Besides this ordinary land-tax, we read, in the Chach-náma, of other burdens laid upon Sindian cultivators, which seem to have been independent of the former: such as the báj, and the 'usharí.* Other extraordinary conditions were occasionally imposed on some of the tribes. We have seen above, under Mu'tasim, that the Jats dwelling beyond the river Aral were compelled to bring a dog on each occasion of paying their respects, besides being branded upon the hand. The Bhatia, Lohána, Sihta, Jandar, Máchí, and Goreja tribes had also peculiar duties devolving upon them.
Sumptuary laws, moreover, were established, and enforced with great stringency. Certain tribes were prohibited from wearing fine linen, from riding on horses, and from covering their heads and feet. If they committed theft, their women and children were burnt to death. Others had to protect caravans, and to furnish guides to Muhammadans.*
The natives were also enjoined, in conformity with an old law of 'Umar's, to feed every Muhammadan traveller for three days and nights. It must be confessed, however, that many of these laws were already established under the Bráhman rulers; unless, as seems not improbable, the Muhammadan aspect about these ancient institutions derives its hue from the prejudices of the historian who records them.
But whatever were the peculiar features of some of the local imposts, all the unconverted tribes were, without exception, liable to the capitation-tax (jizya), which, as it was a religious as well as a political duty to collect, was always exacted with rigour and punctuality, and frequently with insult.*
The levy of this impost in Sind from those who had not embraced Islám, was considered so important at the very earliest period, that we find Hajjáj sending another person into the province to collect it, even during Muhammad Kásim's government. “Abu Khufas Kutaiba bin Muslim came on the part of Hajjáj, and returned to Khurásán, after leaving his agents to collect the poll-tax from the infidels; and, after a time, Tamím bin Zaid came from Hajjáj on the same errand.”*
According to the original ordinance of 'Umar, those persons who were of any persuasion non-Muhammadan, were called Zimmís, or those under protection, and were assessed with a toleration, or poll-tax, at the following rates. A person in easy circumstances had to pay 48 dirhams a year, one of moderate means 24 dirhams, and one in an inferior station, or who derived his subsistence from manual labour, 12 dirhams. Women, children, and persons unable to work paid nothing. But a century had not elapsed, when 'Umar the Second, considering these rates too moderate, calculated what a man could gain during the year, and what he could subsist on, and claimed all the rest, amounting to four or five dínárs, about two pounds, a year.
As the tax ceased upon any one's becoming a Moslim—when he was enfranchised from his dependence, and was invested with the privileges of a citizen and companion—its severe enforcement was often found more efficacious than argument or persuasion, in inducing the victims to offer themselves as converts to the faith. For the professing Muhammadan had but to pay the tithe for alms, and the import and export duties of one in forty, or two and a-half per cent.,* and he was free from all other imposts; but, when the original principles of the government began to be departed from, when the once vigorous administration became feeble and degenerate, and the Khalifs appropriated to themselves a large proportion of the revenues which the Kurán had assigned to God, the Prophet, and his relations, then the Muhammadans themselves also became subject, as well as the protected people, to new tallages and cesses; insomuch that the severity of the pressure occasioned general discontent, and often resulted in revolution and bloodshed.
Hence we find Ibn Khaldún, the most philosophic of all the Arabian writers upon history and social economy, thus speaking of the effect of these exactions upon the government which introduced them:—“With the progress of luxury the wants of government and its servants increased, and their zeal diminished; so that it became requisite to employ more people, and to give them higher pay. Consequently, the taxes were gradually increased, till the proprietors and working classes were unable to pay them, which led to continual changes in the government.”
This increased employment of officials had no reference to those
maintained for the distribution of justice to the people. In a
country like Sind, where the mass of the nation professed their
ancient religion, there were no tribunals for the purpose of adjudicating
suits between members of that despised and depressed race.
The power of life and death was exercised by every chief who could
maintain the slightest show of independence, as well as by the
Amírs; but, under the latter, legal formalities were more rigorously,
if not justly observed. The Kází, who was appointed to the
judgment-seat by their orders, professed, in controversies between
Muhammadans, to decide according to the precepts of the Kurán;
while even between Hindús and Muhammadans the same unerring
guide was appealed to, under which, of course, the former obtained
a very small modicum of justice. Public and political offences,
whether by one party or the other, were tried by the same standard;
but in all suits for debts, contracts, adultery, inheritance, the rights
of property, and the like, the Hindús—being left without any form
of law or any established judicatory to appeal to—had to accommodate
their own differences, and, therefore, maintained their pan-
To the Hindus, indeed, the public tribunals were only the means of extortion and forcible conversion, as they have proved themselves to be to the very latest period of Muhammadan dominion in Sind, under which, there were judicial penalties for riding on horseback, especially with a saddle; under which, the wearing of beards, and the adoption of Muhammadan costume were compulsory; and under which, religious processions, and even music, were altogether prohibited. * Hence there was, and could be, no sympathy between the conquerors and the conquered, arising from confidence in the purity of justice,—for the primary obligations, inseparably connected with the institutions of political society, were utterly ignored by the Arab rulers of Sind, and no regard was had to that, which Milton calls—
The solid rule of civil government;
* * * *
In which is plainest taught, and earliest learnt
What makes a nation happy and keeps it so,
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat.
It is expedient that these matters should be often brought back to remembrance and pondered on; for the inhabitants of modern India, as well as our clamorous demagogues at home, are very apt to forget the very depth of degradation from which the great mass of the people have been raised, under the protection of British supremacy.
In reflecting on the causes which accelerated the downfall of the Khalif's dominion in Sind, one of the most obvious and powerful accessories which offers itself to our view, as conspiring towards that end, is the diversity of interests and feelings among the several tribes which achieved and confirmed the conquest. No long time elapsed, after the first glow of enthusiasm had died away, and given place to more sober sentiments, when the Arabs showed themselves as utterly incapable, as the shifting sands of their own desert, of coalescing into a system of concord and subordination. The passions which agitated these hordes in their ancient abodes, the hereditary feuds and blood-revenges, which had even formed the dates of eras amoung their Bedouin ancestors, and which could be revived in all their bitterness by the recital of a ballad, a lampoon, or a proverb, were not allayed, but fostered, by transplantation from their original soil.* And so it was in Spain; crowds of adventurers poured in who preferred a distant fortune to poverty at home. Emigrants from Damascus occupied Granada and Cordova; Seville and Malaga were planted by settlers from Emesa and Palestine; the natives of Yemen and Persia were scattered about Toledo; and the fertile valleys of the South were partitioned among 10,000 horsemen from Syria and 'Irák. These, as in Sind, all became so many rival factions eager in the pursuit of power, mutually rancorous and hostile, and cherishing, in the pride and petulance of their hearts, the most invidious distinctions of races and precedence.*