1. This of course does not mean that feudalism ends in the seventeenth century. I hope to be able to extend the present analysis in the future.

2. The other aspect of the exploitative relationship of the Iranian economic structure in this period, i.e., the economic obligations of the peasants or the exaction of feudal rents by the landlords will be examined in a forthcoming article by the author. See also my paper, “The Origin and Development of Feudalism in Iran,” Tahqiqāt-e Eqtesādi, Vol. IX, Nos. 27-28 (1972), pp. 17-61Google Scholar, on the development of feudal landownership in Iran. It should be pointed out that a controversy over whether Iranian society during the period under consideration exhibited characteristics of “feudalism” or of the “Asiatic mode of production” has developed among students of Iranian socioeconomic history. For a brief review of different viewpoints on this subject, see Ashraf, Ahmad “Historical Obstacles to the Development of a Bourgeoisie in Iran,” Iranian Studies, Vol. II, Nos. 2-3 (1969), pp. 55-7.Google Scholar

3. Marx, Karl Capital, Vol. III (New York: International Publishers, 1967), pp. 791-792.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., p. 791.

5. Lukonin, Vladimir G. Persia II (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1967), pp. 20-37.Google Scholar

6. See further Diakanov, M. M. Ashkāniān (Tehran: Anjuman-i Iran-i Bastan, 1965), pp. 71-72Google Scholar; and Pigulevskaya, N. V. and others (eds.), Tārīkh-i Īrān, Vol. I (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1970), pp. 110-11.Google Scholar See also Ferdawsi, Shāhnāmah (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1967), p. 404Google Scholar, for an account of a commune broken up by Bahrain II (276-93 A.D.).

7. The historian Mas^˓ūdī observes that the process of commendation started at the time of Bahram II. According to Mas^˓ūdī this was the cause of many future problems of Iran. He reports that the situation deteriorated to such a degree as a result of the decrease in the amount of taxes received, that Bahram II had to force those who gave their lands to the powerful lords to go back to their own lands (Mas^˓ūdī, Murūj al-ẕahab, Vol. I [Tehran: B. T. N. K., 1965], pp. 244-48Google Scholar). This situation may be compared with the change in Gaul towards the end of the Roman Empire. Free small peasants, in order to protect themselves against brutal extortions of the officials, judges and userers, “frequently placed themselves under the protection, the patronage, of men possessed of powers; and they did this not only singly, but in whole communities, so much so that the emperors of the fourth century often issued decrees prohibiting this practice” (Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick Selected Works [New York: International Publishers, 1968], pp. 570-71Google Scholar).

8. The Mazdakite movement in the beginning of the sixth century A.D. was one of the most important social movements of Iran. See also, Christensen, A. Īran dar zamān-i sāsānīān (Tehran: Ibn-i Sina, 1953), pp. 382-89.Google Scholar

9. On this account, see al-Ṭabarī, Tārīkh al-rusūl va al-mulūk (Tehran: B.T.N.K., 1972), pp. 167-75Google Scholar and Ibn al-Aīr, al-Kāmil (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1970), pp. 82-90.Google Scholar

10. At this time slaves were called bandak and ānshahrīk. These slaves were employed in households, agriculture, imperial mines, or in temples. Among the slaves, ānshahrīks had a special position. Primarily, they used to do agricultural work on the private estates (called dastkart) of slave owners. The slaves who worked on these private properties were a necessary complement to the land. Thus landowners used to sell dastkarts with their slaves on them. These estates were either small landed estates with few slaves, or large estates with many slaves working on them. Many of these slaves were captives taken in wars, brought from abroad (note that initially ānshahrīk literally meant foreigner, but later it was used for all slaves who worked on land), freemen enslaved for debt, or children born to slaves. Diaknanov, op. cit., pp. 68-71.

11. Lukonin, op. cit., pp. 37-8.

12. In fact, a similar process started in the slave-owning state of Rome. There, too, latifundia economy based on slave labor was no longer profitable. Thus large estates were broken up into small lots and settled with slaves or quasi-free small tenant farmers called coloni. The important feature of the coloni was their attachment to the soil (as in the case of ānshahrīk) on which they were born. They were sold with the land, and landlords could not free them from their bondage. The coloni eventually were absorbed into the servile population of the medieval manor. See further Postam, M. M. (ed.), The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), pp. 246-55Google Scholar; and Hodgett, Gerald A. J. A Social and Economic History of Medieval Europe (London: Methuen and Co., 1972), pp. 25-35.Google Scholar

13. According to an article in the Mātīkān (written in the early period of the Sassanids), “when a man has liberated the ānshahrīk, one-tenth of whom is his own, then the children born of that slave are each one free to the extent of one-tenth (Bogdanov, L. “Notes on Sassanian Law-Book,” The Journal of the K.R. Cama, No. 18 [1931], p. 55Google Scholar).

14. The Mātīkān also speaks of a slave called bandak who was the property of two masters and had been granted by one of his masters the right of disposing of his earnings (Bogdanov, L. “Notes on Sassanian Law-Book,” The Journal of the K.R. Cama, No. 30 [1936], p. 68Google Scholar). Concerning the children of slaves a decision said: “When Farrox makes with Mihryon the argument: ‘of the slaves, which thirteen are mine own, shall one, which is necessary for thee, be thine own,’ and when Mihryon declares, ‘it is necessary’ after ten years, and if inside the ten years a slave had been born from the slave, with regard to whom he has declared ‘it is necessary’ then that slave, which had been born in that way was also out of his Farrox’s possession” (ibid., p. 42).

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid., pp. 30 and 44-5. The existence of daskart and its slaves clearly shows the existence of the private ownership of land that was accepted by law. This is contrary to what the proponents of the Asiatic mode of production claim. See also Nomani, op. cit., pp. 26-8, for the existence of private property in Iran.

18. Newman, J. The Agricultural Life of the Jews in Babylonia (London: Oxford University Press, 1932), pp. 49-61.Google Scholar

19. This does not mean that slavery no longer existed. In fact, the employment of slaves for household duties or urban crafts proved particularly enduring even under Muslim rule (Bausani, Alessandro The Persians [London: Elek Books, 1971], pp. 87-8 and 116-17).Google Scholar However, this is not a peculiarity of Iranian society. We know that household slaves, and even productive slaves existed in different parts of Europe, especially in the southern and eastern parts up to the eleventh century. In fact, “the slave market at Cordova was second in importance only to that of Baghdad” (Hodgett, op. cit., p. 124). See also Verlinden, Charles L'Esclavage dans l'Europe medievale (Bruges: De Temple, 1955).Google Scholar

20. Ghirshman, Roman Iran from the Earliest Times to the Islamic Conquest (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1961), p. 310.Google Scholar Note that neither Lombard nor Merovingian law prohibited producers to leave the land. However, landlords effectively prevented the peasants from leaving the land (Hodgett, op. cit., p. 27).

21. On the subject of landownership see Nomani, op. cit., pp. 22-7. However, there is no reference to the existence of state land as a category of landownership during the Sassanids. State lands became important after the Arab conquest (ibid., pp. 19-22).

22. Ghirshman, op. cit., pp. 343-44; Ann Lambton, K. S. Landlord and Peasant in Persia (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 14Google Scholar; and Huart, C. Ancient Persia and Iranian Civilization (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927), p. 144.Google Scholar

23. Ammianus Marcellinus, Vol. II (London: William Heineman, 1963), p. 393.Google Scholar

24. See also Ghirshman, op. cit., p. 311.

25. Maybe this is due to the fact that the socioeconomic relationships and the forms of peasant bondages which the Arabs found in the conquered territories were as yet unknown in Arabia. Thus Islamic jurisprudence has not recognized an intermediate position between freeman and slave. However, here we have a problem of definition. For some historians serfdom, which describes the status of peasants, is an institution of public law that involves legal definition separating serfs from non-serfs. For our purposes serfdom is a socioeconomic condition that may or may not be defined in law. We have to remember that social realities have often existed for long periods without being recognized legally. Note that in Europe not all the agricultural producers were juridical serfs. However, this fact does not eradicate their dependent status, and they, too, “were in practice as subordinated to the lords as were serfs” (Hilton, Rodney “The Manor,” Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. I, No. 1 (1973), p. 107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Or, we know that, despite the fact that servile conditions existed in England before the twelfth century, it was not recognized legally until that time. See also, Bloch, Marc Feudal Society, Vol. I (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967).Google Scholar

26. The historian al-Balāẕurī gives an example of the terrible humiliation which these people experienced. According to him after the Arabs conquered Khāniqīn “they attached seals to the necks of the dhinunas” and after that “they collected its kharāj” (Balāẕurī, Futuh al-buldan, Vol. I [New York: Columbia University Press, 1916], p. 430Google Scholar). Apparently this practice was common during early Islamic times (Lokkegaard, Frede Islamic Taxation in the Classical Period [Copenhagen: Branner and Korch, 1950], pp. 139-40Google Scholar).

27. Ibid., pp. 94 and 172.

28. Baladhuri, Futuh al-buldan, Vol. II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924), p. 237.Google Scholar

29. Ibid.

30. Nafīsī, S. Tārīkh-i khānidān-i ṭāhirī (Tehran: Iqbal, 1966), p. 366.Google Scholar

31. Lokkegaard, op. cit., pp. 176-177.

32. Iqṭaā^˓ was a land assignment usually in recompense for services. See also Cahen, C. “Ikta’,” The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), Vol. III (1970)Google Scholar; and Ann Lambton, S. “The Evolution of the Iqta^˓ in Medieval Islam,” Iran, Vol. V (1967).Google Scholar

33. Cahen, op. cit., p. 1089; and Lambton, op. cit., p. 55.

34. Waqf was the endowment (usually of landed property) established for pious purposes, or for the benefit of the donor's family. See also Nomani, op. cit., pp. 29-32.

35. Milk was the private property of land. See also ibid., pp. 26-29.

36. al-Mulk, Nizam Siyassat-Nama (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960), p. 33.Google Scholar

37. Ibid.

38. Note that the European peasants were confronted with the same problem both under the Frankish kings, and in England before the twelfth century A.D. (Hodgett, op. cit., pp. 30 and 173-74).

39. See further Muntajab al-Dīn Badī^˓ Atābak al-Juvaynī, ^˓Atabat al-katābah (Tehran: Shirkat Sahami Chap, 1950), pp. 20Google Scholar, 21, 23, 32-3, 40-2, 141 and 153; and Lambton, op. cit., pp. 70 and 74.

40. al-Juvaynī, op. cit., pp. 21-32, 52 and 68-9.

41. The basic form of exploitation of the peasants in Iran during most of the period under consideration was muzāra^˓ah. Peasants depended on the landlord as tenants or subtenants and in most cases as hereditary tenants. In theory their tenure was based on a “contract” of muzāra^˓ah. Land of all categories, i.e. state, milk, iqṭā^˓ and waqf lands, were divided into small holdings worked by peasants under different conditions of tenancy, either paying rents in kind, or sometimes in money. See also Nomani, Farhad “Lectures on the Economic History of Iran” (Tehran: Faculty of Economics, University of Tehran, 1973), pp. 33-40 (Mimeo).Google Scholar

42. For an excellent account of this situation see Petrushevsky, I. P. Kishāvarzī va munāsibāt-i arzī dar Īrīn-i ^˓ahd-i Mughul, Vol. I (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1966), pp. 112-43.Google Scholar

43. al-Juvaynī, Tārīkh-i jahān-gushā, Vol. I (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1911), p. 24.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., p. 23; and al-Dīn Fazl Allāh, Rashīd Tārīkh-i mubārak-i ghāzānī (London: Messrs. Luzac and Co., 1960), pp. 303-10.Google Scholar

45. See also Poliak, A. N. Feudalism in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and the Lebanon (London: The Royal Asiatic Society, 1939), pp. 64-73.Google Scholar

46. Rashīd al-Dīn Fazl Allāh, op. cit., pp. 308-9.

47. I. P. Petrushevsky, op. cit., p. 183.

48. For the case of the mass flights of peasants to the estates of the Harat ruler, see ibid., pp. 184-85.

49. One document shows that due to the heaviness of the burden and the arbitrary exactions of the local authorities, peasants fled from a district where they were registered, but were brought back. In another document, for the same reasons, the peasants of Hamadan were brought back after their flight (Ibid., pp. 186-89).

50. Landlords of private estates (milk) had to pay a land tax to the government. They collected the tax in their rental share. In such cases the surplus from the land was divided between the state and the lord. Taxes and rent coincided on state and crown lands, or rather, there existed no tax which differed from rent in kind or money. Rent inclusive of tax was paid to the landlords on waqf and iqṭā^˓ lands. See further Nomani, “Lectures,” op. cit., pp. 33-46.

51. Ghirshman, op. cit., pp. 343-5; and Christensen, op. cit., pp. 127, 143 and 145.

52. Lambton, op. cit., p. 47.

53. Lokkegaard, op. cit., pp. 185-91.

54. Lambton, op. cit., pp. 72-3.

55. Petrushevsky, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 290-94.

56. In fact, the reason for the great uprising of the Sarbadārs in Khurasan (1337 A.D.) was the unbridled license of a Mongol messenger who stopped for lodging at the village of Bashtin, and demanded wine and a woman (ibid., pp. 160-70).

57. For a more complete list of these dues under the Mongols see ibid., pp. 245-305; and Lambton, op. cit., pp. 102-3.