Mu'izz al-Dawla grants the Sawad as iqta' to his commanders and troops, 334 AH

Among the events of 334 AH, Miskawayh tells in Tajarib al-umam how Mu'izz al-Dawla granted most of the land of the Sawad to his commanders and troops after he could no longer pay them, and then writes a long chapter on what this policy led to. It is one of the clearest accounts written in its time of military iqta' in Iraq. ^{2 3}

Miskawayh says the Daylamites rioted against Mu'izz al-Dawla that year "in an ugly way", insulting him openly and treating him with great insolence. He promised to release their pay within a set term, and so was forced into "beating people and extracting money by improper means". ² Before this he had put al-Hasan ibn Ali (may God be pleased with him) ibn Muqla in charge of the land tax and revenue collection after Ibn Shirzad went into hiding. ²

Mu'izz al-Dawla granted to his commanders, intimates and Turks the sultan's estates, the estates of those in hiding, the estates of Ibn Shirzad, and "the treasury's share in the estates of the subjects". Most of the Sawad was closed off and the tax officials lost their hold on it; the little left unassigned was farmed out, most of the bureaus were no longer needed and lapsed, and all the business was gathered into a single bureau. ^{2 3}

Miskawayh opens the chapter with a simile: a policy built on unsound principles shows its error over time, like a traveller who strays slightly from the road; the deviation is invisible at first, but the further he goes, the further he is from his bearing. ³ He then lists the consequences:

• Most districts were granted while they were ruined and their yield low, and at a time when prices were extremely high because of the drought; the viziers indulged the grantees, taking bribes and intercessions, so the grants were made "at uneven assessments". ³
• When the districts recovered and prices changed, those who gained held on to their grants, while those who lost handed theirs back and were compensated, until it became the custom for soldiers to ruin their grants, return them and take others of their choice instead. ^{3 4}
• Over the years the capital stock wasted away, the old assessments were forgotten, the irrigation channels decayed, public works lapsed, and the cultivators were reduced to fleeing, suffering in silence, or handing their land to the grantee to be safe from him. ⁴
• The bureaus were closed, "the trace of the secretarial and fiscal crafts was wiped out", those who knew them died and a generation grew up that did not; the grantees ran their districts through their slaves and agents. ⁴
• The officers in charge of public works left them because the districts had passed out of the sultan's hands; their costs were apportioned among the grantees, who were slow to pay. ⁴
• Districts outside the grants were farmed to senior commanders or to "the men of the durra'a" (civilian officials). The commanders were greedy, and if pressed became enemies and some rebelled; the officials were "better guided than the soldier in making the sultan pay and in tricking him". ⁵
• No accounts were sent to the bureaus any more, no audit was held, no complaint was heard; a secretary who spoke up was ruined or killed if he was a man of means, or bought off cheaply if he was poor. ^{5 6}

Miskawayh adds that Mu'izz al-Dawla "followed his whims in the affairs of his slave soldiers", enlarging their grants and raises until he could save nothing for emergencies. Over the years this left the Daylamites short of pay and jealous of the Turks, and he was forced to draw the Turks closer and rely on them against the Daylamites. Both groups were corrupted, "the Turks by greed and ferocity, the Daylamites by hardship and poverty", and this treatment became, in his word, the "seed" of the disorders he records later. ^{6 7}

The chapter is an example of Miskawayh's method of drawing "experiences" (tajarib) from events: he breaks off the narrative to explain the cause of the ruin and then returns to the reports. ^{3 6} It follows on from the Baghdad famine of 334. ³