The project team started with an investigation of the published corpus of Arabic, Greek and Coptic papyrus documents from Egypt dating to the Abbasid period (750-969, c. 2,000 documents). Editions of new documents from four European and North American collections are also prepared. The focus of the investigation of this corpus has been the following:
- the payment and recording of the capitation tax,
- the meaning of kharaj and the administration of the taxation of land (land in individual ownership and state land),
- the payment of taxes in cash and kind,
- multilingualism in the Abbasid administration,
- the administrative hierarchy handling the fiscal administration and the related mechanisms of (1) delegation of tax collection and of (2) guarantee of fiscal revenues at several levels of the hierarchy.
Accounting documents in Greek, Coptic and Arabic have been one of the foci of the project team. The aim is to propose criteria for the identification of accounting documents that relate to the fiscal process, especially about the assessment and collection of taxes and about tax rates. The same survey of documents forms the basis of a study of accounting culture in the Abbasid period, including but not restricted to the system of money of account.
All of the above topics are studied on the basis of Egyptian papyrus documents and through the incorporation of data from long form sources (narrative sources, legal treatises, poetry, literary sources) and from additional types of documentary sources (coinage, glass weights, stelas, luxury items). The joint study of papyrus documents and coinage allows to integrate fiscal matters within a wider study of the economy of the Abbasid empire. For instance, the shift to taxation assessed in cash at the end of the 8th century is investigated within a wider picture of changes of economic indicators such as the disappearance of copper coinage later in the 9th century.
While extending the focus of the project beyond the Nile valley, the transfer of fiscal revenues between the Egyptian province and the central administration of the caliphate is a key topic investigated by the project team. The circulation of fiscal revenues within the province of Iraq completes the picture. The relations between the central administration and the different regions of the empire are often contentious around fiscal issues, as such fiscal revolts in Abbasid Egypt and discourses against fiscal policies are also part of the project’s scope.
