In the matter of taxation the early Khalifate continued the system already in vogue and employed existing methods for the collection of the newly imposed poll tax. It was on this side that the `Umayyad rule was most unsatisfactory. Like many who have been bred in poverty and have afterwards suddenly come into great wealth, the Arabs behaved as though their wealth was inexhaustible: each governor bought his appointment from the state and it became a recognised custom for him to exact a cash payment from the outgoing governor, and then he was free to raise what he could from his defenceless subjects to prepare for the day when his opportunities of exaction came to an end. The thoroughly unsatisfactory condition of the `Umayyad financial system was one of the leading causes of their fall. One of the `Umayyad sheikhs, named Minkari, when asked the reason of their fall, replied:-- “We gave to pleasure the time which should have been devoted to business. Our subjects, harshly treated by us and despairing of obtaining justice, longed to be delivered from us: the tax payers, overburdened with exactions, were estranged from us: our lands were neglected, our resources wasted. We left business to our ministers who sacrificed our interests to their own advantage, and transacted our affairs as they pleased and without our knowledge. The army, with its pay always in arrear, ceased to obey us. And so the small number of our supporters left us without defence against our enemies, and the ignorance of how we stood was one of the chief causes of our fall.” (Masudi: vi., 35-36.) It will not be unfair to say, therefore, that during the `Umayyad period the Arabs learned practically nothing of the art of government and of the work of administration. They were in the position of prodigal young heirs who leave all details to their men of business and content themselves with squandering the proceeds.