Qudama b. Ja'far was a scholarly state official in the early classical period of the Abbasid dynasty (9th-10th centuries A.D.), who wrote "The Book of the Land-Tax and the Craft of Writing." Using his "somewhat tedious" administrative encyclopedia as a guide, Heck (Islamic studies, U. of Chicago) elucidates how the largely secular Islamic state appropriated Arab-Islamic traditions to govern diverse peoples in this transitional period from a tribal to an imperial polity. He concludes that knowledge in this formative era was constructed from a dialogue of competing values. The appendix consists of citations in Arabic. Based on a doctoral dissertation completed at the U. of Chicago in 2000. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)