Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

souls [i.e. those listed above], we fix (naqta‘) the estimated value of the lands of
the village of Makhraba, which belongs to the fiscal administration of the above
mentioned district. The dunum is evaluated at 12 ghurush on average. We toured
all the land and on the basis of our knowledge of its true value, in line with
similar [land], we drew up this document under our seals to be kept in the tabu
registry.
Both statements are attested by Ahmad ‘Abduh al-‘Azzam, headman of
Makhraba, by the headman of the neighbouring village of Samma, and by a
third notable. Lastly the total number of dunums is given: 2,350 dunums.
The second document, in Turkish, is from the tapu scribe to the director of
finance. He notes that the village is held by Ahmad Efendi al-‘Azzam along with
12 other persons who enjoy actual possession; that the testimony from the vicinity
grants them rights by hakk-ı karar; and that since all previous taxes appear to
have been paid, he is granting them provisional title documents on the basis of
right acquired by hakk-ı karar.
In a third document the director of finance writes back in Arabic noting that
he finds the annual sum of property-value tax (mal wirku) for the village to
be 500 ghurush and the sum paid in lieu of the tithe (badal a‘shar) to be 800
ghurush as fixed in 1879–80; that the village has paid its fixed taxes (mal) every
year since 1871–72, together with its tithe (a‘shar) since 1879–80; and that there
are no back taxes due.
This correspondence appears to reflect anterior administrative practice: the
documents concern the village as a whole; the fiscal evaluation of land and the
identification of right-holders rests with village headmen and regional leaders
rather than with the elected village council of elders or a register of souls held
by government officials; the village contains both persons and lands described
to the state official but without definition of the internal allocation of land to
persons; 48 and the fiscal value of land is fixed as an average across all lands of the
village. It was common fiscal practice in many villages that the lands be assigned
a single value. See Map 6.2 where land values deriving from the tapu registers
are mapped by villages of the region.
So what did tapu registration change in the case of Makhraba? Tapu registration
proceeded to assign shares in the single block of village land. In the
yoklama register the land appears divided into nine shares of land held by ten
sets of holders: two with two shares, one with 1⅛, one with ¾, one with ⅝,
four with ½, and one with ¼. Ahmad Efendi al-‘Azzam held two shares and
together with two other ‘Azzams, 3¼ shares altogether out of nine shares of
the village land; quite exceptionally a woman, Haya daughter of a sheikh (the
word usually indicates a religious figure of a Sufi order when it appears in the
registers) held ½ share. Tapu registration thus defined the number of shares and
their distribution between individuals. Registration in shares meant that many of
the practices of periodic land redistribution were able to continue within villages.
And shareholding forms of representing and managing village land were not
75
Introduction of bureaucratic registration