The Sibayn Reclamation and Maslama's Estates

استخراج السيبين وضياع مسلمة

In al-Baladhuri: when breaches burst in al-Hajjaj's days he wrote al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik that he had costed their damming at three million dirhams; al-Walid found it excessive. Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik said 'I will pay, if you grant me the lowlands that still hold water after the three million is spent by your trusted adviser al-Hajjaj.' Granted, Maslama acquired adjoining tasasij lands, dug al-Sibayn, drew peasants and cultivators, brought the lands under tillage and annexed many estates to fortify himself. When the blessed dawla came and Umayyad wealth was seized, all al-Sibayn was granted to Dawud ibn Ali ibn Abdallah ibn al-Abbas, then bought from his heirs with its rights and bounds — becoming caliphal estates.

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Abd al-Malik's Coinage Reform

Heraclius's dinars and the Persian Baghliyya dirhams reached Jahiliya Mecca and traded only as bullion: their mithqal twenty-two qirats less a fraction, ten dirhams seven mithqals, the ratl twelve uqiyyas of forty dirhams — weights the Prophet confirmed, and Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, and Mu'awiya after him. Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr struck a few dirhams under Ibn al-Zubayr, later broken; then Abd al-Malik asked and tested, wrote al-Hajjaj to strike dirhams at fifteen qirats of the dinar-qirats, and struck the Damascene dinars — which came to Medina with Companions and Followers there and none objected. Al-Hasan ibn Salih: the Ajam dirhams ran great and small — twenty, twelve, ten qirats — and when Islam needed the mean for zakah they summed forty-two and struck the third, fourteen qirats, so ten Arab dirhams weigh seven mithqals. Quraysh's weights: the dirham for silver, the dinar for gold, ten dirham-weights to seven dinar-weights, the sha'ira a sixtieth of a dirham, the uqiyya forty dirhams, the nashsh twenty, the nawa five — all confirmed when the Prophet entered Mecca. And Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab, asked who first struck engraved dinars, said 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan — dinars came Byzantine, dirhams Kisrawi and few Himyari'.

The Sibayn Reclamation and Maslama's Estates

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Abd al-Malik's Coinage Reform