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Art. IX.—Of the Kharáj or Muhammadan Land Tax; its Application to British India, and Effect on the Tenure of Land

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

Kkaráj or Khiráj, for the word is written both ways, indifferently, signifies literally “going or issuing out of.” It occurs, with a slight difference in the spelling, in a passage of the Koran, where two constructions have been put upon it, by commentators — one that it means ajr or hire, and the other that it means nafa, or profit generally. In the former sense, kharáj when applied to land would be rent, and the person rendering it a tenant for the recipient, who would be the proprietor ; in the latter sense, it might be a profit of any kind issuing out of the land, and the person rendering it might himself be the proprietor. To this double meaning of the word may perhaps be traced a controversy respecting the proprietary right to land in India, which has subsisted more or less down to the present time.

Type
Original Communications
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1874

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References

page 187 note 1 First published in the Journal Asiatique, but afterwards in a separate volume.

page 187 note 1 “It may be worth while to call attention to the fact that, according to the notes of Rájah Khán of Kábul, translated by Leech, Major in vol. xiv. of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (pp. 815817)Google Scholar, Upper Ḳáshḳar is also called Shighnán.….I must leave the matter on this solitary authority. The same is indeed said in Raverty, Major's ‘Account of Upper Ḳáshḳár’ in the 33rd vol. of the same Journal, p. 131.Google Scholar But I cannot regard this as a corroboration, for a comparison of the two papers shows that they have been derived from the same original notes, though no indication of this is suggested in the latter paper.”—New Series, vol. vi. p. 113.

page 187 note 2 Colonel Yule originally sent a letter containing nearly the whole award of the arbitrators, a document which the Council found greatly too long for insertion.—Ed.