Islamic land grants lacked feudalism’s immunities and sub-infeudation

Evidence

The qatfiı¯a was in essence a grant of lands from the state domain. It was in practice alienable and heritable, and thus in effect though not in law became freehold property. The muqtfia, while thus having the rights of a freehold land­ owner, had no others. Unlike the European fiefholder, he enjoyed no fiscal or judicial immunities, and exercised no jurisdiction over his tenants. He did not normally reside on his qatfiı¯a but in the imperial or provincial capital, and cul­ tivated his land with native tenant or semiservile labor. Another major difference was that the muqtfia did not allot parts of his grant in smaller grants, on the same or similar terms, to his own henchmen. All grants were held directly from the ruler, and thus did not resemble the Western practice of sub-infeudation. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 353

Categorization

• XREF: This precise contrast between Islamic iqta and European fief contributes concrete institutional texture to the reader’s broader cluster on how the region became legible to the West; it corrects the lazy equation of the two often found in Orientalist shorthand.
• DEFINE: Defines both qatia’a/muqta and clarifies what distinctive features European feudalism had that it lacked.