artisans and tradesmen paid at a rate similar to
that which was enforced on those employed in agriculture. It is not
known at what time the practice of having the amount due settled by the
community was altered into that according to which it was settled by the
governor, or at what time the practice of deducting from the total
certain expenses necessary for the maintenance of the community was
abandoned. The researches of Wellhausen and Becker have made it clear
that the difference which is marked in later Islam between a poll-tax
(_jizyah_) and a land-tax (_kharaj_) did not at first exist: the papyri
of the 1st century know only of the jizyah, which, however, is not a
poll-tax but a land-tax (in the main). The development of the poll-tax
imposed on members of tolerated cults seems to be due to various causes,
chief of them the acquisition of land by Moslems, who were not at first
allowed to possess any, the conversion of Coptic landowners to Islam,
and the enforcement (towards the end of the 1st century of Islam) of the
poll-tax on monks. The treasury could not afford to lose the land-tax,
which it would naturally forfeit by the first two of the above
occurrences, and we read of various expedients being tried to prevent
this loss. Such were making the Christian community to which the
proselyte had belonged pay as much as it had paid when his lands
belonged to it, making proselytes pay as before their conversion, or
compelling them to abandon their lands on conversion. Eventually the
theory spread that all land paid land-tax, whereas members of tolerated
sects paid a personal tax also; but during the evolution of this
doctrine the relations between conquerors and conquered became more and
more strained, and from the time when the control of the finance was
separated from the administration of the country (A.D. 715) complaints
of extortion became serious; under the predecessor of Qurrah, 'Abdallah
b. 'Abd al-Malik, the country suffered from famine, and under this ruler
it was unable to recover. Under the finance minister Obaidallah b.
Habhab (720-734) the first government survey by Moslems was made,
followed by a census; but before this time the higher administrative
posts had been largely taken out of the hands of Copts and filled with
Arabs. The resentment of the Copts finally expressed itself in a revolt,
which broke out in the year 725, and was suppressed with difficulty. Two
years after, in order that the Arab element