Mamluk & Ottoman Cadastral Survey in Palestine

Mamlk and Ottoman Cadastral Surveys and Early Mapping of Landed Properties in Palestine
Author(s): Ruth Kark

Source: Agricultural History, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Winter, 1997), pp. 46-70
Published by: Agricultural History Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3744685
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and
Mamluk
Early
Ottoman
of
Mapping
Cadastral
Landed
and
Surveys
in
Properties
Palestine
KARK
RUTH
Cadastre is a French word originating
in the Latin capitastrum,
register of poll tax. Later it came to mean "an official register ofthe
ship, extent,
taxation,"
or including
showing
owner?
in a given area, used as a basis for
and value of real property
or "survey...
meaning
boundaries,
lines,
property
etc." The cadastre was thus the means used by rulers to collect data on the
of landed property.
division
cadastre depended
and managing
The systems of conducting
thus on the division
the land and fiscal policy
itself?on
of the government?and
dictated
and John D. McLaughlin
define a cadastre as a parcel-based
tion system
important
component
both developed
planning,
among
management"?an
It is an
activity
and ancient Egypt. They stress its importance
and developing
countries
for public
administration,
as well as private transactions
and land development,
in
land
in land,
other things.1
Roger J. P. Kain and Elizabeth

sance until the late nineteenth
eas, an established
missioned
Baigent have shown that from the Renais-
century, the cadastral map was, in many ar?
adjunct to effective government
of land. It reflected
number
land informa?
fiscal, or multipurpose.
of "land information
that goes back to Babylon
Peter F. Dale
the type of data collected.
that could be either juridical,
the
the power and technological
it, whether
of purposes,
economic,
including
social,
monitoring
level of those who com-
or political
land taxation,
and control
and was used for a
evaluation
and management
RUTH KARK is a professor in the Department of Geographyat the Hebrew University of

Jerusalem.
1. RandomHouse Dictionaryofthe EnglishLanguage,2nd ed. (New York:Random House,
1987), 292; Peter F. Dale and John D. McLaughlin, Land InformationManagement(Oxford:
Clarendon,1989), 1-18.
Agricultural History / Volume 71 / Number 1 / Winter 1997 ?Agricultural History Society

46
/ 47
Cadastral Surveys
of state land resources,

sure, and colonial
Avraham
land reclamation,
ment in underdeveloped
income
regime
the medieval
level of the surveying
serts that from a cost/benefit
perspective,
the use of advanced
in tax collection
to the type of agrarian
Property
or registration
authority,
ter assumes
that an investigation
register
land registration,
with registration
and determination
to produce
survey is thus understood

or national
of
by private con?
of deeds by a central
of real rights must be
a cadastral survey. The term cadastral
to mean a survey for, and forming
of real property.
In the territorial
of, a cadastre,
system
of modern
it is an axiom that a register should be constructed
a basis of unchangeable
of
of rights (title) in a cadastre by the state. The lat?
with mapping
associated
relates to the registration
rights can be transferred
with no central registration,
veyance
and the interrelations
instruments.3
surveying
the term cadastre
sense,
rights in real property.
survey equip?
than the increased
which could affect the accuracy
the cadastre more than the quality ofthe

In the modern
He as-
and land conveyance.
the need for a cadastre varied according
the state and the landholders,
East, considered
as secondary.
(large feudal estates or small parcel owners)
between
human
Middle
instruments
areas would be more expensive
derived from improvements
In addition,
and enclo-
settlement.2
N. Poliak, who studied
the technological
land redistribution
units of land, as opposed
to the changeable
upon
unit of
ownership.4
The aim of this paper is to present

Ottoman
state cadastral
Palestine
from the Middle
Unlike the commonly

Jewish settlement
surveys
a broad overview
in the Levant,
Ages to the beginning

held criticism
authorities
ofthe
of Mamluk
and their application

of the twentieth
British Mandate
and
in
century.
officials and
(who claimed to have had superior land regis-
2. RogerJ. P. Kainand ElizabethBaigent,TheCadastralMap in the Serviceofthe State:A His?

toryof PropertyMapping(Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress,1992), 1-8, 331-44.
3. AvrahamN. Poliak,"TheHistoryof the Cadastresin Palestineand the NeighboringCoun?
tries"(in Hebrew),HaMeshekHaShitufi(4 November1937):327-29.
4. C. H. Ley, The Structureand Procedureof CadastralSurveyin Palestine(Jerusalem:Govern?
ment of Palestine,1931), 2-3; ErnestM. Dowson, "Noteson Land-Tax,CadastralSurveyand Land
Settlementin Palestine,"p. 7-10, 7 December 1923, Le RayPapers,St. Anthony'sCollege,Oxford
(hereaftercited as Le Ray Papers);Asher Solel, "The CadastralMappingin Israel"(in Hebrew),
Workand NationalInsurance8 (August1977):234.
48 / Agricultural History
tration
compared
to the Ottoman
only must we view the pre-Ottoman
also consider
the great advances
surveying
nineteenth
and early twentieth
traditional
Mamluk
can be challenged
methods
ofthe
geographical
of cadastral
methods
surveying
surveys
were used to re-evaluate
mary sources are mainly late Ottoman
them
con?
literature considered
as foreign
toman
Administrative
Office (the Colonial
Council
Office),
and the Central
Papers),
of Jerusalem),
tles deals with the mapping

The discussion
and mapped
the British
and the Ot?

Public
Record
College, Oxford (Le Ray and Spry
Archive
in Jerusalem
National
(Jewish
Association).
Most research done on early mapping
later surveyed
experts and officials,
at the Israel State Archive
are found
St. Antony's
Zionist
Fund and Jewish Colonization
landowners.
surveys, doc?
of Lands and Land Registration,
Departments
The pri?
periods.
and British Mandatory
as well
(Mandatory
in a
the extent and character
uments,
These
in surveying
and geographical
maps, and reports of legal and administrative

settlers.
were undeveloped
and Ottoman
the Mamluk
during
that the
in Palestine.
and a review of the historical
perspective
of
the
Land Code, viewing
historical
their application
during
claims
that occurred
1858 Ottoman
and Ottoman
pre-Ottoman
sources
but we must
properties
Thus European
the changes
in discussing
text, and demonstrating

Primary
centuries.
in
and the partial application
of immovable
and Ottoman
after the issuance
in a longterm
in legislation
and mapping
that not
cadastres as sufficient
and Ottoman
needs and the type of agrarian regime,
light of the empire's
cadastral
it seems
maladministration),
of landed properties
of private estates and boundary

of the forerunners
cadastres
and land timaps used by
of state cadastral maps and
made in Christian
from the
Europe
sixteenth
century was added to that body of research. These studies mainly
included
the Netherlands,
England
and Wales, and the European
Sultanate
and the Ottoman
cartographic
mainly
the Nordic countries,
literature,
for the purpose
Empire
colonial
settlements.
The Mamluk
have scarcely been mentioned
since the Ottoman

of taxation,
Germany, Austria, France,
land cadastral
surveys,
were not based on mapped
in this
done
cadastres.5
5. Kainand Baigent,TheCadastralMap;RogerJ.P.Kainand Hugh C. Prince,TheTitheSurvey

of Englandand Wales(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1985);AnthonyJ.Christopher,The
BritishEmpireat its Zenith (London:Croom Helm, 1988), 12-14, 170-77, 190-98; David Harvey,
/ 49
Cadastral Surveys
A "feudal"
(1260-1516).
Crusader
(through
system
in Egypt
derived
West European
influence)
exercised
by the sultan through
including
that ofthe
Mamluk
and in Syria
(1250-1517)
Islamic,
and
systems was established.
The
from
Mongol,
control
amirs. The military
households,
by a proportional
assignment
sultan, were maintained
{Iktcf). The administrative
grants to landed revenue
of military
by emanci-
established
system was the overriding
of its administrative
character
distinctive
slaves
or military
mamlaks,
pated
was the regime
Sultanate
Mamluk
The Islamic
procedure
of land distribution
was the rawk, a kind of cadastral survey that is followed
by a redistribution
ofthe
arable land, It entailed
their legal status (private property,
fields, ascertaining
land, grant, and so forth),
endowment,
the
crown
taxable capacity
their prospective
and assessing
(misaha)
surveying
{Hbra).e
The Ottoman
of the Byzantine
the decline
Empire until the establishment
in 1922. From the sixteenth
republic
century
(from Algeria to Iraq, and from Hungary

I (1512-20),
Mamluks
in 1516-17
oped
expansion
doubled
the size ofthe
under
of state ownership,
restored
a written
empire's vast territories,
with no drawings.
khakani
was devel?
operated
record (tahrir) of systematic

cadastral and taxpaying
and kept a central imperial cadastral
or tapu register).
The compilation
under Ot?
state appara-
of record keeping
with periodic
surveys ofthe
of the
empire at a stroke by adding
rule. The Ottomans
Ottoman
of state land resources
(Daftar-i
his defeat
and highly bureaucratic
management
register
resumed;
procedures
sophisticated
and maintained
system
all agricul?
and the Crimea to Yemen). Under
Ottoman
rule until 1918. A centralized
tus that employed
almost
Egypt, and Algeria. The Levant remained
to it Syria, Palestine,
toman
it owned
of Turkey as a
Asia, and Africa that it conquered
tural land in the vast parts of Europe,
Salim
lasted from
Empire, created by Turkish tribes in Anatolia,
ofthe
The records were descriptive,
registers arose from the adminis-
An Enquiryinto the Originsof CulturalChange(Oxford:Blackwell,

TheConditionofPostmodernity:
1990), 245; Ahmet T. Karamustafa,"Military,Administrative,and ScholarlyMaps and Plans,"in
HistoryofCartography,vol. 2, bk. 1, ed. JohnB. Harleyand DavidWoodward(Chicago:University
of ChicagoPress, 1992), 209-27.
6. David Ayalon, "Mamluk,"Encyclopaediaof Islam, new ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), 6:
314-27; AvrahamN. Poliak, "SomeNotes on the FeudalSystemof the Mamluks,"Journalof the
RoyalAsiaticSociety(1937): 97-107.
tary officials
civil and mili?
empire. The majority of Ottoman
ofthe
trative organization
did not draw salaries from the budget
of the central govern?
grant) in return for their services and
ment but were given a timar (income
were allowed to levy taxes on a given region on their account.

ofthe
century, the timar system had begun to decay. In the army,
sixteenth
at the expense
paid regular troops grew in importance
many timars were converted
the countryside,
to farmers for tax purposes.
out (iltizam)
From the end
of feudal cavalry; in
into crown lands and leased
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
lahin (peasants)
and to the detriment
mid-nineteenth
the notorious
their profits at the expense
of the land's fertility. Thus, since the
the Ottoman
century,
khakamwdis
tricts, landholdings,
a register ofthe
population,
revenues,
provinces,
whether
grant, a freeholder,
In the empire
Most agricultural
certain
was primarily
dis?
of the rev?
the holder
of a
(waqfy vakif).*
(miilk) property.
to built-up
This
areas of towns.
to the state and the sultan. Estates
fellahin who worked on them, nor to the
them temporarily
and who had only usufruct
The state treasury held legal ownership
ficient for the government

the quality
limited
land (miri) belonged
who operated
(tasarruf).
officials,
government
or a pious endowment
neither to the exploited
belonged
the beneficiaries
there was little private or freehold
of ownership
category
holders
the sultan,
cities, villages,
and, where these were assessed
in kind, of crops. The register also indicated
military
made efforts to abolish
government
iltizam system.7
The Daftar-i
enues,
of the fel-
to have a general knowledge
of the land held in common
rights
(raqabe), thus it was suf?

of the area and of
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 Luftfi Barkan, "Daftar-ikhakant,"in Encyclopediaof Islam,vol. 2, 81-83; Bernard

Lewis, TheEmergenceof ModernTurkey(London:OxfordUniversityPress,1962),89-90, 379, 452.
8. BernardLewis,"OttomanLandTenureand Taxation"Proceedingsofthe FirstInternational
Conferenceon Bilad-a-Sham,20-24 April1984,Universityof Jordanand YarmoukUniversity,1984,
99-100.
9. Ibid.; AvrahamN. Poliak, Feudalismin Egypt,Syria, Palestine,and Lebanon,1250-1900
(London: RoyalAsiaticSociety, 1939), 57; Poliak,"TheHistoryofthe Cadastresin Palestineand
the NeighbouringCountries"(in Hebrew),HaMeshekHaShitufi(19 December1937):356-58.
Cadastral Surveys
began to confirm
the Ottomans
provinces,
/ 51
the existing
ofthe
Mamluk
ments
of the Islamic system of land tenure and taxation.
unacquainted
not conduct
which they progressively
rules and practices
Sultanate,
with the Ottoman
archives, thought
eight and a half centuries

conquest,
survey done six times in Egypt in the

ofthe
once between
1313 and 1325 in Syria,
the hereditary
character of "feudal" grants, and thus
of the sultan. Unlike the modern
the power and income
of private ownership,
of communal
of the army administration
the Mamluk
and screened
collected
that they were based on measurements

lands among
not mention
any maps
tion units and set the amount
including
which
the sul?
as well as estimates
of the division
and the fees due from each farm. He
or mapping
Frenkel claims that the Mamluk
land. Officials
lost private cadastres, Poliak deduced
ofthe
the tenants
cadastre was
the information,
based on the private cadastres of landlords,
tan. From detailed descriptions
cadas?
and thus it was sufficient
landholding,
village and the quality ofthe
to define the general area ofthe
does
in order to
the arable lands between
based on the principle
of village
Arabs and the Ot?
the appearance
(the Nasiri rawk). This was undertaken
tre, based on the principle
was mainly
did
the sultan and the feudal lords and as
a means of eradicating
to increase
between
and completed
and Palestine
redistribute
that the Ottomans
rawks of 1298 and 1313-25.
extensive
The rawk was a type of cadastral
Lebanon,
Poliak, who was
a cadastre in Syria and Palestine until about 1606 and that they
had used the Mamluks'
toman
to include ele?
modified
army mapped
of income
sources.
in the contemporary
and registered
and produce.
the produc?
However,
no such
maps have been found to date.10

10. The Ottoman tahrir,or registerof the commissionssent to surveytaxpayingpopulations
and their lands, crops,and revenuesin the towns and villagesfor fiscalpurposes,was, as Lewisand
Cohen claim, the latest form of an institutionthat can be tracedbackto classicalIslamictimes and
beyond, then known as the kanun.See Lewis,"OttomanLandTenureand Taxation,"98; Amnon
Cohen and BernardLewis,Populationand Revenuein the Townsof Palestinein the SixteenthCen?
tury (Princeton:Princeton UniversityPress, 1978), 3; Poliak,"Historyofthe Cadastres,"327-29;
David Ayalon, AvrahamN. Poliak, and other researchersof the Mamluk Sultanaterefer to the
agrariansystemas feudal.On the debateas to its feudalor nonfeudalnature,see Amy Singer,Palestinian Peasantsand Ottoman Officials(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1994), 10-17;
David Ayalon, "Studieson the Structureof the MamlukArmy,"Bulletinofthe Schoolof Oriental
and AfricanStudies5 (1953): 448-53; Heinz Halm, "Rawk,"in Encyclopedia
oflslam, 2nd ed., 8:
1250-1352
the
Sultanate
Mamluk
in
the
Middle
Middle
East
The
Robert
467-68;
Irwin,
Ages, Early
Bernard
served
of the Ottoman
tion of revenues
suses/surveys
purposes
Ten daftar-i
centuries.
tax revenues,
These survey regis?
and the prescribed
distribu?
of
only. For some regions they covered periods

mufassal
were
of the districts
(the "old registers"
of 1525-26,
1533-39,
of Palestine:
land tenure
and Alan Makovsky,
system,
the tapu survey registers ofthe
Wolf D. Hhtteroth
of another
and
1553-57,
Harold Rhode undertook
study of the three surveys of the province
researched
daftar-i
areas was kept secret and used
administrative
and the "new register" of 1596-97).
1572-73,
His and earlier pioneerover a thousand
Gaza, Safed, Lajjun, and Nablus. These were parallel to five cen-
Jerusalem,
analysis
estimated
in particular
for governmental
years.
uncovered
and sixteenth
from the fifteenth
ters listing population,
detailed
archives
and orders were pre-
registers of the tapu tahrir defterleri for most of the em?
mufassal, detailed
pire, mainly
customs
in Syria and Palestine.
by the Ottomans
ing studies
thirty
that Mamluk
Lewis confirmed
of Safed, including
the
Amy Singer, and Ehud Toledano

district of Jerusalem.11
and Kamal Abdulfattah
"new register" (daftari-i
did a detailed
geographical
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, "HistoricalCharacterof al-Rawkal-Nasiri in

on Bilad-a-Sham,20-24 April1984,
MamlukSyria,"Proceedingsofthe FirstInternationalConference
Universityof Jordanand YarmoukUniversity,1984, 223-25; YehoshuaFrenkel,"Introductionto
the History of the AgrarianRelationsin the Landof Israelduringthe MamlukPeriod:LegalDefinitions of Land,Taxesand Farmers"(in Hebrew),Horizonsof Geography
(in press).
11. BernardLewis, "The Ottoman Archivesas a Source for the History of the Arab Lands,"
Journalofthe RoyalAsiaticSociety(1951): 139-55; BernardLewis,Notesand Documentsfrom the
TurkishArchives(Jerusalem:Israel OrientalSociety, 1952); BernardLewis, "Studiesin Ottoman
Archives,"Bulletin ofthe School of Oriental and African Studies 16 (Summer 1954): 469-501;
Bernard Lewis, Studies in Classicaland Ottoman Islam (London: Variorum Reprints, 1976);
BernardLewis,"Acrein the SixteenthCenturyAccordingto the Ottoman TapuRegisters,"
Memor?
ial Omer LutfiBarkan(Paris:A. Maisonneuve,1980), 135-39; BernardLewis, "Some Statistical
SRAFelicitationVolumefor
Surveysof 16th CenturyPalestine,"in Middle.EastStudiesand Libraries:
ProfessorJ. D. Pearson,ed. B. C. Bloomfield (London:Mansell, 1980), 115-22; Lewis,"Ottoman
LandTenureand Taxation";HaroldRhode, "TheAdministrationand Populationof the Sancakof
Safedin the SixteenthCentury"(Ph.D. diss., ColumbiaUniversity,1979),47-114; Alan Makovsky,
"Sixteenth-CenturyAgriculturalProduction in the Liwa of Jerusalem:Insights from the Tapu
Deftersand an Attemptat Quantification,"
ArchivumOttomanicum9 (1984):91-128; Singer,PalestinianPeasants,16-43; EhudToledano,"TheSanjaqof Jerusalemin the SixteenthCentury:Aspects
of Topographyand Population"ArchivumOttomanicum9 (1984):279-319.
/ 53
Cadastral Surveys
still in operation.
system,
trative officials
who received
the state and members

the Syrian provinces
yield could
duction
The revenue granters were military and adminis?

an annual income
of the imperial
southern
tially organized
be taken. The authors
Syria and Palestine.
claimed
as forming
of income
a unit. The amount
to individual
rule determined
geographical
might be towns, villages,
of Muslim,
taxation
for each of the fiscal
households.
For most fiscal
taxes,
of
appear in the daftars. Such units
of individual
the type, name,
on detailed crops and on animals,
and so forth.
has been known
then appeared
or Jewish family heads, the percentage
production
endowments,
ing the number
of taxes. No
tribes within an area, isolated mills, and so on. In
Christian,
of agricultural
now, nothing
duction
based and regarded by
the order in which the numbering
the register, each unit had a serial number,

number
that "this
They found that the lists were spa?
the fiscal units in each nahiye (subdistrict)
other
mistakenly
the state had no interest in more detailed assessment
purposes,
over
rule in the Arab provinces,"
one. It was regionally
units was not split up according
decisive
control
and total pro?
based. The basic "fiscal unit" in the daftari-i
and regionally
mufassal was a topographical

everyone
for services to
family. Administrative
was such that a census of population
was the last census taken during the Ottoman

including
in exchange
However,
about the procedure
of
and
as they stress: "Up to

of counting
villages, their total population
and assess?
figure and pro?
yield." This may have been the source of the list of feudal estates of
the empire prepared

Daftar-i
khakani,
in 1609 by Muazzinzade
which
was based on materials
teenth century. No maps or mapping

relating
to the surveys
Ayni Ali, a high official in the

from the end of the six?
were mentioned
of Palestine
and southern
in the several studies

Syria in the sixteenth
century.12
Poliak
(timars)
considers
that in about
were abolished
cadastre was begun.
1606, when
and annexed
This hypothesized
the feudal-military
fiefs
to the estates of the sultan,
a new
cadastre included
tion of lands held by the rural communities
only the registra?
and listed the tenancy
fees to
12. Wolf D. Hutterothand KamalAbdulfattah,HistoricalGeographyof Palestine,Transjordan

and SouthernSyriain the Late16thCentury(Erlangen:Palm& Enke,1977),2-3,10-11,20-21, 55;
356-57.
Poliak,"Historyof the Cadastres,"
be paid. It contradicts
in the
provinces
the trends of decline
administration
and
mentioned
by a system of tax farming
fects on the rural population.

granted
in Palestine
1801 to begin a modern

a few months,
initiated
in Egypt was completed
rebel Muhammad
Ali in Syria, Lebanon,
registered
was held in Anatolia
and Rumelia
and 1819-21.
and Palestine
in
Al-Jabarty
rule of the
only in the period

in Egypt in
During the first cadastre, peasant landholdings
as they were, while the iltizams were abolished

In the second
were measured,
cadastre,
of its holders,
a separate
plot by
along with tax due from each. Abd al-
asserts that at that time all cultivated
but probably
were
in favor of direct
register was recorded
lands in Egypt
not mapped.14
This was not the case in Syria and Palestine,

cadastre
decided
in 1831. Parallel to it, a
under the temporary
It was based on the two cadastral surveys conducted
plot in the names

Rahman
century.13
it was not done. The first census and cadastral survey in the
period
taxation.
ef?
land cadastre, but since the French left Egypt after
modern
1813-14
abandoned
with all its disastrous
(iltizam)
of Egypt in 1798, General Mano
cadastre
1831-41.
system was gradually
remote
as well as in
It seems that some fiefs were still held and
up to the eighteenth
After the French conquest
over
In Syria and Palestine,
the land-grant
and
settlement,
control
government
in many sources.
other parts of the empire,

and replaced
central
in population,
was in fact more like the early Ottoman
where Muhammad
Ali's
ones. The census
taken
there in about 1833 was again done taking the village as the tax unit and detailing the number
was finished
century.
of taxpayers in it. In Lebanon,
a partial cadastral survey
earlier by the local emir at the beginning
A general
cadastre
of the nineteenth
began there in 1848 under the supervision
of
13. Poliak,"Historyofthe Cadastres,"

356-57; Hutterothand Abdulfattah,HistoricalGeogra?
phy of Palestine,54-63; Amnon Cohen, Palestinein the 18th Century,Patternsof Governmentand
Administration(Jerusalem:Magnes, 1973),293-98.
14. Solel, "CadastralMappingin Israel,"234-40; Poliak,"Historyofthe Cadastres,"
358; Lewis,
Emergenceof Modern Turkey;Kenneth M. Cuno, The Pasha'sPeasants(Cambridge:Cambridge
UniversityPress, 1992), 67,102-11. Cuno claims (p. 233) that neitherthe Ottomannor the French
surveysin Egypt recordedindividuallandholdings;before 1813 such recordswere kept in the vil?
lages. Jabartywas cited in GabrielBaer,Introductionto theHistoryof AgrarianRelationsin theMid?
dle East,1800-1970 (in Hebrew)(TelAviv:HakibbutzHameuchad,1971), 22-23.
Cadastral Surveys
three Prussian
sent from Constantinople,
engineers
only for the southern
of Muhammad
after the return of the Ottomans
Ali from Syria, Lebanon,
land registration
was introduced
ter the Ottoman
Land Code was published.
operated
Property
following
the reforms
Records)
and Daftar-i
Prior to the introduction
into the Ottoman
and Palestine.
bodies
that
were the Tahiri Emlak Idaresi (Office

khakani
(Ministry
of Property
of
Records).
Land Code, titles to mtilk land
existed for miri land, which was held by virtue of sultanee
was, in theory
at least, reported
made to compile
a modern
The main purpose

and categories
ofthe
authorities.
series ofthe
tural production
firm the rights
where
an effort was
Daftar-i khakaniregisters.16
Land Code of 1858 was to define landholdings
precisely, abolish the system of tax farming,
and consolidate
and therefore tax revenues.

of use, of possession,
It intended
the tax collection
and of ownership.
to the tapu officials
in which all the inhabitants
the village collectively
agricul?
to extend and con?
that it aimed to create a body of peasant titleholders.
mushcf system,
de-
Land acquired by valid means
to Constantinople,
and retrieve the state's rights to its miri lands in order to increase
trusted
Modern
Empire only in 1858, af?
Two governmental
of the Ottoman
crees and grants from competent
doubtful
and the
were recorded by the Muslim religious courts; but no form of
and buildings
registration
and it was completed
districts.15
This state of affairs continued

retreat
/ 55
and aimed
However,
it is
The code ento abolish
the
of the village held the land of
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. MordechaiAbir,"LocalLeadershipand EarlyReformsin Palestine,1800-1834,"in Studies

on Palestineduringthe OttomanPeriod,ed. Moshe Ma'oz (Jerusalem:Magnes, 1975), 285; Poliak,
356-57.
"Historyofthe Cadastres,"
16. KemalH. Karpat,"OttomanPopulationRecordsand the Censusof 1881/82-1893,"Inter?
nationalJournalof MiddleEast Studies9 (Spring 1978):246-47; John F. Spry,"Memorandumof
the History, Law and Practiceof Land Registrationand the Organizationof the Departmentof
Land Registration,with a Note on the Custodyof the Recordsof Title to Landat the Termination
ofthe BritishMandate,"October 1948,C0733/494/3/81465, PublicRecordOffice,London;JohnF.
n.d., DraftA, SpryPapers,St. Antony'sCollege,Oxford(hereafterSpryPa?
Spry,"Memorandum,"
DraftB, SpryPapers;J.N. Stubbs,"Noteson the LandLawin
pers);JohnF.Spry,"Memorandum,"
Palestine,"8 September1925,Le RayPapers.
deeds of miri lands, and a few years later, also of mtilk and waqf(pious
lands. Therefore
dowment)
land registry
offices.
all titles were granted by the crown through
However,
land to replace the problematic
was still missing
a basic component
new laws and regulations?the
compulsory
custom
measuring
date period
a deed was not a guarantee
wrote in 1925: "The system ofthe
only a land registry
in the Ottoman
cadastre
during the Man?

[meaning
state. The Daftar-i
were done,
of the owners,
sometimes
the location
In 1860, the Ottoman
showing
central Daftari
usually only included
of the land, its kind, boundaries,
the
and
registration
The uncultivated
to divide
began to apply the regulations
of lands (tatwib)
meant to be the beginning
partial success,
years ago or more."18
government
of a modern
ued until the commencement
influence,
rights,
the area, which was not precise. These lists were based on local
lists that were done three hundred
compulsory
mapped
khakantweis
and no books
the estates and their area were kept. The lists ofthe
khakani and the local tabu [land registry offices]

names
not territorial,
office giving deeds of title, use, and mortgage
and so forth. No exact measurements

precisely
bound-
of title.17
legal experts in the Palestine government
was not known
cadastre]
of
of land was one of deed and not of
title, that is, of separate units of land. It was also personal,
As one ofthe
ofthe
the
in the
and mapping
of verbal description
aries of land parcels. The registration
and possessing
en-
in the Fertile Crescent.
land registration
of the twentieth
the commonly
century,
ofthe
This was
system. It contin?
aiming,
with only
held lands into private holdings.
lands were sold by the treasury to persons
of wealth and
many of whom were state officials.19
17. Baer,HistoryofAgrarianRelations;PeterSluglettand MarionFarouk-Sluglett,"TheAppli?

cation ofthe 1858 Land Code in GreaterSyria:Some PreliminaryObservations,"
in Land Tenure
and Social Transformationin the MiddleEast, ed. TarifKhalidi (Beirut:AmericanUniversityof
DraftA; Dov Gavish,Landand Map (London:PalestineEx?
Beirut, 1984);Spry,"Memorandum,"
ploration Fund, 1996, in press);Dov Gavishand RuthKark,"TheCadastralMappingof Palestine,
1858-1928" Geographical
Journal159 (March1993):70-80; KennethW. Stein, TheLandQuestion
in Palestine(ChapelHill: Universityof North CarolinaPress, 1984), 20-24; Stubbs,"LandLawin
Palestine."
18. Moshe J.Doukhan, LandLawsin theLandof Israel(in Hebrew)(Jerusalem:Labors'Coop?
erativePress, 1925), 166-67.
19. Baer,HistoryofAgrarianRelations,35-36; Poliak,Feudalism,79-80.
Cadastral Surveys
In the area known

province
as Palestine,
which was not a separate administrative
at the end of the Ottoman
first introduced
(yoklama,
village to village. Only agricultural
tative ofthe
of five members,
were attached.
prepared
from
proceeded
The survey commis?

and the represen?
later for the land registers,

was a village,
First the settlement
each settlement.
cluding
its boundaries
quarter
of an acre). Then,
Turkish
dunams,
and area in Turkish dunams

for each locality,
rocks), and the divisions
the total area of the localities
the boundaries,
as plains,
were issued to those who cultivated

books showing
the summed
matched
lage. This was not the case in the mountain
as a whole
regions.
and claimed
the area in
and
mountains,
In the plains re?

area of the vil?
Title deeds (kushans)
the land. Finally, entries
the area, boundaries,
and proprietor-
or private tenure. Wasteland
ship of all land in private ownership
in?
(919.3 sq.m., or about a
were reported.
among cultivators
no maps
into localities
divided
was described
and the type of land (such
were made in bound
which
the chairman
including
was
1869
on the investigations
land was surveyed.
The unit of enquiry
within
gions,
or census),
between
khakani, was assisted by a land surveyor, but in its re?
Daftar-i
and in the material
ports,
land registration
was based in the first instance
of enquiry
sion, comprised
modern
period,
only in the year 1865, and a survey begun
and 1873. Registration

of commissions
/ 57
and pub?
lic land, such as roads, were not registered.20

After issuing
kushans to cultivated
ment nominated
two consecutive
district to examine
for example,
and propose
commissions
the disposition
in 1872, the shemsiye commission
lages and parts ofthe

other commission
ofthe
lands that were claimed,
old cities that had unsold
visited
these locations
of all sites in the settlements
were detailed,
(shemsiye, or sun) for each

of unclaimed
surveyed
lands. Thus,
and listed all vil?
miri lands. In 1878-79,
and conducted
shemsiye lands for each of these settlements.
the govern?
a detailed
The boundaries
an?
survey
and area
as well as their types (dry farm-
20. Serapion Murad to Thankmarvon Mtinchhausen,12 June 1874, RG67/439,IsraelState

Archive (hereafterISA);Spry,"Memorandumof the History,Lawand Practiceof Land Registra?
tion";YitzhakSchechter,"WhatDoes a SecretLandRegisterfrom the Time of the TurksReveal?"
(in Hebrew), IkareiIsrael170 (February-March1977):5-8; YitzhakSchechter,"LandRegistration
in Eretz-Israelin the Second Half ofthe NineteenthCentury"(in Hebrew),Cathedra45 (Septem?
ber 1987): 147-60.
or rocks).
ing, swamp,
found by the previous
The area of the settlements

commission.
Near each settlement's
its total area in Turkish
dunams
found partially deserted,
the inhabitants
whole settlements
tally deserted,
Ten percent
of the District
and the decision
of Acre, an area of 591,972
If
Turkish dunams
in the first survey totaled
the subdistricts
was conducted
lages that had shemstye lands, buildings,

were sold to Palestinian,
name appeared
of the commission.
were offered for sale at auction.
on 16 January 1873. This district included

The auction
to that
had priority in buying land. If to?
in 66 shemstye villages and 356 plots, was counted
and al-Shaghur.
was identical
of Haifa, Safed,
in 1879, and most of the vil?

and economic
orchards,
facilities
Syrian, and Lebanese urban entrepreneurs
(fig. 1).
This was the beginning
of the privatization of land ownership in Palestine

of large estates, a process which later facilitated the pene?
and the creation
tration of foreigners.
on those to whom
previous
Finally, a third list was prepared that contained
the land was sold or to whom

or those who bought
occupiers,
lands were granted by the government

Circassian
refugees
several
villages
among
others).
ning ofthe
(Ghabia,
Yitzhak Schechter
twentieth
Association
Sha'are,
Bosnian,
and North
and
Maghrabi,
Africa and settled
in
and Kafr Kama,
(who for over fifty years, from the begin?
of Palestine.
districts
that it
shemstye records) suggested
such as the one he copied
records of the shemstye villages

Nazareth
land. Some of these
century, was a land expert for the Jewish Colonization
that surveys
were held in other
auctioned
Kafr Sabt, Ma'ader,
and who copied parts ofthe
was probable
it was transferred?either
to Muslim
who had left Europe
details
of the contents
Reports
and of auctions
in the Acre district

of the
of shemstye villages
in the
Tabu office
(two volumes), as well as lists of shemstye fields de?

tailed in shemstye land books in the District of Acre, are found in the Israel
State Archive.
From documents
in the archive ofthe
cil of Jerusalem for the beginning

the three land surveys
very substantial
mentioned
proportion
twentieth
by a map ofthe
Coun?
century, it transpires
that
were done in 1878, 1886, and 1907. A
of the villagers
tered their land at the government

were accompanied
ofthe
Administrative
of the Jerusalem
land registry. Requests
region
regis-
for registration
piece of land in question.21
21. Schechter,"WhatDoes a SecretLandRegister,"

5-8; Schechter,"LandRegistrationin
Cadastral Surveys
/ 59
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; "Reporton the Contents ofthe Shamsieh [shemsiye]villages, which are

presentlyfound in the NazarethTabuOffice,"n.d., and "ShamsiehLandBooks,"n.d., File 11,Box
3528, RG22, ISA;Haim Gerber,Social Originofthe ModernMiddleEast (Boulder,Colo.: Lynne
Riennerand Mansel, 1987), 76-77.
All entries
in the new registers
land was registered,

tration.
order in books
chronological
method
of deeds
system
as daimi
of reference was by serial number.
may be compared
and regis?
(and not title), entries were made in
known
tant director of land registration
Once
confirmation.
required official approval
every disposition
In the registration
a formal
required
(perpetual)
The
registers.
John F. Spry, who was the assis?
in Mandatory
Palestine,
with that of the former
that the
suggested
Middlesex
Registry
in
England.22
case study on the survey and its consequences
An illuminating
ment
by the Mandatory
compiled
Director
Acting
is a docu?
of Lands in 1931 on
Shatta village, located in the Yizre'el Valley. This report was submitted
inspecting
all available records in connection
and buildings
thereof. According
with the registration
after
of lands
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
The findings of this Commission
were
left waste and uncultivated.
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 Nufiis (the Ottoman census) are present in
number amounts to 99.
the village_Their
Then, the general southern,

of the village were detailed
eastern, northern,
by the commission.
and western
boundaries
Their report for the south
and west, read as follows:
South: From the Water course known

stones
and
from
these
as Qunat Aisheh
on the water
course
known
to the Block
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,"Memorandumofthe History,Lawand PracticeofLand Registration."
Cadastral Surveys
/ 61
In accordance with the registration of the Daftar Shamsieh the lands

of Shatta are divided into 5 Blocks [localities]:
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 orig?
inal registration in the Daftar Shamsieh?
The locality known as the
"Jedear el Balad" or the village [built-up area] lands were not recorded in
[T]he first registration of the buildings was effected by the Youklama Commission in 1307 [ 1891 ] in the name of Salim
the Daftar Shamsieh....
Rais (16 buildings) and in the name ofthe villagers (8) the total number
the cemetery of the village does not seem
amounting to 24 buildings...
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
13,141
surveyed
dunoms
[dunams]
lines. The registered

in the Youklama
dor to correct
and the total area according
Accordingly,
the presence
191.48 sq. meters excluding
area ofthe
the area in accordance
to
roads and Railway
village being only 7,940 dunoms
from 7,750] an application
plan prior to the transaction
to the plan amounts
has been submitted
with the particulars
[corrected
by the ven-
shown
on the
of sale being effected."24
the lands of Shatta were inspected

of a representative
of the registered
on 13-14
owner,
July 1931 in
Raja Rais, the
23. Reportof ActingDirectorof Lands,25 July1931,FileGP/10/23,Box 3470, RG22,ISA.

24. Ibid.
Mukhtar
[head],
Murassas
villages,
and notables
as well as a considerable
The 1931 report concluded

are correct
of the village were definitely
easily on the ground,
fected in accordance
sary corrections
1,000 dunams
with the exception
made by the Shamsieh
of the northern
and a deduction
deducted
not be included
as the villagers
owners
(probably
lands).
Moreover,
of an addition
by the Youklama
admitted
the Rais family,
be ef?
of 235 plus
of about 4,000 dunams
in the registration.
of other lands within the boundaries
were denied,
The
boundary.
may therefore
shown on the plan, and the neces?
of area made." This consisted

in two blocks,
fixed and could be applied
"that the registration
with the particulars
in the north,
should
ownership
of Shatta.
village as a whole
ofthe
with the description
writers of the report considered
which
and
[1870]."25
The boundaries
wasteland
of villagers
number
that "the boundaries
and in accordance
Commission
Kumieh
of Shatta and the bordering
of
Commission
in 1881,
The villagers
claimed
village. These claims
ofthe
to having paid rent to the registered
who owned
of the village
two-thirds
they never paid werko (land and building
tax) on any of
the village lands (fig. 2).26

In theory,
officials
the system
had much to commend
and Jewish settlers
claimed
In the first place, the original

land and was carried
only approximately,
investigation
owners
Under
the Ottoman
Land Code
shown
was not based on a survey of
out in a very perfunctory

and the description
of adjoining
boundaries
by reference
in the land registers,
Areas were given
manner.
of boundaries
to the four
and continuing
if definite,
boundary.
In a guide
only a tenth ofthe
to Palestine
Luncz, buyers of estates were warned
published
consisted
usually
cardinal
an old law, the
prevailed
area. It was only a survey of lots, and, as many later claimed,

curate both as to size (sometimes
British
that it failed largely for two reasons.
of the names
points.
it, but in practice
over the
it was inac-
actual area) and to
in 1891 by Avraham
to check the boundaries
M.
well and to
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid. In respectto the purchaseof lands in Shattaby the JewishNationalFund, see letters
from 17 December 1931, and 9 and 24 July 1932, S25/7621, CentralZionist Archive,Jerusalem
(hereaftercited as CZA).
Cadastral Surveys
/ 63
Legend:
iboundary
Village
O Village
^\ Block
mentioned
inthe
daftar
shemslye
C"1
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
vided the government
with information
as the basis for taxation
scription.
The resulting
Bergheim,
an expert on land tenure in Palestine:
antagonism
that the land registers pro?
was described
and con-
in 1894 by Samuel
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. AvrahamM. Luncz,Guideto the Landof Israeland Syria(in Hebrew)(Jerusalem:
Avraham
M. Luncz,1891),25-28; Spry,"Memorandumofthe History,Lawand Practiceof LandRegistration."
into vari?
The lands are divided by an Imperial Commissioner
and given to individual villagers. They receive titleous portions
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 Muzarda (right of cul?
tivation) in the land; not as mtilk, but as ameeriyeh (miri), and subject
to taxes as such; the object of the government being to break down
of mushaa [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
the old custom
In consequence,
figures were given for the area, while persons
fictitious
of taxes often procured
service or the payment
As a local European,
nominees.
Phillip
and when
liable for military

in the name of
registration
Baldensperger,
it was,
who was well-ac-
with village life, later wrote, "The villages of the plains of Sharon
quainted
and Philistia
are usually co-proprietors

deeds was promulgated
to establish
denied
was not always sought,
registration
of their lands; in others they sold their rights for a
deprived
trifle. Beth-dejan
sold one-third
After the Revolution

mainly
to political
eliminate
of the Young Turks in 1908, attention
obvious
defects
problems,
great success,
of the existing
Code of 1913 did simplify
and mitlk. This code provided
estate in the name of corporations,

debts, suppression
without
was given
but
ac?
was made to simplify the Land Law in order to
of the more
tenure. The Landed-property

miri interests
rather than economic
to tackle the land problem,
to Lewis. A proposal
some
of its lands to the Jaffa Effendis."29
and administrative
there was an attempt

cording
to him, in 1872], the poorer
[according
any land in order to avoid paying the cost of the deed, and
owning
thus became
of all lands, but when the new law
of communal
of
the law governing
for corporate
mortgaging
system
of property
or guild property, extension
holding
of real
as security
ofthe
for
right of
28. Samuel Bergheim,"LandTenurein Palestine,"PalestineExplorationFund QuarterlyState?

ment26 (July1894): 191-99.
29. Philip J.Baldensperger,"TheImmovableEast,"PalestineExplorationFundQuarterlyState?
ment38 (July1906): 190-97.
/ 65
Cadastral Surveys
and a general survey and evaluation
inheritance,
the country,
with a readjustment
together
These laws were, strictly speaking,

in the form of decrees
in Mandatory
The Provisional
with the application
Law of Survey
and Land Registration
was issued
Mehmed
Rafad, the Grand Vizier Mehmed
on 5 February
1913.
the first time since the Middle

systematic
land register, and assessment

sponsibilities,
thoroughly
at subdistrict
Survey Commission,
the boundaries
law. Now, for
adopted
an approach
extensive
imperial
in a new
registration
The composition,
of these commissions
of operation
was to be composed
re?
were
clerk, engineer,
in the presence ofthe
not within
surveyors,
and the owners
marks in the shape of a pyramid
should deter?
as well as lands, forests,
the boundaries
from the eastern side. A document
was to be made showing
and two attached
mukhtars (heads),
of the village or town,
be drawn up and signed by the members

of the mukhtars
of a me'mur (an official of
level. After fifteen days' notice on a fixed day, the
special farms of individuals

beginning
ofthe
of Fi?
defined.31
the Tabu land registry office),
mine
of boundaries,
by special commissions.
and mechanisms
The Survey Commission
to operate
execution
as part of a planned
the demarcation
by the Sultan
Oevket, and the Minister
Ages, the Ottomans
mapping
of Immovable
It was signed
nance Rifaat, who was to be in charge ofthe
land survey including
of this code in the Ottoman
Palestine.30
Property
that included
The outbreak
authority.
the decrees were put into force, and were, therefore,
Nevertheless,
applicable
in
tax system.
only; that is to say, they were
provisional
and had no parliamentary
of World War I interfered

Empire.
of all landed property
of the prevailing
of a city or village,
stating the boundaries
ofthe
commission
of the land. When
and
was to
in the presence
necessary,
boundary
might be placed. A report and sketch map
the general boundaries,
such as roads, rivers, val-
30. Lewis, Emergenceof ModernTurkey,222-25; Dowson, "Notes on Land-Tax";Doukhan,

LandLawsin the Landof Israel,167,172; FredrickM. Goadbyand Moshe J. Doukhan, TheLawof
Palestine(Jerusalem:n.p., 1935), 14; GabrielBie Ravndal,"Turkey:A Commercialand Industrial
Handbook" vol. 28 of TradePromotionSeries(Washington,D.C: GovernmentPrinting Office,
1926), 84-85.
31. Provisional Law of Survey and Registrationof ImmoveableProperty,5 February1913
(2 RabieAwal 1331), File 16, Box 3326, RG22,ISA;Gad Frumkin,"AMemorandumon Immove?
able Propertyin Palestine,"20 August 1919,S25/7432,CZA.
forests,
leys, streams,
left for the inhabitants,
pastures
and tombs.
weeds,
of each kind of land (mtilk, miri, and waqf) was to be marked
The position
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
ofthe
were to be entered into the report and on the sketch
elders. Such divisions
map. The Tabu Registry would then send a printed form containing
the boundaries
the public boundaries,
ofthe
partic-
After the survey of
ulars of the lands of the village or town to be surveyed.
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?
of towns or villages, that is, the record and the
lating to public boundaries
sketch maps of places reserved

tered in the book
for the use of the natives which
are regis?
were to be copied
of the Survey Commission,
and ap?
of Fi?
proved by the Tabu office. Then they were to be sent by the Ministry
map and a copy of the newly registered
All immovable
inside
property
and demarcated
were surveyed
sibly a representative
ments
This commission
waqf, an engineer,
ofthe
curators,
on a document
property
(whose
boundaries
was to be regis?
by the Survey Commission)
ors. Fifteen days prior to the registration,

guardians,
institutions.32
two clerks, and two survey-
the elders, and through
sent by the commission
of title. On the fixed day, in the presence
and to produce
street. The area outside
the towns and villages was registered
The particulars
to be registered
of each piece of property
aries, and description.

Tabu (kushans)
the owners
and an approved
of immovable
according
to
were the general and specific
of the registration,
copy ofthe
the
street by
and its kind, nature, contents,
After completion
docu?
of these individuals,
the towns or villages was to be registered
its position.
them the
and lessees, were asked to list the immovable
area of all plots within
number
of
was composed
Finance and Tabu offices, a kadi (Muslim judge), pos?
ofthe
representatives
which was an ancient en-
cities and villages
Commission.
tered by the Registration
owners,
property
(waqf) was to be sent to the beneficiary
dowment
of elders. A sketch
villages to be kept by the council
nance to their original
bound?
new deeds of
sketch map were to be given to
property.33
32. ProvisionalLaw,ISA.
CZA.
33. ProvisionalLaw,ISA;Frumkin,"Memorandumon ImmovableProperty,"
Cadastral Surveys
of the village's or town's new land registry book,
After the completion

the Assessment
was to estimate
Commission
the lands, taking into consideration

of similar
scription
tithe-paying
/ 67
the value and gross revenue of
the price, qualities,
lands (such as vineyards,
orchards,
on their production,
use, servitude,
(olives,
dates, coal, salt, and sand, for example),
pleting
the process
to the person
firewood,
mines,
type of products
and facilities.
After com-
of each place, a kushan
and assessment
listing the estimated
revenue value and fees was to be sent
in whose name the land was registered.34
As mentioned
previously,
the outbreak
of this code. However,
the application
located
of registration
pasture,
and de?
were set for
lands. Five grades and several subgrades
and so on) depending
and a document
position,
of World War I interfered
after examining
with
about forty recently
maps of the sultan's fiftlik lands in the Beisan and Jordan
sketch
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 ofthe
Law of Survey on 5 February 1913 (Jewish Colonization
It seems that these maps were part of a regional
have been produced
to the Ottoman
Even earlier, at the beginning

were drawn
by the Ottoman
Ummu-kbey)
were discussed
Association,
the sultan's private lands
after the Young Turk's Revolution

ofthe
1913).
cadastral system and may
in the process of transferring
government
Provisional
in 1908.
century, general scaled plans of villages

Two of these
authorities.
(Semmoune
in detail, and a photograph
and
of a third one,
also in the Valley of Yizre'el, was later found (fig. 3).35

The Mamluk
Sultanate
from the Middle Ages?used

tion.
and the Ottoman
a quite sophisticated
They did not resort to a mapped

by the state and temporarily
monly
held by villages that paid tax through
teenth
century?a
Empire?a
reform
aimed to change
granted to fief holders,
of increased
was introduced
system of land informa?

as most of the land was
cadastre,
owned
period
Empire at their height had?
or later, com-
tax farmers. During the nine?
Western
influence
in the Ottoman
in the form of the Land Law, which
the agrarian regime and improve
the deteriorated
condi-
34. Ibid.
35. Severalmaps of the BeiranValleyin JewishColonizationAssociation,1913, Map Collec?
tion, CZA;Ruth Karkand Haim Gerber,"LandRegistryMapsin Palestineduringthe OttomanPe?
riod,"Cartographic
Journal21 (June1984):30-32.
PIAI
GB-'tRALDU
VILLAGE
^.IMMU-KBEr
MtMir tfi'ctXi
itiulU.
W+-F-h&rt?"V
SfXjS
t..Me
tmfmr
Sm?
?wv
m*i
ri?m~<WI.*i
., ??,
*****
<AMa*mfadm* /Z4S
t>mj,fKtf?/?0.AjL/?
<?j?'SuV
?^7?
*>^>v^^^/iîî^|,Vf?î^-Kt
f
?w
#5* ?;?>-.-^
\"v5KA?^.*^
Figure 3. Bekir (Sidki) Bey, engineer of the Province of Beirut, prepared the plan of the
village of Ummu-kbey on 25 November 1902. A British government surveyor officially
copied it on 8 June 1937. Israel State Archive, Jerusalem.
tion of agricultural
state cadastral
and subunits,
ership.
registering
boundaries
cal estimate
As a result, a new systematic
The survey dealt with village
deeds based on changeable
it was not mapped,
the cases examined

legally binding
and taxation.
survey was undertaken.
Although
graphical
production
the detailed
units of human
definition
Palestine.
at least in
The definition
and carried more weight than the often inaccurate
of area.
own?
of the geo?
of each unit appeared to be clearly defined,

in nineteenth-century
units
was
numeri-
/ 69
Cadastral Surveys
Land
remained
registration
of land, but also as a result ofthe

In the second
the privatization
tions,
period
to purchase
and entrepreneurs
and other
of state land increased
trend to privatization
of improved
War I and the disintegration

Officials
Ottomans
European
Palestine
ofthe
of the Mandatory
The
and may have influenced
the
mapped
and their predecessors.
son, an expert on land matters

advise the Mandatory
ment of the country
tion of real rights...
Dowson
He believed
Baer, one of the leading
Middle
East, came to the conclusion
and incom-
surveys
by the Ot?
by Ernest Dowwho was invited
wrote, "The economic
to
develop?
initially by years of Turkish apathy
that "an investigation
legal expert
Gabriel
as
and may have been based on a
in the British Empire,
must be associated
tral survey." Mandatory
saw themselves
This is well-documented
has been blighted
and maladministration."
of World
which replaced the
rule were both inaccurate
and uses of cadastral
authorities.
of the twentieth
They asserted that the land registers in
was often patronizing

of the needs
regis?
Empire.
in Palestine,
government
to the end of the Ottoman
misunderstanding
surveying,
however, by the outbreak
Ottoman
technocrats.
modernizing
institu?
companies,
in 1918, as well as Jewish leaders and officials
plete. Their attitude
tomans
at the end of the
at the beginning
of real property
was preempted,
century. This legislation
and concentra?
of Arab tenants.36
for systematic
legislation
and assessment
tration,
farmers.
was exploited
some of these lands for settlement
and led to the dispossession
projects,
institution
landlords
foreign Jewish and Christian
enabled
units
the sultan himself and settlers from abroad) to
(including
tion of large estates in the hands of absentee

Ottoman
of the
ofthe
century, this opposition
huge plots of land. In Palestine
privatize
and opposition
suspicions
half of the nineteenth
by entrepreneurs
because
only
units rather than unchangeable
of human
registration
chronological
not
problematic,
with mapping
Moshe
researchers
Doukhan
and determina-
to produce
concurred.
a cadas?
Even
on the subject of land in the
that, apart from Egypt (where a mod-
36. Rosemary Sayigh, Palestinians:From Peasants to Revolutionaries(London: Zed Press,

1979), 30-32; Walid Khalidi, PalestineReborn(London: I. B. Tauris, 1992), 31, 70; Ruth Kark,
"ChangingPatternsof Land Ownership in Nineteenth Century Palestine:The EuropeanInfluence,"Journalof HistoricalGeography10 (Fall 1984):357-84.
ern mapped
cadastral survey based on a European
1907), total anarchy prevailed

Empire.37
Middle
However,
East were at least as advanced
Renaissance.
Ottoman
tral surveys
undertaken
the agrarian management
in the
reform and the attendant

of the nineteenth
in the context
cadas?
century
of the requirements
may
of
of what were largely state lands.
land management
reform and the attendant
undertaken
from the middle ofthe
the context
of agrarian management
This distinction
systems
as those of Europe at the time of the
from the middle

appreciated
in
in the Ottoman
and management
land management
have been insufficiently
Ottoman
land registration
regarding
land information
model was completed
nineteenth
has been insufficiently
cadastral surveys
century should be viewed in
of lands that were largely state owned.

appreciated.
37. A. Bonne, Landof Israel,Landand Economy(in Hebrew)(TelAviv:Dvir, 1938), 116-18;

ArthurRupin,Syria:
Spry,"Memorandumof the History,Lawand Practiceof LandRegistration";
An EconomicSurvey(New York:ProvisionalZionist Committee,1918), 41; Doukhan, LandLaws,
163-71; Dowson, "Noteson Land-Tax";
Baer,Introductionto theHistory,19, 21, 35.

Mamluk &amp; Ottoman Cadastral Survey in Palestine

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Mamluk &amp; Ottoman Cadastral Survey in Palestine

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Mamlk and Ottoman Cadastral Surveys and Early Mapping of Landed Properties in Palestine

Author(s): Ruth Kark

Cadastre is a French word originating

in the Latin capitastrum,

in a given area, used as a basis for

and value of real property

The systems of conducting

thus on the division

the land and fiscal policy

and John D. McLaughlin

define a cadastre as a parcel-based

and ancient Egypt. They stress its importance

as well as private transactions

and land development,

Roger J. P. Kain and Elizabeth

Baigent have shown that from the Renais-

century, the cadastral map was, in many ar?

adjunct to effective government

that goes back to Babylon

the type of data collected.

that could be either juridical,

the power and technological

level of those who com-

and was used for a

RUTH KARK is a professor in the Department of Geographyat the Hebrew University of

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

of state land resources,

level of the surveying

serts that from a cost/benefit

the use of advanced

to the type of agrarian

survey is thus understood

of real rights must be

a cadastral survey. The term cadastral

to mean a survey for, and forming

it is an axiom that a register should be constructed

of rights (title) in a cadastre by the state. The lat?

relates to the registration

rights can be transferred

with no central registration,

and the interrelations

the term cadastre

rights in real property.

than the increased

which could affect the accuracy

the cadastre more than the quality ofthe

and land conveyance.

the need for a cadastre varied according

the state and the landholders,

(large feudal estates or small parcel owners)

areas would be more expensive

derived from improvements

N. Poliak, who studied

units of land, as opposed

The aim of this paper is to present

from the Middle

Unlike the commonly

Ages to the beginning

and their application

(who claimed to have had superior land regis-

2. RogerJ. P. Kainand ElizabethBaigent,TheCadastralMap in the Serviceofthe State:A His?

only must we view the pre-Ottoman

the great advances

and early twentieth

Mamluk & Ottoman Cadastral Survey in Palestine

Mamluk & Ottoman Cadastral Survey in Palestine