information:classification
Administration

Under Umar and his immediate successors, the Arab conquerors attempted to maintain their political and cultural cohesion despite the attractions of the civilizations they had conquered. The Arabs initially settled in the garrison towns rather than on scattered estates.

The new non-Muslim subjects were protected by the state and known as dhimmi (protected), and were to pay a special tax, the jizya (tribute), which was calculated at varying individual rates, usually two dirhams for able-bodied men of military age, in return for exemption from military service. Women and children were exempted from the jizya. Mass conversions were neither desired nor allowed, at least in the first few centuries of Arab rule.

Umar is reported to have issued the following instructions about the protected people: "Make it easy for him, who can not pay tribute; help him who is weak, let them keep their titles, but do not give them our kuniyat." Umar's liberal policies were continued by at least his immediate successors. In his dying charge to Uthman, he is reported to have said, "I charge the caliph after me to be kind to the dhimmis, to keep their covenant, to protect them and not to burden them over their strength." As a matter of practicality, the jizya replaced the Sasanian poll taxes, which tended to be much higher than the jizya. In addition to the jizya, the old Sasanian land tax (known in Arabic as Kharaj) was also adopted. Umar is said to have occasionally set up commissions to survey tax burdens in order to ensure that they wouldn't be more than the land could bear. It is reported that Zoroastrians were subjected to humiliation and ridicule when paying the jizya in order to make them feel inferior.

At least under the Rashiduns and early Ummayads, the administrative system of the late Sasanian period was largely retained: a pyramidal system where each quarter of the state was divided into provinces, the provinces into districts, and the districts into sub-districts. Provinces were called ustan (Middle Persian ostan), and the districts shahrs, centered upon a district capital known as a shahristan. The subdistricts were called tasok in Middle Persian, which was adopted into Arabic as tassuj (plural tasasij).