Although previous studies of the kharaj have acknowledged that its theoretical contours changed during the early centuries of Islam, these studies have lacked access to sources that would enable them to track these changes in detail. In this paper, I fill this gap in the conceptual history of the kharaj by making use of sources from the second and third hijri centuries. These sources fall into two main categories. The first consists of normative sources of tafsir, fiqh, and hadith such the Kitab al-jihad of Ibn al-Mubarak (d. 181), the Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razzaq al-San’ani (d. 211), and the Kitab al-amwal of Ibn Zanjawayh (d. 251). The second consists of literary sources of adab and tarikh, such as the Maghazi of al-Waqidi (d. 207), the Futuh of al-Baladhuri (d. 279), and Al-Kamil fi 'l-adab by Ibn al-Mubarrad (d. 286). By using these sources to chart the conceptual history of the kharaj, I pay attention to three particular issues. First, how was the kharaj theoretically defined and deployed, and with which terms and concepts (for example, the jizya, fay’, or ghanima) was it associated? Second, how did the kharaj as a theoretical institution change over time, and to what can these changes be said to correspond? Finally, how did the genre in which the kharaj was discussed affect its meaning? For example, what was the difference between discussions of the kharaj in adab, fiqh, or futuh and maghazi literature? Ultimately, I argue that the development of the fiqh and the evolution of the madhhab structure restricted the kharaj to a particular juridical definition, while at the same time expanding its valences to include novel concepts and practices.

This paper is a study of the concept of zakat in the thought of the fifth/eleventh century Fatimid Ismaili missionary and philosopher, Nasir-i Khusraw (d. ca. 1088). The study is based on Nasir-i Khusraw’s famous work called “The Face of Religion” (wajh-i din), in which he offers a spiritual exegesis of all the ritual pillars of Islam in summary and in detail in accordance with the principles of Ismaili cosmology and theology. Khusraw’s exegesis of zakat is noteworthy for three reasons: first, he interprets zakat as neither charitable alms nor a religious tax paid to a Caliph; rather, he situates zakat as primarily being a “purification payment” which the Prophet would accept from believers to cleanse their souls and which every Fatimid Ismaili Imam-Caliph continues to do as Muhammad's heirs. This interpretation of zakat as different from charitable alms matches the findings of Suliman Bashear and Fred Donner, who made this argument on the basis of the Qur’an and specimens of Sunni tafsir. It is also echoed in Twelver Shii hadith literature on the topic. Second, Khusraw presents zakat as a kind of “religious capital” whose signified reality consists of “spiritual capital” – this spiritual capital being divine inspiration or ta’yid which God continuously provides to the cosmic, natural, and religious hierarchies. In other words, the material flow of zakat among the believers is an allusion to the spiritual flow of divine inspiration. Thirdly, Khusraw provides a highly detailed exegesis of specific zakat rates on gold, silver, animals, plants etc. This means that particular animals like sheep, cattle, and camels symbolize the Prophet and the Imams. The overall thrust of Khusraw’s spiritual exegesis of zakat is to re-orient the Ismaili practitioner from the worldly, material dimension of zakat to its spiritual and cosmic realities.

The Sirat Ustadh Judhar, a tenth-century biographical and historical text, offers detailed insight into the early court and administration of the Fatimid state in Ifriqiya. The Sira consists of anecdotes, epistles, court documents, and the personal experiences of Judhar, a eunuch and chamberlain of the Fatimid court of Tunisia. This source provides scholars with exclusive pieces of information regarding the early Fatimid government’s dealings with landholdings, water resources, and their related systems of taxation and state revenue. This paper views those early instated systems, especially water distribution, through a contextual readings of contemporary historical and jurisprudence sources. Furthermore, this paper looks at the relation of taxation with the social strata of early Islamic civilization where the payment and distribution of taxes became the mechanism by which society was structured and reinforced. The early conquerors and military forces following the great conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries collected taxes and essentially became the elite class ruling over peasants, workers, merchants, and protected non-Muslims who worked to pay taxes, thus becoming an inferior class. In the years following the great Islamic conquests, this social dichotomy consisting in an aristocratic Muslim ruling class and subjugated and taxed populaces ceased to exist in its original form. The rise of settlement, the growth of the economy, and cultural assimilation brought about massive changes in the social structure of medieval Islamic society. This paper attempts to understand this development under the early Fatimids.

This paper analyzes the intertwining of land taxation and merchant capital at a time when the Fatimid Caliphate was the regional hegemon of Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean. The Fatimids’ powerhouse was Egypt, among the most fertile and densely populated regions of the preindustrial world, and strategically positioned to monopolize transit trade between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. The relevance of Fatimid Egypt is further enhanced by the availability of the Cairo Geniza. An extraordinary repository of more than 400,000 discarded leaves, the Geniza preserved hundreds of merchant letters, accounts, administrative documents, state decrees, and tax receipts, affording a quantity and quality of evidence unmatched until Ottoman era archives. Triangulating between Geniza documents, Arabic papyri from the Egyptian countryside, and fiscal manuals penned by Fatimid bureaucrats, this paper will chronicle the unfolding of a profound transformation in the political economy of Egypt, arguing that Fatimid taxation policies opened the way for the rise of new class of merchant capitalists who combined super-profits from the spice trade with massive investments in agricultural production. For nearly a thousand years before the advent of the Fatimids, Egypt’s agricultural surplus had been collected as tax to feed distant imperial capitals – Rome, Constantinople, Medina, Damascus. The fragmentation of the Abbasid Caliphate interrupted this millennial dependency. Eager to monetize Egypt’s exceptional fertility to finance their imperial ambitions, the Fatimids switched from taxation in kind to taxation in cash. Peasant households who previously surrendered a portion of their harvest now had to sell their produce to procure tax-money. The whole system would not have worked had Egyptian merchants not been ready to invest staggering amounts of money-capital in the purchase of this produce. Luckily for the Fatimids and unluckily for the peasants, Egyptian merchants were uniquely equipped to rise to the challenge. Their monopolistic position at the interface of the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean afforded them enormous arbitrage profits in the spice trade, and allowed for the accumulation of immense fortunes. Particularly wealthy and well-connected merchants thus started striking deals with the state to pay taxes on behalf of peasants, acquiring in return a state-backed claim to their produce. It is this entanglement of state and capital which I style the ‘fiscal-commercial complex.’ By documenting the symbiotic ascent of monetized taxation and merchant capital, this paper aims to revive the call for a reassessment of the longue durée history of capitalism out-side and “before European hegemony.”