140 MeynarcVs Ibn KhordddbeJi. [No. 2, 



in the same mannerr «^l W^«^ cd' w° **^^l t^-*^ e>! j A j^jVl 

 U| au^Jf^s e50>J W p ^^ £•=> U"' A - r*^' J-*^ *♦• v^**' a jU.*Jie>* 



" Ighar (protection against danger) means, that a landed tenure is 

 exempt from the visits of the collectors and from what is connected 

 with them (rapacity and oppression), in consequence of an order of 

 the head of the State which fixes a certain annual quit-rent to he 

 paid either into the public treasury, or into the treasury for the support 

 of a military cantonment." The principal advantage of an Ighar 

 consisted in being free from those harpies, the Omlas. 



The provinces of the Tigris which form the last and largest item, 

 may be those Avhich were ceded to the Bacra government, and they 

 seem to answer to those enumerated by Barbier de Meynard, p. 133, 

 under Nos. V. and VI. 



Some of the figures in the preceding table, taken from the very 

 incorrect copy of Qodama, are certainly erroneous, and may be corrected 

 by comparing them with those of Ibn Khordadbeh. It must, however, 

 be borne in mind that the data reported by the two authors are not in 

 all instances the same. At the time of Ibn Khordadbeh, for instance, 

 the whole of the revenue of the Tigris provinces seems to have been 

 levied in cash, at the time of Qodama partly in cash and partly in 

 kind. For us the sum total alone is of some interest, and this is given 

 by Qodama, who says, AkWf ^/o 'ij*&d\ o^'<**e| <^«» &\y~l\ Glft3)| u£fSj 



&J& p*j& a • 1 6 a ♦ ♦ &^\ w° 3 y m v r i j**^\ w° j y 1 1 vr • • 



fksy %jad\ &**> oof£ j (•APdV'ja* (3 ; yi J\ i2X)& ^s^jjj 



&*ixj\ j^\ ^U ^x*£)\ (^x) ^aj U ^J Aklj £X*s^ 1« &-Jf<^S 



p*j* I I \c\*6 v 1 d • 



" The revenue of the Sawad, exclusive the poor rates of Bacra, 

 consists of 117,600 Korrs of wheat, 99,721 Korrs of barley, and 

 8,095,800 Dirhams of silver. The grain at the mean market price, 

 that is to say at the rate of two Korrs, one of wheat and one of bar- 

 ley at 60 Dynars, taking one Dynar at the present rate of exchange 

 equal to 15 Dirhams, is worth 100,361,850 Dirhams. Adding this sum 

 to the cash payments, there results a total of 108,457,650 Dirhams. 

 The poor rates of Bacra amount annually to six million Dirhams, the 



