Of course, the silence of Muslim lawyers about municipal institutions in itself cannot yet indicate that they did not exist in practice. Many phenomena of economic and public life were not recorded in law, remaining in the category of “customs” (adat) not regulated. TO. Kaen has undertaken a special study of the municipal bodies and urban autonomy and came to the conclusion that we can only talk about the experience of some elements of the municipal organization dating back to the Early Unified Time. Separate facts of strengthening urban autonomy in Syrian cities XI in. were random episodes caused by the weakening of the power of the emirs, and not by the manifestation of the general pattern of development of these cities. TO. Kaenus rightly believes that the differences between the European and Eastern city are determined not by the fact that one of them is Muslim, and the other Christian, not Arab conquest and Islamization, but those features that appeared later when the Western European cities in the fight against feudal lords gained autonomy, t. e. In the XII century. “Until that moment, the Muslim city, like Byzantine and Italian, continued, as it seems to me, to develop with some changes, but without a break, in the same direction in which the city of the late empire or Sasanid Iran developed” (Cahen, 1958-1959 , 3, p. 259).
The researcher of the Central Asian city has much fewer facts for judgment about urban self -government. However, now, in the presence of research on the Middle Eastern City, it is more fruitful to use the scattered facts at our disposal. We will analyze the information about the posts of the city administration known to us.
The emir, who had a residence in the city, was the governor, and not the mayor. The city’s management was in the hands of Rais. This figure is known in almost the entire Muslim East. In Central Asia, the first references to the Raisov cities belong to the second half of X in., which does not mean that such a position did not exist before.
Rais’s functions are not entirely clear. According to c. IN. Bartold, “Rais was the first person of the city and a representative of his interests; Through him, the sovereign expressed his will to the inhabitants. It is very likely that the Raisa, at least the first time, were appointed from representatives of the noble local birth ”(I, with. 294). E. Ashtor-Straus, in the work of the city administration of medieval Syria, came to the conclusion that RAS is primarily the police chief and that therefore, former criminals who knew the criminal world of the city (AshTor-Strauss, 1956, r. 104). TO. The execution, which attracted geographically wider material, chose to speak more carefully and indicated that in Iran and Central Asia, Raisa Cities were from the local nobility and that this is probably their political influence on the cities. In his opinion, they rather resembled mayors (Caehen, 1958-1959, 1, with. 247; 2, p. 53). Our material does not even contain a hint of the identity of the position of Rais. and the chief of the police (although, as we will see next, control over the order in the city was under the jurisdiction of Raisa), but there are unambiguous evidence of the opposite kind. In the “Roman about Abu Muslim” there is such an episode: after one of the first attacks of Abu Muslim on supporters. Seyyar calls Suleiman B. Caesira and instructs him, as Raisa, to catch a criminal, but Suleiman objects that he is not a Darug of the city and cannot do this (Tartushi, L, 396). Obviously the late term “Daruga” undoubtedly corresponds to the Domongol “Shikhne”. The following says that the searches were entrusted to Shikhne Merva (ibid. 446). And in other cases, either Shikhne or the head of the night guard (ibid. 976, 350).