Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
In some districts, notably Yazd, where the
ownership of land and water was often in
separate hands, the revenue assessment
was based on a calculation of the water
supply only. In its simplest form, a certain
rate was imposed per unit of water ( ā,
ta ª t, ¡ ura sabū, sari ¡ a ). The rate varied
from village to village; reassessments were
seldom made, but the incidence of taxa-
tion might be increased by the imposi-
tion of additional quotas. Wells in some
districts in southern Persia in the 19th
century paid a wheel tax ( sar čar ī ). In
the case of the reclamation of dead lands,
tax concessions related to the nature of
the water supply are from time to time
recorded. The Īl ānid fi āzān ān
(694-703/1295-1304), who attempted to
bring about a revival of agricultural pros-
perity, classified dead lands into three
groups according to the labour required
on irrigation works, and gave them tax
concessions for three years.
that there was no body of laws on anāt s,
he assembled the fuahā of urāsān and
Irā (not the ummāl-i urf ) to write a topic
on laws governing anāt s. Similarly, from
a letter preserved in the Aabat al-kataba ,
probably written just before or just after
the fall of San ¡ ar in 552/1157, it would
appear that the assessment of water rates
( ānūn-i āb ) was the concern of the officials
of the religious institution in the person
of the local judge ( ākim ). An undated let-
ter in the Dastūr al-kātib of Muammad
b. Hindū ª āh Na ¶¡ awānī, which is
dedicated to Sulān Uways b. · ay
asan-i Buzurg (757-77/1356-74), men-
tions the fatwās of the ulamā concerning
the destruction of a dam on the Mihrān
Rūd at Tabrīz. This had been built to
divert water to a newly-founded village
and had resulted in the river-bed becom-
ing silted up so that flooding took place
in Tabrīz. The answer to the letter states
“Let action be taken in accordance with
the fatwās of the imāms of religion and
let these not be transgressed or altered”.
Whether the letter actually existed or was
composed by Muammad b. Hindū ª āh,
it can be taken as a typical example of
contemporary practice (as it should be
rather than as it was). In some cases,
royal farmāns were issued for the settle-
ment of water disputes—and not neces-
sarily always those of a major nature. A
short farmān , dated u 'l-ada 952/
Jan.-Feb. 1546 issued by · āh ahmāsp,
regulates a dispute over water rights
between arāni and Sulānābād, two
villages in Ā £ arbāy ¡ ān. It orders the
peasants and crop-sharers of arānik to
act towards the peasants of Sulānābād in
accordance with the ª ar-nāmača concern-
ing their water rights as fixed by alāl
Dīn Maūm Beg afawī, the mutawallī
of the holy shrine (? of Ardabīl ). In this
case, it would seem likely that one or both
of the villages may have been waf , since
Water rights and the religious officials: the
settlement of disputes
Water, perhaps because it is closely
associated with u ª r and arā ¡ , which
are among the uū Allāh , generally
speaking came within the purview of the
religious officials. The regulation of the
water of the Harī Rūd in the 8th/14th
century is said to have been carried
out by the · ay al-Islām Niām Dīn
Abd al-Raīm w āfī, and that of the
Zāyanda Rūd in the 11th/17th century
is attributed to · ay Bahāī (Bahā
al-Dīn Muammad al-Āmilī) (see below).
So far, however, as the religious officials
gave decisions and issued fatwās for the
settlement of disputes over water (which
were of frequent occurrence), they relied
for the execution of these, as they did in
decisions over other matters, on the offi-
cials of the government. Thus when Abd
Allāh b. āhir (213-30/828-44) found
Search WWH ::




Custom Search