Aspects of Umayyad administration

This chapter places documentary sources at the centre of the study of Umayyad administration. The multilingual corpus of Egyptian papyri proves the most detailed evidence for administrative divisions and the fiscal system (specifically the poll tax and forced labour). However, both can be traced across the empire between al-Andalus and Central Asia through a study of coins, seals, glass-weights, inscriptions and contemporary non-Muslim literature. This chapter also offers some reflections on the Marwanid ‘reforms’ and re-evaluates how much they changed the overall administrative situation. It also considers the long-term memory of those reforms in Islamic literature.

This chapter discusses the documentary sources at the centre of the study of Umayyad administration. The multilingual corpus of Egyptian papyri proves the most detailed evidence for administrative divisions and the fiscal system. Administration can be defined as the state apparatus for the organisation and jurisdiction of resources and people, allowing for the collection and redistribution of state revenue, mainly through the fiscal system. The fiscal system was presented above as one of the core elements of state administration. It matched the decentralised structure of the Umayyad hierarchy as fiscal revenues appear to have been mainly used within the provinces. Administrative reforms under the Umayyads are often understood as something that can be attributed primarily to the early Marwanids, in association with 'Abd al-Malik’s reform of the coinage and the surveys and population censuses under his successors that allowed for changes in tax rates.