The Political-Military Causes of Transformation in Landholding and Agricultural Economics during the Khwarezmid Era

Since agriculture has been one of the mainstays of the Iranian society's economic structure during the Islamic period, the policies and actions of governments to establish stability and security in the field of agricultural activities had significant effects on their improvement. The importance of the study on governments' policies and their approaches to the agricultural economy would be determined considering the role of the ruling political systems on agricultural life of Iranian society. Having defeated the Seljuqs (1037-1194), the Turkic Khwarazmian dynasty (1077-1231) succeeded in taking power in Iran. Based on resources and through a descriptive-analytic method, the present study is conducted to determine the political-military causes of transformation in landholding and agricultural economics during the period of Khwarazmids. The findings show that the Khwarazm Shahs took certain policies to improve agriculture until 'Ala al-Din Tekish Khwarazmshah, although handing over the agricultural lands to the army commanders under the name of Iqta' (an Islamic practice of assigning lands to militaries in return for their military services) changed to the main policy of government since his reign and the reign of Mohammad Khwarazmshah. Due to the profiteering behavior of Muqtis (those having been assigned the lands) this policy led to the rivalries between the Kharazm Shahs over capturing various regions and, as a result, they had to recruit more Turkish fighters and, consequently, to provide more lands to their commanders. So the agricultural economy of Khwarazmids declined in this particular period as a result of contradiction existed between decamping Turks' livestock methods with that of agriculture was popular in rural communities of Khwarezm.