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Mamlūk and Ottoman Cadastral Surveys and Early Mapping of Landed Properties in PalestineAuthor(s): Ruth KarkSource: Agricultural History, Vol. 71, No. 1, (Winter, 1997), pp. 46-70Published by: Agricultural History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3744685Accessed: 18/06/2008 13:22

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Mamluk and Ottoman Cadastral Surveys and

Early Mapping of Landed Properties in Palestine

RUTH KARK

Cadastre is a French word originating in the Latin capitastrum, meaning a

register of poll tax. Later it came to mean "an official register of the owner-

ship, extent, and value of real property in a given area, used as a basis for

taxation," or "survey... showing or including boundaries, property lines, etc." The cadastre was thus the means used by rulers to collect data on the division of landed property. The systems of conducting and managing the cadastre depended thus on the division itself-on the land and fiscal policy of the government-and dictated the type of data collected. Peter F Dale and John D. McLaughlin define a cadastre as a parcel-based land information system that could be either juridical, fiscal, or multipurpose. It is an

important component of "land information management"-an activity that goes back to Babylon and ancient Egypt. They stress its importance in both developed and developing countries for public administration, land

planning, and land development, as well as private transactions in land,

among other things.1 Roger J. P. Kain and Elizabeth Baigent have shown that from the Renais-

sance until the late nineteenth century, the cadastral map was, in many ar-

eas, an established adjunct to effective government monitoring and control of land. It reflected the power and technological level of those who com- missioned it, whether economic, social, or political and was used for a number of purposes, including land taxation, evaluation and management

RUTH KARK is a professor in the Department of Geography at the Hebrew University of

Jerusalem. 1. Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd ed. (New York: Random House,

1987), 292; Peter F. Dale and John D. McLaughlin, Land Information Management (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989), 1-18.

Agricultural History / Volume 71 / Number 1 / Winter 1997 ? Agricultural History Society

46

Cadastral Surveys / 47

of state land resources, land reclamation, land redistribution and enclo-

sure, and colonial settlement.2

Avraham N. Poliak, who studied the medieval Middle East, considered

the technological level of the surveying instruments as secondary. He as-

serts that from a cost/benefit perspective, the use of advanced survey equip- ment in underdeveloped areas would be more expensive than the increased

income derived from improvements in tax collection and land conveyance. In addition, the need for a cadastre varied according to the type of agrarian

regime (large feudal estates or small parcel owners) and the interrelations

between the state and the landholders, which could affect the accuracy of

the cadastre more than the quality of the surveying instruments.3

In the modern sense, the term cadastre relates to the registration of

rights in real property. Property rights can be transferred by private con-

veyance with no central registration, with registration of deeds by a central

authority, or registration of rights (title) in a cadastre by the state. The lat-

ter assumes that an investigation and determination of real rights must be

associated with mapping to produce a cadastral survey. The term cadastral

survey is thus understood to mean a survey for, and forming of, a cadastre, or national register of real property. In the territorial system of modern

land registration, it is an axiom that a register should be constructed upon a basis of unchangeable units of land, as opposed to the changeable unit of

human ownership.4 The aim of this paper is to present a broad overview of Mamlfk and

Ottoman state cadastral surveys in the Levant, and their application in

Palestine from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the twentieth century. Unlike the commonly held criticism of the British Mandate officials and

Jewish settlement authorities (who claimed to have had superior land regis-

2. Roger J. P. Kain and Elizabeth Baigent, The Cadastral Map in the Service of the State: A His-

tory of Property Mapping (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 1-8, 331-44. 3. Avraham N. Poliak, "The History of the Cadastres in Palestine and the Neighboring Coun-

tries" (in Hebrew), HaMeshek HaShitufi (4 November 1937): 327-29. 4. C. H. Ley, The Structure and Procedure of Cadastral Survey in Palestine (Jerusalem: Govern-

ment of Palestine, 1931), 2-3; Ernest M. Dowson, "Notes on Land-Tax, Cadastral Survey and Land Settlement in Palestine," p. 7-10, 7 December 1923, Le Ray Papers, St. Anthony's College, Oxford

(hereafter cited as Le Ray Papers); Asher Solel, "The Cadastral Mapping in Israel" (in Hebrew), Work and National Insurance 8 (August 1977): 234.

48 / Agricultural History

tration compared to the Ottoman maladministration), it seems that not

only must we view the pre-Ottoman and Ottoman cadastres as sufficient in

light of the empire's needs and the type of agrarian regime, but we must also consider the great advances in legislation and the partial application of cadastral surveying and mapping of immovable properties during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thus European claims that the traditional Mamlfik and Ottoman surveying methods were undeveloped can be challenged in discussing the changes that occurred in surveying methods after the issuance of the 1858 Ottoman Land Code, viewing them in a longterm pre-Ottoman and Ottoman historical and geographical con-

text, and demonstrating their application in Palestine.

Primary sources and a review of the historical literature considered in a

geographical perspective were used to re-evaluate the extent and character of cadastral surveys during the Mamlik and Ottoman periods. The primary sources are mainly late Ottoman and British Mandatory surveys, doc-

uments, maps, and reports of legal and administrative experts and officials, as well as foreign settlers. These are found at the Israel State Archive

(Mandatory Departments of Lands and Land Registration, and the Ot- toman Administrative Council of Jerusalem), the British Public Record Office (the Colonial Office), St. Antony's College, Oxford (Le Ray and Spry Papers), and the Central Zionist Archive in Jerusalem (Jewish National Fund and Jewish Colonization Association).

Most research done on early mapping of landed properties and land titles deals with the mapping of private estates and boundary maps used by landowners. The discussion of the forerunners of state cadastral maps and later surveyed and mapped cadastres made in Christian Europe from the sixteenth century was added to that body of research. These studies mainly included the Netherlands, the Nordic countries, Germany, Austria, France,

England and Wales, and the European colonial settlements. The Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire have scarcely been mentioned in this

cartographic literature, since the Ottoman land cadastral surveys, done

mainly for the purpose of taxation, were not based on mapped cadastres.5

5. Kain and Baigent, The Cadastral Map; Roger J. P. Kain and Hugh C. Prince, The Tithe Survey of England and Wales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Anthony J. Christopher, The British Empire at its Zenith (London: Croom Helm, 1988), 12-14, 170-77, 190-98; David Harvey,


The Islamic Mamlik Sultanate was the regime established by emanci-

pated mamlaks, or military slaves in Egypt (1250-1517) and in Syria

(1260-1516). A "feudal" system derived from Mongol, Islamic, and

(through Crusader influence) West European systems was established. The

distinctive character of its administrative system was the overriding control

exercised by the sultan through Mamluk amirs. The military households,

including that of the sultan, were maintained by a proportional assignment of military grants to landed revenue (Ikta-). The administrative procedure of land distribution was the rawk, a kind of cadastral survey that is followed

by a redistribution of the arable land. It entailed surveying (misaha) the

fields, ascertaining their legal status (private property, endowment, crown

land, grant, and so forth), and assessing their prospective taxable capacity

(gibra).6 The Ottoman Empire, created by Turkish tribes in Anatolia, lasted from

the decline of the Byzantine Empire until the establishment of Turkey as a

republic in 1922. From the sixteenth century it owned almost all agricultural land in the vast parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa that it conquered

(from Algeria to Iraq, and from Hungary and the Crimea to Yemen). Under

Salim I (1512-20), Ottoman expansion resumed; his defeat of the

Mamlfiks in 1516-17 doubled the size of the empire at a stroke by adding to it Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Algeria. The Levant remained under Ot-

toman rule until 1918. A centralized and highly bureaucratic state appara- tus that employed sophisticated procedures of record keeping was devel-

oped and maintained under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans operated a

system of state ownership, restored a written record (tahrir) of systematic

management of state land resources with periodic cadastral and taxpaying

surveys of the empire's vast territories, and kept a central imperial cadastral

register (Daftar-i khakani or tapu register). The records were descriptive, with no drawings. The compilation of the registers arose from the adminis-

The Condition ofPostmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Oxford: Blackwell,

1990), 245; Ahmet T. Karamustafa, "Military, Administrative, and Scholarly Maps and Plans," in

History of Cartography, vol. 2, bk. 1, ed. John B. Harley and David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 209-27.

6. David Ayalon, "Mamlik," Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), 6:

314-27; Avraham N. Poliak, "Some Notes on the Feudal System of the Mamliks," Journal of the

Royal Asiatic Society (1937): 97-107.


trative organization of the empire. The majority of Ottoman civil and mili-

tary officials did not draw salaries from the budget of the central government but were given a timar (income grant) in return for their services and

were allowed to levy taxes on a given region on their account. From the end

of the sixteenth century, the timar system had begun to decay. In the army,

paid regular troops grew in importance at the expense of feudal cavalry; in

the countryside, many timars were converted into crown lands and leased

out (iltizam) to farmers for tax purposes. The iltizam system had its own

faults since tax farming was given for short terms and the tax farmers, who

paid in advance, tried to maximize their profits at the expense of the fellahin (peasants) and to the detriment of the land's fertility. Thus, since the

mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman government made efforts to abolish

the notorious iltizam system.7 The Daftar-i khakdaniwas a register of the provinces, cities, villages, dis-

tricts, landholdings, population, revenues, and, where these were assessed

in kind, of crops. The register also indicated the beneficiaries of the rev-

enues, whether the sultan, certain government officials, the holder of a

military grant, a freeholder, or a pious endowment (waqf, vakif). In the empire there was little private or freehold (milk) property. This

category of ownership was primarily limited to built-up areas of towns.

Most agricultural land (miri) belonged to the state and the sultan. Estates

belonged neither to the exploited fellahin who worked on them, nor to the

holders who operated them temporarily and who had only usufruct rights

(tasarruf). The state treasury held legal ownership (raqabe), thus it was suf-

ficient for the government to have a general knowledge of the area and of

the quality of the land held in common by the rural community (which served also as a tax unit) in order to assess the land and levy taxes.9

After the conquest of Syria and Palestine in 1517, as in other conquered

7. Omer L.fftfi Barkan, "Daftar-i khadkni," in Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. 2, 81-83; Bernard

Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 89-90, 379, 452. 8. Bernard Lewis, "Ottoman Land Tenure and Taxation," Proceedings of the First International

Conference on Bilad-a-Sham, 20-24 April 1984, University of Jordan and Yarmouk University, 1984, 99-100.

9. Ibid.; Avraham N. Poliak, Feudalism in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon, 1250-1900 (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1939), 57; Poliak, "The History of the Cadastres in Palestine and the Neighbouring Countries" (in Hebrew), HaMeshek HaShitufi (19 December 1937): 356-58.


provinces, the Ottomans began to confirm the existing rules and practices of the Mamluk Sultanate, which they progressively modified to include ele-

ments of the Islamic system of land tenure and taxation. Poliak, who was

unacquainted with the Ottoman archives, thought that the Ottomans did

not conduct a cadastre in Syria and Palestine until about 1606 and that they had used the Mamlfks' extensive rawks of 1298 and 1313-25.

The rawk was a type of cadastral survey done six times in Egypt in the

eight and a half centuries between the appearance of the Arabs and the Ot-

toman conquest, and completed once between 1313 and 1325 in Syria,

Lebanon, and Palestine (the Nasiri rawk). This was undertaken in order to

redistribute the arable lands between the sultan and the feudal lords and as

a means of eradicating the hereditary character of "feudal" grants, and thus

to increase the power and income of the sultan. Unlike the modern cadas-

tre, based on the principle of private ownership, the Mamluk cadastre was

based on the principle of communal landholding, and thus it was sufficient

to define the general area of the village and the quality of the land. Officials

of the army administration collected and screened the information, which

was mainly based on the private cadastres of landlords, including the sul-

tan. From detailed descriptions of the lost private cadastres, Poliak deduced

that they were based on measurements as well as estimates of the division

of village lands among the tenants and the fees due from each farm. He

does not mention any maps or mapping in the contemporary sources.

Frenkel claims that the Mamluk army mapped and registered the production units and set the amount of income and produce. However, no such

maps have been found to date.10

10. The Ottoman tahrir, or register of the commissions sent to survey taxpaying populations and their lands, crops, and revenues in the towns and villages for fiscal purposes, was, as Lewis and

Cohen claim, the latest form of an institution that can be traced back to classical Islamic times and

beyond, then known as the kanun. See Lewis, "Ottoman Land Tenure and Taxation," 98; Amnon

Cohen and Bernard Lewis, Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Cen-

tury (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 3; Poliak, "History of the Cadastres," 327-29; David Ayalon, Avraham N. Poliak, and other researchers of the Mamlfk Sultanate refer to the

agrarian system as feudal. On the debate as to its feudal or nonfeudal nature, see Amy Singer, Pales-

tinian Peasants and Ottoman Officials (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 10-17;

David Ayalon, "Studies on the Structure of the Mamluk Army," Bulletin of the School of Oriental

and African Studies 5 (1953): 448-53; Heinz Halm, "Rawk," in Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 8:

467-68; Robert Irwin, The Middle East in the Middle Ages, the Early Mamluk Sultanate 1250-1352


Bernard Lewis confirmed that Mamlik customs and orders were pre- served by the Ottomans in Syria and Palestine. His and earlier pioneer-

ing studies of the Ottoman archives uncovered over a thousand daftar-i

mufassal, detailed registers of the tapu tahntr defterleri for most of the em-

pire, mainly from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These survey registers listing population, estimated tax revenues, and the prescribed distribu-

tion of revenues in particular administrative areas was kept secret and used

for governmental purposes only. For some regions they covered periods of

thirty years. Ten daftar-i mufassal were of the districts of Palestine:

Jerusalem, Gaza, Safed, Lajjun, and Nablus. These were parallel to five cen-

suses/surveys (the "old registers" of 1525-26, 1533-39, 1553-57, and

1572-73, and the "new register" of 1596-97). Harold Rhode undertook a

detailed study of the three surveys of the province of Safed, including the

land tenure system, and Alan Makovsky, Amy Singer, and Ehud Toledano

researched the tapu survey registers of the district of Jerusalem.'l Wolf D. Hhtteroth and Kamal Abdulfattah did a detailed geographical

analysis of another "new register" (daftari-i mufassal) of 1596-97. At that

time, the empire was yet at its height, with the timar, or land income-grant

(London: Croom Helm, 1986), 109-12; T. Sato, "Historical Character of al-Rawk al-Nasiri in Mamluk Syria," Proceedings of the First International Conference on Bilad-a-Sham, 20-24 April 1984,

University of Jordan and Yarmouk University, 1984, 223-25; Yehoshua Frenkel, "Introduction to the History of the Agrarian Relations in the Land of Israel during the Mamluk Period: Legal Defin- itions of Land, Taxes and Farmers" (in Hebrew), Horizons of Geography (in press).

11. Bernard Lewis, "The Ottoman Archives as a Source for the History of the Arab Lands," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1951): 139-55; Bernard Lewis, Notes and Documents from the Turkish Archives (Jerusalem: Israel Oriental Society, 1952); Bernard Lewis, "Studies in Ottoman

Archives," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 16 (Summer 1954): 469-501; Bernard Lewis, Studies in Classical and Ottoman Islam (London: Variorum Reprints, 1976); Bernard Lewis, "Acre in the Sixteenth Century According to the Ottoman Tapu Registers," Memor- ial Omer Latfi Barkan (Paris: A. Maisonneuve, 1980), 135-39; Bernard Lewis, "Some Statistical

Surveys of 16th Century Palestine," in Middle East Studies and Libraries: SRA Felicitation Volume for Professor J. D. Pearson, ed. B. C. Bloomfield (London: Mansell, 1980), 115-22; Lewis, "Ottoman Land Tenure and Taxation"; Harold Rhode, "The Administration and Population of the Sancak of Safed in the Sixteenth Century" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1979), 47-114; Alan Makovsky, "Sixteenth-Century Agricultural Production in the Liwa of Jerusalem: Insights from the Tapu Defters and an Attempt at Quantification," Archivum Ottomanicum 9 (1984): 91-128; Singer, Pales- tinian Peasants, 16-43; Ehud Toledano, "The Sanjaq of Jerusalem in the Sixteenth Century: Aspects of Topography and Population," Archivum Ottomanicum 9 (1984): 279-319.


system, still in operation. The revenue granters were military and administrative officials who received an annual income in exchange for services to the state and members of the imperial family. Administrative control over the Syrian provinces was such that a census of population and total production yield could be taken. The authors claimed mistakenly that "this was the last census taken during the Ottoman rule in the Arab provinces," including southern Syria and Palestine. They found that the lists were spa- tially organized and regionally based. The basic "fiscal unit" in the daftari-i mufassal was a topographical one. It was regionally based and regarded by everyone as forming a unit. The amount of income for each of the fiscal units was not split up according to individual households. For most fiscal

purposes, the state had no interest in more detailed assessment of taxes. No decisive geographical rule determined the order in which the numbering of the fiscal units in each nahiye (subdistrict) appear in the daftars. Such units

might be towns, villages, tribes within an area, isolated mills, and so on. In the register, each unit had a serial number, then appeared the type, name, number of Muslim, Christian, or Jewish family heads, the percentage of taxation of agricultural production on detailed crops and on animals, and other taxes, endowments, and so forth. However, as they stress: "Up to

now, nothing has been known about the procedure of counting and assess-

ing the number of individual villages, their total population figure and production yield." This may have been the source of the list of feudal estates of the empire prepared in 1609 by Muazzinzade Ayni Ali, a high official in the

Daftar-i khiktani, which was based on materials from the end of the sixteenth century. No maps or mapping were mentioned in the several studies

relating to the surveys of Palestine and southern Syria in the sixteenth

century.12 Poliak considers that in about 1606, when the feudal-military fiefs

(timars) were abolished and annexed to the estates of the sultan, a new cadastre was begun. This hypothesized cadastre included only the registration of lands held by the rural communities and listed the tenancy fees to

12. Wolf D. Hiitteroth and Kamal Abdulfattah, Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century (Erlangen: Palm & Enke, 1977), 2-3, 10-11, 20-21, 55; Poliak, "History of the Cadastres," 356-57.


be paid. It contradicts the trends of decline in population, settlement, and in the administration and central government control over remote

provinces mentioned in many sources. In Syria and Palestine, as well as in

other parts of the empire, the land-grant system was gradually abandoned

and replaced by a system of tax farming (iltizam) with all its disastrous ef-

fects on the rural population. It seems that some fiefs were still held and

granted in Palestine up to the eighteenth century. 13

After the French conquest of Egypt in 1798, General Mano decided in

1801 to begin a modern land cadastre, but since the French left Egypt after

a few months, it was not done. The first census and cadastral survey in the modern period was held in Anatolia and Rumelia in 1831. Parallel to it, a

cadastre initiated in Egypt was completed under the temporary rule of the

rebel Muhammad Ali in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine only in the period 1831-41. It was based on the two cadastral surveys conducted in Egypt in

1813-14 and 1819-21. During the first cadastre, peasant landholdings were

registered as they were, while the iltizams were abolished in favor of direct

taxation. In the second cadastre, a separate register was recorded plot by

plot in the names of its holders, along with tax due from each. Abd al-

Rahman Al-Jabarty asserts that at that time all cultivated lands in Egypt were measured, but probably not mapped.14

This was not the case in Syria and Palestine, where Muhammad Ali's

cadastre was in fact more like the early Ottoman ones. The census taken there in about 1833 was again done taking the village as the tax unit and de-

tailing the number of taxpayers in it. In Lebanon, a partial cadastral survey was finished earlier by the local emir at the beginning of the nineteenth

century. A general cadastre began there in 1848 under the supervision of

13. Poliak, "History of the Cadastres," 356-57; Htitteroth and Abdulfattah, Historical Geogra- phy of Palestine, 54-63; Amnon Cohen, Palestine in the 18th Century, Patterns of Government and Administration (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1973), 293-98.

14. Solel, "Cadastral Mapping in Israel," 234-40; Poliak, "History of the Cadastres," 358; Lewis, Emergence of Modern Turkey; Kenneth M. Cuno, The Pasha's Peasants (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 67, 102-11. Cuno claims (p. 233) that neither the Ottoman nor the French

surveys in Egypt recorded individual landholdings; before 1813 such records were kept in the villages. Jabarty was cited in Gabriel Baer, Introduction to the History of Agrarian Relations in the Mid- dle East, 1800-1970 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1971), 22-23.


three Prussian engineers sent from Constantinople, and it was completed

only for the southern districts.'5 This state of affairs continued after the return of the Ottomans and the

retreat of Muhammad Ali from Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. Modern

land registration was introduced into the Ottoman Empire only in 1858, af-

ter the Ottoman Land Code was published. Two governmental bodies that

operated following the reforms were the Tahiri Emlik Idaresi (Office of

Property Records) and Daftar-i khdkini (Ministry of Property Records). Prior to the introduction of the Ottoman Land Code, titles to milk land

and buildings were recorded by the Muslim religious courts; but no form of

registration existed for miri land, which was held by virtue of sultanee de-

crees and grants from competent authorities. Land acquired by valid means

was, in theory at least, reported to Constantinople, where an effort was

made to compile a modern series of the Daftar-i khdkadni registers.16 The main purpose of the Land Code of 1858 was to define landholdings

and categories precisely, abolish the system of tax farming, and consolidate

and retrieve the state's rights to its miri lands in order to increase agricultural production and therefore tax revenues. It intended to extend and con-

firm the rights of use, of possession, and of ownership. However, it is

doubtful that it aimed to create a body of peasant titleholders. The code en-

trusted the tax collection to the tapu officials and aimed to abolish the

musha- system, in which all the inhabitants of the village held the land of

the village collectively in shares that were periodically redistributed among them every year or every few years. In that same year, they also published the Tabu Law, which set up the system of registering land and issuing title

15. Mordechai Abir, "Local Leadership and Early Reforms in Palestine, 1800-1834," in Studies on Palestine during the Ottoman Period, ed. Moshe Ma'oz (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975), 285; Poliak,

"History of the Cadastres," 356-57. 16. Kemal H. Karpat, "Ottoman Population Records and the Census of 1881/82-1893," Inter-

national Journal of Middle East Studies 9 (Spring 1978): 246-47; John F Spry, "Memorandum of the History, Law and Practice of Land Registration and the Organization of the Department of Land Registration, with a Note on the Custody of the Records of Title to Land at the Termination of the British Mandate," October 1948, C0733/494/3/81465, Public Record Office, London; John F.

Spry, "Memorandum," n.d., Draft A, Spry Papers, St. Antony's College, Oxford (hereafter Spry Pa-

pers); John F. Spry, "Memorandum," Draft B, Spry Papers; J. N. Stubbs, "Notes on the Land Law in

Palestine," 8 September 1925, Le Ray Papers.


deeds of miri lands, and a few years later, also of miilk and waqf (pious en-

dowment) lands. Therefore all titles were granted by the crown through the

land registry offices. However, a basic component was still missing in the

new laws and regulations-the compulsory measuring and mapping of

land to replace the problematic custom of verbal description of the bound-

aries of land parcels. The registration of land was one of deed and not of

title, that is, of separate units of land. It was also personal, not territorial, and possessing a deed was not a guarantee of title.17

As one of the legal experts in the Palestine government during the Man-

date period wrote in 1925: "The system of the cadastre [meaning mapped cadastre] was not known in the Ottoman state. The Daftar-i khakdaniwas

only a land registry office giving deeds of title, use, and mortgage rights, and so forth. No exact measurements were done, and no books showing

precisely the estates and their area were kept. The lists of the central Daftari khdkdni and the local tabu [land registry offices] usually only included the

names of the owners, the location of the land, its kind, boundaries, and

sometimes the area, which was not precise. These lists were based on local

lists that were done three hundred years ago or more."'8

In 1860, the Ottoman government began to apply the regulations of the

compulsory registration of lands (tatwib) in the Fertile Crescent. This was

meant to be the beginning of a modern land registration system. It contin-

ued until the commencement of the twentieth century, aiming, with only

partial success, to divide the commonly held lands into private holdings. The uncultivated lands were sold by the treasury to persons of wealth and

influence, many of whom were state officials.19

17. Baer, History of Agrarian Relations; Peter Sluglett and Marion Farouk-Sluglett, "The Appli- cation of the 1858 Land Code in Greater Syria: Some Preliminary Observations," in Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East, ed. Tarif Khalidi (Beirut: American University of

Beirut, 1984); Spry, "Memorandum," Draft A; Dov Gavish, Land and Map (London: Palestine Ex-

ploration Fund, 1996, in press); Dov Gavish and Ruth Kark, "The Cadastral Mapping of Palestine, 1858-1928," Geographical Journal 159 (March 1993): 70-80; Kenneth W. Stein, The Land Question in Palestine (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 20-24; Stubbs, "Land Law in Palestine."

18. Moshe J. Doukhan, Land Laws in the Land of Israel (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Labors' Coop- erative Press, 1925), 166-67.

19. Baer, History of Agrarian Relations, 35-36; Poliak, Feudalism, 79-80.


In the area known as Palestine, which was not a separate administrative

province at the end of the Ottoman period, modern land registration was first introduced only in the year 1865, and a survey begun between 1869 and 1873. Registration was based in the first instance on the investigations of commissions of enquiry (yoklama, or census), which proceeded from

village to village. Only agricultural land was surveyed. The survey commis-

sion, comprised of five members, including the chairman and the representative of the Daftar-i kha.kani, was assisted by a land surveyor, but in its re-

ports, and in the material prepared later for the land registers, no maps were attached. The unit of enquiry was a village, divided into localities within each settlement. First the settlement was described as a whole in-

cluding its boundaries and area in Turkish dunams (919.3 sq.m., or about a

quarter of an acre). Then, for each locality, the boundaries, the area in Turkish dunams, and the type of land (such as plains, mountains, and

rocks), and the divisions among cultivators were reported. In the plains re-

gions, the total area of the localities matched the summed area of the vil-

lage. This was not the case in the mountain regions. Title deeds (kushans) were issued to those who cultivated and claimed the land. Finally, entries were made in bound books showing the area, boundaries, and proprietor- ship of all land in private ownership or private tenure. Wasteland and public land, such as roads, were not registered.20

After issuing kushans to cultivated lands that were claimed, the government nominated two consecutive commissions (shemsiye, or sun) for each district to examine and propose the disposition of unclaimed lands. Thus, for example, in 1872, the shemsiye commission surveyed and listed all vil-

lages and parts of the old cities that had unsold miri lands. In 1878-79, another commission visited these locations and conducted a detailed survey of the shemsiye lands for each of these settlements. The boundaries and area of all sites in the settlements were detailed, as well as their types (dry farm-

20. Serapion Murad to Thankmar von Miinchhausen, 12 June 1874, RG67/439, Israel State Archive (hereafter ISA); Spry, "Memorandum of the History, Law and Practice of Land Registra- tion"; Yitzhak Schechter, "What Does a Secret Land Register from the Time of the Turks Reveal?"

(in Hebrew), Ikarei Israel 170 (February-March 1977): 5-8; Yitzhak Schechter, "Land Registration in Eretz-Israel in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century" (in Hebrew), Cathedra 45 (Septem- ber 1987): 147-60.


ing, swamp, or rocks). The area of the settlements was identical to that found by the previous commission. Near each settlement's name appeared its total area in Turkish dunams and the decision of the commission. If found partially deserted, the inhabitants had priority in buying land. If to-

tally deserted, whole settlements were offered for sale at auction. Ten percent of the District of Acre, an area of 591,972 Turkish dunams

in 66 shemsiye villages and 356 plots, was counted in the first survey totaled on 16 January 1873. This district included the subdistricts of Haifa, Safed, and al-Shaghur. The auction was conducted in 1879, and most of the vil-

lages that had shemsiye lands, buildings, orchards, and economic facilities were sold to Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese urban entrepreneurs (fig. 1). This was the beginning of the privatization of land ownership in Palestine and the creation of large estates, a process which later facilitated the pene- tration of foreigners. Finally, a third list was prepared that contained details on those to whom the land was sold or to whom it was transferred-either

previous occupiers, or those who bought auctioned land. Some of these lands were granted by the government to Muslim Bosnian, Maghrabi, and Circassian refugees who had left Europe and North Africa and settled in several villages (Ghabia, Sha'are, Kafr Sabt, Ma'ader, and Kafr Kama, among others). Yitzhak Schechter (who for over fifty years, from the beginning of the twentieth century, was a land expert for the Jewish Colonization Association and who copied parts of the shemsiye records) suggested that it was probable that surveys such as the one he copied in the Acre district were held in other districts of Palestine. Reports of the contents of the records of the shemsiye villages and of auctions of shemslye villages in the Nazareth Tabu office (two volumes), as well as lists of shemsiye fields detailed in shemsiye land books in the District of Acre, are found in the Israel State Archive. From documents in the archive of the Administrative Coun- cil of Jerusalem for the beginning of the twentieth century, it transpires that the three land surveys mentioned were done in 1878, 1886, and 1907. A

very substantial proportion of the villagers of the Jerusalem region registered their land at the government land registry. Requests for registration were accompanied by a map of the piece of land in question.21

21. Schechter, "What Does a Secret Land Register," 5-8; Schechter, "Land Registration in


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87

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Nazareth

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Locaton of Figure 2

Beit She'an

52

Registry page number of shemsiye land villages Boundaries of the District (sanjaq) of Acre

Figure 1. The shemsiye lands in the District of Acre in 1872 are shown here. The num-

bers refer to the registry pages for the shemsiye land villages. Courtesy Yad Izhak

Ben-Zvi Press.

Eretz-Israel," 147-60; "Report on the Contents of the Shamsieh [shemsiye] villages, which are

presently found in the Nazareth Tabu Office," n.d., and "Shamsieh Land Books," n.d., File 11, Box 3528, RG22, ISA; Haim Gerber, Social Origin of the Modern Middle East (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner and Mansel, 1987), 76-77.

86 82

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All entries in the new registers required a formal confirmation. Once land was registered, every disposition required official approval and registration. In the registration of deeds (and not title), entries were made in

chronological order in books known as daimi (perpetual) registers. The method of reference was by serial number. John F. Spry, who was the assis- tant director of land registration in Mandatory Palestine, suggested that the

system may be compared with that of the former Middlesex Registry in

England.22 An illuminating case study on the survey and its consequences is a docu-

ment compiled by the Mandatory Acting Director of Lands in 1931 on Shatta village, located in the Yizre'el Valley. This report was submitted after

inspecting all available records in connection with the registration of lands and buildings thereof. According to the report,

The original registration of Shatta was effected on the 9th Tashrin Tani 1286 [November 1870], in consequence of a demarcation made by a Commission appointed to investigate and record all lands alleged to be left waste and uncultivated. The findings of this Commission were recorded in the so called Daftar Shamsieh dated 9th Tashrin Tani 1286 with the following particulars: The original inhabitants and cultivators are on the lands since the period of more than 50 years.... [T]he persons as recorded in the Register of Nufus (the Ottoman census) are present in the village.... Their number amounts to 99.

Then, the general southern, eastern, northern, and western boundaries of the village were detailed by the commission. Their report for the south and west, read as follows:

South: From the Water course known as Qunat Aisheh to the Block stones and from these on the water course known as Ma' el Mutaramel running to the Qunat of Sahne.

East: From Bab Wad Abdallah to the road leading to the mills of el Ghor

up to the Qunat El Sahne.

22. Spry, "Memorandum of the History, Law and Practice of Land Registration."


In accordance with the registration of the Daftar Shamsieh the lands of Shatta are divided into 5 Blocks [localities]:

1. Ard El Murtafia' 1850 old dunoms [dunams] 2. Ard Khirbet Saber 1750 " "

3. El Mallahal 650 " "

4. El Bustan 2000 " "

5. Ard Dra' el Khan 500 " "

Total area 7750 " "

It seems that in view of the fact that the inhabitants were present in the village at the date of the investigation made by the Shamsieh Com-

mission, the lands were in fact granted to them and officially registered in their name in the year 1297 [1881] by the Youklama [census] Com- mission. This register was scrutinized and it is observed that some

changes have been introduced in this register as compared with the original registration in the Daftar Shamsieh.... The locality known as the

"Jedear el Balad" or the village [built-up area] lands were not recorded in the Daftar Shamsieh.... [T]he first registration of the buildings was effected by the Youklama Commission in 1307 [ 1891] in the name of Salim Rais (16 buildings) and in the name of the villagers (8) the total number

amounting to 24 buildings... the cemetery of the village does not seem to be included in the registered boundaries of the village.23

Due to the projected sale to the Jewish National Fund in 1931 of 4,173 of

6,912 shares of the lands of Shatta owned by Raja Rais, "All lands of Shatta

have been surveyed and the total area according to the plan amounts to

13,141 dunoms [dunams] 191.48 sq. meters excluding roads and Railway lines. The registered area of the village being only 7,940 dunoms [corrected in the Youklama from 7,750] an application has been submitted by the ven-

dor to correct the area in accordance with the particulars shown on the

plan prior to the transaction of sale being effected."24

Accordingly, the lands of Shatta were inspected on 13-14 July 1931 in

the presence of a representative of the registered owner, Raja Rais, the

23. Report of Acting Director of Lands, 25 July 1931, File GP/10/23, Box 3470, RG22, ISA. 24. Ibid.


Mukhtar [head], and notables of Shatta and the bordering Kumieh and Murassas villages, as well as a considerable number of villagers of Shatta. The 1931 report concluded that "the boundaries of the village as a whole are correct and in accordance with the description made by the Shamsieh Commission [1870]."25

The boundaries of the village were definitely fixed and could be applied easily on the ground, with the exception of the northern boundary. The writers of the report considered "that the registration may therefore be effected in accordance with the particulars shown on the plan, and the neces-

sary corrections of area made." This consisted of an addition of 235 plus 1,000 dunams in two blocks, and a deduction of about 4,000 dunams of wasteland in the north, deducted by the Youklama Commission in 1881, which should not be included in the registration. The villagers claimed

ownership of other lands within the boundaries of the village. These claims were denied, as the villagers admitted to having paid rent to the registered owners (probably the Rais family, who owned two-thirds of the village lands). Moreover, they never paid werko (land and building tax) on any of the village lands (fig. 2).26

In theory, the system had much to commend it, but in practice British officials and Jewish settlers claimed that it failed largely for two reasons. In the first place, the original investigation was not based on a survey of land and was carried out in a very perfunctory manner. Areas were given only approximately, and the description of boundaries usually consisted of the names of adjoining owners by reference to the four cardinal

points. Under the Ottoman Land Code and continuing an old law, the boundaries shown in the land registers, if definite, prevailed over the area. It was only a survey of lots, and, as many later claimed, it was inaccurate both as to size (sometimes only a tenth of the actual area) and to

boundary. In a guide to Palestine published in 1891 by Avraham M. Luncz, buyers of estates were warned to check the boundaries well and to

25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. In respect to the purchase of lands in Shatta by the Jewish National Fund, see letters

from 17 December 1931, and 9 and 24 July 1932, S25/7621, Central Zionist Archive, Jerusalem (hereafter cited as CZA).


Legend:

- Village boundary

0 illag

Q Block mentioned in hc dafrar sheisriye

, -,r - -r T T

Figure 2. This map shows the village boundary and land blocks of Shatta and neighbor-

ing settlements. Courtesy of the author.

request that a government engineer measure them and change the title

deeds accordingly.27

Secondly, it was soon realized by the people that the land registers provided the government with information as the basis for taxation and con-

scription. The resulting antagonism was described in 1894 by Samuel

Bergheim, an expert on land tenure in Palestine:

The Turkish laws which have been introduced within the last few years in Palestine with reference to land tenure, and which are being rigorously enforced, are changing all these ancient laws and customs, much against the will and wish of the people.

27. Avraham M. Luncz, Guide to the Land of Israel and Syria (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Avraham M. Luncz, 1891), 25-28; Spry, "Memorandum of the History, Law and Practice of Land Registration."


The lands are divided by an Imperial Commissioner into vari- ous portions and given to individual villagers. They receive title- deeds for individual ownership, and each one is at liberty to sell his

portion to whomever he pleases, either to a member of the village or to a stranger. The villager then sells his Hak el Muzara'a (right of cul-

tivation) in the land; not as miilk, but as ameeriyeh (miri), and subject to taxes as such; the object of the government being to break down the old custom of musha'a [a common holding of village lands].

When the government will have attained this object, which it is do-

ing fast, in spite of the resistance of many of the village communities, the old customs above referred to will die out and be forgotten.28

In consequence, registration was not always sought, and when it was, fictitious figures were given for the area, while persons liable for military service or the payment of taxes often procured registration in the name of

nominees. As a local European, Phillip Baldensperger, who was well-ac-

quainted with village life, later wrote, "The villages of the plains of Sharon

and Philistia are usually co-proprietors of all lands, but when the new law

to establish deeds was promulgated [according to him, in 1872], the poorer denied owning any land in order to avoid paying the cost of the deed, and

thus became deprived of their lands; in others they sold their rights for a

trifle. Beth-dejan sold one-third of its lands to the Jaffa Effendis."29

After the Revolution of the Young Turks in 1908, attention was given

mainly to political and administrative rather than economic problems, but

there was an attempt to tackle the land problem, without great success, ac-

cording to Lewis. A proposal was made to simplify the Land Law in order to

eliminate some of the more obvious defects of the existing system of

tenure. The Landed-property Code of 1913 did simplify the law governing miri interests and miilk. This code provided for corporate holding of real

estate in the name of corporations, mortgaging of property as security for

debts, suppression of communal or guild property, extension of the right of

28. Samuel Bergheim, "Land Tenure in Palestine," Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly State- ment 26 (July 1894): 191-99.

29. Philip J. Baldensperger, "The Immovable East," Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly State- ment 38 (July 1906): 190-97.


inheritance, and a general survey and evaluation of all landed property in

the country, together with a readjustment of the prevailing tax system. These laws were, strictly speaking, provisional only; that is to say, they were in the form of decrees and had no parliamentary authority. The outbreak of World War I interfered with the application of this code in the Ottoman

Empire. Nevertheless, the decrees were put into force, and were, therefore,

applicable in Mandatory Palestine.30

The Provisional Law of Survey and Land Registration of Immovable

Property was issued on 5 February 1913. It was signed by the Sultan Mehmed Ra?ad, the Grand Vizier Mehmed Oevket, and the Minister of Fi-

nance Rifaat, who was to be in charge of the execution of the law. Now, for

the first time since the Middle Ages, the Ottomans adopted an approach that included systematic mapping as part of a planned extensive imperial land survey including the demarcation of boundaries, registration in a new land register, and assessment by special commissions. The composition, re-

sponsibilities, and mechanisms of operation of these commissions were

thoroughly defined.31

The Survey Commission was to be composed of a me'mir (an official of the Tabu land registry office), clerk, engineer, and two attached surveyors, to operate at subdistrict level. After fifteen days' notice on a fixed day, the

Survey Commission, in the presence of the mukhtars (heads), should deter- mine the boundaries of the village or town, as well as lands, forests, and

special farms of individuals not within the boundaries of a city or village, beginning from the eastern side. A document stating the boundaries was to be drawn up and signed by the members of the commission in the presence of the mukhtars and the owners of the land. When necessary, boundary marks in the shape of a pyramid might be placed. A report and sketch map was to be made showing the general boundaries, such as roads, rivers, val-

30. Lewis, Emergence of Modern Turkey, 222-25; Dowson, "Notes on Land-Tax"; Doukhan, Land Laws in the Land of Israel, 167, 172; Fredrick M. Goadby and Moshe J. Doukhan, The Law of Palestine (lerusalem: n.p., 1935), 14; Gabriel Bie Ravndal, "Turkey: A Commercial and Industrial Handbook," vol. 28 of Trade Promotion Series (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1926), 84-85.

31. Provisional Law of Survey and Registration of Immoveable Property, 5 February 1913 (2 Rabie Awal 1331), File 16, Box 3326, RG22, ISA; Gad Frumkin, "A Memorandum on Immove- able Property in Palestine," 20 August 1919, S25/7432, CZA.


leys, streams, forests, pastures left for the inhabitants, weeds, and tombs. The position of each kind of land (mUlk, miri, and waqf) was to be marked on this sketch map with its boundaries. Pastures used in common by the natives of cities and villages were to be divided subject to the consent of the elders. Such divisions were to be entered into the report and on the sketch

map. The Tabu Registry would then send a printed form containing particulars of the lands of the village or town to be surveyed. After the survey of the public boundaries, the boundaries of the city or village were to be fixed. A report and sketch map were to be made and approved. The different po- sitions on the map were to be clearly and separately shown. The reports re-

lating to public boundaries of towns or villages, that is, the record and the sketch maps of places reserved for the use of the natives which are registered in the book of the Survey Commission, were to be copied and approved by the Tabu office. Then they were to be sent by the Ministry of Fi- nance to their original villages to be kept by the council of elders. A sketch

map and a copy of the newly registered property which was an ancient endowment (waqf) was to be sent to the beneficiary institutions.32

All immovable property inside cities and villages (whose boundaries were surveyed and demarcated by the Survey Commission) was to be registered by the Registration Commission. This commission was composed of

representatives of the Finance and Tabu offices, a kadi (Muslim judge), pos- sibly a representative of the waqf, an engineer, two clerks, and two surveyors. Fifteen days prior to the registration, the elders, and through them the

owners, guardians, curators, and lessees, were asked to list the immovable

property on a document sent by the commission and to produce documents of title. On the fixed day, in the presence of these individuals, the

area of all plots within the towns or villages was to be registered street by street. The area outside the towns and villages was registered according to its position. The particulars to be registered were the general and specific number of each piece of property and its kind, nature, contents, bound-

aries, and description. After completion of the registration, new deeds of

Tabu (kushans) and an approved copy of the sketch map were to be given to the owners of immovable property.33

32. Provisional Law, ISA. 33. Provisional Law, ISA; Frumkin, "Memorandum on Immovable Property," CZA.


After the completion of the village's or town's new land registry book, the Assessment Commission was to estimate the value and gross revenue of the lands, taking into consideration the price, qualities, position, and de-

scription of similar lands. Five grades and several subgrades were set for

tithe-paying lands (such as vineyards, orchards, pasture, firewood, mines, and so on) depending on their production, use, servitude, type of products (olives, dates, coal, salt, and sand, for example), and facilities. After com-

pleting the process of registration and assessment of each place, a kushan and a document listing the estimated revenue value and fees was to be sent to the person in whose name the land was registered.34

As mentioned previously, the outbreak of World War I interfered with the application of this code. However, after examining about forty recently located sketch maps of the sultan's fiftlik lands in the Beisan and Jordan

Valleys that had been copied in March 1913, we see that a partial survey of that kind did take place prior to, or just after, the issuance of the Provisional Law of Survey on 5 February 1913 (Jewish Colonization Association, 1913). It seems that these maps were part of a regional cadastral system and may have been produced in the process of transferring the sultan's private lands to the Ottoman government after the Young Turk's Revolution in 1908. Even earlier, at the beginning of the century, general scaled plans of villages were drawn by the Ottoman authorities. Two of these (Semmoune and

Ummu-kbey) were discussed in detail, and a photograph of a third one, also in the Valley of Yizre'el, was later found (fig. 3).35

The Mamlfik Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire at their height had- from the Middle Ages-used a quite sophisticated system of land information. They did not resort to a mapped cadastre, as most of the land was owned by the state and temporarily granted to fief holders, or later, com-

monly held by villages that paid tax through tax farmers. During the nineteenth century-a period of increased Western influence in the Ottoman

Empire-a reform was introduced in the form of the Land Law, which aimed to change the agrarian regime and improve the deteriorated condi-

34. Ibid. 35. Several maps of the Beiran Valley in Jewish Colonization Association, 1913, Map Collec-

tion, CZA; Ruth Kark and Haim Gerber, "Land Registry Maps in Palestine during the Ottoman Pe-

riod," Cartographic Journal 21 (June 1984): 30-32.


PLA] G JtRAL DU VILLAGE

D'

UMMU-KBEY f'Dr^ g 'JAy,c^ Wwt d*r 1w

-*i'/ . ...... -: O

i'/b /t4 A' ik -t-;

state cadastral su y was u a . s dlt w ll

ership. Although it was not mapped, the detailed definition of the geo-

statecadatr survey: was unerakn Th survey d e alt wit vll un i t

Figure 3. Bekir (SidkA) Beyu engineer of the Province of Beidt, prepared the plan of the

state cadastral survey was undertaken. The survey dealt with village units

graphical boundaries of each unit appeared to be clearly defined, at least in the cases examined in nineteenth-century Palestine. The definition was

legally binding and carried more weight than the often inaccurate numeri- cal estimate of area.


Land registration remained problematic, not only because of the

chronological registration of human units rather than unchangeable units

of land, but also as a result of the suspicions and opposition of the farmers.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, this opposition was exploited

by entrepreneurs (including the sultan himself and settlers from abroad) to

privatize huge plots of land. In Palestine the privatization and concentra-

tion of large estates in the hands of absentee landlords at the end of the

Ottoman period enabled foreign Jewish and Christian companies, institu-

tions, and entrepreneurs to purchase some of these lands for settlement

and other projects, and led to the dispossession of Arab tenants.36 The

trend to privatization of state land increased and may have influenced the

institution of improved legislation for systematic mapped surveying, registration, and assessment of real property at the beginning of the twentieth

century. This legislation was preempted, however, by the outbreak of World

War I and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Officials of the Mandatory government in Palestine, which replaced the

Ottomans in 1918, as well as Jewish leaders and officials saw themselves as

European modernizing technocrats. They asserted that the land registers in

Palestine to the end of the Ottoman rule were both inaccurate and incom-

plete. Their attitude was often patronizing and may have been based on a

misunderstanding of the needs and uses of cadastral surveys by the Ot-

tomans and their predecessors. This is well-documented by Ernest Dow-

son, an expert on land matters in the British Empire, who was invited to

advise the Mandatory authorities. Dowson wrote, "The economic development of the country has been blighted initially by years of Turkish apathy and maladministration." He believed that "an investigation and determina-

tion of real rights... must be associated with mapping to produce a cadas-

tral survey." Mandatory legal expert Moshe Doukhan concurred. Even

Gabriel Baer, one of the leading researchers on the subject of land in the

Middle East, came to the conclusion that, apart from Egypt (where a mod-

36. Rosemary Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries (London: Zed Press, 1979), 30-32; Walid Khalidi, Palestine Reborn (London: I. B. Tauris, 1992), 31, 70; Ruth Kark,

"Changing Patterns of Land Ownership in Nineteenth Century Palestine: The European Influ-

ence," Journal of Historical Geography 10 (Fall 1984): 357-84.


ern mapped cadastral survey based on a European model was completed in

1907), total anarchy prevailed regarding land registration in the Ottoman

Empire.37 However, land information and management systems in the

Middle East were at least as advanced as those of Europe at the time of the

Renaissance. Ottoman land management reform and the attendant cadas-

tral surveys undertaken from the middle of the nineteenth century may have been insufficiently appreciated in the context of the requirements of

the agrarian management of what were largely state lands.

Ottoman land management reform and the attendant cadastral surveys undertaken from the middle of the nineteenth century should be viewed in

the context of agrarian management of lands that were largely state owned.

This distinction has been insufficiently appreciated.

37. A. Bonne, Land of Israel, Land and Economy (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1938), 116-18;

Spry, "Memorandum of the History, Law and Practice of Land Registration"; Arthur Rupin, Syria: An Economic Survey (New York: Provisional Zionist Committee, 1918), 41; Doukhan, Land Laws, 163-71; Dowson, "Notes on Land-Tax"; Baer, Introduction to the History, 19, 21, 35.

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