Iqta' (land grant)

الإقطاع

Iqta' in al-Baladhuri is the ruler's grant of lands to those deserving or requesting them; its limits in his reports include that a request need not be granted: Abyad ibn Hammal asked the Prophet for the salt flat at Ma'rib and, being told it was like freely flowing water ('id water), he refused to allot it to him, whereas Alqama ibn Wa'il al-Hadrami — as reported from his father — was granted land in Hadramawt; broader still were the Prophet's Khaybar grants, as he allotted al-Zubayr land with palms and trees, and among Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz's arrangements his confirming the heirs in land the Prophet had provisioned after they were registered — so the iqta' runs between designation of public amenities that cannot be granted and the sovereign gift of dead or reclaimed land.