Governing Property, Making the Modern State : Law, Administration And Production in Ottoman Syria

Maps, figures and tables viii Note on transliteration, datation and abbreviation x Acknowledgements xii 1 Introduction 1 Two documents 1 Persons and things 2 Part one Ottoman jurisprudence concerning ownership of agricultural land 9 2 Jurisprudential debate in the sixteenth century 11 Classical Hanafi doctrine on the character of property in land 11 Hanafi doctrine under the Mamluks 12 The readings of Ottoman jurists 13 3 Jurisprudential debate in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 21 The powers and properties of the administrator 23 The legal persona of the sahib al-ard 23 Tax collection and land administration: the village and the tax farmer 25 The powers and properties of the cultivator 28 The nature of the cultivator's right 28 The legal person of the cultivator 31 Conclusions 37 4 Legal reform from the 1830's to the First World War 40 The character of Ottoman reform 41 1830's-40's: law as programme 43 Regional government 43 Land law 44 1850's 60's: law as blueprint for institution 45 A Damascene excursus 48 Administrative consolidation 50 After the 1870's: law as political administration of private property 51 Part two The administration of property in one district of the empire 53 5 Production and settlement in the district of 'Ajlun 57 6 The introduction of bureaucratic registration 66 Indirect rule and the political economy of the region 66 The beginning of title registration 68 Yoklama registration 70 Registration of land in shares 73 7 Regional leadership and the prosecution of a governor 80 Background to the case 80 The depositions 81 The charges and appeals 88 The properties of regional leaders 90 Abd al-Qadir Efendi Yusuf al-Sharaida of the Kura 90 Ibrahim Sa'cl al-Din and Muflih al-Jabr of the Kafarat 93 8 Property and administration in the later Tanzimat 96 The 1880's and the Special Commission for the Lands of Hauran 96 Administrative development in the 1890's and beyond 99 Conclusion 101 Part three Governing property: administration, village, household 105 9 Registration and political economy in two plains villages 108 Bait Ra's 108 Hasan al-Sabbah's group 109 1880 tapu registration 111 1895 tax registration 117 New landholders in 1895 118 Marriage links between lieu' families 119 The resettlement of 1921 122 Transfers of land between 1880 and 1921 125 Conclusion: title or tax, groups or individuals? 126 Hawwara 127 Unsettledness: initial registration in Hawwara, 1876-83 129 Title versus tax: regularization of entitlement in 1921 135 Mutations of the 1895 tax register in line with title 138 Extent of landless population in Hawwara, 1895 140 Landholdings in the 1895 tax register 141 The pattern of field holdings in 1895 143 Land allotment in 1933 149 10 Registration and political economy in two hill villages 152 Kufr Awan 153 Holdings of musha' land in 1884: allotment by zalama 156 Composition of village sections 163 Women's claims to land, 1884-1939 167 Khanzira (present Ashrafiya) 177 Production and property in 1884 177 The role of tax registration in 1895 183 11 A village of the plains: Hawwara 186 Farming in Hawwara 186 Life histories 188 Abdul-Rahman Mahmud Ahmad al-Mustafa Tannash 188 Khadija 'Abdullah Muhammad 'Abdul-Rahman al-Jammal 191 Muhammad Khair Khalil Mustafa Taha al-Shar' 197 General observations 200 The household of Na'il Ibrahim al-Gharaiba 202 The other branches of the Gharaiba 204 12 A village of mixed agriculture in the hills: Kufr 'Awan 208 Farming in Kufr Awan 208 Life histories 210 Husna Salih Hamdan: farming in the village 210 Ahmad Khalifa Sa'd al-Ahmad: wage labour, cattle herding and farming 214 Family histories of Hasan and Husain 'Abdul-Rahman 'Amaira 217 Ni'ma Muhammad Mahmud al-'Abid: cattle raising 217 Mahmud Ibrahim Husain al-'Abdul-Rahman: breeding cattle and horses 219 'Ali Qasim 'Awad al-Mustafa: spirituality and goat herding 223 Yumna Mustafa Nimr al-Muflih: a farming family 227 13 Epilogue 233 Notes 237 Bibliography 289 Index 299