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The Transformation of Land Tenure and Rural Social Structure in Central and Southern Iraq, c. 1870–1958

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Marion Farouk-Sluglett  and
Peter Sluglett
Marion Farouk-Sluglett
Affiliation:
Durham University
Peter Sluglett
Affiliation:
Durham University
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Extract

This paper is an attempt to show how the economy and society of rural Iraq was affected by a combination of changing world economic circumstances and structural innovations in the pattern of land tenure. Iraq's gradual incorporation into the world market in the latter part of the nineteenth century was assisted by the application of the legislative and military reforms of the Tanzimat, which served generally to extend the powers of the Ottoman state over its provinces. Although the effects of the application of the new system were less direct than the Ittomans desited, it did set in motion a gradual process of detribalisation, which tended to reduce the powers of tribal shaikhs and promote the emergence of private prooerty in land.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , November 1983 , pp. 491 - 505
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

NOTES

1 Adams, R. McC., The Land Behind Baghdad (Chicago, 1965), pp. 84–111Google Scholar

2 Nieuwenhuis, Tom, Politics and Society in Early Modern Iraq: Mamluk Pashas, Tribal Shayks and Local Rule between 1802 and 1831 (The Hague, 1982), pp. 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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5 Administrative Report, Revenue Board, Baghdad, for the period 22 March to 31 December 1918, FO 371/3406/139231. See Sluglett, Peter, Britain in Iraq 1914–1932 (London, 1976), pp. 232–233.Google Scholar

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7 Although, as Nieuwenhuis shows (p. 44), the Ottoman or Mamluk governors consistently maintained political alliances with important tribal leaders: “Some tribal aristocracies … played a basic role in the political arena of the pashalik (Sc. of Baghdad). … Some contracts existed well before the 18th century, others were made during the Mamluk period.” See also pp. 158–168.Google Scholar

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10 For the text of the 1858 Code, and the subsequent Ottoman land legislation, see Fisher, Stanley, Ottoman Land Laws (London. 1919).Google Scholar To our knowledge, there is no detailed study of the actual operation of the 1858 Law in any of the Arab provinces of the Empire. See: Owen, Roger, The Middle East in the World Economy 1800–1914 (London, 1918), pp. 185, 258;Google ScholarIssawi, Charles, ed., The Economic History of Turkey 1800–1914 (Chicago, 1981). pp. 199–271, 321–365;Google ScholarShaw, S. J., “The Nineteenth Century Ottoman Tax Reforms and Revenue System,” IJMES, 6(1975), 421–459;Google ScholarKarpat, Kemal, “The Land Regime, Social Structure and Modernization in the Ottoman Empire,” in Polk, William R. and Chambers, Richard L., eds., The Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1968), pp. 69–90;Google ScholarWarriner, Doreen, “The Real Meaning of the Ottoman Land Code,” in Issawi, Charles, ed., The Economic History of the Middle East 1800–1914, (Chicago, 1966), pp. 72–78;Google ScholarInalçik, H., “Land Problems in Turkish History,” Muslim World, 45 (1955), 221–228;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPadel, W. and Steeg, I., De La Législation Foncière Ottomane (Paris, 1904);Google Scholar and du Velay, A., Essai sur l'Histoire Financière de la Turquie (Paris, 1903).Google Scholar

11 The extent of the Ottomans' “success” here is debatable; although, as Shaw (“Tax Reforms,” p. 428) notes, “The tithe continued to be the most important single state revenue under the new system,” it does not appear to have increased very significantly—or at least very consistently—in the latter years of the nineteenth century (see below from Shaw, “Tax Reforms,” pp. 451–53; revenues and tithes expressed in millions of piastres):Google Scholar

12 For a more detailed discussion, see Haider, S., Land Problems of Iraq, unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, London University, 1942.Google Scholar

13 Quotations from the Code are from Fisher, Ottoman Land Laws, pp. 1–42.Google Scholar

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15 See Jwaideh, Albertine, “Midhat Pasha and the Land System of Lower Iraq,” St. Antony's Papers. III, (London, 1963), pp. 106–136;Google ScholarOwen, Roger, The Middle East in the World Economy, pp. 185–188.Google Scholar

16 Sir Dowson, Ernest, An Enquiry into Land Tenure and Related Questions (Letchworth, 1931), p. 6.Google Scholar

17 In fact, small-scale landownership never developed to any significant extent in Southern Iraq. Batatu (Old Social Classes, p. 55)Google Scholar lists the areas where it was the most common: the upper Middle Euphrates between Hīt and Hadītha; the Khālis Valley; the lower Diyāla; the area around Basra; the Hindiyya and Shāmiyya shatts. Thus the ‘small farm owners’ described by Poyck and Fernea are not a particularly widely representative category. See Poyck, A. P. G., “Farm Studies in Iraq: An AgroEconomic Study of the Agriculture in the Hilla-Diwaniya Area in Iraq,” Mededelingen van de Landbouwhogeschool te Wagenigen (Nederland) 62, 1(1962), 1–99;Google ScholarFernea, Robert A., Shaikh and Effendi; Changing Patterns of Authority Among the El Shabana of Southern Iraq (Cambridge, Mass., 1970) especially Chapter III.Google Scholar

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19 Haider, Land ProblemsGoogle Scholar, quoted in Issawi, Charles, ed., The Economic History of the Middle East, p. 166.Google Scholar

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21 Owen, Middle East in the World Economy, p. 282.Google Scholar

22 For a more detailed discussion see Farouk, Marion Omar, Der Wandel der Produktions- und Machtverhältnisse auf dem Lande im Irak unter der britischen Kolonialherrschaft 1914–1932, Dr. Phil., Humboldt University, Berlin, 1974, pp. 1–25Google Scholar

23 Fernea, Shaykh and Effendi, p. 121.Google Scholar

24 Owen, Middle East in the World Economy, p. 282.Google Scholar

25 Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movments of Iraq, p. 77.Google Scholar

26 For a more detailed account of the administrative system developed under the occupation and mandate, see Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, pp. 14–18, 23–33, 42, 48–50, 161–170, 219–222.Google Scholar

27 The British authorities certainly knew what they were doing. A report of 1917 states: “Settled agriculture and extended civilisation have tended to disintegrate the tribe and to weaken the influence of the shaikhs. To restore and continue the power of the tribal shaikhs is not the least interesting of the problems in land administration which the Baghdad wilayet presents.” (Administrative Report, Revenue Board, Baghdad, for the period 22 March to 31 December 1918, FO 371/3406/139231.) Again, the Revenue Commissioner noted in 1919: “We must recognise that it is primarily our business not to give rights to those who have them not, but to secure their rights to those who have them.” (Lt. Col. Howell, E. B., Note on Land Policy, Baghdad, 1919; FO 371/4150/127807.) Edgar Bonham-Carter, Sir Percy Cox’ Legal Advisor, wrote in April 1921: “My own experience has been that when Arabs settle down to agriculture they begin to wish to come under a more settled authority and to break away from the Shaikh” (CO 730/3/52858).Google Scholar

28 Major Pulley, Political Officer, Hilla, to Civil Commissioner, Baghdad, 6 August 1920. India Office, LP & S 10/4722/18/1920/8/6305.Google Scholar

29 Wilson, A. T., Mesopotamia 1917–1920: A Clash of Loyalties (London, 1931), p. 96.Google Scholar

30 See Fernea, Shaykh and Effendi, pp. 67–69, 137; Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq, pp. 25, 95; Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, pp. 239–243;Google ScholarPool, David, “From Elite to Class; The Transformation of Iraqi Leadership, 1920–1939, IJMES, 12, 3 (11 1980), 331–350.Google Scholar

31 See Himadeh, S., “Taxation in Iraq in the 1900s” in Issawi, The Economic History of the Middle East, pp. 186–190. Direct land tax was in fact abolished by the Istihlāk, or Consumption Law, of 1931, which taxed produce only at the point of sale.Google Scholar

32 Warriner, Doreen, Land and Poverty in the Middle East (London, 1948), p. 99.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., p. 106; Dowson, An Enquiry into Land Tenure, p. 28;Google ScholarFarouk, Der Wandel der Produktionsund Machtverhältnisse auf dem Lande im Irak, pp. 107–127.Google Scholar

34 For better or worse, the greater the part of these newcomers into agriculture have been active politicians … They have been granted very extensive tracts of valuable government land, not only without payment, but also with revenue privileges, provided they undertook to exploit such land.” (Note on the Law Governing the Rights and Duties of Cultivators by the Inspector-General of Agriculture, November 1933, enclosed in Ambassador, Baghdad, to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Despatch No. 807 of 22 December 1933. FO 624/1/428/7.)Google Scholar

35 Handbook, Admiralty, Iraq and the Persian Gulf (London, 1944), p. 440.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., p. 443; Warriner, Land Reform and Development, p. 146.

37 Note on Land Settlement by C. J. Edmonds, 9 December 1936; FO 624/7/623.Google Scholar

38 See al-Suri, Muhammad, al-lqtā' Līwā' al-Kūt, (Baghdad, 1958), pp.80–81.Google Scholar

39 Batatu, The Old Social Classes, p. 53.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., p. 129; Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, Appendix II, “Tenurial and Taxational Arrangements in 'Amara Liwa,” pp. 317–331.

41 Batatu, The Old Social Classes, pp. 352–361; Pool, “From Elite to Class.”Google Scholar

42 Warriner, Land Reform and Development, p. 152.Google Scholar

43 H. M. Government, Special Report … on the Progress of Iraq. 1920–1931 for the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations (London, 1931).Google Scholar

44 Hasan, “The Role of Foreign Trade,” p. 352.Google Scholar

45 Sir E. Hilton Young to the Prime Minister of Iraq, 24 June 1930; E 6042/42/93; FO 371/14509. The same report continues: “As is usual in some cases, the initial movement was largely in the wrong direction. It was a movement not towards the improvement in methods of cultivation and the quality of produce of the many, but an acceleration in the rate at which the more easily available sources of wealth were being exploited for the benefit of the few with capital available for the purpose.”Google Scholar

46 Batatu, The Old Social Classes, p. 106.Google Scholar

47 Fahmi, Ahmad, Taqrīr hawl al-'Irāq (Baghdad, 1926), p. 103.Google Scholar

48 al-Suri, al-lqtā', p. 82.Google Scholar

49 Haider, Land Problems, p. 652.Google Scholar

50 Fahmi, Taqrīr, pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

51 H. M. Government, Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia from 1914 to the Summer of 1920 (compiled by Miss G. L. Bell), Cmd. 1061 (1920), p. 76.Google Scholar

52 H. M. Government, Special Report … 1931, p. 240.Google Scholar

53 Admiralty Handbook, Iraq and the Persian Gulf, p. 449;Google Scholar see Gabbay, Rony, Communism and Agrarian Reform in Iraq (London, 1978) pp. 19–45. “The health condition of the fallah was so appalling that Professor Critchley described him as a ‘living pathological specimen.’ His life expectancy did not improve much throughout the regime of the monarchy …; it stood at 35–39 years.” (p. 29)Google Scholar

54 al-Talabāni, Mukarram, Fī Sabīl Islāh Zirā'i Jidrī fī'l- 'lrāq (Baghdad, 1969), p. 31.Google Scholar

55 Clawson, M., Landsberg, H. H., and Alexander, L. T., The Agricultural Potential of the Middle East (New York, 1971), p. 47.Google Scholar

56 Phillips, Doris G., “Rural Migration in Iraq,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 7 (1959), 405–421; here p. 409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57 Batatu, The Old Social Classes, pp. 133–134.Google Scholar

58 See Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, “Labour and National Liberation; the Trade Union Movement in Iraq, 1920–1958,” Arab Studies Quarterly, in press.Google Scholar

59 As we have already stated elsewhere, most writers on Iraq in this period seem to have misunderstood this important point. For example: “Had the British authorities understood the local situation more clearly while they still retained effective control over the country after the First World War, they might have been able to introduce a system for settling land titles which gave the great tribal shaikhs, who now often lived in the cities, smaller opportunities to acquire tribal lands for themselves and form a large class of absentee landlords.” (Edith, and Penrose, E. F., Iraq: International Relations and National Development [London and Boulder, Col., 1978, p. 153.)Google Scholar See our review entitled “Iraq; the Path to Independence,” Gazelle Review, 6 (1978), 40–48.Google Scholar

60 Some of these contrary opinions can be found in Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, pp. 231–238.Google Scholar