104
dihqn
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vols., Cairo 1329/1911, repr. Beirut n.d.;
Ibn Arab, Iil al-fiyya, in Rasil Ibn
al-Arab, 2 vols. (Hyderabad 1948), no.
29; Ibn Arab, al-Kawkab al-durr f manqib
Dh l-Nn al-Mir, in Rasil Ibn Arab, vol.
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Dh l-Nn lgyptien, Paris 1988; Ibn an-
bal, Musnad, ed. Cairo 1313/18956, repr.
Beirut n.d.; Ibn Manr, Lisn al-arab,
20 vols., Bulq 13078/188391, repr.
Cairo n.d.; Ibn Sn, al-Qnn f l-ibb, comp.
Muammad Amn al-innw, 3 vols.,
Beirut 1999; al-Ji, Kitb al-ayawn, ed.
Abd al-Salm Muammad Hrn, 8 vols.,
Cairo 19659; Abd al-Ramn al-Jm,
al-Durrat al-fkhira, trans. Nicholas Heer,
The precious pearl, Albany 1979; al-Sharf
al-Jurjn, al-Tarft, Tunis 1971; Muam-
mad al-Kasnazn al-usayn, Mawsat
al-Kasnazn fm ialaa alayhi ahl al-taawwuf
wa-l-irfn, 24 vols., Damascus and Beirut
2005; Amad iy al-Dn Kumushkhnl
(Gmhanevi Ahmed Ziyaddin), Jmi
al-ul, Cairo 1328/1910; Yves Marquet,
La philosophie des Iwn a-af, Algiers n.d.;
Jean-Louis Michon, Le soufi marocain Amad
Ibn Ajba et son Mirj. Glossaire de la mys-
tique musulmane, Paris 1973; Muslim, a,
4 vols., Istanbul 1329/1911; Najm al-Dn
Kubr, Fawi al-jaml wa-fawti al-jall,
ed. Fritz Meier, Die Fawi al-aml wa-faw
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Abd al-alm Mamd and Mamd b.
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f l-ibb, 8 vols., Beirut 2000; Shams al-Dn
Muammad b. Ab Bakr al-Rz, adiq
al-aqiq, ed. Ibrhm Shams al-Dn, Beirut
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Nazif M. Hoca, Istanbul 1974; al-Sarrj,
al-Luma, ed. Abd al-alm Mamd and
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al-marif, ed. Abd al-alm Mamd
and Mamd b. al-Sharf, 2 vols., Cairo
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al-Dn Sharba, Cairo 1969; Muammad b.
Alal-Tahnaw, Kashshf iiltal-funn,
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al-rayyn f ikyt al-lin, Cairo 1989;
Amad Zarrq, Qawid al-taawwuf, ed.
Ibrhm al-Yaqb, Damascus n.d.
Denis Gril
Dihqn
Dihqn (pl. dahqn) was the term for
a member of a class of lesser nobles in
Ssnid and early Muslim Iran, for local
lords in Iran and Transoxiana, and for a
peasant in modern Persian, Tajik, and the
Central Asian Turkic languages.
The stratum of lesser local lords
appears to have been growing from the
sixth century C.E. in the Ssnid empire.
At the time of the Arab-Muslim conquest
of Iraq and Iran, they held hereditary
responsibility for the management of local
affairs in the countryside, working for a
subdistrict (rustq, niya). Their military
role is less well attested, and the degree
of overlap with the heavy cavalry called
aswira is open to question (Piacentini;
Zakeri). They were reportedly an impor-
tant pillar of the army after the reforms of
Khusraw I Anshrawn (r. 53179), but
the efficiency of those reforms has been
questioned (Rubin, 28091).
Dahqn have been posited as landown-
ers and as village headmen, that is, offi-
cials organising the collection of taxes; in
many cases, they were probably both lords
in their own right and officials working on
behalf of the government. The five ranks
reported by al-Masd (2:240, trans. Pel-
lat, vol. 1, 662) are not reflected in their
activities during or after the conquest, but
it is clear that the term (in Arabic and
New Persian sources) covers a whole
dihqn 105
gamut of people (Cahen, 311), extending
from simple landowners to lords of entire
districts. The shahrija (sing. shahrj) who,
according to al-Masd (2:240, trans. Pel-
lat, vol. 1, 662), occupied a position just
above the dahqn, are best represented in
northern Mesopotamia, and they do not
seem to have been an official rank in
the Ssnid hierarchy (Robinson, 1038);
they were perhaps representatives of the
dahqn (Gyselen, 28).
There were strong regional differences
during the conquest and the early Islamic
period. In the Iraqi lowlands, dahqn are
seen to come to agreements with the Arab
Muslims even before the decisive battles,
and local lords seem to have been the
counterparts of the commanders of the
Arab group of fighters all over the country-
side (Tafaoli, for references); they com-
manded local and regional troops fighting
the often widely dispersed Arab forces.
After the breakdown of Ssnid imperial
rule and the establishment of Arab rule in
the Sawd, the Iraqi lowlands, the dahqn
collected the poll tax and the taxes levied
on crops and helped the new rulers re-
constitute the tax registers (Dennett, 29;
Lkkegaard, 956, 139). There was thus
continuity in landholding, taxation, and,
generally speaking, local power, which
enabled or at least facilitated the trans-
mission of cultural routines and knowl-
edge from the Iranians to the Arabs. This
crucial role of the dahqn in the Sawd
came to an end around 80/700, as a
result of the failure of Ibn al-Ashaths (d.
85/704) uprising and, generally speaking,
the centralising politics under the early
Marwnids, especially during the gover-
norship of al-ajjj b. Ysuf al-Thaqaf
(d. 95/714) (Morony, 206).
In northern Mesopotamia, change was
much slower, and local (Christian) lords
retained their role in tax collection until
the early third/ninth century, when they
were replaced in that role by leaders of
local Arab tribes (e.g., the Ban Hamdn)
(Robinson, 96102).
On the western Iranian plateau (Jibl
and Frs), dihqn is one of the titles used
by the Arabic Muslim sources for the Ira-
nian commanders and local or regional
leaders, but other terms are also recorded
(such as ras and Iranian titles such as
marzbn). The fiscal role of the dahqn is
less well documented, but continuity in
landholding seems to have been strong, at
least in such places as Ifahn (Durand-
Gudy, 29; Ibn awqal, 367; Paul,
2000), where some old Iranian families
were, however, known by the fifth/elev-
enth century as ras or tni (landholder).
In Qum, on the contrary, the arrival of
the (Ashar) Arabs is told as a story of
expropriation and sometimes physical
extermination of the local elites, including
the dahqn (early second/eighth century)
(Qumm, 25363, Drechsler, 95102).
Continuity is also evidenced by the report
that two sons of a prominent q in Frs
went, during Aud al-Dawlas rule (r. in
Frs 33872/94983), to Kirmn where
they were known as dahqn (Ibn al-Balkh,
1178), probably in the sense of promi-
nent landowners.
In Khursn, the title most frequently
used for the local counterparts of Arab
commanders (who concluded treaties
with them) is marzbn, and the sources
use the terms marzbn and dihqn for the
same persons (Tafaoli). The territories
under control of these men seem to have
been significantly larger than those under
dihqn responsibility in the Sawd. The
treaties made the Iranian nobles respon-
sible for the payment of taxes and for
the maintenance of order (there is extant
a treaty for Herat, concluded with the
am, lord, of that city; al-Baldhur, 392,
106 dihqn
trans. 2:163; Dennett, 117). The treaties
concluded with Iranian dignitaries cre-
ated what amounted to a string of protec-
torates where Iranians continued to rule
(Dennett, 118). This changed over time,
though much more slowly than in the
west, as indicated by the fact that the lan-
guage of the tax administration changed
from Middle Persian to Arabic in 80/699
in the Sawd and not until in 124/742 in
Khursn.
In Transoxiana, the situation was very
different, because the region had not been
part of the Ssnid empire. The group of
people whom the Arabic (and, later, the
Persian) sources call dihqn were the Sog-
dian petty rulers (Sogdian, khv). Thus, the
term used on the coins minted at Kish
(present-day Shahrisabz) changed from
khv to dihqn, when the language changed
to Arabic (de la Vaissire, 29). Likewise,
the famous local lord Dvstch (d. 103 or ras (Paul, Where did the dihqns go?).
4/722), the last ruler of Penjikent (Panjik-
ant/Panjakent, in present-day Tajikistan),
appears as a dihqn in al-abar (2:1446).
In Transoxiana as well as in Khursn,
the local lords continued in place, levy-
ing taxes on behalf of the new empire.
Indeed, some local rulers were known as
dihqn (including on their coinage) until
the beginning of the fifth/eleventh cen-
tury (Litvinsky). The term was used for
Turkic leaders as well (udd, 100), but
not for those who claimed the superior
title of khqn (Paul, Nachrichten, 184).
In both Khursn and Transoxiana,
the dahqn can be traced as landowners
until the mid-sixth/twelfth century, but
in some cases, we observe a change in
titles around the end of the fourth/tenth
century: whereas earlier generations had
used dihqn, later representatives preferred
other titles, such as amr or ras (Paul,
Where did the dihqns go?).
The military role of the dihqn as local
lord is evident in Transoxiana. The early
Abbsid armies (until about 225/840)
counted many Sogdian nobles as com-
manders. The early Smnid armies, too,
relied on the dahqn. This began to change
under Isml (r. 27995/892907), but
the dahqn continued to be responsible for
rural recruits until the early Qarakhnid
period (Paul, State). This appears to have
been true, to a lesser degree, also for
Khursn (Nim Ar Samarqand,
47). The Transoxianan nobles and some
of their counterparts in Khursn still
held powers of military mobilisation,
whereas the dahqn in the west (Iraq and
the western plateau) had long lost them
(de la Vaissire, 124). Peasant levies led
by rural notables are attested down to the
Mongol invasion, but their commanders
are no longer called dihqn but rather slr
The military capacities of the Sog-
dian local lords are also illustrated by
their role in the uprising of al-Muqanna
(150s/770s, the leader of a politico-
religious rebel movement in Sogdiana);
Muqanna certainly had some support
among them, but there also is a report
of a dihqn defending his (fortified) village
against Muqanna (Crone, 1148; Crone
and Jazi, 810). Otherwise, it is not clear
to what extent dahqn participated in the
nativist revolts of the late second/eighth
and early third/ninth centuries (Crone);
there was some dihqn support for the
revolt of Bbak (d. 223/838) in the Cau-
casus (Scarcia Amoretti, 507).
In fifth/eleventh-century Khursn,
dihqn descent was still an asset for a career
in the bureaucracy; not only did Nim
al-Mulk (d. 485/1092) himself stem from
such a family (Al b. Zayd al-Bayhaq (Ibn
Funduq), 73, 7980), but so did important
dihqn 107
figures around him (Bulliet, 45; Fris,
15a; al-Man (one of the most influential
notables of his time, d. 463/1071) was
from a family of dahqn and merchants).
The role of the dahqn, especially the
Khursns, in the transmission and
adaptation of the Iranian cultural heri-
tage has often been noted. It is evident
in the Shhnma cycle, beginning with the
(lost) prose Shhnma, collected by Ab
Manr Mamar in the mid-fourth/tenth
century. According to tradition, Firdaws
(d. c. 410/1020) himself stemmed from
a dihqn family. Dahqn patronised many
other poets, such as Rdak (fl. fourth/
tenth century) and Farrukh (d. probably
429/10378) (Tafaoli). The transmis-
sion of Iranian political and social think-
ing (in the mirrors for princes genre),
symbols of rulership, and lifestyles (includ-
ing dress, food, and feasting) are often
attributed to the dahqn.
Over time and at different stages in the
regions mentioned, the dahqn dissolved
into the social elite in general. This dis-
solution of old Iranian elites into new
Muslim Iranian ones can be observed
in Khursn, from the beginning of the
Abbsid movement. Dahqn certainly
fought on both sides, as evidenced by the
fact that the abn, the Baghdd descen-
dants of the first-generation followers
of the movement, included the sons of
the dahqn (al-Khwrazm, 119); on the
other hand, however, Ab Muslim, the
leader of the Abbsid forces in Khursn
(d. 137/755), is said to have exterminated
the Iranian nobles, among them the
dahqn (Mudjmal, 258).
Over time, the term dihqn, even though
it still denoted a landowner, moved down
the social ladder. This descent of the term
is visible in later explanations; al-Samn
(5:423, s.v. dihqn) says that a dihqn is one
who has precedence in a rural district;
somebody who owns estates and vine-
yards, a definition taken up by Yqt (d.
626/1229), who describes a dihqn as a
merchant, an owner of estates (Yqt,
2:492a). The Mujmal al-tawrkh wa-l-qias
has them as ras and landowners (Mudjmal,
322). It is thus the dihqn as a landowner
who survives longest, and ras is one of the
expressions that replace the earlier term.
Later, there are figures who are, despite
their low social rank, styled dihqn; some
are urban (e.g., in sixth/twelfth-century
Samarqand; Dodkhudoeva), and some
are small landowners (in the Caucasus,
early sixth/twelfth century; Minorsky and
Cahen).
The change in the meaning of the title
does not imply, however, that there was
no longer a stratum of influential land-
owners in the countrysidein particular
in Khursn, but also on the western pla-
teaurather that the sources use different
terms for them.
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