Land Privatization in Nineteenth-Century

Islamic
Law and Society 22 (2015)

221-252Palestine Islamic Law
Land Privatization
In Nineteenth-century
Ottoman
221
and
Society
brill.com/ils
Land Privatization in Nineteenth-century Ottoman

Palestine
Nadav SolomonovichSolomonovich and Kark
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

nadav.solomonovic@mail.huji.ac.il
Ruth Kark
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

ruthkark@mail.huji.ac.il
Abstract
This article examines land privatization in late nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine
through the extension of possession in miri lands, on the one hand, and its transformation into fee-simple property through change in land category classification (i.e., miri to
mlk), on the other. Using primary sources, particularly Ottoman documents and correspondence of the German Consulate in Jerusalem, we analyze this process, as reflected
in several cases involving foreign subjects and Ottoman authorities. We argue that
privatization began as informal violations of the law, proceeded with the struggle of
landholders against authorities who tried to reverse the process, and ended in victory
for the landholders after the state ceded to their demands, inter alia, as a result of pressure from foreign nations and their consuls. Thus did de facto land privatization become
de jure privatization.
Keywords
miri mlk land privatization Ottoman land laws Palestine.
Introduction
Over the course of the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire introduced a
series of political, bureaucratic and administrative changes and reforms
ISSN 0928-9380 (print version) ISSN 1568-5195 (online version) ILS 1
Islamic
Law and
22 (2015)
221-252
koninklijke
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2015|doi
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Solomonovich And Kark
in several domains, including education and the judiciary.1 The goal of these
reforms was to unify and centralize the government in Istanbul in the face of
local and regional forces in the Ottoman provinces, and to limit the involvement of foreign states and their citizens in the Empires internal affairs. As part
of its attempt to tighten control over land and in an effort to improve its difficult financial status, the Ottoman regime legislated new rules to clarify land
classification and taxation. This legislation culminated in the 1858 Ottoman
land code.2 In combination with the Tapu law enacted a few months later, this
code required landowners to register their lands, thereby increasing the states
ability to control and supervise them as well as enhancing its ability to collect
taxes.3 Some scholars claim that by enacting the land law the state sought to
abolish communal land ownership of villages, called mush. This subject, on
which a large literature exists, is not directly related to the aims of the present
article and hence will not be mentioned further.4
1
3
4
Seluk Akin Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 1839
1908: Islamization, Autocracy, and Discipline (Leiden: Brill,2001); Benjamin C. Fortna,
Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire (Oxford:
Oxford University Press,2002); Avi Rubin, Legal Borrowing and its Impact on Ottoman
Legal Culture in the Late Nineteenth Century, Continuity and Change 22:2 (2007), 279
303; idem, Ottoman Judicial Change in the Age of Modernity: A Reappraisal, History
Compass 7:1 (2009), 11940. Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the
Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 18761909 (London:I.B. Tauris,1998); Haim
Gerber, The Ottoman Administration of the Sanjaq of Jerusalem, 18901908, Asian and
African Studies 12:1 (1978), 3376; Carter V. Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman
Empire: The Sublime Porte, 17891922 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980); Martha
Mundy and Richard Saumarez Smith, Governing Property, Making the Modern State:Law
Administration and Production in Ottoman Syria (London:I.B. Tauris,2007).
For an English translation of the code see: The Ottoman Land Code, translated by F. Ongley (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1892), revised edition; R. C. Tute, The Ottoman
Land Laws: with Commentary on the Ottoman Land Code of 7th Ramadan 1274 (Jerusalem:
Greek Conv. Press, 1927).
1858 Ottoman land law, Article 3. On land registration, see Haim Gerber, Ottoman Rule in
Jerusalem 18901914 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1985), chapter 9, 199222.
Yaakov Firestone, The Land-Equalizing Mush Village: A Reassessment, in Ottoman Palestine, 18001914: Studies in Economic and Social History, ed. Gad G. Gilbar (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1990), 91130; Birgit Schaebler, Practicing Musha: Common Lands and the Common
Good in Southern Syria under the Ottomans and the French, in New Perspectives on Property and Land in the Middle East, ed. Roger Owen (Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University
Press,2000), 241307; Ruth Kark and David Grossman, The Communal (musha) Village
of the Middle East and North Africa, in Policies and Strategies in Marginal Regions, eds.
Walter Leimgruber, Roser Majoral and Chul-Woo Lee (London: Ashgate, 2003), 22336.
Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252
Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine
223
The status of Ottoman land in the nineteenth century is important for two
reasons. First, a large portion of the Ottoman states tax revenue was generated
by agriculture, and control over land was therefore crucial.5 Second, Ottoman
land attracted the attention of foreign elements, private as well as state, who
were trying to obtain a foothold in the Empire. Improved control over land was
expected to help prevent this foreign activity in the Empires territory.6
It is important to note the ambiguity of the term land privatization. Some
researchers do not define privatization while others relate to different kinds of
privatization. A group of researchers that includes Gabriel Baer, Denis M. Jorgens and Sir Richard Clifford Tute, president of the land court in Jerusalem
under the British Mandate, defined privatization as the process of transforming miri land into mlk, a process that the code sought to prevent.7 By contrast,
Doreen Warriner, Haim Gerber and Kemal H. Karpat argued that there was no
practical difference between miri and mlk, as demonstrated by the extension
of possession rights of individuals in state land (miri), such as the right to sell
or bequeath such land to their children. Karpat argued that the land history of
the Ottoman Empire therefore must be viewed in two different periods: before
the Tanzimat, when state ownership prevailed, and after the Tanzimat, when a
5
Stanford J. Shaw, The Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Tax Reforms and Revenue System,
International Journal of Middle East Studies 6:4 (1975), 421. According to Huri slamolu,
the modernization of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century necessitated
increased state regulation of land and taxation, which led to a change in the understanding of land ownership as a wealth-generating activity by both the state and owners. Huri
slamolu, Property as a Contested Domain: A Re-evaluation of the Ottoman Land Code
of 1858, in New Perspectives on Property and Land in the Middle East, ed. Roger Owen,
246. The logic behind the Ottoman concept was to encourage continuous land cultivation from which taxes would be collected that would lead to economic revenue. For
example, a person who improved mawt, (vacant land) could, with the states consent,
receive usufruct rights (tasarruf ) in the form of a miri title deed - kuan. In that case, he
received the land for free but had to pay 5 percent of its value as a registration fee, in addition to the annual tithe. For a definition of mawt see Ongley, 6. The same rationale,
designed to increase land cultivation and, hence, the tax revenues, lay behind the land
classification of mahlul (see below). On that subject, see Frederic M. Goadby and Moses J.
Doukhan, The Land Law of Palestine (Tel-Aviv: Shoshanys Printing Co. 1935), 4451.
On the involvement of foreign elements in Palestine see Ruth Kark, Changing Patterns of
Landownership in Nineteenth-century Palestine: The European Influence, Journal of Historical Geography 10:4 (1984), 35784.
Gabriel Baer, Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 723; Denise Jorgens, A Comparative Examination of the Provisions of
the Ottoman Land Code and Khedive Saids Law of 1858, in New Perspectives on Property
and Land in the Middle East, ed. Roger Owen, 934; Tute, The Ottoman Land Laws, Article
1, note 2, 2.
224
de facto private land regime was gradually born.8 Karpat suggested that the
land code not only failed to strengthen state control over land, but also, over
time, achieved the opposite effect. Gerber also stated that the main difference
between miri and mlk land was the tax rate, since there was no actual restriction on the free use of miri. Although a license from the state was needed to
build on miri, he asserted that the government focused its attention on taxation, not on building restrictions on miri land.9 Every request for a building
license was reviewed by a committee that assessed the value of the land, the
rate of the bedel-i r tax (which replaced the tithe), and the value of the proposed building, on which a vergi or property tax, would be imposed. According
to Gerber, building on miri land was quite a source of revenue to the state.10
Gerber did not deal with illegal building on state land. According to jurist
Moshe Doukhan, the owner of the land on which a building was built was obligated to pay the state a double bedel-i r, by means of which the state was
compensated for the loss of taxes from arable land.11 Gerber correctly focused
on the economic factors behind the states treatment of partial privatization,
as manifested in the extension of possession rights in miri; he also noted that
the most important factor for the state was the increase in tax revenues.
The impact of the 1858 Ottoman land code on various regions of the Ottoman Empire, mainly in Syria, Egypt and Anatolia, has been widely studied.12
However, less studied was the codes impact on land privatization in Ottoman
Palestine. We argue that the 1858 code failed to prevent land privatization in
Palestine, not only as a de facto extension of possession rights, as argued by
Gerber, but also as de jure land privatization. In our opinion, the requirement
of a permit to build on miri land, which led to an increase in tax revenues,
8
9
10
11
12
Doreen Warriner, Land-Tenure Problems in the Fertile Crescent in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries, in The Economic History of the Middle East 18001914, ed. Charles
Issawi (Chicago:University of Chicago Press,1966), 72; Gerber, Ottoman Rule in Jerusalem
18901914, 2178; Kemal H. Karpat, The Land Regime, Social Structure, and Modernization in the Ottoman Empire, in Studies on Ottoman Social and Political History: Selected
Articles and Essays, ed. Kemal H. Karpat (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 349.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Moshe Doukhan, Land Laws of Israel, 2nd ed., corrected and updated (Jerusalem: Akhva
Press, 1953), 823 (Hebrew).
See, for example, Warriner, Land-Tenure Problems in the Fertile Crescent; Mundy and
Saumarez Smith, Governing Property, Making the Modern State; Oya Gzel, The Implementation of the Ottoman Land Code of 1858 in Eastern Anatolia, A Thesis Submitted to
the Graduate School of Social Sciences of Middle East Technical University, Ankara,
(April 2007).
225
resulted in only partial privatization. In an effort to avoid the higher tax rate on
miri lands, landholders tried to transform state land into private land by changing its classification from miri to mlk.13 For the same reason, this classification
change had an impact on state tax revenue. Some landholders who understood
that the assessed value of the land depended on its classification were willing
to do anything possible, including using illegal means, to affect a change in the
classification of their land. Unlike mlk land, the holder of miri land was prohibited from any action that would change the nature of the land, such as
erecting a building or establishing a graveyard, without prior approval from the
authorities, at least until the 1890s.14 Obtaining a permit was no trivial act, and
the Ottoman authorities imposed a comprehensive prohibition on building,
either for political reasons or when they suspected that mlk title deeds had
been forged.
The process of land privatization in Palestine is usually dated to the period
of the British Mandate (19181948).15 The jurist Haim Sandberg argued that
during the Mandate period, the British High Chancellor was authorized to approve the conversion of land from miri to mlk, as documented in the Official
Gazette of Palestine; this authority was frequently invoked.16 In addition, Sandberg pointed to the expansion of this trend after the foundation of the State of
Israel.17 The need for these conversions of land ended with the enactment of
the 1969 land law by the Israeli Knesset that abolished the differences between
the two types of land. According to Article 153 (as per the official translation),
The ownership of property which immediately before the coming into force
of this Law belonged to the miri category shall be full ownership in accordance
with the provisions of this law.18
Here, we will present examples for privatization demonstrated by an extension of possession rights and as a change of land classification in late nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine. Our argument is based mainly on Ottoman
13
14
15
16
17
18
When we use the term landowners of miri land, we mean, of course, those who possessed usufruct rights (taarruf ). We use the term ownership because the landholders
indeed saw themselves as owners. The more accurate legal term is landholders.
The matter of building will be treated below.
See, for example, Ruth Kark, Acquisition of Land in Emeq Hefer, 18001930, Studies in the
Geography of Israel 12 (1986), 3151 (Hebrew, with English Abstract).
Haim Sandberg, The Ownership of Municipal Highways (Martruke) after Changing their
Character - The Proper Interpretation of Section 154 of The Land Law, Mekarkein (Land
Review) 3:3 (2004), 17, (Hebrew). See also Goadby and Doukhan, The Land Law of Palestine, 40.
Ibid, 18.
The State of Israel, Land Law 57291969, 17th July 1969, Article 153.
226
documents and correspondence of the German Consulate in Jerusalem.

German subjects were directly involved in the process, occasionally with the
support of the consulate or higher diplomatic representatives. These land classification changes were achieved by various methods, including forging deeds
or bribing Ottoman officials, as well as by exploiting honest registration mistakes made by land registry (Defter-i Hakani) officials, and in special cases even
by the Sultans concessions issued in the wake of foreign pressure. First, we will
present the Ottoman land classifications and their influence on tax collection,
focusing on the categories of miri and mlk. Then, we will present several case
studies demonstrating how foreign subjects, mainly Germans residing in Haifa
and Jaffa, sought to accomplish privatization. We will examine the Ottoman
authorities response to this process as expressed especially in the objections
of local authorities to privatization. In the late nineteenth century, as today, it
appears that most instances of privatization began as informal violations of
the law, continued with a struggle by landholders against authorities who tried
to reverse the process, and ended with the victory of the landholders (for reasons to be addressed below) when the authorities ratified their ownership after
the fact. Thus, de facto land privatization became de jure land privatization. We
will also address a subject previously considered by scholars the involvement
and influence of foreign consuls over disputes and conflicts in Ottoman Palestine, and their importance in the eyes of the foreign powers, as suggested by
the high rank of the officials who dealt with these issues.
Categories of Landholding in the Ottoman Land Code
The different land categories of the 1858 land code were influenced by the classical Hanafi view of land tenure.19
By the late seventeenth century, the thesis of the death of all proprietors,
according to which most land had passed into the public treasury as a result of
the death of its owners without heirs, was accepted in mainstream Hanafi jurisprudence and used to justify the imposition of the Ottoman land regime in
Egypt and Syria. As a result, most arable land (the majority of land in the
19
The Hanafi view of land tenure is outside the scope of this essay. See more on this topic
in: Baber Johansen, The Islamic Law on Land Tax and Rent: The Peasants Loss of Property
Rights as Interpreted in the Hanafite Legal Literature of the Mamluk and Ottoman Periods
(London: Croom Helm, 1988); Kenneth M. Cuno, Was the Land of Ottoman Syria Miri or
Milk? An Examination of Juridical Differences within the Hanafi School, Studia Islamica
81 (1995), 121152.
227
Ottoman Empire), was classified as miri, while most urban real estate on which
there were buildings or orchards, vineyards, or vegetable gardens within or
near towns was classified as privately owned land (mlk).20
According to the 1858 land code there were five categories of land in the Ottoman Empire: mlk, miri, waqf (pious endowment), mawt (dead land), and
matrka (literally, abandoned land, in fact public land). The last two categories
are outside the scope of this article, and we will therefore focus on the first
three categories. Mlk or freehold ownership was mostly limited to urban centers and villages and their immediate environs. Article 2 of the land code referred to four classes of mlk:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Sites within towns or villages, and land plots not exceeding half a
dunam (1 dunam = 1000m2) situated within the confines of towns and
villages that can be considered as adjacent to dwelling houses.21 This
definition raises a question with regard to land previously purchased as
miri, which, due to urban development and expansion, had come to be
situated on the border of a city or even inside it.22
Land that had been legally transformed into mlk. Legally, such a
transformation could not be recognized by the Sultan or the government without the approval of a eriat court.23
Tithe-paying land that had been distributed to the victors at the time of
the Islamic conquests and given to them in full ownership
arazi-iriyye.
Tribute-paying land that at the time of the Islamic conquests was
confirmed in the possession of the non-Muslim inhabitants araziikharjiyya.
The jurists Frederic Goadby and Moses Doukhan have noted that only the first
two categories of mlk are of any importance in Ottoman Palestine.24
Miri land, which constituted the bulk of rural land in the Empire, was under
the states full ownership, although usufruct rights were given to landholders.
In the early years of the Ottoman period a large part of miri land throughout
20
21
22
23
24
Cuno, Was the Land of Ottoman Syria Miri or Milk?, 1314.

Ongley, The Ottoman Land Code, 12.
For a discussion on the legal status of miri land which, due to urban expansion, had
become situated on the border of a city, see Goadby and Doukhan, The Land Law of Palestine, 3841.
Doukhan, Land Laws of Israel, 401.
Goadby and Doukhan, The Land Law of Palestine, 39.
228
the Empire was given as timar to support the sipahi (cavalry) troops, and a
smaller part was given to tax farmers, first, on an annual basis and, later, as
malikane (life tenancy).25 There were several major differences between mlk
and miri. For example, if a miri landholder did not cultivate the land for three
consecutive years, he lost his usufruct rights, and the land became mahlul or
vacant land and returned to the possession of the state.26 In addition, the owner of mlk possessed the raqaba or absolute ownership of his land, which included not only usufruct rights (tasarruf ) but also the right to take actions that
would affect the land itself, such as endowing it as waqf, turning it into a cemetery (which lowers the lands value), or exploiting its natural resources.27
Waqf is a revenue-bearing property (usually real property) designated as an
endowment for a charitable purpose, such as mosques, schools, hospitals and
orphanages; these public endowments were exempt from expropriation or
confiscation by the state. Two kinds of waqf were recognized under Ottoman
law, waqf-i sahih (sound waqf ) and waqf-i ghayr-i sahih (unsound waqf ). The
main difference between the two relates to the type of land endowed. Sound
waqf can be endowed only by a possessor of private property (mlk), while
miri land can be dedicated only as unsound waqf.28 The practice of waqf leasing and its implications will be addressed below.
Land classification determined the tax rate that landowners were required
to pay to the state. Two main land taxes were collected in nineteenth-century
Ottoman Palestine: the tithe (r) and the property tax (arazi ve msakafat
vergisi, also known in Palestine as, werko). The tax rate on private lands was
much lower than the rate on state lands. The tithe rate was between 10 and 12.5
25
26
27
28
Abdul-Karim Rafeq, Land Tenure Problems and their Social Impact in Syria around the
Middle of the Nineteenth Century, in Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East, ed. Tarif Khalidi (Beirut:American University of Beirut,1984), 374. For a brief but
comprehensive review of land problems in the Ottoman Empire, see Inalcik, Land Problems in Turkish History, 2218. On the land regime during the early Ottoman Empire, see
also idem, The Ottoman State: Economy and Society, 13001600, in An Economic and
Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 13001914 eds. Halil Inalcik and Donald Quataert
(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,1994), 78103.
Article 68 of the land code. See Tute, The Ottoman Land Laws, 67; Ongley, The Ottoman
Land Code, 37.
On the use of natural resources in mlk land, see article 107 of the land code. Tute, The
Ottoman Land Laws, 101; Ongley, The Ottoman Land Code, 579.
On the different kinds of waqf see further John Robert Barnes, An Introduction to Religious
Foundations in the Ottoman Empire (Leiden: Brill, 1987), 459; Doukhan, Land Laws of
Israel, 6277; Ongley, The Ottoman Land Code, 65, 345.
229
percent of the crop yield.29 In addition, landholders were obligated to pay between 0.25 percent and 1 percent of their lands value as property tax. Buildings
also were taxed and their owners required to pay between 0.4 and 1 percent of
their value (the tax rate was determined according to the value and income of
the building, respectively). Public buildings that did not generate income or
buildings that were owned by religious and educational institutions were exempt from the property tax.30
Case Studies of Early Land Privatization
In the following section we will present three short examples of land privatization. The first two involve de jure privatization through a change in land classification near Jaffa and Haifa, and the third involves de facto privatization
through expansion of possession in the 1880s. We will then move to our major
case study: a large land dispute between the inhabitants of Jaffa and the Ottoman authorities in the 1890s.
In June 1867 a law allowing the purchase of land in the Ottoman Empire
(except in the Hijaz) by foreign citizens was enacted, subject to bilateral agreements signed later between the Ottoman state and foreign states. This law led
to intensified activity by foreign institutions (such as Christian religious orders
and members of the German Templer Society, Tempelgesellschaft), as well as
by private citizens in Palestine, who were able to purchase land legally for the
first time, even though it could not be registered under the names of institutions and commercial companies until 1913. These land purchases led to increased activity by the foreign consulates in response to requests for assistance
29
30
Ben Gurion and Ben Zvi argue that since peasants were not allowed to use their own crops
until the tax collectors had received their share, the collectors often pressed them to pay
a higher tax rate than that permitted by law. See David Ben Gurion and Izhak Ben Zvi,
Eretz Israel in the Past and Present, compiled by M. Eliav and Y. Ben Arieh, transl. from
Yiddish by D. Niv (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 1979 2nd edition [1st edition 1918]), 95
(Hebrew).
On the taxes in Ottoman Palestine see Shaw, The Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Tax
Reforms and Revenue System, 4278; David Kushner, The Last Generation of Ottoman
Rule in Eretz-Israel, 18821914, in The History of the New Jewish Community in Eretz-Israel
since 1882: The Ottoman Period, ed. Israel Kolatt , vol. I, 26 (Hebrew); Kenneth W. Stein, The
Land Question in Palestine, 19171939 (Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press,1984),
11; Abraham Granovsky, Land Taxation in Palestine (Jerusalem: Mischar WTaasia Publishing Co., 1927), 40; David Ben Gurion and Izhak Ben Zvi, Eretz Israel in the Past and
Present, 936.
230
from their citizens in cases in which they thought the Ottoman authorities had
not complied with the agreements made regarding land transactions and registration.31
In the second half of the 19th century, a number of disputes between the
Ottoman authorities and foreign settlers involved the registration of land purchased by these settlers, its classification and, as a result, the tax rates to be
collected from it. The problems were often the result of differing interpretations (either deliberate or mistaken) of land classification and its implications.
1
German Templers Colonies in Jaffa and Sarona
German Templers established the settlement of Sarona near Jaffa in 1871. In
July 1874, Serapion Murad, the Armenian dragoman of the German consulate
in Jerusalem, wrote to the German consul in Jerusalem, Thankmar von Mnchhausen, that the kaymakam (local governor) had demanded payment of a 12.5
percent tithe on land owned by the German settlers, and attached a list containing the required payment details. Following this, a new estimate made by
the settlers in the presence of the local tax collector established that the kaymakams demand was accurate. Nevertheless, Murad argued that the settlers
were not required to pay the tithe on the land they had purchased because it
had been purchased thirty years previously [sic] and had become their private
property by virtue of their payment of ikr [lease].32 He asserted that no tithe
was due on land purchased in this manner. In early 1865, when the government
had registered all the land in order to collect the werko, the aforementioned
land was designated as mlk and paid werko of 0.4 percent of the land value
and 4 percent of the crop. Murad stated that the land was no longer mlk, as
indicated in the kaymakams order, but rather tapu (i.e. miri) land. Fearing that
the kaymakams order would change the nature of land ownership and sooner
or later cause major difficulties, he requested further instructions.33
Murads claim that the land had initially been registered as mlk is surprising since a ikr payment did not establish legal ownership of land and did not
formally change its classification to private land.34 Gabriel Baer has argued
that in all periods, ikr and similar practices were used fraudulently to change
31
32
33
34
See, for example, Kark, Changing Patterns of Landownership in Nineteenth-century

Palestine.
On ikr practices see: EI2, s.v. ikr (Gabriel Baer). Also available online at: <http://refer
enceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/hikr-SIM_8619>
Israel State Archive (ISA), Record Group (RG) 67, File 439, Serapion Murad to Consul
Mnchhausen in Jerusalem, 12.06.1874.
EI2, s.v. ikr (Baer).
231
the land use de facto.35 J.B. Barron, director of the British revenue and customs
department in Palestine during the early Mandate period, argued that in the
nineteenth century many waqf lands were converted to ijratayn (double rent)
by dishonest waqf administrators and qs.36 According to Doukhan this kind
of lease was used when the waqf property did not generate revenue. In these
cases the property was leased for an unlimited term in exchange for a one-time
payment equal to the propertys appraised value plus a small annual payment
for the lease to signify that it was still owned by the waqf. The ijratayn holder,
Doukhan explained, was entitled to build or plant on the land, transfer it to
others, and to bequeath it.37 In our view, ijratayn was used to privatize waqf
land. This, however, does not explain how the land in question came to be registered as mlk. As we will see below, the landholder and corrupt tapu officials
no doubt cooperated in order to change the lands legal status to private land.
Be that as it may, local Ottoman authorities tried to avert privatization by
changing the classification of land to miri.
2
German and American Templers in Haifa
In 1868 German Templers established a settlement in Haifa, which in the 1870s,
was involved in a land dispute with the Ottoman central authority. Although
we could not locate all of the relevant correspondence, the material in our possession sheds important light on the nature of the conflict. In her article on the
German Templer Colony in Haifa, Ruth Kark pointed out that the Templer
leaders tried to obtain a ferman or edict from the Sultan for the colonys members, who included German and American citizens. The ferman request, which
would have enabled them to purchase land in Palestine for the establishment
of a settlement, was turned down. In early 1869, however, they purchased land
in Haifa (our sources do not mention the lands classification) with the help of
an Ottoman citizen in an effort to evade the restrictions on land purchases by
foreigners. They began building a Templer colony, knowingly ignoring the Ottoman law and disregarding the advice of the American consul in Jerusalem,
Victor Beauboucher.38 Ottoman authorities reacted by refusing to register the
land even, after the Prussiangovernment signed a protocol in 1869 permitting
its citizens to purchase land in the Empire. In a letter dated 12 March 1878, the
35
36
37
38
Ibid.
J. B. Barron, Mohammedan Wakfs in Palestine(Jerusalem: Greek Conv. Press, 1922), 312.
See also Barnes, An Introduction to Religious Foundations in the Ottoman Empire, 545.
Doukhan, Land Laws of Israel, 635. Also see: EI2, s.v. ikr (Baer).
Ruth Kark, Land Purchase and Registration by German-American Templers in Nineteenth Century Haifa, International Journal of Turkish Studies 5 (19901991), 745.
232
American consul in Beirut, John T. Edgar, wrote to Jacob Schumacher, an

American citizen who was one of the German colonys founders and who
served as the American consular agent in Haifa between 1872 and 1891. Regarding the lands registration and classification, Edgar stated that the tax rate
owed by the inhabitants would be higher if the land was state land and added
that I think all the property is tapu [land]39, i.e. miri land.
A year later, in 1879, the Haifa Templer colony settlers received title deeds to
the land, which was registered, as Schumacher later stated, as mlk land.40 A
few years later Ottoman authorities attempted to change the classification of
the land as mlk. In a report sent in December 1887 to Erhard Bissinger, the
American consul in Beirut, Schumacher claimed that the kaymakam of Haifa
had ordered the collection of the tithe from the Templers lands as if it were
miri land. He protested that the Ottoman government was trying to change the
land classification from private to state land, and in doing so, was devaluing it
as well as exposing it to a higher tax burden. He further argued that the settlers
had received title deeds and khujas (registration documents from the eriat
court) which proved that the gardens attached to the settlements houses
and groves were private property and only taxable by the werko.41 Of course,
Schumacher was one of the settlements landowners and had a clear economic
interest in supporting and promoting a change in the lands classification from
miri to mlk. Unfortunately, we do not know if the authorities did in fact
change the land to miri. Be that as it may, this dispute illustrates one attempt to
privatize land by changing its classification.
3
Jewish Settlers in Yahudiyya
In 1883, a legal conflict arose over the founding of a settlement on land purchased near the Arab village of Yahudiyya by Jews from Jerusalem. The location had been chosen as an alternative site for the Jewish settlement of
Petah-Tikva that was founded in the coastal plain on lands bought from two
Arab landowners in the village of Melabbes in July 1878, and was deserted temporarily three years later. Ottoman officials objected to the location chosen
for the new settlement. Correspondence written between 1883 and 1885 makes
it clear that Yoel (Joel) Moshe Salomon, a German citizen who was one of the
founders of Petah-Tikva, approached the German consulate in Jerusalem re39
40
41
United States National Archives [USNA], Copy Book 18721886. Box 5976, Edgar to Schumacher, 12 March 1878.
Kark, Land Purchase and Registration, 80.
USNA, Copy Book 18861899, Box 5977, Jacob Schumacher to Bissinger, 28 December 1887
(in German), in Kark, Land Purchase and Registration, 80.
233
questing its assistance to ward off threats by Ottoman officials to demolish

buildings he had erected in the village. According to Salomon, the land was
mlk and therefore did not require a building permit.42
In a letter to the German consulate in Jerusalem, dated 10 December 1883,
Salomon claimed that he had purchased land near Melabbes in order to build
on it. Although his request for a permit was denied, the settlers began to erect
buildings, prompting Ottoman authorities to issue an order to demolish them.
This order encouraged the local Arab population to raise objections as well.
Salomon added that he was being prosecuted for building illegally on state
land even though Article 31 [of the 1858 land code] deals with building illegally on state land, while, according to our title deeds, this is our private
property.43 In a letter sent to the consulate in Jerusalem three days later, Simeon Murad, the consular agent in Jaffa, noted that Salomon did not apply for a
permit and that he knew for certain that the village Yahudiyya, as all of Jaffa
district, is [located] on miri land.44 Murads statement is interesting, especially
in light of his involvement in a major land dispute in Jaffa in the 1890s, to be
examined below. Eliav noted that it was the negative attitude toward the Jewish settlements expressed by Jerusalems governor, Rauf Paa, and the fear that
a permit would be denied that led Salomon to attempt to deceive the authorities by obtaining a permit for the neighborhood of Yahudiyya from the Jerusalem municipality. This permit was granted, since the land, which was mlk,
was located inside the city limits.45 Despite Murads report, the consulate decided to assist Salomon. It succeeded in delaying the demolition order and
tried to get it cancelled by claiming that the penalty for building illegally
should be a fine, but not the demolition the building, as stipulated by the Defter-i Hakani in Istanbul on 11 November 1884.46
42
43
44
45
46
This case study is based on correspondence translated by Mordechai Eliav. See Mordechai
Eliav, The Jews of Palestine in the German Policy, Selected Documents from the Archives of
the German Consulate in Jerusalem 18421914 (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1973) Vol.
1, 10311, Vol. 2, 2542 (Hebrew). See also Fiftieth Anniversary Book: 50 Years for the Foundation of Petah-Tikva 18781928, eds. Jakob Yaari Poleskin and Mordechai Harizman, (Tel
Aviv: Anniversary Book Committee, 1929), 21, 1706, 22743 (Hebrew).
Yoel Moshe Salomon to the German Consulate in Jerusalem, 10.12.1883, in Eliav, The Jews
of Palestine in the German Policy, 1:1034, 2:2545.
Simeon Murad to the German consulate in Jerusalem, 13.12.1883, in Eliav, The Jews of
Palestine in the German Policy, 1:1045.
Ibid, 2:255. Also see Fiftieth Anniversary Book, 2278.
Consul Dr. Reitz to the Embassy in Istanbul, 30 December 1884, in Eliav, The Jews of Palestine in the German Policy, 1:1089.
234
The verdict in Salomons case, concerning the demolition of the erected

building, was nullified a few months later.47 However, we do not know if Salomon was fined, or if he was obligated to pay the higher tax rate (bedel-i r). Be
that as it may, Salomon intentionally ignored the Ottoman land laws, and succeeded in changing his lands original designation with the assistance of the
German consulate. This case is an example of de facto privatization and supports Gerbers argument regarding land privatization through expansion of
the usufruct rights of landholders.48
Our fourth case study focuses on the largest and most continuous land dispute in Jaffa during the 1890s. In this case, privatization through a land classification change resulted in a strict and firm response by the Ottoman authorities.
4
The Jaffa Land Dispute 18901898
On 5 June 1891, the German consular agent in Jaffa, Simeon Murad,49 wrote to
the German consul in Jerusalem asking him to do everything in his power to
obtain the dismissal of Jaffas kaymakam, who reportedly was harassing foreigners. One example of harassment mentioned by Murad was the governors
intention to change the land classification of the German Templer agricultural
colony, Sarona, from mlk to miri.50 This was the opening shot in a long land
dispute that lasted from 1890 until 1898. To the best of our knowledge, this affair was the longest and most influential in nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine. It points to an intense struggle between the central government and
private landowners regarding de jure land privatization. It also exemplifies the
influence of the European powers in Palestine and the Ottoman Empire.
On June 16, eleven days after Murads letter was sent, the consulate received
another letter from two German settlers in Jaffa, Theodor Wolfer and Friedrich
Klenk. The two complained that the Ottoman officials did not recognize that a
parcel of land that had been previously sold three times as mlk, was indeed
mlk and not miri. The settlers argued that in June 1890, after purchasing mlk
47
48
49
50
Eliav, The Jews of Palestine in the German Policy, 1:111, 2:258.

Due to fear of Rauf Paas objection, the first buildings in Petah-Tikva were also built on
miri land without a permit.
The quoted letters up to 1894 were sent by Simeon Murad. Those written between 1894
and 1895 were sent by Simeons nephew Georg Murad. The letters sent between 1896 and
1898 were probably sent by Georg as well. See Eliav, The Jews of Palestine in the German
Policy, 1:323; Ruth Kark, American Consuls in the Holy Land, 18321914 (Jerusalem: Magnes
Press, 1994), 105.
ISA, RG 67, File 168, Murad to the consul, 5 June 1891. For a previous complaint submitted
against the kaymakam see:, Babakanlk Osmanl Arivi (BOA), Nezaret-i Hariciye, Siyasi
Ksm, 18/48, The Imperial German Embassy, Aide-mmoire 22 April 1891.
235
land from the pharmacist Gottlob Paulus in the Ottoman court, they had received documents (mazbata) from the relevant institutions and applied to the
local tapu office requesting a title deed. The local tapu officer, Abdul Razzaq
Effendi, politely asked them to wait. After asking for their deeds a second time,
the officer explained that his Beiruti supervisor forbade him from issuing new
mlk deeds. A petition to the kaymakam yielded only an explanation from the
tapu officer that the land in question was in fact miri and not mlk. The two
Germans further argued that the land was registered in the Defter-i Hakani as
mlk and they tried to substantiate their claim by arguing that the surrounding
land contained buildings and hence, was mlk. Their letter suggested that the
officer may have expected a bribe, and, for this reason they asked the consulate
for help.51
The argument raised by the two settlers that the existence of surrounding
buildings proved that the land was mlk is not necessarily strong. One might
assume that these buildings were erected on miri land with or without a permit (even though the buildings themselves were considered mlk). In addition,
the fact that the land was sold three times as mlk would have been insufficient to change its classification if it had originally been miri. Although we
have been unable to find the order itself, we located other documents which
verify that the tapu official, Abdul Razzaq, did receive an order from Beirut
forbidding the issuing of new mlk deeds. This case provides an interesting
example of a sweeping decision by Ottoman officials regarding large tracts of
land, the legal status of which was not supposed to be in dispute.
The reason for the Defter-i Hakanis decision was explained in a letter sent
by Simeon Murad to the German ambassador in Istanbul in April 1892. According to Murad, the affair started with a dispute between two local landowners
over a plot of land near Jaffa. One of them had approached the Defter-i Hakani
in Istanbul and asked for a ruling. Due to the complexity of the dispute, Abdurrahman Zikai Effendi, a tapu inspector from Istanbul, was sent to Jaffa in June
1891. After surveying the land, he decided that it was miri, not mlk, and that
the previous owner had purchased the land and registered it in the local tapu
office by using a fake title deed [tapu sened-i]. Zikai also determined that the
local tapu office had violated the law on several other occasions and he decided to change all mlk land to miri, arguing that it had been purchased illegally.
Before leaving, he prohibited all transactions relating to mlk, i.e., buying, selling, or bequeathing. This prohibition was approved by the tapu office.52
51
52
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Wolfer and Klenk to the German consul in Jerusalem, 16 June 1891. On
the land registration process, see Article 3 of the land code.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Simeon Murad to the German ambassador in Istanbul, 7 April 1892.
236
The authorities decision not to grant mlk title deeds affected not only foreign settlers but also local Arabs who were Ottoman citizens, as reflected in a
petition in Arabic sent from Jaffa to the grand vizier in Istanbul by dozens of
Muslim and Christian Arab landowners. The petitioners complained that Zikai
Effendi, an inspector sent by the Defter-i Hakani in Beirut, had changed the
classification of lands in the vicinity of Jaffa from mlk to miri.53 The petitioners called for a reversal of Zikai Effendis decision on the grounds that, according to Islamic law, a person does not have to prove his ownership of property in
his possession or to prove how he obtained it.54 On 2 January 1892, the Ottoman Council of State [ura-y Devlet] published its decision to reject the petitions and complaints of the local landowners in Jaffa and to approve the
classification of land as miri. According to the decision, an examination of the
tapu archives revealed that the lands in question were originally kharj lands
which, over time, acquired the status of miri. The investigation also revealed
that since 1877, tapu officials in Jaffa had issued mlk title deeds for these lands
which, in some cases, led to the formation of new neighborhoods. Houses built
on such land should be subjected to the tithe tax regime and their deeds should
be replaced. The Council of State concluded: In cases of buying and selling
such lands, miri certificates [i.e. title deeds] should be issued and they [i.e. the
lands] should be maintained under the provisions of the imperial land code.
From now on, no mlk certificates should be issued for such places under any
circumstances.55 A report elaborating on the decision and the circumstances
that led to it was sent to the mutasarrflk of Jerusalem in March 1892, instructing local authorities not to issue new mlk title deeds.56
The Ottoman Council of States decision was also reported in the local Ottoman, Arabic and Hebrew press, as well as in the Takvim-i Vekayi, the Ottoman
official gazette in Istanbul.57 The article in Takvim-i Vekayi published the decision and added that landowners were required to pay bedel-i misl (the lands
53
54
55
56
57
BOA, HR. Tercme Odas, 396/16, 17 Temuz 1307 [July 29, 1891], in Yuval Ben-Bassat, Petitioning the Sultan: Protests and Justice in late Ottoman Palestine, 18651908 (London; New
York: I.B. Tauris, 2013), 1914.
Ibid.
BOA. rade ura-y Devlet, 115/6885, 2 January 1892, in Ben-Bassat, Petitioning the Sultan,
21112.
BOA. Dahiliye Nezareti, Mektubi Kalemi, 1928/76, 3 March 1892.
Takvim-i Vekayi, Yf Arisi, 17 February 1892; Thamart al-Funn, Ari Yf, Beirut,
7 March 1892; Ha-Or, The weeks events, 11 March 1892. On the Turkish and Arabic press
of the period, see Ami Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East: A History (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1995).
237
equivalent value) to the state. In addition, if buildings had been erected on the
land without a permit, the landowners were obligated to pay the bedel-i r.58
A few weeks later, Breisch, who represented the German settlers,59 wrote to
the German embassy in Istanbul stating: We have received confirmation that
all the lands in the vicinity of Jaffa were changed from mlk to miri by the
Defter-i Hakani, causing the settlers heavy losses. [We are] requesting assistance in annulling this harsh verdict.60 In his letter, Breisch also expressed the
fear that a decrease in land value, as well as the burden of additional taxes to
be collected from the recently declared miri land would jeopardize the profitability of orchards in the area. He urged the embassy to protect the settlers
rights.
In a letter dated 7 April 1892, Murad claimed that the reasons for the change
in classification were disputes with several state officials and influential people, intrigues and, first and foremost, the personal considerations and egotistic
motives of the supervisor.61 Murad described the financial repercussions of
the prohibition, claiming that it brought the land trade to a halt, and that municipal authorities ceased issuing building permits, causing heavy losses to
landowners, as well as unemployment among local builders and artisans.62
One must keep in mind that Murads family was one of the major landowners
in that area, and its financial interests were directly affected by Zikais order.
Although it is unlikely that Murad was objective,63 we are inclined to accept
his claim about the effect of the prohibition on land-related activities because
petitions sent to Istanbul by the local landowners presented similar claims.
58
59
60
61
62
63
Takvim-i Vekayi, Yf Arisi, 17 February 1892. see also: Thamart al-Funn, Ari
Yf, Beirut, 7 March 1892.
Probably Paul, the son of Emanuel Breisch. On him see further Ruth Kark and Naftali
Thalmann, Technological Innovation in Palestine: The Role of the German Templers,
in Germany and the Middle East Past, Present and Future, ed. Haim Goren (Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 2003), 20124.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Breisch to the German embassy in Istanbul, 28 March 1892.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Simeon Murad to the German ambassador in Istanbul, 7 April 1892.
Builders who agreed to build on land that had not received a permit risked receiving a fine
or even being jailed. See Fiftieth Anniversary Book, 228.
Murad possessed more than 40 hectares (400 metric dunams) of orange groves. See ISA,
RG 67, File 1602, Murad to the German consul in Jerusalem, Paul von Tischendorf, 10 February 1895. On von Tischendorf, see further Eliav, The Jews of Palestine in the German Policy, 212. One should not underestimate the importance of personal interest in property
matters as documented by Kenneth Cuno in his Was the Land of Ottoman Syria miri
or milk?, in which he discussed the effect of social class and land ownership on Hanafi
jurists debate on land legal status. See Cuno, Was the Land of Ottoman Syria miri or
milk?, 536.
238
Three petitions sent by Mahmud Kayali, Jaffas Naqib l-Eraf, and by local
landowners in May, June and August 1892, protested against the decision and
asserted that the re-classification caused confusion and delayed the daily activities and land transactions.64
It is possible however, that Murad, as well as the landowners, exaggerated
the financial impact caused by Zikais response as well as the reasons for the
tapu inspectors actions.
Murad argued that as a result of protests sent by Jaffas inhabitants to the
relevant institutions in Istanbul, the kaymakam of Jerusalem was appointed to
head a committee to examine the matter. A report disputing Zikai Effendis
position was submitted to the kaymakam, verified by the mejlis-i idre of Jerusalem and sent to Istanbul. Murad added that while the Jaffa residents had
expected a positive solution following the report, an article published in an
Arab newspaper in Beirut stated that the tapu ministry in Istanbul had ruled
that the private land in dispute would be regarded as miri. This decision, which
was authorized by the Ottoman council of state [ura-y Devlet], was to be implemented by having a committee of five local Jaffa notables examine the
land.65 In his letter Murad expressed his opinion about the lands classification
change:
The land around Jaffa is divided into mlk, miri, waqf and mawt. The last
three [categories] are only a minor percentage [of the land]. Most of it,
especially the orange groves, are mlk. These mlk lands have been the
private property of their owners, on the basis of legal title deeds, from
time immemorial. These title deeds were used in every transaction and
trial as official documents in local courts and other Ottoman institutions
and were officially recognized. The private ownership of these kinds of
lands has never been disputed or contested by any Ottoman authority.66
(See Map 1. Jaffa and its Environs, by Sandel 18789)
In a response from the German embassy in Istanbul to the consulate in Jerusalem, von Mller, an embassy officer, wrote that the complaint had been
brought to the attention of the Sublime Porte. Local representatives advised
64
65
66
BOA, HR. TO., 397/38, 4 June 1892. See also other petitions sent by the landowners: BOA,
HR. TO., 397/24, 6 May 1892; BOA, HR. TO., 397/86, 5 August 1892, mentioned in Ben-Bassat,
Petitioning the Sultan, 1189.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Murad to the German ambassador in Istanbul, 7 April 1892. Although
Murad did not identify the newspaper, it is probably Thamart al-Funn. See note 59.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Murad to the German ambassador in Istanbul, 7 April 1892.
Map 1
239
Jaffa and its environs, 18789
ILS_022_03_Solomonovich_CS4ME.indd 239
5/11/2015 3:34:30 PM
240
the settlers to submit appeals and official complaints to the Porte about these
decisions, but they preferred to get involved only in cases in which there had
been a clear and substantial violation of the rights of German subjects by the
Ottoman courts.67
The complaint mentioned above is probably a note verbale, submitted to the
Ottoman Foreign Ministry by the German embassy on 13 September 1892. The
German embassy argued that the lands in question had been registered as
mlk in Jaffa since 1865. Moreover, in 1875 the old mlk title deeds were replaced by the Defter-i Hakani, and new mlk title deeds were issued in their
place, thus reaffirming that the lands were mlk. The validity of these title
deeds was never questioned by the Ottoman authorities or institutions. The
embassy added that even if a few title deeds were issued by corrupt Ottoman
officials, it is highly unlikely that these acts of fraud and deception were so
widespread as to include most of the citys real estate. Therefore, it stated, the
German imperial embassy would not accept this harsh reaction of the Porte,
which would severely damage the German landowners in the area. The embassy requested further clarification.68
The settlers, dissatisfied with these actions, tried to cancel the new order by
exerting their political influence. The Templers contacted one of their patrons,
Reichstag member Gustav Siegle, asking him to refer the matter to parliament.
At the same time, a group of settlers in Jaffa, led by George Egger, approached
German newspapers claiming that the Ottoman decision endangered the settlements future and attacking what he called the indifference and inefficiency
of the embassy in Istanbul.69 In an article published in the National Zeitung in
Berlin in October 1892, the settlers pointed to a decline in land values as a result of the classification change, which, they argued, would lead to unemployment that would affect the entire economy in Palestine. They also attacked the
response of the embassy in Istanbul as inadequate:
Those familiar with the Ottoman reality know that despite the prohibition, buildings are still being erected. By payment [of a bribe] a permit
can be obtained, but not everyone can pay the high fee, and therefore
67
68
69
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, von Mller from the German embassy in Istanbul to the consulate in
Jerusalem, 13 September 1892.
ISA, RG 67.2/3 file 146, Imperial German embassy to the Ottoman Foreign Ministry,
13 September 1892.
Alex Carmel, The German Settlement in Palestine at the End of the Ottoman period (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1973), 117 (Hebrew).
241
4,000 construction workers and artisans are unemployed all of our petitions to the embassy did not help. It cannot or will not act.70
By noting that the cost of a bribe was high, the settlers confirmed one of Zikai
Effendis primary claims about the use of bribes in order to change the lands
original classification from miri to mlk. This confirmation also supports our
argument that privatization began as a violation of existing rules or laws.
Two weeks later, another article appeared in the National Zeitung describing
a lawsuit submitted by the settlers against the Ottoman government for changing the land classification. The article reported that some foreign representatives agreed with the Ottoman decision that the lands in question were indeed
miri, among them the Austrian consul. In fact, since 1865 the land had been
treated as de facto private land, since the local Defter-i Hakani office, established in that year, issued mlk title deeds approved by the Sublime Porte. The
article also stated that the Ottoman government considered the issuance of
mlk deeds an error and that it had therefore changed the land classification to
miri in order to collect the tithe. With regard to the ramifications of the change
in tax collection, the article claimed that in past trials Ottoman officials had
threatened settlers by claiming that their land classification would be changed.71
This last claim was later denied by Murad in a letter to Consul Tischendorf in
Jerusalem, in which he asserted that he was unaware of any such threats. In
addition, he reported that the settlers approached parliament member Siegle
and asked him to present the matter to the Reichstag.72
In a letter sent to the German consul in Jerusalem in September 1893, Murad
stated that although the Ottoman Council of State had reversed the decision in
March 1893, the local tapu office had continued to implement the original order and to register all mlk lands as miri. Murad added that he had attempted
to discover why the councils decision was being disregarded, even though it
had been received by the local authorities. Using his connections with other
Ottoman landowners, he learned that the implementation of the decision required the establishment of a committee, to be appointed by Zikai Effendi, for
the examination of the mlk title deeds.73
It is unclear why Murad claimed that the decision had been reversed. In
fact, the decision made by the Council of State was ratified in March 1893 by
the Council of Ministers [Meclis-i Vkela], the highest institution in the
70
71
72
73
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, National Zeitung, evening edition, 26 October 1892.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, National Zeitung, morning edition, 8 November 1892.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Murad to von Tischendorf, 25 January 1893.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Murad to von Tischendorf, 22 September 1893.
242
Ottoman civil bureaucracy.74 In this case as well, a report was sent to the
mutasarrflk of Jerusalem in April 1893, explaining the decision and instructing the authorities to continue to investigate the matter.75 Murad correctly observed that Zikai Effendi was to be dispatched to the area once again.
According to a letter written by German settlers in the Jaffa and Sarona colonies in 12 June 1894, the problem remained unsolved almost nine months later:
The edict was not abolished because the tapu office refused to acknowledge
the classification of mlk land and treat it accordingly during transactions.
Even a transaction involving a small plot requires a registration change of the
entire plot to miri before it can take place.76 In addition, the settlers complained:
You cannot put down a deposit or receive a mortgage before changing
[the land] to miri. Land transactions are impossible and there is a widespread financial crisis. It is difficult to obtain a building permit on miri
and it is impossible to get credit on land. These trends are increasing and
influencing both cities and villages. We are affected by it more severely
than the local population since we deal only in agriculture. All of our
capital is invested in land.77
At the end of the letter the settlers stated that they were aware of a relevant
legal precedent, since an official newspaper in Beirut had reported that a
similar order regarding the Vilayet of Syria had been abolished. This served to
increase the landowners resentment when their requests went unanswered.
Six months later, in 12 January 1895, the German consul Tischendorf informed Murad that a new committee was being formed, headed by Zikai Effendi and state officials, in order to survey the land and solve the land problem
in Jaffa. In addition, he stated:
Regarding the many orange and lemon orchards in Jaffa, the council of
state decided to comply with the owners demand and to implement the
Tripoli precedent as follows: if the orchards require irrigation, only a ten
percent land tax would be collected instead of the tithe, in accordance
74
75
76
77
BOA. Meclis-i Vkela Mazbatlar, 74/39, 8 March 1893. On the Council of Ministers, see
Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 241, 2457.
BOA. DH. MKT., 32/23, 8 April 1893.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Jaffas and Saronas settlers to von Tischendorf, 12 June 1894.
Ibid.
243
with the restriction on crop-producing land. This decision insured the

owners that their land would be recognized as mlk and not miri.78
Tischendorf added that the Grand Vizier instructed the committee to recognize all the plots that were classified as mlk in their registration documents
(khuja) as private land. He also asked for a special list to be constructed for
cases in which plots were registered as miri in the tapu register but were registered as mlk in the Jaffa office. In these cases the title deeds should be sent to
Istanbul, where they would be recognized as legal in order to resolve the matter.79 The outcome of the Grand Viziers decision was recognition of the de
facto legal status of lands in Jaffa, where miri lands were considered private
lands by the local landowners. By approving the change of land classification
from miri to mlk, the Grand Vizier participated in the land privatization process and gave de facto land privatization the status of de jure privatization.
In another letter sent three days later, Tischendorf supported the decision,
stating that from his point of view it solved most of the land disputes while
allowing owners of mlk deeds that had been re-classified as miri to appear
before the committee with proof that they had purchased the land as mlk in
good faith. In addition, even though the committee was entrusted with the
authority to resolve the dispute, the decision of the council of state would allow the German government to take steps in cases in which arbitrary decisions
by Ottoman officials might endanger the rightful ownership of German citizens.80
A letter sent later that month by Ambassador Frst Hugo von Radolin to
Consul Tischendorf demonstrates the involvement of high-ranking German
officials in the land dispute. Radolin mentioned that the new chancellor, Carl
Viktor Chlodwig (prince of Hohenlohe) had asked to speed up the process of
resolving the conflict. He also asked if the settlers were satisfied with the appointment of the Ottoman committee, or if it would be necessary to apply diplomatic pressure on the Sublime Porte to recognize all the land in question as
mlk and to issue new title deeds that would exempt owners from the tithe or
the need for building permits. Tischendorf was asked to determine whether
the committees recognition of mlk land on the basis of khujas applied only if
owners were in possession of the original documents, since it was possible that
they had been replaced by tapu documents in 1875. Radolin also mentioned
78
79
80
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, von Tischendorf to Murad, 12 January 1895. On the different tax rates,
see note 6.
Ibid.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, von Tischendorf to Murad, 15 January 1895.
244
that he had received complaints from German citizens in Jerusalem regarding

the classification of their mlk land as miri. Unfortunately, we have no further
knowledge about that episode.81
From a letter sent by Murad to Tischendorf on 10 February 1895, we learn of
Zikai Effendis arrival to Jaffa and the establishment of the committee. According to Murad, Zikai Effendi had decided to ignore the previous decision to collect a tax of 10 percent from orange orchards in accordance with the Tripoli
precedent. He disputed the value of the orchards that was recorded in the local
tax registers and supported a new assessment that would enable him to increase the tax to ten times its current rate.82 The next day, German parliament
member Siegle spoke in the Reichstag, arguing that the Ottomans were exploiting the current chaos and that the settlers, who had little influence or
money, had no alternative but to ask the government to intervene.83 A few days
later, on 17 February, an encrypted dispatch was sent by Tischendorf asking for
immediate assistance in order to deal with Zikai Effendi, who had completely
ignored previous agreements and instructions:
The tapu inspector who was sent from Istanbul disputes the irada (Sultans order) regarding the undisputed mlk title deeds. He disputes acquisition, sale and building permits, even though a final decision regarding
the land has not yet been achieved. His view contradicts all the other
committee members and is inconsistent with the embassys instructions.
We are waiting for unequivocal instructions to be sent to the inspector.84
Not surprisingly, Zikai Effendi himself was displeased with the committee and
complained to his superiors that the landowners among the committee members had conflicts of interest, and were interfering with the committees work
in an attempt to promote their own financial interests.85
Dr. Eberhard Von-Mlinen, a translator who had received a legal education
and who had been sent by the consulate in Beirut, saw the cause of the land
81
82
83
84
85
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Ambassador Radolin to Consul von Tischendorf, 29 January 1895.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Murad to von Tischendorf, 10 February 1895. Zikai Effendi was merely
doing his job. The committee was responsible for the examination and appraisal of the
orchards in Jaffa and its environs, probably, for tax purposes. See: BOA. MV., 84/89, 30 May
1895.
Carmel, The German Settlement in Palestine at the End of the Ottoman period, 118.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, von Tischendorf to the German Embassy in Istanbul, 17 February
1895.
Ben-Bassat, Petitioning the Sultan, 119.
245
dispute in Jaffa as corruption among local tapu officers.86 He argued that there
was a difference between lands inside the old city that were considered mlk,
and lands outside the city that were considered miri. He reported that Zikai
had made two lists, the first included unquestionable miri documents; and the
second included suspected mlk documents. Von-Mlinen described this process as follows:
An examination of the second list did not bring the expected results by
Zikai Effendi [probably forgery of title deeds the authors]. A separate
file for the orange groves was not organized even though their owners
wanted their documents checked by the committee in order to recognize
their ownership. I did not insist on their registration since I was informed
that the Sublime Porte refers to them as mlk. Indeed, Zikai Effendi
informed me in front of the committee that in every respect such as
bequests or building permits, these groves will be considered mlk. This
right refers only to the gardens inside the Jaffa metropolitan [area] but
the committees authority is limited to these areas only.87
From a dispatch sent by the consulate in Jerusalem to an unspecified recipient
we learn that Zikai Effendi himself had been accused of corruption by the
German settlers who claimed that upon his arrival in Jaffa for the examination
of a land dispute four years earlier, he decided to exploit the relative financial
success of the orange groves. He was also accused of trying to benefit himself
by disputing the legality of title deeds, and when that failed, he suddenly raised
the question of land classification which resulted in heavy losses to both the
Ottoman treasury and the residents of Jaffa, as well as a decline in economic
activity in the area. In addition, he re-classified all the lands outside of the city
walls as miri, and when settlers submitted tapu title deeds stating the lands
were mlk, Zikai Effendi claimed that the deeds had been obtained illegally
86
87
Dr. Eberhard von Mlinen completed his Ph.D. in Islamic law at Tbingen University in
1887. In 1888, he joined the German Foreign Service and was appointed translator at the
German consulate in Beirut. The Istanbul embassy sent him to assist in the land dispute
in Palestine. Eberhard von Mlinen, Beitrge zur Kenntnis des Karmels, translation to
Hebrew and introduction by Aharon Geva Kleinberger and Yossi Ben Artzi (Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 2013), 4. On von Mlinen, see further Yossi Ben Artzi, Von-Mlinen and the
Map of Haifa, 1908, in , Haifa Local History, ed. Yossi Ben-Artzi (Haifa: Haifa University
Press, 1999), 1526 (Hebrew); Helmut Glenk, Horst Blaich, and Manfred Haerin, From Desert Sands to Golden Oranges: The History of the German Templer Settlement of Sarona in
Palestine 18711947 (Victoria, BC:Trafford Pub.,2005), 30.
ISA, RG 67, File 647, von Mlinen to an undisclosed recipient, 7 May 1895.
246
from the tapu officers through bribes and acts of deception. Even a letter from
the Grand Vizier recognizing the validity of mlk title deeds held by owners of
groves and plots outside the city walls was not implemented by Zikai Effendi.88
In regard to the orchards, Zikai claimed that their profitability made it possible
to increase land taxes by ten times their current rate. When other committee
members argued that orange exports were not so profitable, Zikai attempted to
support his assessment by presenting an extremely high bid on one of the first
and more successful orchards, he then used that bid to set the average value of
all the other orchards.89 Finally, the consulates letter asserts that even though
he was unable to prove his claims, Zikai continued to prolong the committees
activity in order to enjoy his hefty salary of 50 Turkish Lira as its head.90
In August 1895, the National Zeitung reported, [a copy of the report is available in the Ottoman Achieves] that the land question had now been resolved
and published the following excerpt from a letter sent by the German settlers
to the German ambassador in Istanbul, Anton von Saurma :
The firm steps taken by the [German] Imperial embassy saved us from
this disastrous state. It protected not only our rights but also the rights of
other European and local landowners. The embassys activity is even
more appreciated when compared to the lack of initiative shown by
other [foreign] representatives, as acknowledged by the local population.91
Seven months later, however, another article in the National Zeitung reported
that the committees decisions had not been implemented: A German citizen
who tried to register his land as mlk in the Defter-i Hakani on the strength of
the committees decision was turned down. He was told that the decision was
not valid and that he could register the land only as miri.92
One year later, a breakthrough was achieved in the land dispute. In a letter
sent by the German ambassador in Istanbul, Anton von Saurma, to the Ger88
89
90
91
92
ISA, RG 67, File 647, the consulate in Jerusalem to an unspecified recipient, 18 June 1895.
It must be remembered that not all orchards were a financial success. Montefiores
orchard for example experienced heavy losses for many years. On that subject, see
Shoshana Halevi, Montefiores orchard, Cathedra 2 (1976), 153; Ruth Kark, Jaffa: A City in
Evolution, 17991917 (Jerusalem:Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press,1990), 7082.
ISA, RG 67, File 647, the consulate in Jerusalem to an undisclosed recipient, 18 June 1895.
BOA. HR. SYS., 33/33; National Zeitung 19 August 1895. An article about the matter was also
published in: Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, October 1895, London, 298.
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, National Zeitung 22 March 1896.
247
man consul in Jerusalem, Eduard Schmidt, the ambassador reported on a

meeting of the Ottoman council of state:
Regarding the ownership of land in Jaffa it seems there is a change for the
better since the council of state deliberated on the matter and consulted
the head of the Defter-i Hakani archive, Said Bey who is an expert on land
questions. Said Bey informed the council that in his view the classification change is unjustified and may cause diplomatic difficulties for the
Sublime Porte with Germany and other foreign states that defend their
subjects interests and rights in the Holy Land.93
The ambassador added that although Said Beys answer was supported by the
members of the council, final decision had been postponed until a response
from the Ministry of Finance (Maliye Nezareti) would be received.
A letter sent by Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein of the German embassy in
Istanbul to the consulate in Jerusalem noted that the land dispute was brought
to an end by an Imperial Edict published on 23 December 1897. In it, the Sultan
ordered the issuing of mlk title deeds to all the German-owned land in Jaffa,
except for plots that appeared on the miri list. Marschall also mentioned that a
few days later an order was given to the Defter-i Hakani to issue the necessary
mlk title deeds.94 Unfortunately we were not able to locate the original edict
and compare it to von Biebersteins letter.
It is unclear why the edict was issued at that specific time. The dispute had
lasted for eight years, during which continuous diplomatic pressure by German officials (including the chancellor and members of parliament) had been
placed on the Sublime Porte to recognize the settlers lands as private. Alex
Carmel has argued that the timing of the decision was a result of the Ottoman
authorities interest in making a gesture towards the Germans in anticipation
of Kaiser Wilhelm IIs expected trip to the Middle East.95 It is possible that
other factors, military as well as economic, affected the timing. One must consider that in 1897 the Ottoman Empire had recently won a war against Greece.
The Ottoman military had been instructed and trained by German general
Colmar von der Goltz, whose efforts were much appreciated in the Empire,
and whose books were translated into Turkish and taught in the military acad-
93
94
95
ISA, RG 67, File 1602, von Saurma to Schmidt, 10 April 1897.

ISA, RG 67, File 1602, Marschall from the Istanbul embassy to the consulate in Jerusalem,
undated. The visit took place from 26 October to 4 November 1898.
Carmel, The German Settlement in Palestine, 66
248
emy.96 In addition, many of the railroads in the Ottoman Empire, including the
lines between Istanbul, Ankara, and Konya, were being constructed by German companies.
Summary of the Jaffa Land Dispute
Unlike our first three case studies, we note the involvement of higher-ranking
officials in the Jaffa dispute. Whereas in the Haifa dispute of the 1870s, relations
between the Templers and German authorities were not close, in the Jaffa land
dispute, experts and representatives were sent on behalf of the German Foreign Service and government; high-ranking politicians participated in parliamentary deliberations on the subject, and the chancellor himself became
involved.
The German Templers in Jaffa reported on the severe financial crisis that
made land transactions difficult if not impossible, and also led to unemployment among construction workers and artisans. Similar claims were raised in
petitions sent to Istanbul by dozens of local Arab landowners. However, it
must be kept in mind that the Templers, Murad, and the Arab landowners all
had a clear interest in describing the crisis as more severe than it might have
been, in order to encourage the central authority to protect their financial interests in Jaffa. The tapu inspector, Zikai Effendi, also mentioned this problem
when he complained to his superiors that the landowners were acting to protect their financial interests by interfering with his work. As a result, we are
unable to determine the extent of the financial crisis caused by the land dispute.
Unfortunately, we cannot determine the exact impact of the dispute on Jaffas spatial development since we could not find specific data that would enable us to ascertain whether or not land transactions or building activities
actually ceased. No new maps of the Jaffa area that might shed light on the
citys growth were drawn between 1890 and 1898. We also have no way of estimating how many buildings were constructed by Jaffas residents through payment of bribes to Ottoman officials, nor the extent to which prohibitions were
enforced by Ottoman authorities. It is possible that building was not completely stopped by the Templers as acknowledged in the National Zeitung article, in
96
See Handan Nezir Akmee, The Birth of Modern Turkey: The Ottoman Military and the
March to WWI (London: Tauris 2005); F. A. K. Yasamee, Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz and
the rebirth of the Ottoman Empire, Diplomacy & Statecraft 9:2 (1998), 91128.
249
which they stated that building was still taking place after the payment of
bribes.
We are inclined to accept Zikai Effendis claims regarding the use of bribes
for the change of land classification from miri to mlk. These claims are supported by several documents, including the registers of the Defter-i Hakani and
decisions of the Council of Ministers and the Council of State. Even the German embassy, in its complaint to the Sublime Porte, acknowledged that, beginning in 1875 owners of miri land had received mlk title deeds as a result of
irregularities in the Defter-i Hakani in Jaffa.97 In one case, Murad himself conceded that the land classification had been changed due to a bribe. On its part,
the Ottoman state made a serious effort to prevent land privatization. It sent
an inspector from the Defter-i Hakani to investigate, made preparations for the
drafting of a new map of landownership in the area in order to prevent similar
cases in the future,98 and even fired the local tapu officer, Abdul Razzaq Effendi.99 In the end, the Ottoman state had to take responsibility for the mistakes or
corruption of its officials by acknowledging some of the lands, especially those
that were originally state lands inside and adjacent to the city walls, as private
lands. In addition, by the end of the Ottoman period, the value of agricultural
lands located on the margins of cities had increased because of the citys expansion. These plots were transformed to be used for intensive agriculture, or
potentially as part of the towns built up area. This increase in value motivated
attempts by interested parties to change the land classification, often by illegal
activities performed with the connivance of corrupt Ottoman officials.
Notably, despite the measures taken by the Ottoman authorities in their attempt to prevent registration of miri land as mlk, less than a decade later, in
1907, we see evidence, in the Ottoman Archive of Ali Ekrem Bey, the Ottoman
governor of Jerusalem between 1906 and 1908, that this phenomenon had not
been contained. The kaymakam of Jaffa, Mehmed Asf, submitted a complaint
to the Jerusalem Mutasarrflk in which he argued that the local Jews were
completely disregarding the land law and were building on miri land without
permits. Moreover, with the help of [corrupt Ottoman] officials and their
schemes, they have registered the land in Jaffa and its environs, which was all
state land (miri), as private land (mlk) or endowed land (waqf). Asf called for
an investigation of the unlawfully issued mlk title deeds and the registration
of the land as miri. According to his estimation, this would have increased the
97
98
99
Carmel, The German Settlement in Palestine, 1178.

BOA. radeler, Defter-i Hakani, 3/1312, 9 April 1985.
See his petition against his dismissal: BOA. DH. MKT., 30 March 1893. Mentioned in BenBassat, Petitioning the Sultan, 113.
250
annual tithe revenue by almost 30,000 Lira.100 It is unclear why no investigation took place, although it should be noted that he was dismissed in April
1908.
Conclusion
The 1858 Ottoman land code was part of a wider effort by the state to strengthen the centralized government in Istanbul. The goal of the law was to create
tighter control over the Empires lands, to encourage cultivation, and thus to
increase tax revenue, as well as to reduce the involvement of foreign elements
in the Empires private interests. The outcomes of the code are matters of disagreement. Tute, Baer, and Jorgens, for example, argue that the code succeeded
in preventing land privatization; Gerber, Karpat, and slamolu argue that it
led to privatization. We suggest that expansion of the usufruct rights of miri
landholders should be viewed only as partial privatization, first, because the
Ottoman state compensated itself for the de facto use of the land as mlk by
increasing the tax rate and, second, the formal ownership of the land remained
in the hands of the state. One must remember that a building constructed on
miri land was considered mlk even if it was built without a permit but if it was
later destroyed, the property would revert to its miri status, and would require
a new building permit.
Already in the nineteenth century, part of the privatization process, as demonstrated above, began with violations of the law, continued with a struggle of
the landholders (who viewed the land as their private property) against authorities who tried to restore the land to its previous status, and concluded
with the victory of the landholders. Therefore de facto privatization became de
jure. In the case studies presented here we examined the privatization process
in nineteenth-century Palestine by the expansion of usufruct rights, as well as
land classification changes from miri to mlk. While partial privatization was
statutory and only rarely contested, the Ottoman authorities did their best to
protect the lands original classification and actively acted against privatization by re-examining title deeds, enforcing limitations on land transactions
100
ISA, RG 83.0/1, File 11, Jaffa Kaymakam Mehmed Asf to the Jerusalem Mutasarrflk, 26
June 1907. See also David Kushner, A Governor in Jerusalem, The City and Province in the
Eyes of Ali Ekrem Bey 19061908 (Jerusalem: Yad Izhaek Ben-Zvi, 1995), 628 (Hebrew). For
comparison, the werko tax collected in 1912 in Jaffa district totaled only 12,781 lira. See
Muhammad Salim al-Tarawnah, Jaffa Qadha during the Ottoman Era, an Administrative,
Economical and Social Study 18641914 (Amman: Wizarat al-Thaqafa, 2000), 342 (Arabic).
251
and building prohibitions, and in the Jaffa case, retroactively changing the
lands classification back to miri. From the petitions of local landowners, both
Christian and Muslim Arabs, we see that not only foreign settlers but also the
local population participated in this process. This can be deduced from the
fact that the Ottoman response to land classification change was not limited to
land possessed by foreigners but was applied to the entire region. Nevertheless,
foreign involvement, as well as Palestines distance from the Empires center,
contributed to privatization. At this stage of our research it is not possible to
identify any wider implications regarding similar phenomena in other regions
of the Empire such as Syria, Iraq, or Anatolia. The situation in these regions
must be studied separately on the basis of local Ottoman archives. It should be
noted that the Defter-i Hakani inspector from Beirut, Abdurrahman Zikai, referred to title deed forgery and the registration of miri as mlk not only in Jaffa,
but also in the districts of Acre, Latakia and Tyre.101 Abdul-Karim Rafeq has
argued that local notables in mid-nineteenth century Syria claimed miri land
as their own. Unfortunately, he did not elaborate on this phenomenon.102 Oya
Gzel concluded that in Eastern Anatolia many tribal chiefs were able to register lands in their own names: Even if the Land Code of 1858 hindered the
privatization of the pastures, the beys in the registration process appropriated
not only the fields but also many pastures [sic.].103
Even though we argue that land was privatized in Palestine, we do not possess information about the extent of privatization. Doukhan, for example, argued that 95 percent of the arable lands in Palestine were state lands.104 Roy
Fischel and Ruth Kark established that Sultan Abdlhamid IIs privatelyowned lands (iftlik) in Palestine covered 832,222 metric dunams, that is to say
3.1 percent of the total land of Palestine.105 Martin Bunton has pointed out that
even though iftlik (literally farm, used in late Ottoman times to describe a
large estate) lands were purchased by the Sultan, their classification was never
changed to mlk.106 In the long run the process of land concentration and the
101
102
103
104
105
106
BOA. Yldz, Esas Evrak, 132/29, 19 January 1897.

Rafeq, Land Tenure Problems and their Social Impact in Syria, 378.
Gzel, The Implementation of the Ottoman Land Code of 1858 in Eastern Anatolia, 137,
147.
Doukhan, Land Laws of Israel, 46.
Roy Fischel and Ruth Kark, Sultan Abdlhamid II and Palestine: Private Lands and Imperial Policy, New Perspectives on Turkey 39 (Fall 2008), 1324. The private lands of Abdlhamid II reverted to the state in 1909, after the Young Turk revolution.
Martin Bunton, Demarcating the British Colonial State: Land Settlement in the Palestine
Jiftlik Villages of Safad and Qazaza, in New Perspectives on Property and Land in the Middle
East, ed. Roger Owen, 129.
252
creation of large estates in the hands of absentee landlords and local landowners in Palestine also contributed to land privatization. However, we do know
that in some cases the miri land category was maintained and the land was
subsequently sold as miri.107
It should be kept in mind that despite the evidence found in the case studies
examined here, in which miri lands were transformed into mlk, according to
Baer, only a small portion of Ottoman lands were classified as mlk after World
War I.108
Finally, we suggest that future studies should examine the influence of rapid
urban population growth and the attendant expansion of built-up areas outside the old city walls across the Ottoman Empire from the mid nineteenth
century onwards, and its influence on the legal status of land. The built-up area
outside the walls of the old city of Jaffa, for example, increased from 14 metric
dunams, in 1842, to 1,447 metric dunams, in 1914, as the citys population increased from about 5,000 in the 1840s to around 30,000 in 18989 and to 40,000
in 1914.109
107
108
109
See, for example, Kark, Acquisition of Land in Emeq Hefer, 18001930.

Baer, Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt, 70.
Kark, Jaffa: A City in Evolution, 17991917, 14551, 2913.

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Islamic

Law and Society 22 (2015)

Land Privatization in Nineteenth-century Ottoman

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Solomonovich And Kark

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Solomonovich And Kark

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Solomonovich And Kark

documents and correspondence of the German Consulate in Jerusalem.

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Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

Cuno, Was the Land of Ottoman Syria Miri or Milk?, 1314.

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Solomonovich And Kark

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

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Solomonovich And Kark

See, for example, Kark, Changing Patterns of Landownership in Nineteenth-century

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Solomonovich And Kark

American consul in Beirut, John T. Edgar, wrote to Jacob Schumacher, an

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

questing its assistance to ward off threats by Ottoman officials to demolish

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Solomonovich And Kark

The verdict in Salomons case, concerning the demolition of the erected

Eliav, The Jews of Palestine in the German Policy, 1:111, 2:258.

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Solomonovich And Kark

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

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Solomonovich And Kark

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Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

Jaffa and its environs, 18789

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Solomonovich And Kark

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Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Solomonovich And Kark

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Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

with the restriction on crop-producing land. This decision insured the

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Solomonovich And Kark

that he had received complaints from German citizens in Jerusalem regarding

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252

Land Privatization In Nineteenth-century Ottoman Palestine

Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015) 221-252