The Confiscation of Property in the Abbasid Era; its Political and Economic Aims and Performances

The confiscation of delinquent official’s properties for their punishment was started from the early Islamic era, certainly, during Umar reign. The benefits of that persuaded the caliphs to count on the confiscation as a temporary and sometime permanent income source and thereby they established institutions and even dewans to inquest about those properties. In the present paper, the financial reliance of Abbasid caliphate on this source and consequently, the role of confiscation of property in controlofthe wealth and powerof elites have been surveyed