The Formation of al-ʿAwāṣim

This chapter examines a term that appears constantly in early Islamic sources regarding the Islamic-Byzantine border and its special organization and status within the early caliphate: the border hinterlands known as “ al-ʿAwāṣim ,” an administrative concept created under Hārūn al-Rashīd. The chapter investigates the earliest sources, elucidating, for the first time, the actual meaning of the term, and demonstrating that it refers to reserved or protected protected property, and showing that the ʿAwāṣim of Syria had, not a military role, but rather a fiscal and administrative one: the Barmakids set aside the revenues of the ʿAwāṣim in order to fund and finance the strengthening (through, e.g., the building and repair of fortifications) of the actual border areas, the thughūr . The later works which constitute our earliest sources on this institution had clearly forgotten the original meaning of the term, and seem to have provided what seemed to them a likely explanation, thereby inventing the unhistorical trope of ʿAwāṣim as a military area, rather than understanding them as what they were: administrative tax zones whose revenues financed the fortifications and military needs of the actual border zones, the thughūr .