Note 381 — Chapter V
Reading edition
The exhaustive researches of Wellhausen, Das Arabische Reich und sein Sturz (pp. 169-192) have set this complicated subject in a new light. He contends that ‘Umar's reform was not based on purely ideal grounds, but was demanded by the necessities of the case, and that, so far from introducing disorder into the finances, his measures were designed to remedy the confusion which already existed.