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The Khāliṣah of Varamin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Mansoureh Ettehadieh Nezam-Mafi
Mansoureh Ettehadieh Nezam-Mafi
Affiliation:
Teaches history at Tehran University, Tehran, Iran.
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Extract

The history and development of land tenure in Iran have been affected by many factors, including climatic conditions, scarcity of water, lack of security, widespread tribalism, and legal and administrative confusion. In addition to limitations in resources, political instability in the premodern period molded systems of land tenure in Iran. Changes of dynasty were frequent and usually followed by the confiscation and redistribution of land. The Qajar dynasty (1788–1925), which came to power after a long period of anarchy and civil war, continued that general pattern. There were three classes of land ownership in Iran in this period: waqfs (religious endowments), arbābī (land owned by large landlords), and khāliṣah (state-owned lands). This last category was composed of lands confiscated by the government as punishment for rebellion or failure to pay taxes. As land was often the only form of wealth landlords had, the threat of government confiscation was an instrument of control as well as a source of revenue for the state. The khāliṣah were usually rented out on long-term leases or were granted as ṭuyul, that is in lieu of services rendered or salaries deferred. The khāliṣah were also in some instances farmed directly by the government. These lands were cultivated by peasants under conditions similar to those of the arbābī lands. They were scattered throughout the country and were also subject to various local and regional variations in agricultural taxes.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , February 1993 , pp. 5 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

NOTES

1 See Lambton, A. K. S., Landlord and Peasant in Persia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953)Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., 147–50, 152–54.

3 This article is based on a report which is entitled Ṣūrat-i khāliṣah-i Tihrān, but is in fact a census of Varamin, a district forty kilometers away from Tehran. The original copy of the report, numbered B469, is filed in the Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍavī Library in Mashhad. The statistical data in this article are calculated from figures provided by the census.

4 Qajar bureaucrats organized their financial records and tabulations according to Turkic practice. Fiscal years followed a twelve-year cycle in which each year was given the name of a particular animal. Other pich yil years during the reign of Nasir al-Din Shah were 1848–49, 1860–61, 1884–85, 1896–97. When the events of all these years were corroborated with the contents of the document, it became clear that the census was prepared in 1872–73.

5 Khāṭirāt wa asnād-i Ḥusayn Quli Khān Niẓām al-Salṭanah Māfi (The Memoirs and Documents of Husayn Quli Khan Nizam al-Saltanah Mafi), 2 vols., ed. Mafi, M., Ettehadieh, M. (Nezam-Mafi), Saʿdvandian, S., Rampisheh, H. (Tehran, 1981), 1:24–25Google Scholar.

6 Issawi, Charles, Economic History of Iran, 1800–1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 28–29Google Scholar. See also Ḥmār-i dār al-khilāfah-i Tihrān (Statistics of the District of Tehran), ed. Saʿdvandian, S. and Ettehadieh, M. (Nezam-Mafi) (Tehran, 1989), 346Google Scholar.

7 Adamiyat, F., Andīshah-i tarraqī wa ḥukūmat-i qānūn: ʿaṣr-i Sipahsālār (The Idea of Progress and the Rule of Law: The Era of Sipahsalar) (Tehran, 1973), 120Google Scholar.

8 Ibid.

9 al-Mulk, G. H. Afḍal, Afḍal al-tawārīkh (The Best of Histories), ed. Ettehadieh, M. (Nezam-Mafi) and Saʿdvandian, S. (Tehran, 1983), 287–88Google Scholar. Also see Mustawfi, A., Sharḥ-i zindagāni-ʾi man, yā tārīkh-i ijlimāʿī wa idārī-ʾi dawrah-ʾi Qājār (The Story of My Life, or a Social and Bureaucratic History of the Qajar Period), 3 vols. (Tehran, 1943), 1:110Google Scholar.

10 Mustawfi, , Sharḥ-i zindagānī, 488Google Scholar.

11 Āmār-i dār al-khilāfah, 36–340.

12 Ibid., 342–50.

13 Saʿdvandian, S., “Darāmadī bar jamʿiyyat shināsī dar ʿaṣr-i Qājār wa natāiij-e iḥṣāʾiyyah-i Iṣfahān dar 1287 HQ” (A Demographic Study of the Qajar Period and Results from the Isfahan Census of A.H. 1287) (M.A. thesis, Tehran University, 1988)Google Scholar.

14 Ibid.

15 Muzākirāt-i Majlis-i awwal (Proceedings of the First Majlis), 4 Ramaḍān, A.H. 1325 (A.D. 1906), 341Google Scholar.

16 Afḍal al-Mulk, Afḍal, 287; Mustawfi, Sharḥ-i zindagānī, 488.

17 The plain of Varamin is situated between Lavasanat and Rey on the west, Garmsar and the Kavir desert on the east. It has a dry, warm climate, and little rainfall due to its proximity to the desert. The northeastern part is partially desert, as it is situated below the mountain ranges and thus receives some precipitation. It has short winters, and the amount of rainfall on average is about 200 to 300 centimeters a year. The south is much drier, and receives on average about 50 to 150 centimeters of rain. The villages situated in the north are more prosperous because they have the use both of the waters of the Jajirud, and of underground water. There is no dry farming in Varamin. See Salihi, H., “Barrasīhāʾī dar bārah-ʾi Varāmīn wa masalah-i kishāwarziyān” (Studies on Varamin and Its Agricultural Problems) (M.A. thesis, Azad University, 1988)Google Scholar. Also, Azari, A., Jughrāfiyā-i tārīkhī-i Varāmin (A Historical Geography of Varamin) (Tehran, 1969), passimGoogle Scholar.

18 Lambton, Landlord, 165–70.

19 A qirān was one-tenth of a tuman which is the unit of account. For more information on the currency of Iran, see Issawi, Economic History, 387.

20 Also one-tenth of a tuman.

21 Ibid.

22 One-twentieth of a tuman.

23 Curzon, G. N., Persia and the Persian Question, 2 vols. (London: Frank Cass, 1966), 2:471Google Scholar.

24 Lambton, Landlord, 152.

25 One kharvār is equal to approximately 290 kilograms.

26 Nizam al-Saltanah, Khāṭirāt, 89–90.

27 Lambton, Landlord, 217.

28 Bamdad, M., Sharḥ-i ḥāl-i rijāl-i Irān (Biographies of the Iranian Dignitaries), 6 vols. (Tehran, 1979), 2:9–10Google Scholar. The details of the life and career of the Sadiq al-Dawlah are not provided in Bamdad's description. He does not mention the date Sadiq al-Dawlah was appointed as head of the khāliṣah or when this department was turned into a ministry.

29 Nizam al-Saltanah, Khāṭirāt, 89–90.

30 Mustawfi, Sharḥ-i zindagāni, 489.

31 Safinejad, J., Asnād-e bunahhā-ʾi Shahr-i Rayy, Ghār, wa Fashāpūyah (Documents of the Bunah of Shahr-i Rayy, Ghar, and Fashapuyah) (Tehran, 1988)Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., 10–11.

33 A pair of oxen working half a day ploughed a quarter hectare, enough for the planting of 21.5 man (3 kilograms) of seed; ibid., 19–20, 26.

34 Ibid., 14, 24.

35 According to Safinejad, the best wheat was put aside for use as next year's seed, and the peasant who had produced it was given his share from other produce; ibid., 27.

36 There is no mention of the new cash crops overtaking the Iranian export market, a fact that was gradually altering the entire agricultural structure of the economy. Cotton was one of the main crops widely planted in Varamin till about twenty years ago. There is no mention of cotton, nor of any cash crops in this report. It is possible that either cotton was counted as summer produce and not mentioned by name, or that it was not yet the important item it later became. It is, however, more likely that the government was intent on having grain planted in the villages it owned near Tehran. There is mention of rice being planted in these villages as a spring crop,.but no rice is planted in Varamin today. For the division of spring and summer crop, see Safinejad, Asnād-i bunahhā-ʾi, 33.

37 Sir John Malcolm is quoted in Lambton, Landlord, 279.

38 Curzon, Persia, 2:471.

39 It is not possible to calculate the exact price of wheat, barley, or straw in one location in one year, and this rate has been taken by consulting prices cited by Issawi, Curzon, and Jamalzadah, M., Ganj-i shāyigān (The Treasures of Shayigan), 2nd ed. (Tehran: 1984), 186Google Scholar. For the effects of inflation on the cost of living and its inclusion in the calculation of prices, see Issawi, Economic History, chap. 8.

40 Ibid., 31–32.

41 One of the fortresses, that of Iraj, was particularly notable. Curzon, too, had seen it on his travels and described it: “Scattered about the plain are other great Kalehs, or similar earthen fortresses, with towering walls of unbaked bricks fused into a mass as solid as cement and as perishable as stone … a third Kaleh, known as Kaleh-i Iraj [Raghes?], near the village of Jafirabad, encloses with a thick mud wall, fifty feet high, a space, according to Eastwick, of 1,800 yards by 1,500 or nearly a square mile. The date and era of these prodigious structures are unknown and disputed; there is no hazard in referring to them as remote antiquity; but, whatever their age they recall a past when Persia was more powerful and more populous, even if less pacific or secure, than now; and their silent witness accentuates the pathos of the country's ruin,” Curzon, Persia, 1:352–55.

42 Malcolm, J., The History of Persia, From the Most Early Period to the Present Time, 2 vols. (London: J. Murray, 1829), 2:337Google Scholar.

43 Stack is quoted in Lambton, Landlord, 166.

44 Curzon, Persia, 2:474.

45 Issawi, Economic History, 54.

46 Ibid.

47 Lambton, Landlord, 426–28.