The Urgent Need for Cash: Thoughts on the Taxation of Land in the Late Mamluk Sultanate

The Mamluk realm depended on the organization of its income to ensure the functioning of the realm and provide inner and outer security for its citizens. The main source of revenue was the agricultural production of its landscape. It was, therefore, important to know how much cultivable land there was, how much of it could be taxed, and at what rate, so land had to be measured by state officials. In Egypt, this land survey was called rawk. The surveyors determined the exact area and quality of the cultivable land of villages and districts. The tax value of a specific piece of land was determined as a product of its quality and the corresponding area. The questions to be dealt with in the following are how the land was classified, what kind of income was produced for the state, and what events led to a considerable change in the Mamluk taxation system over the fifteenth century. In answering these questions, this article will first discuss the different kinds of land categories in the Mamluk taxation system. Special attention will be given to the balance between indirect land taxation, as seen in the classical iqṭāʿ system, and other forms of dealing with land income, which, as we will see, favored the so-called waqfization of land holdings in the Mamluk realm.