State organization/structures in the Medieval Middle East

Not sure if this is supposed to go here, but I couldn't find a "History" thread or category, so here goes.

I'm sure many people here know that most of western Europe had this thing called "Feudalism" back in the day - the practice of a monarch controlling larger territories by securing oaths of fealty from rulers of lesser territories. Japan and India have had similar systems throughout history as well. The system emerged because at the time, it was otherwise immensely difficult to control any significant amount of territory due to travel times and such, so monarchs needed some kind of intermediary at the local level. From what I can tell, the only real alternatives larger kingdoms and empires had to this kind of model of maintaining control I've been able to find were either to just force conquests into becoming client/tributary states (like the Mongols and Alexander the Great did, I think) and otherwise leave them intact, or build up a system of imperial bureaucracy and/or military governors (like the Roman and Ottoman empires).

But I'm kind of stumped on how kingdoms and empires in the Middle East handled this sort of thing. I mean, it doesn't seem like they would have less problems with distance than other parts of the world, so logically, in order to control large territories there would need to be some sort of system for projecting authority on local levels. But from what I can tell, most of the states in this area during medieval times didn't have feudal systems or bureaucracies. Heck, from what I've read, it even seems like they generally didn't even have noble families to speak of - just ruling dynasties and military commanders and governors appointed by the rulers.

So, my question is, how exactly did middle eastern states project authority over larger territories back in medieval times? How did the caliphates and various sultanates and other realms control larger areas without immediately crumbling? Did they generally do like the Mongols and simply install puppet rulers in the territories they conquered? Did the rulers appoint people they thought worthy as governors in strategic areas? Or was it more tribal, letting each tribe largely govern themselves, in a feudal-esque system less focused on territorial control and more control over people inhabiting them? Or a mix of several systems depending on where exactly in the middle east you were? I'm personally inclined to lean towards the last option, but I'd appreciate if someone more knowledgeable could enlighten me.

Interesting topic. I've opened it. I can't contribute anything, though.

I'm guessing it was a mix, probably like every other large empire that I'm assuming were ran in several different ways, even if they said otherwise.

edited 17th Apr '15 7:27:40 AM by Ekuran

Part of the reason the Ottoman Empire collapsed was that it never standardized its territorial holdings, especially in North Africa.

I'm assuming you mean that they failed to install any kind of reliable local authority? If that's the case, how come it held together for several hundreds of years? Sending in the Janissaries?

You haven't tried to find it hard enough

edited 17th Apr '15 12:33:12 PM by Quag15

IIRC they had appointed governors called satraps. Don't know if that was the Ottomans, the Persians or both, nor how much power and independence they had.

Ah, thanks! But in my defense, it isn't very easy to guess it would be found over there

I think I've heard that word somewhere before. Might have been while I was reading about the Ottoman Empire for ideas on a fantasy setting, come to think of it...

EDIT: Actually, according to wikipedia it apparently wasn't used by the Ottomans, but rather by Achaemenid Persia and some of its immediate successor states. According to the article, they were essentially seen as Viceroys ruling territories on behalf of the Persian rulers. But of course, like any title giving power, many took the opportunity to become kings in all but name in their own right.

That's why 'Search Forum Titles in the upper part of the screen when on a sub-forum is an useful tool. But anyway, let's move on.

Well, here's one thing I could find. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iqta%27 (Caution: Wiki, and stub.)

Apparently, one major Muslim system was a quasi-feudal form of tax farming.

Transportation could have been part of it. The old Moslem Caliphate in the early days went where it was easy to go, barring crazy places like Afghanistan. It's a southern extension of the vast Eurasian steppe, so it's easy to get people from A to B, unlike in Europe where there are forests and mountains in the way, so if you needed to get messengers around for governance purposes, you could.

Feudalism is an effect of a lack of central political control, and not an effect of technology or transportation. The Roman Empire was more centralized than the states that followed it in Europe. Local rule was always a necessary feature (even down to the modern day in a lot of cases), but a strong central polity had much more say over how the local rulers functioned.

My impression was that by the late Ottoman days, the Empire was quite decentralized; by that time you had a bunch of local rulers, all claiming some nominal allegiance to the throne and all sending tribute, and of varying independence. I don't know how long this pattern held, though, and whether or not it was true for when the empire was at its height.

The Ottomans were quite a difference from the early Caliphates, though. I'll need to review my reading material there: as I understand it, the Arabs swept northward in conquest, storming through Persia and adopting Persian administrative procedures. That's an extremely general statement, mind.

Nice find! I searched for it on a more reliable encyclopedia (don't know if there's any point in linking to it though - it's in swedish, and unless you're a student or member on the site there's a set amount of words on every article you can read) and found that it was indeed a thing. According to that article, it allowed military officers to be paid by directly giving them the taxes from peasants in a particular area. Unlike feudal systems though, the officers didn't have any other rights over the peasants, and they were seemingly expected to switch to a new area after a few years (seems to me almost like a conscious attempt to avoid the development of landed nobility to potentially challenge the ruler, but maybe that's just a coincidence). So, it sounds more like the swedish allotment system than feudalism, at least IMO.

Good points! Adding to that, I recall reading somewhere that the Muslim rulers of the middle east made good use of carrier pidgeons, while Europe had either lost knowledge of it after the Roman Empire or simply never discovered it, only later starting to make use of them during the Crusades, when they saw muslims use them. If this is true, is it possible that the quicker communication contributed to making it easier for middle eastern monarchs to keep their subordinates in check, and thus prevent local leaders from becoming too powerful? Food for thought...

Hmm, you wouldn't happen to know more exactly what "Persian administrative procedures" entailed? I mean, I'm guessing it involved some form of meritocratic administration, since that (according to wikipedia, anyway) seems to have been a thing in more than one islamic realm. That, and, at least in the Fatimid Caliphate, it seems at least the military was divided along ethnic lines, which also affected politics (the Berbers for a long time apparently held sway over the caliphate's politics, which became threatened when the caliph started enlisting more turks). Again, this is according to wikipedia, so I don't know how correct this is.

The Persian system was based on that of the Persian Empires from the Achaemenids to the Sassanids. "An Empire of a Thousand Nations," to badly mangle 300.

I actually have a lot more background in the actual Persian Empires (the Zoroastrian ones) than in Islamic governance, sadly. From what I can tell, the Islamic version of the Persian system was based on a heavily urbanized government, which also somewhat resembled the Byzantine/late Roman system. Essentially, government is by a strong royal bureaucracy, with a mix of appointed governors and inherited ones (though I think Islam reduced the power of inheritance a fair bit). The governors are chosen from an aristocracy, which also provides the military leadership. As I understand it, the difference between a province's military commander and district commander was a bit blurrier under the Islamic system; Sassanid Persia intentionally had separate civilian and military command structures, because the last thing they wanted to deal with was feudalism among their satraps!

EDIT: From what I can gather, an Islamic wali, or governor, was usually the military commander of his district, and was usually appointed and not hereditary.

edited 22nd Apr '15 11:30:42 PM by Ramidel

Various medieval Middle Eastern states made extensive use of slave armies - oddly, those slave armies tended to evolve into politicking organisations with leaders who often had the status of lords. The Mamluks were an example of this. I believe their meritocratic nature made them particularly effective, until they developed hereditary positions or something like that later on.

The advantage of slave armies was that they had no tribal loyalties, so they could be relied on to sustain empires across tribal boundaries.

Hmm, that seems to match up very well to what I've been able to learn about some of the realms. I think you're on to something! Though that poses the question of how the aristocracy came about. I guess a safe bet would be clan/tribal leaders and their close relatives, and those descended from younger sons of the ruling dynasties (assuming they didn't do things like in the earlier Ottoman Empire where the princes killed each other until there was only one left standing), and maybe particularly wealthy merchants and such.

Not too odd, IMO. Their leaders had to realize eventually that they commanded the greatest military forces in their respective nations and could fairly easily use them to take over, or barter their loyalty to anyone who would reward them best. I imagine there were a few younger sons of sultans who were willing to offer the slave army commanders generous rewards for their support against other relatives regarding the succession. (Although, I think the Mamluks, at least, technically ceased to be slaves after their training was complete, which might also help explain it.)

Anyway, that's a good point of distinction between europe and the middle east. European nations, as far as I know, never really made extensive use of slave armies, so they ended up relying on levies raised by and loyal to the local lord or mercenaries. Slave armies on the other hand, it seems like they would (in theory) be more loyal to the throne than the region they were stationed in.

edited 23rd Apr '15 2:21:04 AM by Kardavnil