See Outremer: Intercultural Relations by the iqta‘ holder (Arab. muqta‘) was the kharaj (land tax), which would normally be collected in kind as a proportion of the crops. One consequence of this was that the soldiers who held the iqta‘ assignments tended to be reluctant to campaign during the harvest time, for that was when they or their agents collected their revenue. Iqta‘ revenue was often supplemented by pay (Arab. jamakiyya) and campaign handouts.
The institution seems to have originated under the Saljuqs in Persia. It was imported to Egypt by Saladin. The Mamluk military regime in Egypt and Syria from the late thirteenth century onward was founded on the institution of iqta‘. Theory notwithstanding, in practice some of the iqta‘ holders did acquire wider powers over their estates and were successful in transmitting them to their descendants. This particularly happened in Persia and Iraq during the late Saljuq period. Occasionally, the term iqta‘ could be used in a much looser sense. For example, the word is sometimes used to refer to the princely appanages of the Ayyubids. It was also sometimes used to recognize the jurisdiction of a hereditary tribal chieftain, particularly in highland Palestine and Lebanon.
-Robert Irwin
Bibliography
Humphreys, R. Stephen, From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193-1260 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977).
Irwin, Robert, “Iqta and the End of the Crusader States,” in The Eastern Mediterranean Lands in the Period of the Crusades, ed. Peter M. Holt (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1977), pp. 62-73.
World History
