The ‘Iqta’ system can objectively be called a revenue assignment that came to be used in the

13th and 14th centuries in the times of the Sultanate. As taxation came to appropriate a
sizeable part of the peasant’s surplus in countries of the Islamic world, a mechanism had to be
devised to collect this from the peasantry and distribute it among the members of the ruling
class. The crucial element in this mechanism was the Iqta, which combined the two functions
of revenue collection and distribution without immediately endangering the unity of the
political structure. The Iqta was a territorial assignment, and its holder called the Muqti or the
Wali. It implied that the right to collect revenue from a certain defined territory including
towns, villages and corresponding cities were bequeathed to an official. Nizam ul-Mulk Tulsi,
a Seljuq statesman of the 11th century best summed up the definition of the Iqta system. He
claimed “The Muqtis who hold Iqtas should know that they have no claim on the
subjects/peasants other than that of collecting from them in a proper manner the due tax that
has been assigned to them. When the revenue has been realized from them, those subjects
should remain secure from any demands by them in respect of their persons, wealth, wives,
and children, cultivated lands and goods. The Muqtis do not have any further claims on them.
The subjects can come to the king’s court and represent their condition and they should not be
prevented from doing so. If any Muqti does anything other than this the king can take his
power away. The Muqtis should realize that the country and peasantry all belong to the
Sultan, with the Muqtis placed at their head”. Thus, one of the most important elements of the
Iqta was that it was revenue assignment held at the pleasure of the Sultan. The Iqta, however,
also implied that, in return certain obligations on the part of the Muqti to the sultan. The
major ones were to maintain troops and furnish them at call to the Sultan. The revenues he
thus appropriated from the Iqta were meant to provide him with resources wherewith to fulfil
his obligations. The Muqti was naturally expected to look after the land or region under his
control as well as his livelihood depended on that. He was expected to oversee the labour of
the peasant, provide security to the region and to discharge the requirements of charity and
good works, which included the administration of justice without distinction between those of
good birth and the common people. The Muqti, thus, acted as a tax collector, administrator
and army paymaster all rolled into one. Some Muqtis were able to attain these high standards
of ensuring the prosperity of their regions. Balban was one such ruler who brought prosperity
to every territory conferred on him and when he first arrived at Hansi he ‘gave his attention to
cultivation and the people derived contentment from the monuments of his justice and the
rays of his generosity”. Similarly, Jalulddin Khalji also brought prosperity to his Iqta
assignment of Payal. None of this necessarily testifies to an enlightened outlook on the part of
the Muqti. He had a vested interest in the material condition of the tract of which he enjoyed
the revenues, and it was possible that these people only did what was expected of them as
Muqtis of these areas. The term Iqta applied not only to smaller assignments but to large
assignments enjoyed by great amirs but also to the smaller ones granted by Iltutmish in the
doab, where the assignee was expected to raise from one to three horsemen. Apart from the
Iqta assignments, the Khalisa or the ‘reserved’ land also existed, which were areas from
which the Sultan’s own officials collected revenue directly and which provided his most
immediate resources. During the early years they only included the areas surrounding Delhi.
Prior to the Turkish invasions, India had been ruled through the Rajput feudal lords. This had
created several local problems which could only be solved at the local level. The Turks soon
realized that an effective administrative apparatus could be setup only with the evolution of
an effective local mechanism to help the centre the integrating its resources and consolidating
its power. The Iqta assignments were an answer to this as under this system, unlike feudalism,
the centre was more powerful than the provinces. With the establishment of the Sultanate,
gradually autonomous principalities began to get converted into real Iqtas. First, the Sultans
from Iltutmish onwards enforced the practice of transferring Muqtis from one Iqta to another.
The Muqtis were clearly required to furnish military assistance at the summons of the Sultan.
The Muqtis also seem to have been free to sub-assign small Iqtas to anyone he chose from
within his own larger Iqta. He also paid for the upkeep of his quote of troops through this
land. A new tradition had started during this period which was the payment of salaries in the
grant of Iqtas in lieu of cash. For instance, Iltutmish paid cavalry soldiers in his own ‘central’
army by assigning them villages which came to be known as Iqtas. The practice continued
even during the reign of Balban. Balban had also tried to incorporate some of the smaller
Iqtas into the Khalisa on the grounds that the grantees were now too old to serve or had died
and had transmitted their holdings to heirs who performed no service. However, he was
dissuaded in his attempt by his ministers. Balban had probably attempted to increase the
Khalisa land as he needed additional revenue. Moreover, Balban also appointed an
accountant to operate within the province alongside the Muqtis. This was a first attempt on
part of the Sultan to calculate the actual amount of revenue generated by the Iqtas. He also
appointed informants to keep him informed about the activities of the Muqtis and their
families. Major changes occurred during the reign of Alauddin Khalji in the institution of the
Iqta. His reign witnessed a major expansion in the resources of the crown which in turn
affected the Iqta organization. As more distant areas became subjects to the empire and were
assigned an Iqta, areas nearer to the capital were annexed to the Khalisa. The system of
paying the Sultan’s own cavalry men by the grant of Iqta was abolished. The entire revenue
of the Khalisa was brought into the royal treasury and the soldiers were paid in cash. This
system continued without change till the end of Muhammad bin Tughlaq’s reign. While
Alauddin had maintained the policy of granting Iqta to his commanders, what was new the
degree of bureaucratic intervention in the administration of the Iqtas. Alauddind decreed the
new system of assessment and collection of agrarian taxes in a large section, the bulk of
which was under the Muqtis. The tax income from each Iqta was estimated at a particular
figure by the Finance department, which remained on a constant lookout to raise this
estimate. Out of the estimated income of the Iqta a certain amount was allowed for the pay of
the troops placed under the Muqti. The area expected to yield this amount was apparently
marked out by the Diwan. The remainder was treated as the Muqti’s personal income used to
pay his own salary and personal expenses; anything excesses to the amount required to pay
for his own income and that of the troops had to be handed over to the state treasury. The
Muqtis were naturally tempted to conceal the true receipts, and so understate the excess
payable by them to the Sultan. At the same time to maximize their collections, the Muqtis
were anxious to control the embezzlement by officials of their Iqta. Thus, while the Sultan’s
government was intent on preventing concealment and defalcation by the Muqtis, the latter
harboured similar suspicions against their own subordinates. Harsh measures, including
imprisonment and physical torture, were taken as part of the audit at both levels. Alauddin
Khalji’s ministers had the papers of the village accountants audited to check fraud; revenue
officials were kept by him for long years in chains and subjected to torture for small
misappropriations. Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq had no radical changes to introduce in this system,
except to propound modifications. The finance department was forbidden from increasing the
estimate of the income to anything more than 1/10th or 1/11th annually nor was harshness to
be shown to the Muqtis. However, noMuqti was to be allowed to take anything from the
portion reserved for the upkeep of troops. Under Muhammad bin Tughlaq there was
extension of the state’s control over the Iqta. The two functions of collecting taxes and
maintaining troops began to be separated. Ibn Battuta, in his account of the market of
Amroha, explains how this dual administration operated. Amroha had a Wali, who had 1500
villages under his charge which yielded a total revenue of 6 million tankas.
The Wali just took 1/20th for his own pay, and the rest was paid to the royal treasury. Side by
side there was a military commander of the same territory who was in command of the
troops. Another account states that military commanders who maintained over 10,000 cavalry
men were paid their salaries by the grant of Iqtas in lieu of cash. Thus, the troops were always
paid in cash by the treasury and that the Iqtas were given only in lieu of the commander’s
personal salaries. Thus, under Muhammad bin Tughlaq only that part of Iqta was reserved for
the Muqti which was sufficient for his personal salary and the right to grant Iqta to the
soldiers as salary was taken out of the hands of the commander altogether. Firuz Shah
Tughlaq’s accession to the throne had been on the basis of some promised concessions to the
nobility. He had declared that there should be a new estimate of the revenues of the sultanate,
which was prepared over four years. The term given to this estimate was Jama, a figure which
did not change till the end of his reign. The fixity of this estimation meant that the Muqti was
to be never troubled on account of enhancements in the payments due from them to the
treasury. Thus, the auditing of their accounts had become a comfortable event for the Muqtis.
Moreover, he also increased the portion of the Iqta meant for the personal income of the
Muqti. Barani had stated “Firuz Shah distributed the revenue of the empire among the people;
even all the parganas and Iqtas were distributed”. Thus, it was clear that the Khalisa was
greatly reduced. He reestablished the system of paying soldiers by assigning them the
revenues of villages as Wajh (a new term) in lieu of their salaries. Soldiers who were not
assigned Wajh, were paid their salaries in cash from the treasury by ways of drafts on the
Iqtas of the nobles, to be adjusted against the payment of ‘excess’ due from them to the
treasury. The principle of inheritance had become extremely popular during the reign of Firuz
Shah, who conferred titles of deceased incumbents upon their sons. This was true in the case
of Iqtas and Wajh assignments, which upon the death of the Muqti or trooper was passed on
to their sons and failing them to other members of the family. Thus, as a result no restoration
of central control of earlier times was possible under the successors of Firuz. Under the
Lodis, the essential system remained the same, but some amount of reorganization took place.
The term Iqta disappeared to be replaced by sarkars and parganas. These were territorial
divisions, each sarkar consisting of several parganas. The term sarkar represented a noble’s
‘establishment’. Each sarkar was assigned an estimated revenue, whose purpose was to lay
down the military and other obligations of the nobles holding the sarkar-assignments. The
principal assignees used to sub-assign portions of their territories to their subordinates who,
again, paid their soldiers by the same means. Despite the weaknesses of central control in the
Lodi regime, the essential elements of the old Iqta were retained and were passed on to the
Mughals who constructed on their basis their elaborate system of Jagirs.

The institution of Iqta was the most talked about institution in the Delhi sultanate. Through
Moreland’s close reading of the sources, he argues that when the Ghurid invasions took place
in North India, the word Iqta was applied to any revenue charge. The Iqta was a territorial
assignment, and its holder was designated as the Muqti. The Muqti only had the
responsibility of collecting the tax from the peasant and he wasn’t allowed to charge anything
else from the peasants, otherwise the sultan would take away his powers. According to
Nizamu’l Mulk Tusi, the Muqti’s right to collect and appropriate taxes, especially land
revenue was all due to the king’s pleasure. A sultan could increase or decrease the size of the
Iqta. But the Muqti had also had to fulfill certain obligations, the major one being the
maintenance of troops and to present it before the sultan whenever he needed it. The revenues
he appropriated from the Iqta were thus meant to provide him with resources wherewith to
fulfil his obligation. So the Muqti in a way was both a tax collector and army paymaster
(commander). The areas that weren’t given by the Sultan as Iqtas were the areas known as the
Khalisa where the sultan’s officials i.e. amils directly collected the taxes for the royal
treasury. Iqta was basically a mechanism by which land revenue was re-distributed. Iqta
could turn into an administrative charge under the wishes of the sultan. The system of Iqta
remained an institution created and sustained by the state. The sultan could at any time
enfranchise the Iqtadar. The Iqtadar from the point of view of the peasant was the
representative of the state and whatever right he enjoyed was because he claimed to have
delegation of authority from the centre. The institution of Iqta is heard from the very time of
Qutub-ud-din Aibak. Although one keeps coming across the institution of Iqta in various
sources, it is quite essential to testify to these sources. This institution of Iqta as a system of
assessing and collecting taxes was a pre-condition. There was no such elaborate machinery of
defining the territory for the Iqtadar. Moreland argued that Iqta according to texts like Tariq-i-
Shahi means a particular area assigned to the noble. In such cases the person wasn’t called an
Iqtadar but a Muqti. These people could be constantly transferred. The Muqtis were basically
governors enjoying administrative powers by the grace of the sultan. Muqti was seen as the
ideal revenue collector and if he was the governor of a particular area, it meant that he had to
maintain many officers to guard over the local Iqtas. He could pay them in cash or sub-
delegate his own Iqta. Even the Muqti could assign Iqta but this was different from the Iqta
assigned by the sultan. Another historian Andre Wink takes a closer look at the institution of
Iqta. His basic interest in Iqta lies in the fact that it was able to integrate the political and
fiscal space between the frontier mode of organization and the sedentary mode of
organization. As far as the time for which an Iqtadar could hold an Iqta is concerned, Juzani
typically says that a particular amir held such an Iqta for some time. It varied from periods of
two, three or four years. Changes in the distributive system of Iqta commonly occurred with
the accession of a new ruler to the throne. The length of tenure varied a great deal, and even
more variable was their size, ranging from rights over large provinces like Awadh or Bengal
to a small number of villages. After the establishment of the Delhi sultanate, all the
autonomous principalities were converted into real Iqtas. From Iltutmish’s time, one could
see the practice of transferring Muqti’s from one Iqta to another. The Muqti’s of course had
had to maintain a set of troops, but there is no real evidence to suggest that the Muqti was
required to maintain a fixed number of troops or to send every year a particular amount to the
sultan’s treasury. But Barani does tell us that each grantee was expected to raise from one to
three horsemen. The Muqti was free to sub- assign small Iqtas to everyone he chose from
within his larger Iqta. By this means he could also pay his troops. According to Juzani’s
Tabaqat, Iltutmish had at one time held the Iqta of the town of Baran with its dependencies
and Baran was frequently granted out as Iqta during his reign and those of his Shamsid
successors. Tabaqat also gives us evidence of grants described in different language at two
different points, especially in the case of Kabir Khan who is said to have been granted the
city and fortress of Multan, its townships, and its districts near and far and appointed to the
governorship, elsewhere he is duly termed Wali of Multan. The sultans also enlarged their
own Khalisa. Especially in the case of Delhi which together with its surrounding district
including parts of the doab was in the sultan’s Khalisa. The practice of the Khalisa also
continued under Balban, who reduced or resumed those Iqta’s from which full or proper
service was not forthcoming. But the excess amount that was collected from the Iqtas was to
be remitted to the imperial treasury. Balban in order to ensure this he had appointed a khwaja
(accountant) along with the Muqti, the sultan had done this to discover what was actually
collected and spent within the Iqta. It is quite possible that in the latter half of the 13th
century the relative wealth and importance of an Iqta might have been expressed in terms of
horsemen the grantee maintained. According to Barani, Balban’s slave Malik Buqubuq
(Muqta of Badaun) had 4000 horsemen in his service. During the reign of Alauddin Khalji,
the more distant areas became subject to the empire and were assigned in Iqta and the areas
nearer the capital were annexed to the Khalisa. The system of paying the sultan’s own cavalry
troops by assignment of villages as Iqtas was abolished. The entire revenue of the Khalisa
went into the treasury and the soldiers were paid in cash. Khalji maintained the practice of
assigning the Iqtas to his commanders (Muqtis, Walis). But under Khalji, the assessment and
collection of taxes was done over a larger region which according to Barani were under the
Muqti’s. The tax income from each Iqta was estimated at a particular figure by the Finance
department. Out of the estimated income of the Iqta, a certain amount was allowed for the
payment of the troops placed under the Muqti or Wali. The area expected to yield this amount
was set apart by the diwan. The remainder was treated as the Muqti’s own personal i.e. for his
own salary and the expense of his personal establishment of officials. The Muqti’s had to pay
into the treasury all the income that was above the amount allowed for the salary of the army
and for his own income. Sometimes the Muqti’s tended to conceal the true receipts and so
under the excess was to be paid to the sultan. But the sultan had imposed harsh measures,
including imprisonment and physical torture as part of audit at both the levels. In this period
one can also see that the local revenue outside the Khalisa were delivered to the Muqta’s
appointees rather than to the central government in Delhi. Under Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, this
finance department was instructed not to increase the estimate of income by over 1/10th or
1/11th annually, since the burden of any such enhancement would be passed on by the Muqti
to the peasantry. Although there wasn’t much strictness and harshness shown if the Muqti
took anything from 1/10th to 1/20th of the Kharaj (produce) more than their sanctioned
income and the Muqti were also warned not to ill-treat their officials for small amounts (0.5
or 1%) taken over and above their salaries. But the Muqti wasn’t allowed to take anything
from the portion of the Iqta reserved for the payment of troops. Under Muhammad Tughlaq,
the twin functions of the collection of taxes and maintenance of troops began to be separated,
the one reason being that the sultan must have wanted to obtain a larger income. An Arabic
work, Masalik al-Absar says that all the army commanders were assigned Iqtas in lieu of their
salaries. But the estimated income of the Iqta, against which the salary was adjusted, was
always less than the actual. The troops were paid by the treasury in cash and the Iqtas were
given only in lieu of the commander’s personal salaries. Under Firuz Tughlaq, there was an
increase in the salaries of the nobles. He also re-established the system of paying soldiers by
assigning them the revenue of villages as Wajh in lieu of their salaries. Soldiers, who were
not assigned Wajh, were paid their salaries in cash from the treasury or by way of drafts on
the Iqta’s of the nobles which was to be adjusted against the payment of excess due from
them to the treasury. He also followed the hereditary principle wherein the Iqtas would
automatically pass on to the sons.
Under the Lodhi, the term Iqta was replaced by sarkars and parganas. Both were territorial
divisions where each sarkar comprised a number of parganas. This sarkar was under a noble
and each sarkar was assigned a Jama or estimated revenue whose purpose must have been to
lay down the military and other obligations of the noble. The principal assignees under
Sikandar Lodhi used to sub-assign some portion of their territories or parganas to their sub-
ordinates who again paid the soldiers by same means.