Domestic inside government of Mutadid Billah16th Caliph of Abbasid Caliphate.

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Domestic inside government of Mutadid Billah16th Caliph of Abbasid Caliphate.

Asslamoalaikum sisters brothers friends and elders, Today we are describing about the domestic government of Mutadid Billah, the 16th Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate. Learn about the daily routines, political decisions, and challenges faced by one of the most powerful rulers in Islamic history.

The Abbasid army, following the reforms of al-Mu'tasim, was a smaller and more professional fighting force than the caliphal armies of the past. Although it proved effective militarily, it also posed a potential danger to the stability of the Abbasid regime: drawn from Turks and other peoples from the Caliphate's periphery and the lands beyond, it was alienated from the society of the Caliphate's heartlands, with the result that the soldiers were "entirely reliant on the state not just for cash but for their very survival" (Kennedy). As a result, any failure by the central government to provide their pay resulted in a military uprising and a political crisis; this had been repeatedly demonstrated during the Anarchy at Samarra.[53] Consequently, ensuring the regular payment of the army became the prime task of the state. According to Kennedy, based on a treasury document from the time of al-Mu'tadid's accession:

out of the total expenditure of 7915 dinars per day, some 5121 are entirely military, 1943 in areas (like riding animals and stables) which served both military and non-military and only 851 in areas like the bureaucracy and the harem which can be described as truly civilian (though even in this case, the bureaucrats’ main purpose seems to have been to arrange the payment of the army). It seems reasonable to conclude that something over 80 per cent of recorded government expenditure was devoted to maintaining the army.[54]

At the same time, the Caliphate's fiscal basis had shrunk dramatically after so many tax-paying provinces were lost from the central government's control.[55] The caliphal government was now increasingly reliant on the revenue of the Sawad and the other areas of lower Iraq, which were witnessing a rapid decline in agricultural productivity due to the disruption of the civil wars and neglect of the irrigation network. In the reign of Harun al-Rashid (786–809) the Sawad had provided an annual revenue of 102,500,000 dirhams, more than double the revenue of Egypt and three times that of Syria; by the early 10th century it was providing less than a third of that figure.[56][57] The situation was further exacerbated by the fact that in the remaining provinces, semi-autonomous governors, grandees and members of the dynasty were able to establish virtual latifundia, aided by the system of muq??a'a, a form of tax farming in exchange for a fixed tribute, which they often failed to pay.[56][58] To maximize their revenue from the territory remaining to them, the Abbasids increased the breadth and complexity of the central bureaucracy, dividing the provinces into smaller tax districts as well as increasing the number of the fiscal departments (d?w?ns), which allowed for close oversight of both revenue collection and the activities of the officials themselves.[59]

To combat this fiscal crisis, the Caliph would often personally devote himself to the supervision of revenue, acquiring a reputation, according to F. Malti-Douglas, for "a spirit of economy, verging on avarice"; he was said to "examine petty accounts that a commoner would scorn to consider" (Harold Bowen).[5][60] Fines and confiscations multiplied under his rule, with the resulting revenue, along with the income from the crown domain and even a portion of the provincial taxation, flowing to the caliphal privy purse (bayt al-m?l al-kh???a). The latter now acquired a leading role among the fiscal departments, and it frequently held more money than the public treasury (bayt al-m?l al-??mma).[61][62] By the end of al-Mu'tadid's reign, the once empty privy purse would contain ten million dinars.[5] On the other hand, in a measure aimed to ease the tax burden of the farmers, in 895 the Caliph changed the start of the tax year from the Persian New Year in March to 11 June—which became known as Nayr?z al-Mu?ta?id, 'al-Mu'tadid's New Year'—so the land tax ('khar?j) was now collected after the harvest instead of the usually unreliable estimates before

So friends tomorow inshaAllah in this same time we will be described Rise of the bureaucracy of Abu al-abbas Ahmad ibn Talha al-Muwaffaq (Mutadid Billah)16th Caliph of Abbasid Caliphate.

Allah Hafiz
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