How Saladin used the iqta system to maintain Ayyubid stability

The iqta system under the Ayyubid dynasty rewarded military service without turning agricultural land into hereditary private property. Its recipients received the right to collect specified taxes for themselves and their soldiers, while taking on defined civil and military responsibilities.

The system did not give recipients unlimited rights to the proceeds of a territory. Nor did an iqta grant mean that the land itself had become the recipient’s personal possession. The arrangement linked revenue collection to service for the state.

Salahuddin al-Ayyubi was among the rulers who applied the system. He began distributing land in Egypt through iqta grants, assigning some areas to members of his family and others to emirs and military commanders.

His father, Najmuddin, received Alexandria, Damietta and al-Buhairah. His brother, Syamsuddin Turansyah, received Qush, Aswan and Aydhab.

The article cites the historian al-Maqrizi’s account in Al-Khithath. It says that from the time of Salahuddin Yusuf bin Ayyub through al-Maqrizi’s own era, Egypt’s land had essentially been divided into iqta grants for the sultan, the emirs and their troops.