Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

8 | Property and administration in the later
Tanzimat
The 1880s and the Special Commission for the Lands of Hauran
Extensive development of administrative institutions took place in the 1880s
throughout the province of Syria. In the district of ‘Ajlun a separate tax office
with three employees was established in 1881; 1 in 1882 a telegraph office was
opened, and a professional assistant prosecutor was appointed to the court of
first instance; 2 and at the beginning of 1883 the Special Commission for the Lands
of Hauran began work in the area.
The Special Commission for the Lands of Hauran appears in the tapu registers
of ‘Ajlun from February 1883 but in the yearbook of Suriye of 1882 it is called
the Commission for the Inspection of Lands of the liva of Hauran. 3 In its issue
of 8 November 1883 the provincial newspaper Suriye, in an article outlining a
development plan for the Hauran, described the commission as ‘solving problems
of different kinds arising in the lands of Hauran and resolving any disputes which
appeared’. 4 This acknowledgement of conflict suggests that the administration
reflected on events such as the disputes over land in Hawwara and Bait Ra’s and
the accusations advanced by Da’ud ‘Abbada against a number of local leaders,
and that it sought to adopt more systematic action. In Suriye of 15 January 1885,
an article acknowledges that, while resistance in the central Hauran meant that
procedures for tax evaluation and tapu registration could still not be introduced
there, the vali had worked together with the directorate of vergi tax collection to
form a commission which had been working in ‘Ajlun for the previous two years
to ‘bring to light abandoned or uncultivated miri lands suitable for auction and
also to accord villagers land by hakk-ı karar where such rights were due by law;
and likewise to award lands where hakk-ı karar rights were not established by
bedel-i misl according to a moderate valuation fixed in the locality’. 5 The reference
to moderate valuation in awards by bedel-i misl appears to respond to the
excessive fee-taking evident in the 1870s in ‘Ajlun. The tapu scribe who worked
with the commission in ‘Ajlun was none other than ‘Abd al-Fattah Efendi, who,
in the course of the depositions in the Da’ud ‘Abbada case, had expressed his
reservations concerning tapu practices in the district in 1879, notably the work
of ‘Ajaj Bey. The Special Commission adopted much more standardized forms
of registration and moderate rates of fees. No inhabited village was charged
bedel-i misl in its entirety. In one or two cases an outlying mezraa was registered
at the higher rate; occasionally, where a landholder declined part of his right to
land, a needy co-cultivator was given land by bedel-i misl. The rates charged
were strictly the 5 or 10 per cent required by law. The valuation of the land
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