As for the signet ring, after the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), it was worn by Abū Bakr, then ʿUmar, then ʿUthmān, until it fell from ʿUthmān’s hand into a well, and he was unable to find it. This, then, is an account of what was held by the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) of charitable endowment and estate. And Allah knows best.

As for all lands apart from the Sacred Precinct and the Hijaz, it has already been explained that they fall into four categories: one category whose inhabitants embraced Islam, making it land subject to the tithe (ʿushr); a second category brought to life and cultivated by the Muslims, in which case whatever they cultivated is subject to the tithe; a third category acquired by the conquerors through force, which the imam did not designate as a charitable endowment, in which case it is subject to the tithe; and a fourth category whose inhabitants concluded a peace treaty, making it fayʾ, upon which land tax (kharāj) is imposed.

This fourth category is itself divided into two types. The first is land whose inhabitants agreed to surrender ownership of it. It may not be sold, and the kharāj is rent that is not waived when its inhabitants embrace Islam; it is collected from both Muslims and dhimmīs. The second is land whose inhabitants agreed to retain ownership of it. It may be sold, and the kharāj is rent that is waived when they embrace Islam; it is collected from the people under the dhimmah, but not from Muslims.

As for the land of al-Sawād, it is the foundational case against which analogous cases in juristic rulings are measured. This al-Sawād refers to Kisrā’s Sawād—the territory in Iraq that the Muslims conquered during ʿUmar’s time. It was called sawād because of its dark appearance caused by its crops and trees. When it bordered the Arabian Peninsula, where there were neither crops nor trees, the people of the Peninsula would see the greenery of the crops and trees when they emerged from their own land into it. In their usage, they associated greenness and blackness in the same designation, so they called the greenery of Iraq sawād.

It was called Iraq because its land was level, being free of mountains that rose high and valleys that sank low. In the speech of the Arabs, ʿIrāq means level ground. The boundaries of al-Sawād extend lengthwise from Ḥadīthah of Mosul to ʿAbbādān, and widthwise from al-Udhayb of al-Qādisiyyah to Ḥulwān. Its length is 160 farsakhs and its width is 80 farsakhs, except for certain villages named by Aḥmad and mentioned by Abū ʿUbayd: al-Ḥīrah, Bāniqiyā, the land of Banū Ṣalūbā, and another village whose inhabitants had concluded a peace treaty. Abū Bakr related through his chain of transmission from ʿUmar that he wrote: “Indeed, Allah—Mighty and Exalted is He—has conquered the territory between al-Udhayb and Ḥulwān.”