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Pīshkash: present or tribute?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Ann Lambton
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Extract

The giving of gifts, though not peculiar to Persian society, is particularly common in that society. There are a large number of words designating gift or present. Among them are ḥadiya, ՙatiya, ṣilat, tuḥfa, ՙinayat, inՙām and pīshkash. Some implicitly define the status of the giver or the recipient. ՙInāyat implies a favour conferred by the giver; inՙām defines the superior status of the giver in relation to the recipient and often amounts to a gratuity. Pīshkash, which may originally have had a fairly neutral meaning, came to mean a present from someone of an inferior status. In the ninth/fifteenth century, if not before, it came to be used also in the sense of a due or tribute paid to the ruler or his officials. Tashrīf, pāy-andāz, taՙāruf, taṣadduq, khidmatī and taqdīmī usually signify an inferior status on the part of the one who offers the gift.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , February 1994 , pp. 145 - 158
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1994

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References

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31 ibid., 74. See also Röhrborn, op.cit., 56, 92.

32 Dastūr-i mulūk, 71, 72, 73, 74.

33 ibid., 77.

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46 ibid., II, 502–3. Hama-sāla grants were standing assignments for one year, automatically renewed unless countermanded.

47 ibid., i, 258–9, and see also 263.

48 ibid., 261. See also Sipinta, Tārīkhcha-i awqāf-i Iṣfahān (Iṣfahān, A.H.S. 1346/1968), 380–2.

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56 ibid., xvi, 1/2, 1968, 83, 5/6, 544.

57 ibid., xvi, 1/2,91.

58 Tadhkirat al-mulūk, f. 87b–88a.

59 Dastūr al-mulūk, xvi, 3, 305.

60 ibid., xvi, 5/6, 557. Sa՚uri and dushlik here presumably mean ‘gifts’ to the Shāh.

61 ibid.

62 ibid., 548.

63 ibid., XVI, 3, 303.

64 Voyages, V, 360.Google Scholar See also Minorsky's commentary on the Tadhkirat al-mulūk, 156, and Doerfer, Elemente, III, 211–14.

65 Dastūr al-mulūk, XVI, 3, 311.Google Scholar

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67 Tadhkirat al-mulūk, f. 42b. 1 qazbegi=5 dinars 1/10 chahi= 1/2000 tuman (Chardin, Voyages, IV, 182, quoted by Minorsky, Commentary, p. 63, n.l).

68 Dastūr al-mulūk, XVI, 5, 548.Google Scholar

69 The term āqā normally meant a eunuch, but it may also have designated a grade of amir below the begs.

70 Iqḍāՙs given on some kind of hereditary tenure.

71 Dastūr al-mulūk, XVI, 4, 423–4.Google Scholar The text in the Tadhkirat al-mulūk is slightly different, ff.70a-b. In either case the text is obscure.

72 Dastūr al-mulūk, 1/2, 78.

73 ibid., 86.

74 ibid., 3,299.

75 ibid., 316.

76 ibid., 4, 421.

77 ibid., 426.

78 ibid., 440.

79 ibid., 5,541.

80 ibid., 542.

81 ibid., 543.

82 ibid., 1/2, 80, 82, 85.

83 ibid., 4, 416.

84 ibid., 317.

85 ibid., 323.

86 Not all officials had wages. The Dastūr al-mulūk states that the wazir of the supreme dīwān did not have anything allotted to him by way of wages (bi ṣīgha-i māwdjib) (Dastūr al-mulūk, XVI, 1–2, 77), but he did have numerous fees, dues and commissions. The keeper of the royal seal (muhrdār-i muhr-i humāyūn) did not apparently have wages from the dīwān (XVI, 3, 311.), nor did the keeper of the sharaf-i nāfddh seal (ibid., 312), the muՙayyir al-māmalik (ibid., 314), or the wazir of the qara ulus, who was in charge of the assessment of the Arabs and tribes (ahshām) of ՙIrāq, Fārs and Khurāsān, and in the later period also of those in the districts of Iṣfahān (XVI, 5, 546).

87 The amount of land under the khāţţa and mamālik respectively varied at different times. See Lambton, Landlord and peasant, 107–9.

88 Rūz-nāma-i Mīrzā Muဥammad Kalāntar-i Fārs, ed. Iqbāl, ՙAbbās (Tehran, A.H.S. 1325/1946–47, 70–1.Google Scholar

89 ibid., 79. Rustam al-Ḥukamā’ also mentions the levy of pīshkash on Shīrāz, but it is not entirely clear whether he is referring to this incident or to another. He states that 20 tūmāns, from the pīshkash of the 2,000 tūmāns due from the people of Shīrāz had been paid to the Isfāhanī merchant, Āqā Muḥammad, who was the son of Amīr Muḥammad Samīՙ Ganj ՙAlī Khānī (Rustam al-Ḥukamā's great uncle). ՙAlī Murād Khān was angry, presumably at the shortfall, or because the money had been paid to Āqā Muḥammad and not to him, and demanded from Ḥājjī Ibrāhīm, the son of Ḥājjī Hāshim, who was the leader of the Ḥaydarī-khāna quarter of Shīrāz and kalāntar of the whole of Fārs, 4,000 tūmāns in cash. This was levied with great violence by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Khān, the son of Bāqir Khan Khurāskānī, and sent to the royal treasury (al-Ḥukamā’, Muḥammad Hāshim Āṣaf Rustam, Rustam al-tāwarīkh, ed. Mushīrī, Muhammad;, Tehran, A.H.S. 1348/1969, 440)Google Scholar. In fact Ḥājjī Ibrāhīm did not become kalāntar of Fārs until the reign of Ja‘far Khān.

90 Rūz-nāma-i kalāntar-i Fārs, 82.

91 Yak ṣad wa panjāh sanad-i tārīkhi az Jalāՙirān tā Pahlawī, ed. Maqāmī, Jahāngīr Qā՚im; (Tehran, A.H.S. 1348/1969), 215–16Google Scholar. The text of the agreement is also given in Khwurmūjī, Muḥcammad Jaՙfar, Tārīkh-i Qājār: ḥaqāyiq al-akhbār-i nāṣirī, ed. Jam, Ḥusayn Khadīv (Tehran A.H.S. 1344/1965), 165–8Google Scholar. Pīshkash-i istimrārī means, presumably, pīshkash constituting part of the regular wages of officials.

92 cf. Ouseley, W., Travels in various countries of the East, more particularly Persia, etc. (London, 1819), in, 172–3Google Scholar.

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97 See Sheil, Lady, Life and manners in Persia (London, 1856), 393.Google Scholar

98 Sharḥ-i zindagānī-i man (Tehran, A.H.S. 1324/1945–6), I, 706.Google Scholar cf. also Ghulām Ḥusayn Afḍal al-Mulk, Afḍal al-tawārīkh, 391.

99 Qānūn-i Qazwīnī, ed. Afshār, īraj (Tehran, A.H.S. 1370/1991–92), 37.Google Scholar

100 ibid., 84, 88.