History 2403E Lecture 7: History 2606-lec 7
Document Summary
We begin with the first structure, demography. The patterns of settlement of the peninsula arabs: urban rather than rural. Demography is a structure and the change in this structure affected performance. High wages created demand for new foods and new commodities based on the products of the new plants. Agriculture was the basis of the state"s economy. The surplus in the agricultural sector was extracted through intensive taxation. The adoption of previous tax and financial systems of previous regimes which were still in force, resulted in different systems under the new islamic administration. The financial administration of the abbasid empire and the financial system of egypt were different. What affected the performance of the agricultural sector: geographical endowments. River irrigated highly intensive agricultural cultivation of iraq and egypt. Rain fed syria: new crops in the middle east. New plants were brought mostly from india and burma: sugar cane, oranges, lemon, cotton, eggplants, bananas: different returns on agricultural cultivation.