Part Two: Reflections and Conclusions

Summary

It is imprudent to venture into the winding alleys of Karl Wittfogel’s theses on hydraulic and hydro-agricultural societies, especially since he did not examine Persia; but a comment on bureaucracy and centralized control of water is unavoidable. There is no evidence the Mongol Empire, Ilkhanids or Kartids created a bureaucracy—a water authority (dīwān-i āb)—to manage Herat’s hydrological network. Kartids occasionally engaged in excavating canals (Jūy-i Naw), constructing dams (Band-i Salūmad), cisterns (Ḥawż-yi Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kart), and water-control boxes (Naṭarah-i Malik), but could not offer sustained financing. Bureaucracies and large-scale infrastructure projects demand cash, which Kartids infrequently possessed.

Ilkhanids could not afford to throw money at infrastructure projects either. The policy established by Ghāzān and Rashīd al-Dīn was to seminally change the fiscal and legal environment that had deterred potential investors. They aimed to foster a climate where individual and institutional investors had incentives to reclaim fallow lands and restore derelict hydrological assets. Il-Khan and vizier were appealing to economic self-interests of investors. The pair transformed the immeasurable uncertainties that had deterred potential investors into measurable uncertainties (that is, manageable risks). Fiscal-legal reforms eliminated by fiat all legal claims over thirty years, and nullified ancient property deeds. The occupiers of farmlands and pastures, and possessors of watermills, kārīzs, and jūys in Herat and its purlieus, irrespective of whether their tenancy was legal or illegal, no longer feared eviction or loss of capital improvements to farms and hydrological assets. State and private lands were declared fallow by fiat and available for cultivation, which permitted institutional and individual investors with political networks to acquire the best lands and hydrological properties.

Leaders of Islamic institutions will have taken advantage of Ilkhanid fiscal and legal reforms to secure for their institutions—and for themselves— prime real estate and hydrological assets. Moreover, institutions would have received farmlands, aqueducts, watermills, income-producing properties (rent-paying tenants; shops in the bazaars) and cash as waqf. Surplus cash is frequently invested in agricultural and hydrological projects. Islamic institutions—more than Kartid policies and officials—were responsible (by my estimation) for the revivification of agriculture in Kartid Herat.