The Islamic State of Medina had been a relatively simple organization. Tribute came in, it was collected near the mosque, and it was immediately spent on alms or provisions for an expedition. Caliph Abu Bakr kept things simple too, continuing to distribute treasure as soon as it arrived. But as the state grew to be a wide empire that included both Syria and Iraq, things had to change. Under Caliph Umar, the foundation of an administrative state was set up. It is remembered as the Forty-One Laws of Umar, but we’ll look at only some of them.
One simple problem was just where to store all of the stuff that the army was sending home. Even if it were sold (one can imagine how the markets of Arabia boomed with international buyers) and turned into Persian and Roman coins, these still needed a treasury building. They were looking at millions and millions of dirhams (the Persian coin). So the Bayt al-Mal, the House of the Treasury, was set up. The taxes and tribute even just from within Arabia, which now united Bahrain, Yemen, the Red Sea and the interior, was more than any one man could handle. Official treasurers and accountants were appointed, with great emphasis on keeping accurate records so that Islam could remain scrupulously fair and charitable to the poor. Syria and Iraq also needed regional treasuries with record-keepers, so that they could pay locally and remit taxes to Medina in an orderly way. All of these treasuries needed armed guards, too.
Fighters began to need salaries, and in Medina the Companions of Muhammad who were still there needed stipends so they could focus on teaching Islam to the many students who were sent from newly-converted cities. So a system was set up to maintain lists of who got stipends and salaries. These lists went on for a few generations, with greater income for the descendants of veterans of famous battles (like the really old ones, Badr and Uhud, or now like Yarmouk and Qadisiyah). Barnaby Rogerson (221) quotes some stipend amounts, in dirhams:
- Battle of Badr: 5000
- Oath of the Tree at Hudaybiya: 4000
- Ridda Apostasy Wars: 3000
- Yarmouk or Qadisiyah: 2000
- ordinary soldiers: range of 200-500
There were many others who received stipends (Rogerson, 222). Cousins and widows of the Prophet had stipends; the widows got 10,000 dirhams a year, but A’isha got 12,000. Umar wanted to support the injured and sick, who were disabled from working, as well as the elderly and orphaned children. With so many military campaigns, there were plenty of injured men and orphans. Umar created the first alms-giving Trust, or Waqf. He bought property for the Waqf to own and manage so that they could pay stipends out of its ongoing income. The Waqf also had a treasury with regular generous payments from the conquest income.
They now needed a vast bureaucracy of governors, tax collectors, and accountants for every treasury and trust. Now Caliph Umar had a dilemma. He was himself a very austere man who wore patched robes, slept on the floor, and lived in the same simple house as before. He was a violent and harsh man, but he was also very disciplined toward himself and his family. When one of his sons misbehaved publicly while drunk, Umar ordered him to be flogged according to the law, even though the flogging led to his son’s death. He did not allow anyone to wear fine robes or live in luxury around him. He was a fanatic about equality and free access of the common man to a leader.
Umar wanted to promote other early converts who had simple lifestyles, who had really internalized the Prophet’s values. But as many of these men as there were, he ran short because he was also sending them to lead armies to east and west. Also, they needed literate men, and literacy among the Arabs was still uncommon. The best source of literate, capable governors and accountants was the old Meccan aristocracy of the Quraysh.
How ironic, with the Qurayshi love of luxury and power enshrined in the Quran as a wicked thing, to need to promote Quraysh members who had resisted Islam to the end. But so it was. And foremost among the Quraysh were the Umayyad clan. Uthman, an early convert and close friend (and son-in-law) of Muhammad, was of the Umayyad clan, and he was already one of Umar’s closest advisers and friends. But there were many more Umayyads: Abu Sufyan’s and Hind’s sons, Yazid and Mu’awiyah, and many cousins and nephews in that branch. They began to climb the ladder of power. Yazid and Mu’awiya went out with the army to Syria, where Mu’awiya became the governor in Damascus. He needed lieutenants he could trust, so of course he promoted his Umayyad cousins.
Umar hated the idea of a ladder of power. He set limits on the wealth his officials were allowed to accrue. He threatened them with dismissal if they started to look like a higher social class from the average man on the street. He stressed that the treasury money was for the public good, for people, not for fancy buildings. Umar’s strict idealism about not showing wealth finally ended the career of Khalid, his most successful general. Khalid paid a poet who had declaimed a poem in celebration of one of his northern Syrian victories. When Umar heard of it, he fired Khalid. To Umar, it sounded like Khalid was doing what a king would do: being the patron to a poet. Khalid could easily become a rebel king in northern Syria, with his family now resettled at their new home. Khalid accepted his firing quietly and went into retirement in Emessa/Homs. He died a few years later.
Umar had a major administrative difference from Muhammad’s original ways. He mistrusted wealth, but he also mistrusted women. Remember his lack of sympathy for his daughter Hafsah when her complaints to Muhammad had contributed to his withdrawal from his wives’ company. As Caliph, he believed women should be kept apart. Muhammad had encouraged women to speak up, come to the mosque, and travel, including on the Hajj. But Umar told women to stay home.
One last Umar note: it was Umar who decided that his government would count time with the move to Medina as Year One. The Latin year 622, then, was AH 1. It might make purer sense to have chosen the year of Muhammad’s first revelations as Year One, but apparently even then there could be arguments about how many years ago that was. After moving to Medina, they had lived with careful record-keeping. They used the pre-Islamic Arabic lunar calendar.
- The War of the Three Gods, by Peter Crawford.
- The Great Arab Conquests, by Hugh Kennedy
- After the Prophet, by Lesley Hazelton.
- The Heirs of Muhammad, by Barnaby Rogerson