraq, the fertile area of the river plains, changed the
land tax from a portion of the crop to a fixed amount per unit of area. This tax
rate varied according to the crops being grown: for example, tax rates for wheat
fields differed from rates for vineyards (Rubin 1995: 227-297; Frye 1984: 324-
325). The role of the state in tax collection also became more important: state
officers were made responsible for land administration and, at the district
level, for the collection of taxes and their remittance to the royal treasury
(Campopiano 2011: 244-245). Another consequence of Khusraw's policies was
that landholding was increasingly seen as a simple grant from the sovereign,
perhaps implying that the state was now able to reclaim the land grant upon
the death of the grantee (Gariboldi 2007: 37-38; Vahrāman 1997: 188-189). This
evolution changed the balance of power within the empire and influenced pat-
terns of landholding and land administration in Sasanian society, as can be
seen most conspicuously in the rise of the dihqãn described by Rezakhani and
Morony, or dahâqïn , as they are called in later Arabic sources: the petty noble
landowners, who also acted as tax collectors, constituted the rural elite and
became the backbone of the Persian military and fiscal organization
(Campopiano 2011: 247; Daryaee 2009: 147-148; Rezhakani and Morony, in this
issue of j es ho).
Land-tax assessment in Iraq after the conquest seems to have followed the
outline of Sasanian surplus collection, even though there were changes in ter-
minology, and a distinction was now made between Muslim-owned land and
that owned by non-Muslims. The main land tax was called kharāj : the tax,
imposed on the land of conquered populations who had not accepted Islam
before the conquest and had not signed a special agreement ( sulh ), was levied
on most of the conquered areas. Tax assessment on kharāj land mainly fol-
lowed a system called ť alā l-misāha : from a fixed portion of land a fixed amount
of money and/or crops was collected. Tax remissions may have been allowed in
cases of poor harvest (Daryaee 2009: 148; Campopiano 2011; Morony 1984: 100).
Another, less onerous tax assessment was the tithe ( (ushr)t which was assessed
on the land of believers (Muslims). Farmers residing on state lands were appar-
ently bound to pay taxes proportionate to their yields, as in the Sasanian period
(Campopiano 2012 and forthcoming (a); Morony 1984: 100). The Arabs confis-
cated the Sasanian crown lands but left the dahâqïn mostly in the possession
of the village estates that formed the basic taxation units; their knowledge of
existing taxation practices was valuable to the conquerors (Campopiano 2011:
251). In theory, the differentiation of tax regimes could have led to a reduced
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transferability of land: i
tion of land from a heav
attempts to enforce th
both under 'Umar Ibn al
(Morony 1981: 139-40, 15
policies were deemed ne
non-Muslims to Muslims were common. Similar concerns for loss of tax reve-
nue seem to explain the argument made by Muslim jurists who claimed that
the status of kharāj land should be independent of the religious belief of the
owner. Abū Yûsuf, for instance, wrote that no one had the right to turn kharāj
land into lushr land (Abū Yûsuf 1969: 3). This argument concerned, in part, the
conversion of existing landlords to Islam, but it also referred to the sales of
land by unbelievers to an emerging Muslim elite - market transactions that, as
will be discussed in more detail below, contributed to a concentration of
landed property in the hands of that Muslim elite from at least the early eighth
century onwards (Campopiano 2011: 253-254).
Land Sales
The strong presence of central authority in the process of surplus extraction in

no way meant that landed estates could not be sold or exchanged (Morony
1988: 135-47; Schmucker 1972). On the contrary, apart from the share of the
state, property rights to land were clear. As Rezakhani and Morony demon-
strate in this issue of jes H o , land in Iraq in the Sasanian period was regularly
bought, sold, leased, and mortgaged and the sale of land usually recorded in
writing. After the Muslim conquest, registered contracts of land sales were also
common, although perhaps not compulsory, and land sales became even eas-
ier than before. The Muslims had a clear concept of private property (milk),
which had been well established in Arabia (Lokkegaard 1978: 32). Also, ideas
that developed in the legal schools, such as the important Hanafī school,
helped transform land into a commodity, while the payment of a land tax was
considered clear proof of private property, which, in its turn, allowed for easy
transaction (Johansen 1988: 11-2; cf. Morony 1981: 139; Banaji 2009: 79-82).
Landowners held their holdings in private ownership, at least in the case of
arable land. Only grazing grounds and springs were held in common, to be
used by the Bedouins and other tribes or clans for grazing and watering their
cattle. Some villages or towns also had commons (himā s), consisting of mead-
ows and bogs or fens situated near the village, which supplied grazing, water,
and firewood and were probably used more or less collectively (Lokkegaard
1978: 20-24, 36-37). In addition, some state land existed, the crown domains,
most of which had already belonged to the crown in Sasanian times. The rest
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of the arable land in Iraq - by far the most - was held privately and was bought
and sold between private parties.
Besides the land held and exchanged by peasants and petty noblemen, land
was also acquired by the new Arab Muslim elites, in part through sale. The sell-
ers were, at least in some cases, dahäqln , whose property rights to the land
seem to have been strengthened by the new legal regime. For example, Yahyä
Ibn Ādam reports that a dihqãn approached 'Abd Allāh Ibn Mas'ūd, a
Companion of the Prophet, asking him to buy his land. The Arab accepted,
provided that the old landlord would continue to pay kharāj on it (Yahyä Ibn
Ādam 1967: 49). Wealthy Arabs were increasingly converting the booty they
had acquired from the conquests and their monetary pensions into landown-
ership. Smaller holdings and individual plots of a hectare or so were also
bought and sold. Law books from the eighth century discuss extensively the
widespread purchasing of land by Christians and, especially, by Muslims
(Yahyä Ibn Ādam: 27, 28, 30, 33, 47-50).
These land acquisitions, as well as land grants to caliphal relatives, friends,
and supporters, gradually resulted in the rise of an elite of big landholding
families from the Sawäd, who also acted as tax farmers, government officials,
bankers, and merchant-entrepreneurs. It was the combination of these func-
tions and activities that allowed this elite increasingly to dominate both com-
modity and factor markets. The cultivation of market-oriented crops, such as
cotton and sugar cane, on the estates of these landowners could easily be com-
plemented by industrial processing or by wholesale trade in these commodi-
ties, sometimes combined with tax farming or high-ranking positions in the
state administration. A good example is 'All b. Ahmad al-Rāsibl (d. 913/914),
who allegedly owned eighty textile workshops in southeastern Iraq and adja-
cent Khuzistan; in this same region he was also a tax farmer and a provincial
governor (ben Abdallah 1986: 74; Serjeant 1943: 73). Owners of large estates and
industrial entrepreneurs such as al-Rāsibī benefited from the presence of a
labour market giving them access to a flexible labour force (discussed below).
They also profited from the presence - at least for wholesale trade - of free
and dynamic commodity markets. In the early tenth century, tax farmers,
estate owners, and high officials were, for instance, able to monopolize the
grain trade, storing wheat collected in kind and selling it at high prices on the
urban market (ben Abdallah 1986: 141-144).
Likewise, these elites could use the land market in accumulating land. Some
of the sales in this market were small-scale, as exemplified by the story, from
Basra in the first half of the ninth century, about a modest pedlar who sold
pepper and vegetables but was able to save some money and thus buy a piece
of arable land of one hundred jārīb (sixteen hectares) (al-Jāhiz 1951: 44). The
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emphasis is on the thri

land purchase, showin
scale transactions, lar
been accumulated by t
but anecdotal evidence
estates, real estate in th
supreme judge Ahmad I
possessed more than o
(Sabari 1981: 35, 37, w
entered the market, as
two rival pretenders, w
more of a disguised con
erties sold in the mark
In this process, the pr
period there were still
centrated in the hands of Muslim elites. From the second half of the tenth
century, large landownership increased even further, and even more large
estates were built up. Conversely, the last remaining small-scale property and
smallholding peasantry now disappeared, a development enabled by the free-
dom to buy and sell land (Johansen 1988: 81). Buying land was considered the
safest investment. Ibn al-Jassās, a jeweller from Baghdad, in about 960 pos-
sessed land in the Baghdad commercial quarter of al-Karkh worth 50,000
dinars, land near one of the Baghdad gates worth 30,000, property in Basra
worth 100,000, and several rural estates, totalling 900,000 dinars, as well as
100,000 dinars in cash and 300,000 dinars in slaves, jewels, and other valuables,
and this was only what was left after most of his property had been confiscated
by the caliph (Margoliouth 1921-22: 16-18). Properties such as these do not seem
to have been unusual at the time. The merchant Abū Hasan al-Tālibī, who was
born in Kufa and later moved to Baghdad, possessed, in the second half of the
tenth century, some 40,000 hectares of land, which produced twenty million
dirhams in crops per year. He invested the profits in buying new land in south-
ern Iraq and having it worked by labourers, by which he further increased his
profits (Sabari 1981: 38). This case was not exceptional: there were other mer-
chants and officials in this period who had a yearly revenue of one million
dinars from their estates alone ( Ashtor 1976: 140-141, 155-157).
Parts of these large estates were devoted to cash crops, such as rice, cotton,
and sugar. These seem to have been worked mainly by wage labourers and
slaves, but the rising dominance of large landownership probably also
increased the importance of short-term tenancy.
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Tenancy
Tenancy systems in early medieval Iraq often involved more than just the allo-
cation of land-use rights: they frequently served also as instruments for the
allocation of labour and capital. There was variation in which element carried
the most weight. This variety of tenancy systems can best be envisaged as a
continuum, ranging from systems akin to lease contracts to those that were
more like labour contracts. Various forms of tenancy had also existed in the
Sasanian period. At that time, the main - and for the tenant most desirable -
form of tenancy was permanent share-cropping for one-quarter to one-third of
the crop (Morony 1981: 162-165; for the Sasanian period, see Rezakhani and
Morony in this issue of jesho). The sharecropper held permanent rights to the
land and could sublet it if he wished. Compared to the permanent sharecrop-
per, the contractual tenant (hoker, akkãr) was in a less favourable position: he
paid a fixed annual sum in cash or crops but had no permanent rights to the
land (Campopiano 2011).
After the Arabic conquests, these forms of tenancy were fitted into the
emerging framework of Islamic law. A distinction was made, in legal terms,
between the rent of land for a fixed sum in cash or kind (a contract of lease or
hire of usufruct, or ijãra) and sharecropping. Islamic jurists were opposed, in
principle, to sharecropping, because this system could be interpreted as a type
of ribā al-fadl, or undeserved income from unequal exchange of land, leading
to the exploitation of the weaker groups in society. In the course of the eighth
century, however, more jurists in Iraq attempted to legitimize its use
(Campopiano 2011). There are sharecropping contracts described by Abū Yûsuf
(d. 798), as, for instance, in a system in which the land tax is muqâsama , a tax
assessed on the basis of a share of the crops (Abü Yûsuf 1969: 115-116; Yanagihashi
2004: 253-275). It is striking that the initial resistance of Islamic jurists to share-
cropping, and the attention to its exploitative nature, had already weakened
during the eighth century, probably precisely because of the dominance of
sharecropping in Iraq and the impossibility of banning it.
In contrast to the permanent sharecropping dominant during the Sasanian
era, it seems that, in early medieval Iraq, sharecroppers holding grain land,
muzāra'a , held their land mostly for only one or two years. The types of crop
were decided by the landowner, and the tenants were allowed to retain only a
third or a quarter of the output, which made them resemble dependent labour-
ers rather than self-employed farmers. Sharecroppers holding plots with fruit
trees or olive trees were usually better off and had longer contracts, which is
not surprising, given the long-term investments needed (Yanagihashi 2004:
253-254; Lökkegaard, 1978: 174-175)-
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Tenants holding plots

necessarily in a better p
that leasing and sub-leas
but larger holdings we
contracts were common
two years or for indefin
direct information on th
for instance (Banaji 200
indeed predominant, th
reduced his incentives
that Islamic jurists str
the actual rent may nev
respected, enhanced th
the development by Isl
average market level f
these jurists, valid lease
of the leaseholding, the
of the contract, and th
owner and the tenant had made a valid contract and the tenant received the
"property of use" without interference by the owner, a legal position that
reduced the insecurity for the tenants (Johansen 1988: 32-39, although perhaps
somewhat too optimistic). This would also have enabled the tenant to sub-
lease the land.
The part of the cultivated area distributed in short-term tenancy - share-

cropping or ijãra - and its development over time are difficult to reconstruct.
The sources available for the Sasanian and the early Islamic period (chronicles
and juridical and geographical treatises) do not allow us to give precise figures
on the diffusion of short-term tenancy, but, analyzing the works of jurists such
as Abü Yûsuf that increasingly supported sharecropping and other forms of
short-term tenancy since the eighth century onward, it seems reasonable to
see the eighth century as a period of diffusion of this kind of contract and of
sharecropping in particular (Campopiano 2011: 261-263). This development
took place in a context in which smallholders were already in decline, as we
have seen above, with the final acceleration in this process taking place in the
second half of the tenth century. The growing dominance of large landowner-
ship may have increased the importance of short-term tenancy, but this cannot
be ascertained, because of the lack of sources, which are even more silent on
the exact organization of leasing. We hardly know, for instance, the length of
the lease contract in years. Likewise, it is unclear whether the tenant had full
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FACTOR MARKETS IN EARLY ISLAMIC IRAQ, C. 600-1100 AD 27I
use-rights during the lease term (Johansen 1988: 38-39) or what

ancies was.
3 The Labour Market
Rural Labour
In the countryside, labour relations were affected by the power of the land-
owning elites (Banaji 2009: 78-85). Many rural inhabitants remained bound to
the land or in some state of (semi-)dependency (Morony 1981: 165). The fact,
observed by Baber Johansen, that legal theorists discussed whether the peas-
ants of the Sawâd could be seen as slaves seems to be an attempt to find a legal
rationalization for the conditions of Iraqi peasantry (Morony 1981: 165).
According to Abù 'Ubayd, 'Umar I forbade the purchase of a serf belonging to
dhimmīs ( raqîq ahi al-dhimma) because these people were ahi kharäj , people
of the land tax, that is, people subjected to the exaction of land tax (Ibn
Khurradādhbih 1989: 157). The people of the Sawäd were also called slaves
( ariqqď ) in a tradition reported by al-Tabari in the Kitãb ikhtilãf al-fuqahã '
from Sharik b. Sharlk b. 'Abd Allāh al-Nakha'I during the caliphate of al-Mansūr
(754-775) (al-Tabari 1933: 225; Robinson 1971: 33). The political constraint on the
peasantry is shown also by the fact that, under al-Hajjāj, force was used to
bring them back to the land (Forand 1971: 28; Coçgel, Miceli, and Ahmed 2009).
Besides these forms of peasant dependency, outright slavery also existed.
Slaves were used to remove the salty soil in order to make the land of southern
Iraq cultivable (al-Tabari 1879-1901: 1747-1750; Popovic 1976: 64-66). Conflicts
between slaves and masters often exploded in violent rebellions and, in south-
ern Iraq, Zanj rebellions occurred as early as 689-90 and 694 (Popovic 1976:
62-63).
However, although forms of dependence or bondage continued to exist at
least into the eighth century (Campopiano 2011; forthcoming (b)), the freedom
of labour probably increased in the early Islamic period, even in the country-
side. The traditional picture of self-sufficient, autarkic villages with property
held in common and small surpluses being extracted from an undifferentiated
mass of servile villagers in the form of levies, taxes, or corvée labour, found in
descriptions of the so-called Asiatic mode of production, is incorrect (Krader
1975: 286-296; cf. Banaji 2001). The rural economy was highly market-oriented,
communal agriculture unimportant, social differentiation pronounced, and
corvée labour scarce. Most labour was performed in forms of tenancy or as free
or semi-free independent labour, while wage labour was also employed. Iraqi
JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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society could build on t

of wage labour in the a
agricultural times, such
as digging canals and tr
month but also by the d
After the Muslim conq
fiscated lands of oppon
sales were two such opt
cultivate the land (Yahy
labourers was common
sonal workers in the co
increasingly in cash (B
economy and the freed
sharecropping arrange
was rewarded with a sh
type of labour contra
jurists. Most found tha
a labourer for a fixed w
failure would mean tha
unrewarded. Still, as m
much used in the peri
cially, seasonal workers
Free wage labour was
Umayyad period, besi
labour rents were still
period this was no long
were skilled ones buil
these machines, and en
reed-binders, and othe
tractors (Beg 1973: 23-
received a fee per labou
large numbers. These g
ger distances in search
more or less bound to
rural people who left t
back to their villages, e
corvée labour (Forand
3 Cf. the introduction to th
JESHO 57

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peasants could work independently or hire themselves out for wages,

them were also, to some extent, bound to the land or subjected to re
Especially from the ninth century on, coercion of rural labour
again. A conspicuous aspect of this trend is the diffusion of slave lab
the Islamic period, in particular in southern Iraq, near Basra, lin
development of cash-crop plantations (mainly of sugar cane) in t
(es-Samarraie 1972: 94). The investors were members of the royal fam
clients and protégés. Among the slaves we find the introductio
(African slaves), since the end of the seventh century (see also
growing in numbers in the subsequent period (Campopiano forth
Duri 1979: 90-2; Popovic 1976: 60-2; Talhami 1977: 453, 458-460 re
emphasis on the assumed East African origin of most slaves). The Bas
combined their property rights to large tracts of land, their wealth,
ability of credit opportunities - as Basra formed a major centre of b
finance - and the availability of slaves, as Basra was also a main port
fer in the slave trade (Popovic 1976: 13-25). Like peasants, slaves were
large landowners and entrepreneurs in order to reclaim the land and
it for the cultivation of cash crops such as cotton and, especially, sug
crop able to grow on the salty soils reclaimed from these brackis
nated marshlands (Ouerfelli 2008: 22-24; Waines 1977: 301-302). T
numbering some 15,000 in this area and forming perhaps a quar
labour force there, performed this hard work in large gangs, overse
agents of the big entrepreneurs, and were lodged in big work camps
these entrepreneurs. Many of the latter belonged to the Hashimite, B
and Abbasid families, the most powerful families in the Muslim wor
slaves, often suffering from malaria in the brackish marshlands
allowed to marry and did not have children (Beg 1975: 114-115); they
more than capital goods procured by the wealthy Basra elite. After t
Zanj slave revolt in southern Iraq at the end of the ninth century and
growing fear of large numbers of slaves, it seems that sharecropping
a substitute for slave labour (Ouerfelli 2008: 23-24). Just like slav
sharecropping arrangements, which often coincided with a semi
position of the tenant, helped to keep the cost of rural labour low, e
periods of plague and population decline, but it may be that this also
the expense of the investments in labour-saving techniques.
Urban Labour
Urban labour in early medieval Iraq was highly specialized and diversified
(Shatzmiller 1994: 172, records 659 occupations from six sources from Iraq,
from the eighth to the twelfth century). A growing demand for products and
JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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services, reinforced by
administrative and com
cialization. Abū SaťId
Dreams paints a vivid p
trade, and services th
The streets of the city
pedlars and traders se
and many others (Fah
labour market that wov
three formative princi
workers, and - by far
"employees" and their "
relations between cra
All three were influe
developing legal fram
the balance of power in
As in the late Sasania
labour: the army and
slaves (Beg 1975: 111, 11
prominent in the late
of the ninth century,
tary campaign in Egypt
some of whom were lat
in the Egyptian fashio
transfers appear to hav
there is no sign of an a
the towns under state
labour markets was ver
the muhtasib , a state f
industry, saw to it tha
were obeyed and that t
appears to have been bu
and labour conditions (S
Collective forms of sel
to the assertions of e
them, there is no evide
craftsmen and traders,
considerable of autonom
4 For population transfers
JESHO 57

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no exception to this rule. The grouping of occupations in quarters su

a specialized suq, as has been demonstrated in detail for Basra in
and ninth centuries (Naji and Ali 1981: 298-309), doubtless did create
bonds. There are indications that, from the late tenth century onwa
bonds strengthened and that some degree of informal self-orga
workers in the same profession came into being. The silk work
Attabiya quarter in Baghdad, for instance, rose in protest against th
tion of new taxes in 985, and, at the end of the eleventh century, p
groups in Baghdad occasionally manifested themselves as a collec
tive occasions, displaying the tools or products of their occupation a
of their identity (Sabari 1981: 31). It has been argued that such inform
tions of craftsmen may have played a part in, for instance, the
youngsters and admission to the profession, a subject about whic
very little (Hamdani 2002: 167). This remains an unproven hypothesi
Common, on the other hand, was another type of self-organiz
strictly individual basis: the collaboration of individual artisans in la
nerships, in which they pooled resources and skills. Partnership
were a core element of Islamic law as it emerged in the first centurie
conquest. Because jurists living and working in the cities of Iraq
important role in the formation of early Islamic law, we can be fair
the cases they discussed in legal treatises do indeed reflect econo
tions in Baghdad, Kufa, or Basra. Labour partnerships could be form
artisans with the same profession, but, at least according to the jur
Hanafì law school, also between artisans with different but com
skills, such as a weaver and a dyer, and, significantly, between an ar
stall owner. Juridical treatises state explicitly that these arrangement
economic needs (Udovitch 1967; 1970: 65-77). Some of these need
referred to scale: some ventures required a greater amount of c
greater variety of skills than a single person could muster, but partn
lent legal legitimacy to subcontracting and thus to entrepreneu
larger scale. This takes us to relations between "employees" and thei
ers." Some of these relations were coercive: well-to-do members of the elite
commonly owned slaves. These slaves worked in towns as domestic servants,
were employed in manufacturing in the workshops of their master, or acted as
his agents in trade.5 The demand for slaves was satisfied by slave dealers, whose
supply lines reached into Africa, India, Central Asia, and the Slavic lands.
Urban slave markets facilitated the trade: Baghdad, Basra, and Samarra each
had one or more, each being a huge complex, with rooms, shops, and alleys
5 For slave labour in the countryside, see above: 271, 273.
JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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(Savage 1997: 67-89; Beg 1975

attention paid in legal treati
damages in situations like th
(Yanagihashi 2004: 61, 67-69).
Although the share of unfree
culated accurately, it is clear t
free men - and women. Many
among the artisanate, worked
services to consumers or me
Abbasid era, wages were usua
(e.g., a ration of bread) was som
to the extensive monetization
In Islamic law, the most comm
payment was to envisage it as
Ijãra can be divided into the
already seen it in operation),
to this category - and the hiri
cedes his labour to another ma
out a certain task, in return fo
working for the public" (self-e
ucts commissioned by their cu
lar person", who were paid a m
were referred to as ijãra (Halla
2004: 73-74).
Contracts of this kind were pr
we know, none has been pres
sources provide information
arrived at an agreement One su
Caliph al-Muťtasim, who starte
of a wealthy inhabitant of B
position he was able to negotia
In my early days during th

Harthama b. Ayam, a miserly
kitchen. He gave me fiftee
bread
sand dirhems on the prices which he would have had

him an account to that effect. He was pleased and
impression. One day he said to me: You have earned a
much would you like it to be? - I said: At least ano
JESHO 57 (2014) 262-289

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That, he said, is a lot of money; let us say four dirhams (Margolio

22: 506-507).
ļjāra agreements thus suited a situation in which labour conditions, the dura-
tion of the contract, and the level of wages were determined by individual bar-
gaining based on market conditions.
Another way to embed labour relations in a legal framework was through an
investment contract {salam). Under a salam contract an investor provided
cash (or goods) to a producer, who committed in return to handing over a
product at a later date. Salam is also referred to as a sales contract, but it differs
from other sales contracts in that the delivery is deferred (Hallaq 2012: 250-251).
As this could, like the sharecropping discussed earlier, be seen as a violation of
the Quťanic prohibition of undeserved income from unequal exchange, jurists
were much concerned with an early and accurate assessment of the value of
the product to be made. That is why originally salam was mostly restricted to
agricultural products such as fruits or grain - products of a fairly uniform qual-
ity that could easily be weighed or measured. However, Baber Johansen has
shown that from at least the ninth century onwards salam contracts also began
to fulfil an important role in the production of and trade in manufactures such
as textiles. Merchants used these contracts to assemble stocks of products
made according to strict specifications; they thus suited the rise of merchant-
entrepreneurship in this era (Johansen 2006: 863-869).
In Iraq, the commercial nexus of the Abbasid empire, merchant-entrepre-
neurship in textiles probably emerged at an early stage. Cohen's analysis of the
biographies of scholars in religion and law has found several eighth-century
examples of theologians and jurisprudents who had a background as drapers
in Baghdad, Kufa, or Basra (Cohen 1970: 26-28). Under a salam contract, small
textile producers formally remained self-employed artisans, but in practice
they were economically dependent on the large entrepreneurs who commis-
sioned their work. Despite the fact that the legal discourse on salam contracts
emphasizes equality of exchange, there is reason to believe that their use
served mainly the interests of merchant-entrepreneurs and did not prevent
the exploitation of small producers. This is, for instance, suggested by the
Baghdad riots of 985 mentioned earlier. These riots were initiated by the peo-
ple of the Attabiya quarter, a centre of silk production, where the Attabi silks,
one of Baghdad's primary export products, were made. The fact that the silk
workers rose in protest against new taxes imposed on the manufacture of silks
suggests that they had to bear the brunt of the burden: the powerful silk mer-
chants probably tried to shift the financial consequences of the new tax to the
small producers (Amedroz and Margoliouth 1921: 119-120, 361-362).
JESHO 57 (2014) 262-289

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Urban labour markets in earl

free and flexible relations be
stimulated specialization and
allowed for economic depend
the form of regulation by th
ances byway of self-organisat
this effect.
4 Money, Credit and Financial Markets
The economy of early medieval Iraq was characterized by a high degree of

monetization. Coins were widely available. Starting already in the late Sasanian
period,6 the money supply in early medieval Iraq increased greatly. Gold and
pure silver coins were used in long-distance trade and fiscal transfers, but more
striking is the increase of the number of smaller silver coins in the eighth and
ninth centuries, with Basra and Kufa being among the main mints (Heidemann
2010: 649-650, 657-661). These dirhams were the coins used in actual market
exchange and for bigger wage payments in the labour market. Dirhams with a
low silver content, and the numerous small copper and billon coins minted by
regional authorities, were used for smaller payments and daily transactions.
The dinars from the Umayyad and early Abbasid period are very consistent in
fineness and weight, without substantial declines, with the exception of sev-
eral specimens from the period of the civil war between al- Amin and al-Ma'mūn
(810-813) (Ehrenkreutz 1959: 128-161, 135-143; Broome 1985: 29-32; Bates 1996).
From the reign of al-Ma'mūn onwards, there was again no relevant decline in
the standard of fineness of the dinars struck in Baghdad and Samarra, at least
until the rise of the Buwayhids (Ehrenkreutz 1959: 144-145). In fact, the stan-
dard of fineness was increased during the reign of al-Ma'mūn (el-Hibri 1993:
72). An analysis of silver coins shows that their weight tended to vary more,
with different types of silver coins having different weights (often depending
on the province where they were struck), and it is likely that silver coins
were circulated by weight. The dirhams struck between the seventh and ninth
centuries generally were of high-quality silver (Bates 1978, 1979, 1986; Broome
1985: 28-29).
Financial services also grew during the same period. Already in the early
Islamic period, Iraq had numerous money changers, pawnbrokers, and mer-
chant-financiers, and the latter employed sophisticated instruments, including
6 See Rezakhani and Morony in this issue of jesho : 243-244.
JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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bills of exchange and letters of credit (Udovitch 1975; Goitein 1967:

anything, this shows that the notion that capital markets were obs
Qur'anic prohibitions on interest is incorrect: from the very beginni
traders, entrepreneurs, and financiers found ways to obtain credit
credit transactions and other financial services profitable (Wi
22-24). In the countryside, the use of credit instruments was often
fiscality and may have produced forms of dependency. At the l
level, the link between credit and fiscality was evident in the practic
in which a rich man or village notable advanced the tax paymen
officer for the local community, in order to be reimbursed later by
nity, with compensation. This practice could result in abuses, an
the late eighth century it was condemned by Muslim jurist Abū Yü
because he feared that, under this system, the state would receive
case of direct collection (Lokkegaard 1978: 95-96).
At the same time, especially in the ninth century, financial mark
towns developed in a much more favourable way, linked to urban m
long-distance commodity trade. Letters of credit ( sufiaja ) prolifer
cashed at a bank, allowing for the safe transfer of amounts of up t
of dinars over long distances (Fischel 1937: 17-21; Ray 1997: 71-72).
of credit were also employed in fiscal administration, by officials an
ers from remote provinces to send money to the capital, showing t
tion between fiscality and trade and between state elites and merch
The instrument was also used to deposit unpaid letters of credit wi
as a security for loans. Another financial instrument that had exist
but came into regular use in the tenth century was the sakkt a bill o
used for amounts up to thousands of dinars or even more (Mez
Labib 1969: 79-96). Bankers levied a charge when paying out, fo
a commission of one dirham per dinar (= 5-10%, depending on t
rate) (Margoliouth 1921-22: 215-216).
The ninth and tenth centuries were thus a period of boomin
markets and new financial instruments. In this period, all kind
activities flourished, with money changers and merchant-bankers (
changing coins, verifying the value of coins, collecting payments,
banking facilities, including to the government and its offici
exchanger-bankers are first mentioned in the second half of the ei
tury, but they proliferated in the tenth century (Fischel 1933; Sabari
Among these bankers were Muslim Arabs, Christians, and many Je
the Jewish jahbadh became state bankers and built close conne
caliph and the viziers. Links between the exchanger-bankers an
were formalized in about 910, with the establishment of a central b
JESHO 57 (2014) 262-289

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28o VAN BAVE L ET AL.
the direction of two pro

the monthly payment of
enues. The early tenth
al-jahabidha , a kind of
towns, under a governor
928 (Chaci 2005: 10-11; be
Although links betwee
became more so over tim
vate bankers to the we
deposited their money w
or confiscation, these su
if they involved tens of
tury, financiers ( sarrãf
(Udovitch 1981; Fischel
200,000 dinars extended
to the vizier al-Kalwadh
Qaräba (Ray 1997: 68). A
could make the largest p
elite who had been ruine
ever, the interest rates w
rates that would indica
1978: 198-199).7
Both bankers and finan
and with the advancing o
which they sometimes
tions did not develop, b
within a market. In larg
district of Baghdad, th
their own markets, bank
(Le Strange 1900; Ray 199
ally every merchant had
bank in the banking baza
At that time, people fro
activities, and they were
the ninth-century satir
about the niggardly bank
Basra bankers acquired g
7 The observations are few,

high-ranking officials; intere
JESHO 57

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his avarice, who owned some 100,000 dinars, and Ahmad ibn Khalaf ai-YazIdl,
whose father left him and his brother a sum of 2.6 million dirhams and 140,0
dinars. These families were also linked to the religious elite, again disproving
the ideas of a supposed Muslim distrust of financial dealings. Of the religious
scholars of the Arabian heartland, including many from Iraq, a substantial par
was involved in business, sometimes combined with tax-farming, includin
some investors and moneylenders. The share of moneylenders and financi
dealers among them grew in this period, from three percent of the schola
before the ninth century to 5-8% in the ninth to eleventh centuries (Cohe
1970: 32-33> 43-44).
In part, credit had been a solution to the problem of the declining availabil-
ity of cash. The period of high monetization and ample availability of coin
ended in the tenth and eleventh centuries (Heidemann 2010: 649-650, 657-661;
Ilisch 1990; Ehrenkreutz 1959), such that the number of coins struck declined
dramatically, in Iraq even more than in other parts of the empire. The produc
tion of copper coins even ceased completely in Iraq in the last third of th
ninth century. From then on, fragments of silver and gold coins were used fo
small daily transactions, but these coins also became rarer (Heidemann 201
55; 2010: 657-661). Stefan Heidemann asserts that monetization in the eleventh
century had shrunk to a level not seen since the Hellenistic period, a millen-
nium before, which must have severely hindered the functioning of fact
markets. The period discussed in this chapter, including the late Sasania
period, thus stands out for its high monetization and dynamic markets.
5 Tentative Reconstruction of the Rise and Decline of Markets
The main goal of this contribution has been to outline the functioning of the
markets for land, labour, and capital in early medieval Iraq and to examine
their development between the seventh and the eleventh century ce. We will
not touch on the topic of economic growth and the decline of medieval Iraq
here. Rather, in this concluding section we intend to position factor markets in
a wider context by tentatively highlighting the way in which these markets
interacted with changing social and political relations. It will be clear that,
even for this more limited ambition, it is too early to draw firm conclusions,
but on the basis of the admittedly sketchy picture it is possible to formulate an
hypothesis that can be tested by future, more systematic research.
Factor markets in the seventh and eighth centuries, which probably built on
developments that had begun in the late Sasanian period, clearly display
growth in freedom and dynamism. This applies especially to the freedom of
JESHO 57 (2014) 262-289

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labour, in town and in c

and financial services.
Changes in the land mar
and lease markets wer
most striking are the
arrangements and labo
landholding systems. Th
ization rates and an agr
ries: these were mutuall
centuries, however, sa
extended their domain
also saw merchant-bank
positions in the bureauc
71-79, 87-102). These f
monopolies, and built
made huge profits, part
kets, they had not only
influence to adapt the r
of non-elite groups dete
peasantry.
In this process, there are clear differences between urban and rural devel-
opments. Market exchange in the towns, as well as the exchange of labour
and capital, seems to have been less restricted and more dynamic. In contrast,
the exchange of land, labour, and capital in the countryside remained much
more restricted and characterized by coercion, subjected to the interests of the
tax-receiving state and the elites, mainly operating from the towns. The latter
did not conflict with or block market exchange. On the contrary, the commer-
cialization of the rural economy and the functioning of these factor markets,
that were skewed toward their interests, aided this process. The organization
of land tenure and leasing, for instance, while raising surpluses, promoting
urbanization, and introducing new crops generating market profits seems also
to have been well suited to squeezing the countryside and rural labour.
There are clear signs that a significant reduction of agricultural output
took place at the same time. The land-tax revenues declined from more than
120 million dirhams in 787-788 to scarcely thirty million dirhams in 918-919.8
Although these revenues were not solely dependent on output but also on
tax-collection rates, a decline of this magnitude suggests a substantial
8 See more extensively Van Bavel in this issue of jesho : 168.
JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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reduction of agricultural output. The same kind of data, combined with

archaeological findings, suggest also that the high point in agricultural output
was not reached in the Islamic period at all but rather under the Sasanians.
The Diyala region, east of later Baghdad, had at that time reached the maxi-
mum level of cultivation; all available agricultural land had been put to use,
enabled by huge, state-organized irrigation schemes (Adams 1965: 69-83). The
exact relationship between the functioning of factor markets and agricultural
decline in the ninth century ce requires further research: other factors, such as
climate change, may also have played a part. However, it is very possible that
the increasingly skewed character of factor markets exacerbated and acceler-
ated the process, by facilitating the exploitation of the rural population.
It is thus not surprising that social unrest manifested itself in the country-
side first, although later, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the effects were
felt also in the cities. Eventually the whole country suffered: the urban popula-
tion declined rapidly, villages were deserted, irrigation works deteriorated, and
the area under cultivation shrank (Ashtor 1976: 168-169). These developments
in turn affected markets, because they led to a partial substitution of non-mar-
ket exchange and coercion for market exchange. This is reflected by the decline
of coin output and a substantial decrease in the level of monetization in the
eleventh century, as noted above. Current information on the populations of
towns is also in keeping with this hypothesis. The absolute size of towns peaked
in about 900, arguably as a result of the increasing success in the extraction of
surpluses from the countryside, partly through market mechanisms. Baghdad,
in particular, commanded a large share of surpluses (Bosker, Buringh, and van
Zanden 2013; Eltjo Buringh kindly provided estimates, 5 May 2011). In the tenth
century, the erosion of the productive base of the countryside reached a level
that made impossible the feeding of such big cities, resulting in sharp decline
in urban population. At the same time, per capita g dp - and, to an even
greater extent, real wages - sank from the high levels they had reached in the
eighth century to substantially lower levels in the tenth and eleventh centuries
(Pamuk and Shatzmiller 2014).
In short, we hypothesize that, from the late Sasanian period on, and acceler-
ating in the early Islamic period, there was a relatively unrestricted functioning
of markets for goods, labour, and capital that stimulated market exchange,
especially in the towns, associated with the growing monetization of the econ-
omy. This brought economic dynamism, but, at the same time, these develop-
ments increased inequality and furthered the rise of new, powerful elite groups.
These groups availed themselves of the market in order to maximize their
revenues and used the non-economic, coercive opportunities offered by and
JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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within the market, to the de

also that of the towns.
This tentative reconstruction
against themselves is, for now
available evidence. Future res
ify the picture, leading to a
markets interacted with a c
seventh and the eleventh cen
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Factor Markets in Early Islamic Iraq, c.

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SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE ORIENT 57 (2014) 262-289

Factor Markets in Early Islamic Iraq, c. 600-1100 AD

© KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2014 | DOI 10.1163/15685209-12341349

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This paper investigates the development of factor markets in

JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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society to generate agraria

2 Land Tenure and Land Sales

Fiscality and the Role of the State

2 Estimates by Eltjo Buringh of Utrecht University, based on Buringh's dataset of urba

JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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JESHO 57 (2014) 262-289

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The strong presence of central authority in the process of surplus extraction in

JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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emphasis is on the thri

JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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Tenants holding plots

The part of the cultivated area distributed in short-term tenancy - share-

JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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use-rights during the lease term (Johansen 1988: 38-39) or what

3 The Labour Market

JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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society could build on t

3 Cf. the introduction to th

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peasants could work independently or hire themselves out for wages,

JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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4 For population transfers

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no exception to this rule. The grouping of occupations in quarters su

5 For slave labour in the countryside, see above: 271, 273.

JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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(Savage 1997: 67-89; Beg 1975

In my early days during th

sand dirhems on the prices which he would have had

JESHO 57 (2014) 262-289

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That, he said, is a lot of money; let us say four dirhams (Margolio

JESHO 57 (2014) 262-289

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Urban labour markets in earl

4 Money, Credit and Financial Markets

The economy of early medieval Iraq was characterized by a high degree of

6 See Rezakhani and Morony in this issue of jesho : 243-244.

JESHO 57 (2OI4) 262-289

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bills of exchange and letters of credit (Udovitch 1975; Goitein 1967:

JESHO 57 (2014) 262-289

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