Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/617

Rh INSTITUTIONS.] MOHAMMEDANISM 569 GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF THE ABBASID CALITHS DOWN TO THE FALL OF BAGHDAD. Abbas. Abdallah. Ali. Mohammed. Ibrahim. 1. Abu !- Abbas. 2. Mansur. I &quot; 3. Mahdi. I 4. Hadi. 5. Hariin al-Rashid. 6. Annn. 7. Ma niiin. 8. Mo tasim. Mohammed. I 12. Mosta in. 9. Wathik. I 14. Mohtadi. 10. Motawakkil. Mowaffak. 16. Mo tadid. 11. Montasir. 15. Mo tamid. 13. Mo tazz. 19. Kahir. 18. Moktadir. I 17. Moktafi. 22. Mostakfi. Ishak. 25. Kadir. 23. Moti. 24. Tai. I I 21. Mottaki. 20. Radi. 26. Kaim. Mohammed Dhakhirat al-Din. 27. Moktadi. 28. Mostazhir. 29. Mostarshid. 30. Rashid. 31. Moktafi. 32. Mostanjid. 33. Mostadi. I 34. Nasir. 35. Zahir. 36. Mostansir. I 37. Mosta sim. SECT. III. SKETCH OF THE INSTITUTIONS AND CIVILIZA TION OF THE EASTERN CALIPHATE. Mohammed had begun to bestow political unity on Arabia; but he had done still more : he had given her the Koran, as the starting-point and base of the future civilization of Islam. It was for the preservation and the better under standing of the sacred text that the first believers were led to create grammar and lexicography, and to make col lections of the poems of their own and former times, those &quot;witnesses of the meaning of words,&quot; as the Arabs call them. To elucidate questions of dogma they created theology. Jurisprudence, in like manner, issued from the Koran, and the historical sciences at first gathered around it. As early as the first century of the Flight, schools were founded in Irak, at Basra and at Cufa, in which all the questions to which the study of the Koran gave rise were stated, and answered in different ways. Natural science and mathematics were less directly concerned with the sacred book, and were consequently neglected during the whole period of the Omayyad dynasty. They only began to be cultivated when, under the Abbasids, the study of philosophy led to the use of translations from the Greek. The institutions of Islam were developed, no doubt, as new wants made themselves felt, in proportion to the extension of the empire ; but they were nevertheless founded on the first arrangements made by the Prophet, and handed down by him in the Koran. Under the first four Caliphs these institutions continued Political in a rudimentary state. The Caliph (Khalifa, substitute and . or successor) was elected by the Moslem community ; j and, after receiving from all its members the oath of fidelity (Baia) which they were bound to take, united the temporal and spiritual powers in his own hands. He was at the same time high priest, ruler, and judge. He was compelled, however, by the very extent of the empire to delegate his powers to those agents (Amil, plural Ommdl) whom he commissioned to represent him in the provinces. The State revenues, which entered the public treasury (Bait al-mdl), were composed (1) of the tithe, or tax for the poor (Zakdi), which every Moslem was bound to pay ; (2) of the fifth, raised on all booty taken in war, the rest being divided among the warriors ; (3) of the poll-tax (Jizya) and the land-tax (Khardj), which only affected non- Moslem subjects. The Caliph administered the revenues of the State at his own pleasure, applying them to the neces sities of war, to public works, to the payment of officials, to the support of the poor, and to the distribution of the annual pensions, in which every Moslem had originally a right to share. The State could possess landed property. Under Omar I. we find that the pasture land belonging to the State supported not less than forty thousand camels and horses. To Omar I. was due the regulation of the poll-tax by a fixed scale. The rich, whether Christians or Jews, paid four dinars (about thirty-two shillings) yearly ; people of the middle class, two dinars ; the poor, one dinar. Besides this payment in money, the subject-races had to make contributions in kind, intended for the support of the troops. The land-tax consisted of a general rent in proportion to the extent, character, and fertility of the lands possessed by the conquered. As the sums produced by these different imposts were The often very considerable, it became necessary, as early as Diwan. the Caliphate of Omar I., to create a special office, charged with the accounts of their expenditure. Its organization was borrowed by Omar from the Persians, and it retained its Persian name of Diwan, a term after wards applied to all government offices. The Arabs at that time being too illiterate for such employment, the task of keeping the registers of the Diwan was entrusted to Greeks, Copts, and Persians. Omar also gave his attention to the apportionment of the individual pensions of the Faithful. Every one received a larger or smaller sum according to the greater or less nearness of his con nexion with the family, or the tribe, of the Prophet. Thus Aisha, who had been the favourite wife of Mohammed, received a yearly pension of twelve thousand dirhems ; * the other widows of the Prophet only received ten thousand. The Hashimites and Mottalibites, that is, the members of the Prophet s family, also received ten thousand dirhems. The Emigrants and the Defenders, or those citizens of Mecca and Medina who had been the first to embrace Islam, had five thousand dirhems; and that was the sum which Omar I. allotted to himself. 2 For every other Moslem of full age, the pension varied from 4000 to 300 dirhems. We can easily understand what an influence the hope of this pension must have exerted on the conquered races, and how much it must 1 The dirhem was equivalent to one franc. 2 His moderation was not imitated by his successor Othman, who made it his principal object to enrich all the members of his own family at the expense of the rest of the Moslems.