The baqt, the annual Nubian levy

According to al-Baladhuri: Salih, Abd Allah ibn Sa'd ibn Abi Sarh, made peace with the people of Nubia, not as a poll tax (jizya) but as a truce, for three hundred heads each year, on condition that the Muslims would send them food in return of equal value. Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam, from Ibn Lahi'a, from Yazid ibn Abi Habib, reports: "There is no covenant or pact between us and the Asawid; it is a truce on condition that we give them some wheat and lentils and they give us slaves. There is no harm in buying their slaves from them or from others." Al-Layth ibn Sa'd says: "The peace between us and the Nubians is that we will not fight them and they will not fight us, and that they give us slaves while we give them food in return. If they sell their women and children, I see no harm in buying them." Al-Bahtari's family and others report that Abd Allah ibn Abd Allah ibn Sa'd made peace with them for four hundred heads a year, which they took in food. Al-Mahdi ordered that they be required to pay three hundred and sixty heads and a giraffe each year, on condition that they receive wheat, vinegar, clothing, and bedding, or their value. They claimed a tradition that the baqt (the annual tribute) was not due from them every year, and that they were charged it in the caliphate of al-Mahdi. They claimed that it came from the slaves they took from their enemies, and that if they found none, they would take it from their children, and so he ordered the baqt to be collected once every three years. No proof of this claim was found in the records of the court, but it was found in the register in Egypt. ¹

What is not recorded here needs a further source.