sultan abdülhamid ii and palestine: private lands and imperial policy

AbstractThis paper surveys the private lands owned by of Sultan Abdülhamid II in

Palestine and analyzes their spatial distribution and impact, in the context of

regional imperial policy. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the

Ottoman Empire faced serious external and internal problems. Sultan

Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909) used various traditional and modern

methods in order to increase the internal cohesion of the empire and

strengthen it vis-à-vis external threats.

One unique measure taken by the sultan was the purchase of large tracts

of land. He became one of the largest landowners in the empire. In Palestine

alone, the sultan purchased around 3% of the total area and initiated

measures to increase these lands’ productivity for his Privy Purse. In

addition to gaining economic profit, Abdülhamid II employed his private

lands to solve problems which challenged the sovereignty of the empire.

These included attempts to settle the Bedouins, the establishment of new

towns in order to subjugate nomads in regions where they threatened rural

settlements, settling Muslim refugees from the Caucasus and the Balkans,

and protecting strategically sensitive lands located on the frontiers, by

purchasing them and thus keeping them out of the hands of others.

Keywords: Abdülhamid II, çiftlik / çiftlik-i hümayun, landownership,Palestine, Privy Purse / hazine-i hassa, Bedouins, Refugees

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Sultan Abdülhamid II andPalestine: Private lands andimperial policy

Roy S. FischelRuth Kark

Roy S. Fischel, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and Department of History, TheUniversity of Chicago, Chicago, [email protected].

Ruth Kark, Department of Geography, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [email protected]’ note: This study was supported by the “Herzl Colleagues” foundation of the Cherrick Center for

the History of Zionism, Jewish Settlement and the State of Israel, with the participation of the IsraelNational Fund and the World Zionist Organization. The authors also wish to thank Dr. Eyal Ginio ofthe Hebrew University of Jerusalem for his most useful comments and help.

New Perspectives on Turkey, no. 39 (2008): 129-166.

Roy S. Fischel and Ruth Kark130

When it is remembered, further, that such harbour structures as exist inSyria, and the equipment of principal cities like Aleppo, Damascus, Beirutand Jerusalem with broad ways, modern buildings, electric lighting,tramways, and other convenient apparatus, are also of Abdul Hamid’stime, one is bound to admit that a good deal of beneficent construction –almost all that make Syria as a whole the most civilized province of Turkeyat this day – stands to the credit of a Sultan whose energies are popularlysupposed to have been uniformly destructive and sinister.1

Great Britain, 1920

IntroductionIn the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire reached acritical point. The growing influence of European powers and their advanceinto Ottoman territories, combined with their involvement in the empire’sinternal affairs as well as the rise of national movements within the empirewere a severe menace to the survival of the dynasty and challenged thesovereignty of the empire and its ability to assert control over the remainingterritories. In Palestine, western involvement was more substantial than inother parts of the empire. Due to the religious importance of the land forboth Christians and Jews, it became one of the focal points of confrontationbetween the Ottomans and the West as well as of local national movements.Most European powers aspired to promote their interests in Palestine,especially in Jerusalem; at the same time, the rise of the Zionist movementin the last decades of the century introduced an acute threat to the Ottomansin this corner of the empire and necessitated the attention of the governmentto the unique problems of the region.

Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909), the last potent sultan of the OttomanEmpire, was well aware of those threats. He took various measures aimed atdealing with the problems. Simultaneously, he tried to strengthen his ownposition within the empire vis-à-vis internal opposition, mostly on behalf ofthe western-educated bureaucracy. Employing both traditional and modernmethods, Abdülhamid II aspired to modernize and centralize the state. Atthe same time, he attempted to increase its internal cohesion and to securehis own position by reintroducing Islam as the ideological basis of the state.

In this paper, we trace the private land purchases of Sultan AbdülhamidII in Palestine and analyze their spatial distribution and the impact of thisphenomenon within the context of a short discussion on the importance ofland as an imperial political and economic instrument, and on theprivatization of land in the Ottoman Empire as a parameter for agrarian and

1 Great Britain, Admiralty Geographical Section of the Naval Intelligence Division 10, no. 58 (1920), 41.

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settlement processes as well as an expression of modernization andtechnological change.

Review of literature, sources and methodsThe first section of this paper presents a systematic list of the private landsof Abdülhamid II in Palestine. The second section discusses the broadercontext of the private lands as part of the imperial policy of Abdülhamid IIvis-à-vis external and internal threats. Locating the tracts introduces someserious problems. First and foremost, up to now, no systematic list of thelands of the sultan has been located. Therefore, we had to reconstruct thelist from numerous sources, none of which reveals the complete picture.The second problem concerns finding the exact location of the tractsmentioned. Not all places have retained their names since the reign ofAbdülhamid II. Other places and settlements no longer exist following the1948 war. In addition, in some plots more than one record was traced; notin all cases were the sources in harmony with each other.

Keeping these issues and problems in mind, this paper is based on thefollowing categories of sources: (1) Judicial and diplomatic records andcorrespondence in the Israel State Archive in Jerusalem were the mainsources for the reproduction of the complete list of the lands. During the1920s, the heirs of Abdülhamid II applied to land courts all over the formerOttoman Empire, claiming that they were the legal heirs of the late sultan.Since the lands were still registered under his name in the land registrationoffices (tapu), they claimed their legal rights over these tracts. In none of thecases did the mandatory authorities in Palestine claim that the lands hadnot been in the possession of the late sultan; therefore, it is possible toreconstruct the full list of lands under discussion.

(2) Ottoman documents in Turkish and Arabic, including landregistration and administrative documents dealing with the lands of thesultan, constituted the second category. Some documents were translatedinto Hebrew and published by David Kushner, others were translated byDaniel Halutzi as part of the long-term study on “Changes inLandownership in Palestine and their Impact” conducted by Ruth Kark. Insome cases, the translated documents were compared to the Ottomanoriginals. Some relevant documents might be traced in Abdülhamid II’sY›ld›z Collections in ‹stanbul; this, however, awaits further research.

(3) We also used maps in the map library of the Department ofGeography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in the privatearchive of Ruth Kark in Jerusalem. Abdülhamid II’s cadastral survey mapsenabled us to locate some of the tracts, and other maps, drawn by theMandate land surveys, assisted us in determining the location of others.

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(4) Palestinian literature on the history of the country, especially officialMandatory Gazetteers and post-nakba literature, was helpful when tryingto locate some of the lands. Following the 1948 war, several localities wereabandoned and their names changed; this literature is sometimes the onlyway to identify exact localities. In addition, some compilations contain thememories of the inhabitants of villages from the Ottoman period, thusrevealing some aspects of the actual working of Abdülhamid II’s endeavors.

(5) Hebrew newspapers from the relevant period shed light on certainaspects of Ottoman rule in Palestine. Palestinian newspapers in Arabicwere published only after 1906; therefore, only Hebrew newspapers revealthose aspects from the local perspective. We were unable to use severalissues of the Official Gazette of the Ottoman District of Jerusalem Kuds-ifierif / Al-Quds al-Shar›f, published in Turkish and Arabic between 1904/9and 1913/15, recently discovered by Kushner, as they are not available asof yet.2

(6) Published relevant research literature assisted us in contextualizingthe affair of the private lands within the broader scope of land issues andinternal and external concerns of the later Ottoman Empire. The history ofPalestine under Abdülhamid II has been the focus of much research. Thescholarly work of Jacob Landau, Haim Gerber, Engin Akarl›, DavidKushner, Iris Agmon, Mahmoud Yazbak and others have enlightened manyaspects of the political, administrative, economic and social life inPalestine. On the imperial level, the private property of the Ottomansultans in the nineteenth century and in particular the Privy Purse ofAbdülhamid II have been discussed in studies by Vasfi fiensözen and ArzuTerzi, published in Turkish. Aspects of historical geography, mostly inregard to land regime and policy, have been discussed by geographers suchas Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, Ruth Kark and David Grossman. In this paper, wetry to combine the two disciplines, since none of the methodologies alonecan explain the various aspects of the land purchase by Abdülhamid II.

The private lands of the SultanGeographical characteristicsThe private lands of Abdülhamid II in Palestine were comprised of 115tracts covering 832,222 metric dunam (from the Turkish dönüm), orroughly 900,000 Ottoman dunam (one metric dunam equals 1,000m2;one Ottoman dunam equals 919.3m2), thus covering 3.1% of the total land

2 David Kushner, “Kuds-i fierif / Al-Kuds al-Sharif – The Official Gazette of the District of Jerusalem atthe End of the Ottoman Period.” Also see, Ruth Kark, “Consequences of the Ottoman Land Law:Agrarian and Privatization Processes in Palestine, 1858-1918,” in The Application of the TanzimatReforms in Various Regions of the Ottoman Empire, ed. David Kushner (forthcoming).

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Figure 1: Map of the private lands of Abdülhamid II in Palestine

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area of Mandatory Palestine. The full list of the lands, their location,administrative unit and the date of registration (where available) can befound in the appendix and in Figure 1. The lands were not evenlydistributed in all parts of Palestine: a majority of them were concentrated inthe southernmost autonomous district (mutasarr›fl›k) of Jerusalem, asopposed to the central and northern districts (the sancaks of Nablus andAcre, respectively). Within each district, the tracts were more often foundin specific geographical regions rather than in others. Around a quarter ofthe landholdings were located along the coastal plain, another tenth in thehilly regions and in the Negev, and the remaining landholdings (aroundtwo-thirds) were located along the Jordan Valley. This was the case in allthree administrative units of Palestine, as presented in table 1.

Most tracts were located around specific localities, creating large blocks ofland owned by the sultan. We have located nine such blocks, coveringabout 85% of the total of Abdülhamid II’s lands. This might indicate thatthere was a deliberate attempt to create regions of consecutive tracts in thesole ownership of the sultan, as will be discussed below. Six of thoseblocks-the Hullah Valley, the Sea of Galilee, Baysan, Ghawr al-Far›‘a,Jericho-Northern Dead Sea, and Sodom-are in the Rift Valley, Kabara-Caesarea and Rafah are located in the coastal plain, and Till ‘Arad in theNegev. The large tracts were acquired either in one transaction (Till ‘Arad),

Source: Fischel and Kark.

Roy S. Fischel and Ruth Kark134N

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Table 1: The distribution of the lands according to geographical region

RegionCoastal PlainNorthern Coastal PlainCentral Coastal Plain and Mt. CarmelSouthern Coastal PlainHills and NegevNorthern Hills (Galilee)Northern PlainsCentral HillsNegev DesertJordan ValleyHullah ValleySea of Galilee and Northern Jordan ValleyMiddle and Southern Jordan ValleyDead SeaUnidentified tractsTotal

Area (metric dunam)189,651

6,97248,263

155,97786,459

5,2046,426

34,08940,742

530,28162,781

217,960159,841

89,6994,268

832,222

% of total25.3

0.85.8

18.710.4

0.60.84.14.9

63.77.5

26.219.210.8

0.5

or gradually-the Baysan lands, comprised of 163,876 dunam, werepurchased between 1883 and 1902.

That being the case, it is apparent that most of the lands underdiscussion were located outside the main settled regions of Palestine at thattime. In the early years of the reign of Abdülhamid II, most urbansettlements in Palestine were either along the coastline (Acre, Haifa, Jaffa,Gaza) or in the hilly regions (Safed, Nazareth, Nablus, Jerusalem, Hebron).Smaller towns (Ramla, Bethlehem, Al-B›ra) followed the same pattern.Tiberias was the only exception.3 Rural settlements were also locatedmostly in the hilly regions and to some extent in the coastal plain. Alongthe Jordan Valley, on the other hand, only small villages existed, with theexception of Tiberias. In the Negev, no settlements were found south of theGaza-Southern Judea line.4 Of the private lands of the sultan, 86% werelocated in regions where almost no settlements existed in that period. Anadditional 5% were comprised of dunes or marshland. By contrast, only 98dunam were located in urban settlements, all in Jaffa. In other words, about91% of the tracts were of little economic value. The classification of thelands according to their economic value is presented in Table 2.

The process of purchaseThe acquisition of such vast tracts by Abdülhamid II required anappropriate legal basis. During our research, we found no claims of

3 Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, “The Population of the Large Towns in Palestine during the First Eighty Yearsof the Nineteenth Century, according to Western Sources,” in Studies on Palestine on the OttomanPeriod, ed. M. Ma’oz (Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Yad Yizhak Ben-Zvi, 1975), 68.

4 Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, “The Population of the Sandjak Acre in the 1870s,” Shalem, no. 4 (1984): 316-21 and map in page 26, Yehoshua Ben Arieh and Arnon Golan, “Sub-Districts and Settlements of theSanjaq of Nablus in the Nineteenth Century,” Eretz Israel, no. 17 (1965): 62, Yehoshua Ben-Arieh,“The Sanjaq Jerusalem in the 1870s,” Cathedra, no. 36 (June 1985): 80-82, 108, 13, Dan Gazit,“Sedentary Processes in the Besor Region in the Age of Sultan Abdelhamid II,” in Jerusalem and EretzIsrael, ed. J. Schwartz (Tel Aviv: Eretz Israel Museum, 2000), 183.

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Source: Fischel and Kark.

Table 2: The private lands of Abdülhamid II according to economic value

Land typeUnsettled regionsDunesMarshlandUrban settlementsFertile agricultural land in settled regionsUnidentified tractsTotal

Area (metric dunam)715,54027,60014,123

9870,5934,268

832,222

% of total863.31.7

<0.18.50.5

100


unlawful appropriation raised against the sultan. The private lands ofAbdülhamid II fell into the category of çiftlik-i hümayun, or imperial çiftlik.The Ottoman land code of 1858 restated the two basic definitions of çiftlik,the first being a measure for land, usually between 60 and 150 Ottomandunam, and the other a large tract with a single owner, which cannot bedivided.5 In the Palestinian context, since no other çiftliks existed, the term(or its Arabic version, jiftlik) was used solely for the private lands of thesultan. In this paper, therefore, we will use the term çiftlik in its secondmeaning, particularly as çiftlik-i hümayun.

Çiftlik estates were created in three ways. First, with the abolishment ofthe timar system, some estates became large çiftliks. Second, theunification of several units created large çiftliks. Third, they could emergeas a result of taking over mevat-that is, uncultivated “dead” state lands towhich no one could claim legal rights. In exchange, the state ensured the“revival” (ihya) of the land as an agricultural tract.6 The sultan, therefore,could use one of several ways to acquire lands and add them to his çiftliks:voluntary transfer by the owner, sale by the owner, or taking over mahlullands, which seems to have been the most common practice.

Land surveys and the tapu law enacted in January of 1859 were themain instrument used by the sultan and his representatives to find outwhich lands were available for purchase. In 1871, a land survey, conductedthroughout the empire, defined deserted or sparsely inhabited villageswhose lands were called flemsiye. The inhabitants of the villages hadpriority in registering the lands on their names in exchange for a paymentof the evaluated fair price of the land (bedel-i misil); otherwise, the landswere to be sold at auction,7 and practically became mahlul. Clause no. 18 ofthe tapu law set the rules for the transactions of mahlul lands, stating thatland of this kind would be sold at auction.8 An addition to the law, issued in1871, set new rules for the auction of land, probably in order to encourageeconomic activity in the empire. The regulations determined that theauction–of up to 300 dunam in the sub-district (kaza), between 300 and500 dunam in the district (sancak), more than 500 dunam in the province

5 Halil ‹nalc›k, “Çiftlik,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, “The Ottoman Land Code of 7 Ramazan 1274 (21April 1858),” in The Ottoman Land Code, trans. F. Ongley (London: William Clowers and Sons, 1892),articles 99, 130-31, and 51, 68-69.

6 Gilles Veinstein, “On the Çiftlik Debate,” in Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the MiddleEast, eds. Ça¤lar Keyder and Faruk Tabak (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 35-39.

7 Arie L. Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs, 1878-1948 (Tel Aviv:Efal, 1982), 62-64, Yitzhak Schechter, “Land Registration in Eretz-Israel in the Second Half of theNineteenth Century,” Cathedra, no. 45 (1985): 147-48.

8 “The Tapu Law of 8 Cumadelâhire 1275 (13 January 1859),” in The Ottoman Land Code, article no.18, pages 78-79.

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(vilayet) – would be handled by the provincial administration, but theauction of tracts of the latter case had to be reported to ‹stanbul, so thatpotential buyers from other parts of the empire would have equalopportunity to purchase them.9 The land surveys and the new regulationsprovided ‹stanbul with the tools to assert its control over the real estatemarket in the provinces and enabled Abdülhamid II to be aware of largetracts available in Palestine and elsewhere.

Doukhan has claimed that many çiftlik lands were created voluntarilyby peasants who suffered Bedouin raids and asked to transfer their lands tothe sultan in exchange for usufruct rights and payment of the tithe (öflür),assuming that the Bedouins would not attack the property of the sultan.10

Halperin has suggested a similar mechanism, but said that it is possible thatbecause peasants had left the land first because of Bedouin raiding, thelands became mahlul and only then were purchased by the sultan.11 It ispossible that voluntary transfer did occur, but we do not have any evidenceto support this assumption. The second explanation of Halperin seems tobe more reasonable.

The following two cases seem to be representative of most instances ofland purchase transactions conducted by Abdülhamid II. The first is that ofthe lands of Bashatwa in the Jordan Valley, north of Baysan, according to areport from 1922. In 1881, 8,728 metric dunam were registered on the nameof thirty individuals. In 1898, 21 of them sold 7,021 dunam of those lands tothe sultan. In parallel, another 7,720 dunam were registered on the name ofanother 16 owners in 1881. The following year, they sold 12/24 of theirrights over these tracts to a certain Salim Efendi Mulki, and the lands cameunder shared ownership; they were sold to the sultan in 1890. An additionalsix landowners sold fifteen tracts comprised of 3,304 dunam to the sultan in1898. In regard to this last transaction, the title deed of 1900 states that thesale was of half the rights over the land (that is, 12/24 shares), and it isapparent that this is the other half of the rights to the land sold by SalimEfendi Mulki in 1882. The size of the tracts mentioned here is not clear.According to the details, the sultan should have possessed around 15,000dunam, but according to the registration of lands transferred to the state afterhis dethronement, he held merely 7,283 dunam.12 We are not able to explain

9 “Regulations for the Arrangement of Clause no. 18 of the Tapu Law, Racab 1288(September/October 1871),” in Ibid., 212-15.

10 Moses J. Doukhan, “Land Tenure,” in Economic Organization of Palestine, ed. Sa’id B. Himadeh(Beirut: American Press, 1938), 84.

11 H. Halperin, The Agricultural Legislation in Eretz Israel (Tel Aviv: Hasade Library, 1944), 68.12 “Appendix II: Bashatweh”, a mandatory report of an unknown source in regard to the lands of

Bashatwa, found at the rear of the file in Israel State Archive, Jerusalem (ISA), probably from 1922,see: ISA, RG 22, Box 3599, File 7.

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this gap; nevertheless, this case indicates that the sultan workedsystematically and for a long time to create a large çiftlik in his sole possession.

The second case is the lands of Till ‘Arad in the Negev. In June of 1907,the deputy kaymakam of Hebron reported that for eighteen years thevillagers of Yata and the Bedouins of the tribe of Zulam had been fightingfor control over the lands of Till ‘Arad. By 1907, the situation haddeteriorated to the verge of war. The lands were regarded as mahlul – thatis, neither of the parties possessed any legal rights there. The deputykaymakam suggested that a police station should be established and theland leased to a third party for agriculture.13 Following another incident inJuly of the same year, a police force was sent there and notified the partiesthat the land was mahlul and, therefore, had been annexed to the propertyof the sultan.14 In August, the First Secretary of the Sultan approved theannexation of the lands to the estates; he decided to establish anadministration house for the military forces and to spend between 45,000and 50,000 kurufl (£330-367) from the treasury of Jerusalem (i.e. theadministration of the sultan’s treasury in the district of Jerusalem) forcompensation.15 In reply, it was claimed that the situation was unclear as towho should be compensated; therefore, an authorization was requested tospend between 15,000 and 20,000 kurufl (£110-147) for a publiccircumcision ceremony (sünnet) of the children of the leaders of Till ‘Aradand for drawing a map of the tract.16

Local officials had to report calls for the sale of large mahlul tracts to‹stanbul, so that potential buyers from other regions of the empire wouldhave the chance to bud them. On the other hand, the case of Bashatwademonstrates that not all the lands purchased by Abdülhamid II weremahlul, whereas other tracts were too small to be reported to the capital. Itis clear, therefore, that the process could not have happened without thepresence of the sultan’s local representatives in Palestine; the best knownamong these representatives was Ali Ekram Bey, the governor (mutasarr›f)of Jerusalem between 1906 and 1908. According to Kushner, Ekram Bey’smonthly salary was 10,000 kurufl (£89), but he claimed that this amountwas not sufficient and asked to be given the administration of the estates ofthe sultan as well, as had been the case under his predecessor. Eventually,

13 Very urgent telegram from Hebron to the mutasarr›f of Jaffa, 5 June 323 (18 June 1907), ISA, RG 83,no. 225.

14 Telegram from the Secretariat of Jerusalem to the Chief Secretariat of the Imperial Household [Y›ld›zPalace, ‹stanbul], 25 July 323 (6 August 1907), ISA, RG 83, no. 63.

15 Telegram from the First Secretary of the Sultan in Y›ld›z Palace [‹stanbul] to the mutasarr›f ofJerusalem [Ekram Bey], 12 August 323 (25 August 1907), ISA, RG 83, no. 50.

16 Cipher telegram from the Jerusalem Secretariat to the Chief Secretariat [Y›ld›z Palace, ‹stanbul], n.d.,in reply to the telegram from 12 August 323 [25 August 1907], ISA, RG 83, no. 41.

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his salary was augmented to 12,000 kurufl (£107), in addition to the 2,000kurufl (£18) he received as the chairman of the sultan’s lands committee.17

This arrangement served the sultan well; first, since every land transactionhad to be approved by the district administration, the governor was thebest source for information regarding lands being introduced to the market.Second, once the local administrator shared common interests with thesultan, he was more likely to remain loyal. There was also a conflict ofinterest whereby a public official was co-opted to become the agent of aprivate person, conflating the individual interests of the sultan with theinterests of the empire in general.

The land market of PalestineConsidering the land codes, and given that the sultan apparently did notemploy illegal tactics to purchase his tracts, one can assume that the maindeterminant of the geographical location of his private lands was the localmarket. The last century of Ottoman rule over Palestine can be divided intothree major sub-periods regarding settlement patterns. The first period(1800-1840) was characterized by rural settlements on the hillside, whereasthe lowlands were controlled by Bedouins. During the middle period (1840-1880), rural settlements appeared in new regions. Foreign settlers andentrepreneurs became active in thinly populated regions, and the Bedouinswere forced to withdraw from several regions. In the late period (1880-1917), coinciding with the rule of Abdülhamid II, the settled area expandedeven more. Urban entrepreneurs (efendis) from Palestine and neighboringcountries began to purchase large tracts.18 The hatt-› hümayun of 1856, theland code of 1858, a law from 1867, and the protocols signed with certainWestern countries thereafter enabled foreigners to purchase lands all overthe empire, with the exception of the Hejaz. As a result, foreigners andinvestors became increasingly involved in the local market. Churches andmissionary organizations tended to purchase lands on the hillside, especiallyaround Jerusalem, and around coastal towns. The German Templars settledin Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa and the Lower Galilee. Entrepreneurs recognizedthe economic potential of the plains, purchased lands in the northern coastalplain and began to penetrate into the Jordan Valley.19

17 David Kushner, A Governor in Jerusalem: The City and Province in the Eyes of Ali Ekram Bey, 1906-1908(Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1995), 17-18.

18 Ruth Kark, “Landownership and Spatial Change in Nineteenth Century Palestine: An Overview,” inSeminar on Historical Types of Spatial Organizations: The Transition from Spontaneous to RegulatedSpatial Organisation (Warsaw, 1983), 1-7.

19 Ruth Kark, “Changing Patterns of Landownership in Nineteenth Century Palestine: The EuropeanInfluence,” Journal of Historical Geography 10 (1984).

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When Abdülhamid II began the process of land acquisition, he had toconfront the existing pattern of landownership in Palestine. The hillside wasdensely populated, and along the coastal plain north of Jaffa vacant landsbecame scarce. Subsequently, the liquid inventory of lands in Palestine waslocated mostly in marginal regions. Most lands were located in the plains, thevalleys and the Negev; some of them had great economic potential but haddeteriorated over time due to negligence–marshes and malaria werecommon.20 The map of the liquid inventory matches the location andcharacteristics of the majority of the private lands of the sultan, and his activityin those regions was probably determined by the availability of lands there.

Economic aspectsWe will now examine the goals which the sultan sought to achieve bypurchasing the lands. Most relevant lands in Palestine were of littleeconomic value; however, they still had potential. A strong correlationbetween the activity of the sultan in that field and his own economicinterests can be traced, mostly in regard to land utilization and the processof turning low-value lands into profitable tracts yielding agriculturalproducts to be sold on world markets.

MappingOne of the endeavors conducted on the private lands of Abdülhamid II wasmapping the lands, albeit not systematically. This presents the beginning ofsuch activities in the region. Cadastral mapping developed in Europeduring the first half of the nineteenth century as an instrument employedby governments to assert their control over lands, manifest theirsovereignty, estimate the resources of the state, and develop the lands.21

The first attempts of cadastral mapping in the Ottoman Empire followedthe land code of 1858 and were usually carried out by engineers workingfor the Ottoman administration. We could not find any large-scaleendeavor on behalf of the government to conduct a systemized land surveyand mapping. However, tracts of great importance to the Ottomangovernment and the sultan were mapped.22

Maps of çiftlik lands, large tracts of mahlul lands and regions where largeprojects were planned can be found in several archives in Israel. Apparently,

20 Ruth Kark, “Land Acquisition and New Agricultural Settlement in Palestine during the TyomkinPeriod, 1890-1892,” Zionism 9 (1984): 186-90.

21 D. Gavish and Ruth Kark, “The Cadastral Mapping of Palestine, 1858-1928,” The Geographic Journal,no. 159 (1993).

22 Ruth Kark and Haim Gerber, “Land Registry Maps in Palestine during the Ottoman Period,”Cathedra, no. 22 (January 1992): 113-14.

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the Ottomans tried to systematically map the çiftlik lands, although we werenot able to locate the maps of all the relevant tracts. In addition, in 1906 someof the maps were transferred to a certain Dr. Krüger in Damascus, for thepurpose of agricultural planning. It seems, therefore, that drawing the mapswas part of the effort to improve the infrastructure and, hence, theproductivity of the lands.23 An interesting piece of evidence for theimportance that the staff of the Y›ld›z Palace attributed to mapping is theabove-mentioned case of Till ‘Arad. One of the first orders sent by thepersonal Secretary of the Sultan upon the acquisition of the lands in 1907 wasto prepare a map of the land.24 We could not locate the map of that tract, andit is possible that the map was never drawn, but this case implies that mappingwas considered to be a major instrument for controlling and managing lands.

TransportationA preliminary condition for the success of commercial agriculture is anadequate transportation system within the estate and from the estate to themarkets. As with mapping, we were able to identify some indications forthe beginning of endeavors in that field, but none of them systematic.Moreover, in some cases, only circumstantial evidence suggests that theconstruction of roads was connected to the private lands of the sultan. Forinstance, in 1892, the Jerusalem-Jericho road was constructed, and by1900 it reached the Jordan River. These roads had been planned as early as1889, and their main purpose probably was the improvement of statecontrol over Jericho and its environs.25 However, all this coincided withmassive land purchases by the sultan in that region, and it is thereforepossible that the çiftliks were a factor in the project. Other evidencesuggests that roads were constructed within the çiftliks themselves–forinstance, a bridge in Baysan, which still exists. Nevertheless, a report from1919 indicates that transportation in the region, especially between thebanks of the Jordan River, was still difficult.26

An interesting piece of evidence related to transportation, possiblyaffected by the presence of lands in the possession of the sultan, is the route

23 Ruth Kark, “The Lands of the Sultan: Newly Discovered Ottoman Cadastral Maps in Palestine,” inEastern Mediterranean Cartographies, eds. G. Tolias and D. Loupis (Athens: Institute for NeohellenicResearch, 2004), 197-202, 216-18.

24 Telegram from the First Secretary of the Sultan, Y›ld›z Palace [‹stanbul], to the mutasarr›f of Jerusalem[Ekram Bey], 12 August 323 [23 August 1907], ISA, RG 83, no. 50.

25 Ruth Kark, “Transportation in Nineteenth-Century Palestine: Reintroduction of the Wheel,” in TheLand that Became Israel: Studies in Historical Geography, ed. Ruth Kark (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1989), 60.

26 “The Beit-Shean Jiftlik”, a report of 20 Shevat 5679 [21 January 1919], no author (possibly JacobEtinger), Kressel Collection, Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies (in Hebrew).

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of the Haifa branch of the Hejaz railroad. The history of this line suggeststhat the private lands of the sultan were a factor in its construction. The firstconcession of the Haifa branch was given in 1882 to a British company,which failed to construct it, and by 1903 the Ottoman Empire had takenover the project. The line possessed economic importance, and itsconstruction was motivated by the Ottoman desire to become independentof the French-controlled Beirut-Damascus line.27 However, the privatelands of the sultan and his wish to develop commercial agriculture in theJordan Valley seems to play a role in this project.28 This correlation suggestsitself when comparing the route recommended by the British in 1890 andthe route constructed by the Ottomans between 1904 and 1905. The firstroute crossed the Yarmuk River at Al-Hamma and continued towards theSouthwest, crossing the Jordan River in Jisr al-Majami‘.29 In contrast, thenew route continued from al-Hamma to Samakh, thence south to Zab‘aand southwest to Khan al-Ahmar, where the Baysan station was located.30

The sultan possessed lands in the following locations along the new route:Al-Hamma, Samakh, Dalhamiyya, Bashatwa, Khan al-Ahmar and Baysan.The terrain of both routes is relatively flat, and no topographical reason canexplain the change. Therefore, the reason for this shift apparently wasAbdülhamid II’s desire to connect as much of his land as possible to therailroad.31

Agriculture and land bettermentMapping the lands and the improvement of the transportation systemwere only preliminary steps employed in order to increase agriculturalproduction and transform commercial agriculture. The success ofcommercial agriculture was also dependent on the proper management ofthe lands as well as the availability of money to buy seeds andequipment.32 In the period of Abdülhamid II, the production and export

27 Kark, “Transportation in Nineteenth-Century Palestine: Reintroduction of the Wheel,” 59-66, DavidKushner, “The Haifa-Damascus Railway: The British Phase (1890-1902),” Cathedra, no. 55 (1990):89-99, Walter Pinhas Pick, “Meisner Pasha and the Construction of Railways in Palestine andNeighboring Countries,” in Ottoman Palestine, 1800-1914: Studies in Economic and Social History, ed.G. G. Gilbar (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 190-93.

28 Kark, “The Lands of the Sultan,” 201, Kushner, “The Haifa-Damascus Railway,” 89.29 See map in Kushner, “The Haifa-Damascus Railway,” 92.30 Beisan, 4, 1:100,000, F. J. Salmon, Survey of Palestine, 1937, Mt. Scopus map library BB 900 C – [1]

1937/1.31 Similar motives dealing with the coming of the railroad, land investment, development and land

grants were a common feature in the American West during the second half of the nineteenthcentury. See, John F. Stover, American Railroads (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

32 Linda Schilcher, “The Grain Economy of Late Ottoman Syria and the Issue of Large-ScaleCommercialization,” in Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the Middle East, eds. Ça¤lar Keyderand Faruk Tabak (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 185-95.

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of agricultural products from Palestine increased, along with the growinginvolvement of the local market in the global economic system.33 Thesultan sought to take part in the commercial agricultural system in orderto increase his profits. The basic conditions for this kind of agricultureexisted in his private domains: large tracts under unified management.The sultan provided the peasants who settled on his lands with seeds. Itwas reported that he encouraged peasants from northern Samaria to settleon his lands north of Baysan and that he provided each of them with 100to 150 dunam of land as well as with wheat and sorghum seeds. However,the peasants did not have adequate agricultural machinery. In addition,starting from the second year, heavy taxes were levied upon them.34 Itseems that there was an attempt to plan agricultural activity, albeitunsuccessfully. A similar attempt to settle peasants on the private lands ofthe sultan occurred in the northern Negev. For instance, several familiesfrom Gaza were allowed to settle in the village of Kawfakha in exchangefor military service.35

Some of the lands were not appropriate for massive settlement withoutintensive improvement. For instance, in the Hullah Valley, the landsaround Baysan and the northern Sharon plain were marshlands unsuitablefor agriculture. Beginning in 1877, the government tried to improve thoselands. In the Hullah Valley, engineers tried to examine the reasons for thecreation of the marsh and employed traditional methods in an attempt todrain it. The endeavor was only partially successful, and by 1901 a newconcession for the drainage of the marsh had been given to the Jewishcolony of Yisud Ha-Ma‘alah, without much success.36 Neither weredrainage projects around Baysan successful. In 1913, only a third of theçiftlik lands in that region were suitable for agriculture without furtherbetterment.37 Similarly, there is only slight evidence for investment inirrigation systems–for instance, the aqueduct constructed north ofJericho–to provide the lands of the sultan with water for irrigation.38 Inother places no irrigation systems are evident. For example, the cadastralmaps of the villages around Gaza show that only water holes (su kap›s›)

33 Iris Agmon, “The Development of Palestine’s Foreign Trade, 1879-1914: Economic and SocialAspects” (M. A. Thesis, University of Haifa, 1984), 49-63.

34 “The Beit-Shean Jiftlik”.35 Sharif Kana‘ana and Rashad al-Madani, The Destroyed Palestinian Villages, 8: Al-Kawfakha (Bir Zayt:

Bir-Zayt University), 6-7.36 Iris Agmon, “The Bedouin Tribes of the Hula and Baysan Valleys at the End of Ottoman Rule,”

Cathedra, no. 45 (September 1987): 91-97, Izhak Zitrin, History of the Hullah Concession (Ramat Gan:No publisher, 1987), 32-40.

37 Letter from Mr. Hoenhek, JCA office, Haifa, to Dr. Arthur Ruppin, 27 August 1913, Central ZionistArchive, Jerusalem, RG L18, Box 125, File 31 (in Hebrew).

38 Kark, “The Lands of the Sultan,” 217.

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existed.39 Nevertheless, grain agriculture in that period usually relied onrain only,40 so that possible no irrigation systems were required.

MineralsPalestine is not blessed with many minerals, with the exception of the DeadSea. The value of the lake and its minerals has been known since antiquity.Modern interest in the treasures of the lake rose during the nineteenthcentury, especially among European and Zionist organizations. In 1894, itwas reported that ships were sailing on the Dead Sea in order to collect thenatural asphalt from the lake and to export it to Europe.41 Six years later, acommittee was founded in Vienna to discuss ways of using the resources ofthe lake.42 In 1904, the World Zionist Organization sent a delegation toconduct a geological survey in the region.43

Those endeavors encouraged Abdülhamid II to intervene. From 1888on, large tracts along the northern and southern shores of the Dead Seawere registered in his name. Considering the arid nature of the region, itseems that the main reason for the acquisition of lands there was related tothe economic value of the lake itself. This assumption is supported by somedocuments expressing the Ottoman interest in the economic value of theregion. A report sent from Jerusalem to the Second Secretary of the Sultandiscusses several ideas in that regard. The administration of the çiftlik in thedistrict established a committee to examine the region, and there was anattempt to get a hold of previous surveys done by Dominican monks andthe local Jewish agronomist Aharon Ahronson. The documents reveal thatthe goal here was to find ways to use the treasures of the Dead Sea withoutissuing any concession or spending money from the Imperial Treasury.44

Abdülhamid II was dethroned shortly thereafter, so it is difficult todetermine the potential results of this effort.

Private lands and the Privy PurseThe activities conducted on the private lands of Abdülhamid II suggest thateconomic profit was an important consideration in purchasing them.

39 Maps of Lands Arrangement of the çiftliks of Muharraqa, Kawfakha and Jaladiyya, which are attachedto Kaza Gaza, Sancak of Jerusalem, 1:5,000, 1309 [1893], Kark Map Collection, Jerusalem (inTurkish).

40 Schilcher, “The Grain Economy of Late Ottoman Syria,” 179.41 Ha-Megid, 20 September 1894 (in Hebrew).42 Ha-Megid, 22 November 1900 (in Hebrew).43 Michael Aran, “Potash Concession in the Dead Sea,” in The Dead Sea and Judean Desert, ed. M. Naor

(Jerusalem: Yad Yizhak Ben-Zvi, 1990), 76.44 Report [n.a.] to His Majesty the Second Secretary [of the Sultan] Izat Pafla [Y›ld›z Palace, ‹stanbul],

14 November 1323 [27 November 1907], ISA, RG 83 [no number], also in Kushner, A Governor inJerusalem, 127-29.

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Mapping the lands, employing engineers, the construction of roads andrailroads as well as conducting surveys imply that attempts to increaseprofit were made on behalf of the sultan. It is not clear, however, whoenjoyed the profit of those private lands. Bearing in mind that the landswere not a state domain, but private lands registered on the name of thesultan in the tapu, it is reasonable to assume that the sultan himself was themain beneficiary. It is important, therefore, to clarify certain pointsregarding the finance system of the palace.

The finances of the sultan (the Privy Purse or hazine-i hassa) as aninstitution separate from the state treasury can be traced back to the veryfirst decades of the Ottoman Empire.45 In the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies, the state treasury was responsible for the royal income andexpenses, including the royal family, the harem and the staff of the palace.At the same time, the distinction between the state treasury and the financesystem of the palace gradually increased.46 The increasing number ofpalaces and staff resulted in confusion in regard to their finances. MahmudII (r. 1808-1839) tried to establish a new royal treasury, which became aministry in 1839,47 but the old Privy Purse, located in the Topkap› Palace,was not abolished. In 1850, it was reorganized yet again as a ministryresponsible for the expenditure of the palace. Abdülaziz (r. 1861-1876)unified the different palace treasuries, but the Privy Purse and the statetreasury continued to be located in different places.48 In that period, a largearray of possessions was transferred from the palace to the state treasury.This process, however, caused an increasing crisis in the palaces finances,driving Abdülaziz to seek new ways, some of which were quite dubious, toincrease the revenues of the palace.49

Under Abdülhamid II, a major change in the position of the Privy Purseoccurred. The sultan’s endeavor to strengthen the palace (and his ownposition) vis-à-vis the state bureaucracy relied on this institution.Therefore, the palace regained power by acquiring properties, as mentionedbefore, and by returning substantial parts of the properties which had been

45 Stanford J. Shaw, The Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1976), 23-119.

46 Nadir Özbek, “Imperial Gifts and Sultanic Legitimation during the Late Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909,” in Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts, eds. Michael Bonner, Mine Ener, and AmySinger (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), 209, Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem:Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 118-22.

47 C. Orhonlu, “Khaz›ne,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, 1185.48 Özbek, “Imperial Gifts and Sultanic Legitimation,” 209-10, Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw,

The Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2 vols., vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1977), 82-83.

49 Vasfi fiensözen, Osmano¤ullar›’n›n Varl›klar› ve II. Abdülhamid’in Emlak› (Ankara: Türk Tarih KurumuBas›mevi, 1982), 31-35.

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transferred from the Privy Purse to the hands of the bureaucracy under therule of Abdülmecid (r. 1839-1861) and Abdülaziz. Moreover, theinstitution, having regained its practical independence, was modernizedand thus reintroduced as a major instrument serving the sultan.50

Nevertheless, the Privy Purse remained legally part of the bureaucracy, andit is possible that there was a struggle between the palace and thebureaucracy for the management of the Privy Purse, especially under thevizier Midhat Pafla.51 The extent of the private possessions of AbdülhamidII was impressive; Terzi has shown that the properties consisted of morethan 56 million dunam in the Arab provinces of the empire, including211,261 dunam in the District of Jerusalem.52 However, according to ourfindings, the sultan possessed 393,330 dunam in this district; therefore, itis possible that the total possessions of Abdülhamid II all over the OttomanEmpire were even larger.

The Privy Purse was not limited to the maintenance of the palace, butalso constituted a source for imperial activity. An example for that can befound in the charitable activities of the sultan: for instance, in thedistribution of alms and the establishment of the darül’aceze in 1896 inorder to take care of the homeless in ‹stanbul,53 or the above-mentionedpublic circumcision ceremony planned after the acquisition of lands in Till‘Arad. The charity system required substantial amounts of money, whicharrived from both the Privy Purse and the Ministry of the Estates of theSultan (emlak-› seniye idaresi). According to Özbek, the basis for the charitysystem was Abdülhamid II’s land possessions. Located in the Y›ld›z Palace,the financial institutions of the palace significantly expanded during thatperiod under the personal supervision of the sultan. The income of theprivate property in 1908 was at least O£1,500,000 (around £1,340,000),equivalent to 6-7% of the expenditure of the Ottoman budget.54 Theimportance of the Privy Purse can be attested by its quick liquidation andunification with the state treasury soon after the Young Turk Revolution in1908.55 The private lands became state domain thereafter, as they weretransferred to the administration along with the rest of the Privy Purse. It is

50 Christopher Clay, Gold for the Sultan: Western Bankers and Ottoman Finance, 1856-1881 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), 282, fiensözen, Osmano¤ullar›’n›n Varl›klar›, 37-41, Shaw and Shaw, The OttomanEmpire and Modern Turkey, 225.

51 Harold Temperley, “British Policy towards Parliamentary Rule and Constitution in Turkey (1830-1914),” Cambridge Historical Journal 4, no. 2 (1933): 174.

52 Arzu T. Terzi, Hazine-i Hassa Nezareti (Ankara: Tarih Kurumu Bas›mevi, 2000), 95-96.53 Mine Ener, “Religious Prerogatives and Policing the Poor in Two Ottoman Contexts,” Journal of

Interdisciplinary History 35 (2005): 506-11.54 Özbek, “Imperial Gifts and Sultanic Legitimation,” 210.55 Orhonlu, “Khaz›ne,” 1185.

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clear, therefore, that the private lands of the sultan were part of the assetsbelonging to the Privy Purse and, hence, played a role in the overallimperial policy of Abdülhamid II, especially in regard to his privateactivities meant to strengthen his own position in the empire.

Law, order and controlImportant as they may be, the economic goals of Abdülhamid II alonecannot explain his motives for purchasing land. Desert and dune lands,which could not yield any significant profits without substantialinvestment, are not attractive from any economic perspective. Moreover,no evidence suggests that any tract purchased by the sultan was sold duringhis reign. This might imply that holding land was sometimes moreimportant than its economic value. Therefore, it is clear that,notwithstanding the maintenance of the Privy Purse, other motivescontributed to the interest of the sultan in these lands: issues of law, orderand better control over certain parts of Palestine also were of somesignificance.

BedouinsSeveral nomadic groups such as Kurds and Bedouins challenged Ottomancontrol over the provinces; restraining those groups was crucial for thegovernment. The problematic relations between Bedouins and the settledpopulation were a permanent factor in Palestine. According to Gerber,since the sixteenth century the balance of power between ‹stanbul and theBedouins began to shift in favor of the latter. The regions where theBedouins dwelt lay in proximity to settled lands; therefore, a weakeningcentral authority resulted in nomad raids in the settled regions.56

Abdülhamid II aspired to strengthen the Ottoman authority in theprovinces and, thus, had to take action in order to restrain the Bedouins.

On the eve of Abdülhamid II’s reign, only a small military force wasstationed in Palestine. In wartime, only redif units (reserve units which hadbeen recruited among the local population, had had short training, andwere stationed in the towns to keep law and order) were present inPalestine.57 The Bedouins were aware of this fact and conducted raids deepinto the settled land.58 The Ottoman solution was to send a military force,when available, to fight the Bedouins. However, this solution was only

56 Haim Gerber, The Social Origins of the Modern Middle East (London: Mansell, 1987), 59-61.57 Erik Jan Zürcher, “The Ottoman Conscription System, 1844-1914,” International Review of Social

History 43 (1998): 438-41.58 Clinton Bailey, “The Ottomans and the Bedouin Tribes of the Negev,” in Ottoman Palestine, 1800-

1914: Studies in Economic and Social History, ed. G. Gilbar (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 322-25.

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partial, as attested by the repeated excursions of the governor of Jerusalem,Rauf Pafla, against the Bedouins in the vicinity of Gaza. Four expeditions ofthat kind took place between May of 1876 and November of 1878, andeach of them was reported as successful.59 However, the need to repeat thecampaign at least once a year does not support any claims to success.

The solution presented by Abdülhamid II contained severalcomponents. The first was the improvement of the transportation systemfor quick military response to any internal or external threat. As part ofthis, the Hejaz railroad and the roads to Jericho and the Jordan River wereconstructed, while plans were also made for the construction of a road fromJerusalem to Hebron and thence to Gaza.60 Another step was theestablishment of new administrative centers on the fringes of the settledland. In 1899, Beersheba was established in order to enforce Ottomancontrol over the Bedouins in the Negev.61 Gerber has claimed that thepurpose of the establishment of the town was to strengthen the bordershared with British-controlled Egypt, to fill the political vacuum created inthe region after the elimination of the Bedouins, and to integrate theBedouins into the Ottoman system. These goals were achieved.62

The Ottoman government tried to build another town in the Negev,named ‘Awja al-Haf›r, and to establish a new sub-district.63 According to‘Arif al-‘Arif, Ekram Bey arrived in the region in order to examine the sitefor the new city in al-Haf›r, and not in ‘Awja which is located ten kilometersto the east. Finally, a sub-district was established in ‘Awja, with thecombined name of ‘Awja al-Haf›r, where barracks, an inn and a governmentoffice were constructed. However, the city did not develop until WorldWar I, when it became an outpost on the Egyptian front.64 There are twopossible reasons for the transfer of the city to the new location, the firstbeing the conclusion of the Egypt-Palestine border in that region in 1906after a long struggle between Britain and the Ottoman Empire.65 The

59 Letter from the mutasarr›f of Jerusalem [Rauf Pafla] to the Consul of the German government inJerusalem, 10 May [12]92 (23 May 1876), ISA, RG 83, [no number]; Letter from the mutasarr›f ofJerusalem [Rauf Pafla] to the Consul of the German government in Jerusalem, 10 May [12]92 (23 May1876), ISA, RG 83 [no number]; Letter from the mutasarr›f of Jerusalem [Rauf Pafla] to the Consul ofthe German government in Jerusalem, 31 May [12]93 (12 June 1877), ISA, RG 67 [no number];Havazeleth, 31 May and 7 November 1878 (in Hebrew).

60 Kark, “Transportation in Nineteenth-Century Palestine: Reintroduction of the Wheel,” 58-61, JacobM. Landau, The Hejaz Railway and the Muslim Pilgrimage: A Case of Ottoman Political Propaganda(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1971), 13-14.

61 See, Ha-Megid, 21 August 1900 (in Hebrew).62 Haim Gerber, Ottoman Rule in Jerusalem, 1890-1914 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1985), 237-39.63 Ibid., 93.64 ‘Arif al-‘Arif History of Beersheba and Her Tribes (Madbuli Press, 1999), 61-65.65 Gabriel R. Warburg, “The Sinai Peninsula Borders, 1906-1947,” Journal of Contemporary History 14,

no. 4 (1979): 677-78.

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second reason concerns landownership. Whereas Beersheba wasestablished on state lands, ‘Awja al-Haf›r was built on a tract of 604 dunamowned by Abdülhamid II. The date of acquisition is unknown, but it islikely that the sultan wished to establish the new town on his private lands.Similar use of the private lands of the sultan can be found in Till ‘Arad,where the First Secretary of the Sultan ordered the construction of theadministrative and police center on the private lands.66

The town of Baysan was probably constructed on the private lands ofAbdülhamid II. According to the land registration, the sultan possessed7,817 dunam in Baysan itself, registered between 1883 and 1902, as wellas 6,987 dunam in the neighboring Khan al-Ahmar. It is not clear when thetown was established and became the administrative center of the region,but in 1891 Lunz reported that 500 inhabitants as well as a müdür residedin the town.67 Bädeker reported in 1904 that the population had risen to2,500 inhabitants, and that the town was located in the middle of a çiftlik.68

Apparently, the establishment of the müdürlük, which was also derivedfrom the large çiftliks in the region, facilitated the enforcement of law andorder over the Bedouins, as we will demonstrate below.

At the same time, the central government aimed at changing theBedouin way of life. Two parallel tendencies are evident: the first concernsinternal changes among the Bedouin communities, and the second is thegovernment’s endeavor to turn the Bedouins into sedentary and tax-payingsubjects. The success was not equal in all parts of Palestine, as can bedemonstrated by comparing Baysan and the Negev. In the 1900s, theBedouins around Baysan usually resided in one place and were involved inagriculture. They were supervised by the local administrative system, andmost paid the taxes on their crops probably produced for localconsumption, although some were sold in the towns of northern Palestine.The Bedouin villages had a muhtar responsible for tax administration andconnections with government representatives, but the tribal hierarchypersisted.69

Some evidence suggests that around Baysan Bedouins were settled onthe private lands of Abdülhamid II. The Ghawr Mudawwara agreement,signed on 19 November 1921 between the Mandatory Government ofPalestine and the tenants of the former çiftlik estates, regulated thelandownership of agricultural land and pasture rights. It states that in 1908

66 Letter from the First Secretary of the Sultan, Y›ld›z Palace [‹stanbul], to the mutasarr›f of Jerusalem[Ekram Bey], 12 August [1]323 (25 August 1907), ISA, RG 83, no. 50.

67 A. M. Lunz, Guide Book More Derech (Jerusalem: Ariel, 1979), 219.68 Karl Bädeker, Palästina und Syrien: Handbuch für Reisende (Leipzig: Karl Bädeker, 1904), 194.69 Agmon, “The Bedouin Tribes”: 94-101, Gerber, Ottoman Rule in Jerusalem, 23.

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the Ottoman government confiscated the private lands of the sultan andleased them to the tenants who had already resided there, some of themBedouins.70 This indicates that Bedouins were settled on parts of the landsbefore the establishment of the constitutional government. Therefore, it isreasonable to assume that those Bedouins had settled on the lands astenants during the reign of Abdülhamid II. One should bear in mind,however, that some of the çiftliks were actually the lands of Bedouinstribes, for instance al-Ghazawiyya and Bashatwa.

In the Negev, on the other hand, the settlement of the Bedouins was notas advanced as in Baysan. Except for lands in the very northern part of theNegev and the town of ‘Awja al-Haf›r, the sultan did not possess tracts inthat region. The lands of Beersheba were purchased by the Ottomangovernment from the sheik of the ‘Azazma tribe and were not attached tothe estates of the sultan.71 The government, however, did try to encourageBedouins to settle in Beersheba, and several sheikhs built their houses inthe town, along with city dwellers from Hebron and Gaza.72 Similarattempts were made around ‘Awja al-Haf›r,73 but, as mentioned above, thetown did not develop. The failure to settle Bedouins in the Negev is clearfrom the statistical data of 1931, when only 3,101 of the around 50,000inhabitants of the district were settled, mostly in Beersheba itself.74 Someaspects of Bedouin life in the Negev did, nevertheless, change: theBedouins became increasingly engaged in agriculture, a process intensifiedby the foundation of the town of Beersheba as a market for agriculturalproducts. Urban entrepreneurs entered the market as suppliers ofagricultural machinery and buyers of surplus as well as moneylenders inyears of drought.75 From the administrative perspective, the integration ofthe Bedouins into the Ottoman system was successful. Representatives ofthe main tribes of the Negev were included in the town council (meclis) ofBeersheba, and the revenues of the region were increasing following the

70 For an announcement including the accurate version of the Ghawr land contract signed on 19November 1921, see The Palestine Gazette, 14 September 1933, Kark Archive, Jerusalem (in Hebrew).

71 Yasemin Avc›, “The Application of the Tanzimat in the Desert: Ottoman Central Government and theBedouins in Southern Palestine” (paper presented at the International Conference on theApplication of the Tanzimat Reforms in Various Regions of the Ottoman Empire, Haifa, Israel, June2007).

72 Mildred Berman, “The Evolution of Beersheba as an Urban Center,” Annals of the Association ofAmerican Geographers 55 (1965): 315-17.

73 Kushner, A Governor in Jerusalem, 241.74 Yoseph Braslavsky, Did You Know the Country?, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: HaKibutz HaMeuchad, 1956), 246,

Ruth Kark, Pioneering Jewish Settlement in the Negev, 1880-1948 (Jerusalem: Ariel, 2002), 55.75 Joseph Ben-David, “The Negev Bedouins: From Nomadism to Agriculture,” in The Land that Became

Israel: Studies in Historical Geography, ed. Ruth Kark (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 187-91.

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establishment of the town.76 Nevertheless, in the process of the settlementof the Bedouins, only marginal success was recorded.

RefugeesThe Bedouins were not the only group with which the Ottomans had todeal. Prior to the rise of Abdülhamid II, the Ottoman Empire lost territoriesto Russia, territories where a substantial Muslim population resided,especially Circassians and Chechens in the Caucasus. Due to religious andpolitical oppression and fear of the Christian government, Muslim refugeesmigrated to Ottoman territories. During the 1860s, some of them settledin northern Syria, and in the following decade in southern Syria as well.77

Other refugees from the Caucasus were settled in the Balkans, butfollowing the war of 1877-78 and the transfer of territories from theOttomans to Russia and Austria-Hungary, millions of ex-Caucasusrefugees as well as Bosnian and Bulgarian Muslims immigrated into theremaining Ottoman territories.78 Abdülhamid II, claiming to be the caliphof all Muslims,79 was obliged to admit the Muslim refugees into theempire,80 and to become personally involved in their settlement. In 1877-78, he funded shelters for some 200,000 refugees in ‹stanbul, butfollowing an attempted rebellion supported by some refugees, he tried tolook for solutions away from the capital.81 In March of 1878, the sultansummoned a committee concerning the issue in the Y›ld›z Palace. This adhoc committee consisted of ten members and aspired to draw an imperialpolicy for the solution of the refugee problem. The chief administrator ofthe committee, Sait Pafla, was the director of the Privy Purse. In 1879, anew committee replaced the former.82

The Ottoman government tried to combine the solution of the refugeeproblem with the question of control over the periphery and sought to usethem to increase the productivity of thinly populated regions (for

76 Avc›, “The Application of the Tanzimat”.77 Norman Lewis, Nomads and Settlers in Syria and Jordan, 1800-1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1987), 96-98.78 Kemal H. Karpat, “Ottoman Immigration Policies and Settlement in Palestine,” in Settlers’ Regimes

in Africa and the Arab World, eds. I. Abu-Lughod and B. Abu-Laban (Wilmette: Medina UniversityPress, 1974), 64-65, Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith,and Community in the Late Ottoman State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 184-85, JustinMcCarthy, Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922 (Princeton: DarwinPress, 1995), 77.

79 Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, 15-19.80 Mehmet Y›lmaz, “Policy of Immigrant Settlement of the Ottoman State in the 19th Century,” in The

Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation, ed. K. Çiçek (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 2000), 594.81 Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, p. 184.82 Y›lmaz, “Policy of Immigrant Settlement,” 598-99.

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instance, Anatolia) with great success.83 The refugees were settled eitherin existing villages, with the assistance of the local population, or in newsettlements in several provinces.84 Let us briefly look at the case of Balqa’in central Transjordan, where Circassians and Chechens were settled.Between 1878 and 1884, ‘Amman, Wadi S›r and Jarash were establishedand refugees settled there, and between 1901 and 1906 five more villageswere established. By the first years of the twentieth century, severalthousand Circassians resided in Balqa’ and Jarash, with ‘Amman as themain settlement.85 Prior to the arrival of the refugees, settlements wererather scarce in Balqa’,86 and the population was mostly comprised ofBedouins. The Ottoman government tried to kill two birds with onestone: first, they wished to settle the refugees, and second, they tried toestablish their sovereignty over Transjordan, where the Circassians wereused as governmental agents.87 The two goals were achieved, and severalcases indicate that the Circassians were able to restrain the Bedouins andenforce Ottoman regulation in regard to land registration and taxcollection.88

In comparison to Transjordan, Palestine was densely populated and inthe midst of a process of expansion of permanently settled regions.89

Nevertheless, in some regions–such as the Negev, parts of the coastal plain,and the Jordan Valley–conditions similar to those in Transjordan existed.The Ottoman government tried to combine the solution to the refugeeproblem with the question of control over the Bedouins, albeit to a lesserextent.

Five settlements for the refugees were identified in Palestine: two inGalilee, two in the Sharon plain, and one in the southern plains. TheCircassian village of Rayhaniyya in the Eastern Upper Galilee wasestablished sometime between 1876 and 1881,90 possibly because of itsproximity to the Hullah Valley with its large Bedouin population. Theownership of Rayhaniyya lands is unclear, but it is known that the sultan

83 Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, 185, Malcolm E. Yapp, The Making of the Modern Near East, 1792-1923 (London: Longman, 1991), 122, 95.

84 Y›lmaz, “Policy of Immigrant Settlement,” 602.85 Lewis, Nomads and Settlers, 97-98, 107-09, Eugene L. Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman

Empire: Transjordan, 1850-1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 73-76.86 Gerber, The Social Origins of the Modern Middle East, 99, Lewis, Nomads and Settlers, 21-23.87 Zvi Ilan, Attempts at Jewish Settlement in Trans-Jordan, 1871-1947 (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi,

1984), 11-12, 36.88 Lewis, Nomads and Settlers, 107-09, Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire, 73-76,

94.89 Kark, “Landownership and Spatial Change,” 4-5.90 Zah›r Ghana’im and ‘Abd al-Lat›f Ghana’im, The District of Acre in the Time of Ottoman Reforms

(Beirut: Mu‘asasat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyya, 1999), 174-75, Lewis, Nomads and Settlers.

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had four tracts comprised of 283 dunam in nearby ‘Alma. In the PEF map of1880, the site of Rayhaniyya is called Burak ‘Alma;91 thus, it is likely thatthe village was built on the ‘Alma lands of the sultan. The Circassian villageof Kafr Kama in the Lower Galilee was probably established around thesame time,92 but unlike for Rayhaniyya, we found no connection to thelands of the sultan. Kafr Kama was located in the vicinity of two otherregions where Bedouins were active, in the northern Jordan Valley and theJezreel Valley, and it is possible that its location was determinedaccordingly. The Circassians were employed, inter alia, in the governmentservice and in road construction around Tiberias.93

In the early 1880s, a group of Bosnian refugees settled in two locationsin the northern Sharon. Exhausted by fever, the refugees deserted thosetwo spots, and some settled in the village of Yamün in Samaria, whileothers were settled in 1884 in the ruins of Roman Caesarea,94 whereAbdülhamid II had purchased 23,704 dunam at an unknown date. Furtherplans to settle more refugees in Caesarea did not materialize.95 Not far fromCaesarea, another village was established, known as Khirbat al-Sarkas (lit.“Ruins of the Circassians”), or al-Ghaba. The date of establishment isunknown, but it was prior to 1894,96 probably on a çiftlik of 605 dunam,whose date of purchase is also unknown. The village was deserted beforethe 1930s, when it was resettled by Palestinian peasants. Two of therefugees from that region were appointed müdürs of Caesarea,97 inaccordance with the pattern common in Transjordan.

The story of the fifth village, Zayta, is still unclear. According to Ilan, in1908/9 a group of Circassian families left the Caucasus. On their way, theybullied the Jewish colony of Qastina (Be’er Tuvia), extorting money.Finally, they settled in Zayta, between Hebron and Gaza, but deserted itafter a year or two because they fell ill with fever.98 Grossman, on the otherhand, found no other evidence for the Circassian settlement in this place.He claims that no cases of fever are known in this part of the country, and itis more likely that the Circassians tried to settle in another place bearing the

91 Palestine Exploration Fund Archive Website, London.92 Lewis, Nomads and Settlers, 117.93 Havazeleth, 16 January 1887 (in Hebrew).94 Lewis, Nomads and Settlers, 117.95 Zvi Ilan, “Turkmen, Circassians and Bosnians in the Northern Sharon,” in HaSharon between Yarkon

and Karmel, ed. D. Grossman (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University and Ministry of Defence PublishingHouse, 1990), 280-83.

96 Ghana’im and Ghana’im, The District of Acre in the Time of Ottoman Reforms, 174-75, Lewis, Nomadsand Settlers, 117.

97 Ilan, “Turkmen, Circassians and Bosnians,” 280-83.98 Ibid., 280.

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same name in the Sharon plain.99 However, assuming that the Circassiansdid try to settle in the southern Zayta, this matches the pattern seen inother refugee settlements: the sultan possessed 14,122 dunam purchasedin 1888 and 1908 in that location. Bedouins roamed this region and incases of drought, as in 1909/10, raided the fields of Qastina.100 Therefore,it is reasonable to assume that this group of Circassians left the Caucasusprior to the dethronement of Abdülhamid II and tried to settle on this land.as part of the sultan’s policy to settle loyal Muslim elements in order torestrain Bedouin activity.

Attempts to settle refugees in Palestine were limited and mostlyunsuccessful. The few attempts which were made are similar to thepatterns found in Transjordan: all settlements were established in internalfrontier zones–that is, in proximity to areas where Bedouins wereactive–and some cases indicate that the Ottomans tried to recruit therefugees to their service. Three of the settlements–Caesarea, Khirbat al-Sarkas and Zayta–were established on the private lands of Abdülhamid II,and it is likely that Rayhaniyya was connected to the lands of the sultan too.We were not able to find out whether the settlements in Transjordan wereestablished on the private lands of Abdülhamid II, but in the Palestiniancontext it is clear that the sultan used his personal assets as an instrumentto solve the refugees problem in the empire.

Control over the landsYet another use of the private lands of Abdülhamid II was intended tostrengthen Ottoman control over the lands vis-à-vis foreigners whoseinvolvement in the empire gradually increased. In the 1850s, theOttomans began to encourage foreign immigration in order to increaseagricultural productivity. The above-mentioned land laws and regulationsenabled foreign subjects to immigrate into the empire. In Palestine, fiftywestern agricultural settlements and a hundred urban neighborhoods hadbeen established by 1914.101 Afraid of the increasing influence offoreigners within the empire and the weakening control over the provinces,the Ottoman government tried to limit immigration. The laws and politicalpressure prevented any vigorous action by the Ottomans; therefore, theytried indirect solutions. First, Muslims were settled on free lands, so that

99 David Grossman, Arab Demography and Early Jewish Settlement in Palestine: Distribution andPopulation Density during the Late Ottoman and Early Mandate Period (Jerusalem: Magnes Press,2004), 70-71.

100 Braslavsky, Did You Know the Country?, 108, 250.101 Karpat, “Ottoman Immigration Policies and Settlement in Palestine,” 58-64, Kark, “Changing

Patterns of Landownership in Nineteenth Century Palestine,” 359.

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the acquisition of these lands by Europeans was prevented.102 Second, thegovernment tried to limit immigration, especially that of Jews, in order toprevent the creation of a new national-territorial problem. However,corruption, inefficiency and the assistance of European councils limited thesuccess of the Ottoman endeavor.103

The Ottomans were well aware of their inability to employadministrative and judicial procedures to protect their interests and thustried another strategy: the withdrawal of strategically important tractsfrom the market by adding them to the private estates of the sultan. Anexample for that can be found in the lands of Rafah. This location wassensitive due to its proximity to the Egyptian border as well as its locationon the coastline, which was considered by the Ottomans as crucial for theircontrol over Palestine.104 Although several decrees were issued in order toprevent the sale of those lands, foreign involvement in the regionincreased.105 Therefore, beginning in 1904, the sultan purchased five tractsof 104,651 metric dunam around Rafah. The land mainly consisted ofdunes; therefore, agricultural development does not seem to be the reasonbehind the purchase. A more likely reason is the strategic value of the landsand the interest of foreigners in the region.

A similar policy can be found around Wad› al-Hawarith in the centralSharon plain. The government prevented two Zionist organizations whichtried to purchase the lands of Wad› al-Hawarith in 1890 and 1904 fromdoing so. In June of 1907, Ekram Bey expressed his fear of a British-Zionistconspiracy intending to purchase the land and turn it into a military harborbetween Egypt and Cyprus,106 both under British control at that time. InJuly of the same year, his deputy described the region and its environs andmentioned the archaeological sites in Sebastia, Qalansawa, Qaqün andUmm Khalid.107 It is not clear why those specific points were mentioned,but it is possible that following the German attempt to settle in Caesarea

102 Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, 95.103 Kark, “Land Acquisition and New Agricultural Settlement,” 184-92, Karpat, “Ottoman Immigration

Policies and Settlement in Palestine,” 71-72, Avner Levy, “Jewish Immigration into Eretz-Israelaccording to the Documents of ‘Ali Akram, Mutasarrif of Jerusalem.,” Cathedra, no. 12 (1979): 167-74, Gerber, Ottoman Rule in Jerusalem, 12.

104 Cipher telegram from the secretariat of the mutasarr›fl›k of Jerusalem, to the Ministry of Interior,‹stanbul [n.d.], ISA, RG 83, no. 11.

105 Kushner, A Governor in Jerusalem, 136, and especially n. 14.106 Ruth Kark, “Acquisition of Land in Emeq Hefer, 1800-1930,” in Zev Vilnay’s Jubilee Volume, ed. E.

Shiller (Jerusalem: Ariel, 1984). Secret telegram from the secretariat of the mutasarr›fl›k of Jerusalemto the First Secretary of the Sultan, ‹stanbul, 3 June 1323 [16 June 1907], ISA, RG 83, no. 20, inKushner, A Governor in Jerusalem, 84-86.

107 Telegram from the deputy mutasarr›f of Jerusalem to the mutasarr›f [Ekram Bey], 20 June 1323 [3 July1907], ISA, RG 83, no. 64.

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under the disguise of an archaeological survey,108 the Ottomans were afraidof a similar endeavor around Wad› al-Hawarith. In any case, some locationsmentioned in the deputy’s telegram were purchased by the sultan: 972dunam in Wad› al-Hawarith itself, 105 dunam to its south in modern-dayNetanya, 859 dunam in Qaqün, and 312 in Qalansawa. However, since wedo not know the date of the purchase of those tracts, we cannot determinewhether it was related to the alleged conspiracy.

This attempt is also reflected in other places along the coastline. InPalestine, there is only a handful of natural harbors, three of which were inthe cities of Acre, Haifa and Jaffa, and hence not likely to be taken over byforeigners. The sultan purchased the other three harbors: 2,941 metricdunam were registered in ‘Atl›t, 845 in Tantüra, and 23,704 in Ceasarea.Similarly to what happened in Wad› al-Hawarith and Rafah, in Caesareathe Ottomans prevented attempts to purchase the land, in this case byGermans and Jews.109 The circumstantial evidence suggests that thelocation of the private lands of Abdülhamid II along the Mediterraneancoast and the strategic interests of the Ottoman Empires were intertwined.The Ottomans were afraid of foreign control over the coastline, especiallyaround natural harbors, and tried to prevent it. It is worth mentioning thatthe sultan did not purchase any other tracts on the coastline itself, exceptfor the above-mentioned. Other tracts along the coastal plain such asKabara are located in some distance from the seashore. Therefore, it seemsthat the private lands of the sultan were part of his efforts to strengthenOttoman control over Palestine and to prevent potential intervention, orinvasion, by foreigners.

ConclusionDuring the reign of Abdülhamid II, the Ottoman Empire had to facegrowing threats to its existence from both internal and external factors. Theempire employed a large variety of measures in order to secure its controlover the state as a whole and over Palestine in particular. Reforms in themilitary and the administration, a new ideology, the expansion of theeducation system, and the modernization of the state were all aimed at thesurvival of the empire.

Abdülhamid II continued with these endeavors, but did not confinehimself to the measures and methods set by his predecessors. A majorinnovation presented by the sultan was his purchase of private lands and

108 Ever HaDani (Aharon Feldman) Hadera, 1891-1951, Sixty Years of History (Tel Aviv: Massada, 1951),60.

109 Havazeleth, 12 July 1878 (in Hebrew). Also see, Ilan, “Turkmen, Circassians and Bosnians,” 282.

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their utilization for his personal purposes. The lands were registered in hisname and administered by the Ministry of the Estates of the Sultan.Employing the provincial administration, the sultan was able to purchaselarge tracts and to use them to serve his imperial as well as personal interests.The lands were administered with the help of modern measures–such asmapping, agricultural planning, and engineering–and the fortune created bythese estates was used to strengthen his position in opposition to thebureaucracy and to improve his image among the subjects.

Simultaneously, the sultan used the lands for various imperialpurposes. We have discussed three problems challenging Ottoman ruleover Palestine: the lawlessness of the Bedouins, the settlement of Muslimrefugees, and the control over lands in which foreigners were interested.The government tried to find holistic solutions and sometimes tried tosolve more that one problem at the same time. The private lands of thesultan were employed as a powerful instrument to that end. Lands whichunwanted persons tried to purchase were added to the estates of the sultanand, thus, withdrawn from the market. Refugees and Bedouins weresettled on the same lands, so that ‹stanbul’s control over these regions wasreasserted. Admittedly, the private lands were not the only instrumentemployed by the Ottomans to solve the above-mentioned problems. Notall refugees were settled on imperial çiftlik lands; Bedouins were settled onthose lands around Baysan, but hardly in the Negev; and the bureaucracytried to prevent foreigners from purchasing land with the help of decrees,as evident from the Ottoman attempt to limit Zionist activity. However, inthis paper we have demonstrated that the private lands were integrated intothe general attempt of the government and the sultan to solve the problemsof control in Palestine; land purchases and ownership constituted one ofthe strategies that enabled the rulers to stabilize their control over thecountry at a time of growing threats.

AftermathFrom the establishment of the Turkish Republic to the 1950s, the questionof the lands of the late sultan emerged in several regions of the formerOttoman Empire, especially in Turkey, when his legal heirs tried once moreto reassert their rights over the inheritance.110 In Israel, the AttorneyGeneral believed that no place for foreign economic interests should beallowed in the newly established state and in 1950 decided thatnegotiations with the heirs would not be conducted.111 The long-running

110 See, Cemil Koçak, II. Abdülhamid’in Miras› (‹stanbul: ARBA, 1990).111 The discussion concerning the attitude of the State of Israel can be found in ISA, RG43, box 5439,

file 310.

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judicial case concerning the ownership over the lands under Israeli rule wascompleted with this decision. Nevertheless, the effects of the affair on thehistory of Palestine after Abdülhamid II were of much importance.

Following the dethronement of Abdülhamid II, the Young Turksconfiscated his private lands and attached them to the state domain. Afterthe British occupation of Palestine in 1918, the government conducted asystematic survey and registration of the lands. Çiftlik lands were registeredas state domain.112 Such vast tracts without legal proprietors attracted theattention of Zionist organizations who tried to purchase the lands andestablish new settlements beginning in the period of the Young Turks andduring the British Mandate. During those decades, Zionist organizationswere able to purchase a significant share of the former çiftlik lands,especially in the Hullah Valley, around Baysan and in the Sharon plain.113

Apparently, one of the goals which led Abdülhamid II to purchase landsin Palestine was to prevent foreign appropriation, by withdrawing availablelands from the market. Ironically, after the dethronement of the sultan, thecreation of the vast çiftlik lands resulted in the transfer of those lands backonto the market and determined the liquid inventory of lands in thecountry. Taking advantage of those lands, Zionist organizations were ableto establish a permanent Jewish presence in several border regions and thushad a significant role in determining the borders of the Jewish state in theUnited Nations’ resolution of 29 November 1947 on the partition ofPalestine and the establishment of a Jewish state.

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Appendix: List of the private lands of Abdülhamid II in Palestine

Location Area Year Comments

(metric

dunam)

Sancak Acre

Kaza Safed

1 ‘Alma-Jaza’ir 283 1896-1899 Sum of four tracts

2 Dahnüniyya 619

3 Hullah Valley 52,328

4 Al-Husayniyya 7,536 1883

5 Al-J›sh 219

6 Manflüra 2,298 1881

7 Mays al-Jabal 80 Village in Lebanon, lands in Palestine

8 Al-Shüna 191 1888

Total 63,554

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Kaza Tiberias

9 Al-Dalhamiyya 316 appears in the records as Dalharnieh

10 Hadtha 23

12 Al-Hamma 187

13 Hatt›n 333

13 Kafr Sabt 2,534

14 Samakh 50,512 1881-1897 Sum of two tracts; possibly parts of the tracts

are located in Transjordan

15 Tiberias 3,074

Total 56,979

Kaza Acre

16 Na‘m›n 6,972

17 Shafa-‘Amar 1,541

Total 8,513

Kaza Haifa

18 Abü Zurayk 664

19 ‘Atl›t 2,941

20 Caesarea 23,704

21 Farsh Iskandar 683

22 Kabara 4,084 1884-1892 Sum of six tracts

23 Khirbat al-Sarkas 605

24 Al-Khurayba 3,738

25 Rushmiyya 1,917

26 Al-Sa‘da 152

27 Tantüra 845

Total 39,333

28 Unidentified 1,072

Sancak Acre - Total 169,451

Sancak Nablus

Nahiye al-Sha‘rawiyya al-Gharbiyya

29 Qaqün 859

30 Wad› al-Hawarith 972

31 Zayta

Total 1,994

Kaza Ban› fia‘b

32 Dayr al-Ghaflün 357

33 Kafr fiür 6,064

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34 Netanya 105 Identified under that name during the

Mandate Period

35 Qalansawa 312

Total 6,838

Kaza al-Haritha al-Shamaliyya

36 Al-Ashrafiyya 14,704 1883

37 Bashatwa 7,283 1892-1901 Fifteen tracts

38 Baysan 7,817 1883-1902 Four tracts

39 Bayt Qad 1,916

40 Al-B›ra 3,870 1883

41 Danna 8,200 1883 Two tracts

42 Dayr Ghazala 8,661 1883-1884 Three tracts

43 Al-Ghazawiyya 23,894 1883

44 Al-Hamra’ 10,960 1887

45 Jabbül 4,999 1883

46 Kafr Miflr 6,536 1883

47 Kafra 5,585 1883

48 Kawkab al-Hawa’ 4,230 1883

49 Khan al-Ahmar 6,987

50 Al-Mafraq 414

51 Muqaybila 3,945

52 Al-Muraflflafl 12,878 1883

53 Al-fiafa 483

54 Al-Sakhina 13,785 1883

55 Al-Samiriyya 577

56 S›r›n 11,669 1883

57 Till al-Shawk 3,676 1883

58 Al-T›ra 4,230 1883

59 Umm ‘Ajra 949

60 Al-Zab‘a 10,145 1883 Two tracts; location uncertain

61 Zalafa 2,481 1883

Total 180,874

Nahiye al-Haritha

62 ‘Akrabaniyya 529

63 Furüsh Bayt Dajan 1,522

64 Ghawr al-Far›‘a 68,925

65 Tara 5,563 Location uncertain

Total 76,539

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66-68 Unidentified 3,196

Sancak Nablus – total 269,441

Mutasarr›fl›k Jerusalem

Kaza Jaffa

69 Jaffa 98 1888 Two tracts

70 Jar›sha 430

71 Malabis 1,490 1888

72 Al-Mughar 833 1890

73 Qazaza 542 1882-1886 Three tracts

74 Qazaza & Sajad 6,042 1888 Probably part of Qazaza

75 Sajad 6,893 1885 Two tracts

76 Yazür 2,285

Total 18,613

Kaza Gaza & Beersheba

77 ‘Awja al-Haf›r 604

78 Bayt Jubr›n 191

79 Al-Ghaba 22,975 1904 Location uncertain

80 Al-Jaladiyya 5,795 1887 Tract size according to the 1893 map

81 Kawfakha 8,100 1887 Tract size according to the 1893 map

82 Khan al-Khiflafl 5

83 Makhbar al-Baghl 1,208 Location unidentified; in the vicinity of

Beersheba

84 Al-Muharraqa 4,506 1887 Tract size according to the 1893 map

85 Rafah 44,916 1904 Two tracts

86 Rasm al-Muharraqa 92 1892

87 Sodom 58,999

88 Till ‘Arad 38,930 1908

89 Till Musiba 9,190 1904 Location uncertain

90 Zayta 14,122 1888-1908 Two tracts

91 Unidentified 27,570 1904 In the vicinity of Rafah

Total 237,203

Kaza Hebron

92 Bayt Ümar 273

Total 273

Nahiye al-B›ra, Ban› Zayd, Ban› Hasan Ban› Malik, Ban› ‘Arqüb

93 ‘Alar 246

94 ‘Anata 18,483

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95 Bayt Ishwa‘ 169

96 Bayt Itab 4,000

97 Bayt fiafafa 3

98 Al-Khadr 127

99 Qaryat al-‘Inab 211

Total 23,239

Nahiye al-Wadiyya, Ban› S›lim

100 Abü Khurs 947 1890-1893 Five tracts

101 Fashkha 1,195 1900

102 Hajla 30,327 1888-1904 Three tracts, combined with ‘Ain Hajla

103 Jericho 8,505 1888-1904 Forty-four unidentified tracts around Jericho

104 Jericho çiftlik 38,362

105 Al-Juhayr 1,838 1900

106 Al-Katar 3,051 1890-1902 Four tracts

107 Al-Maydan 159 1893 Location uncertain

108 Potash Concession 9,905 Identified in the Mandate period with the

land trasferred to the Potash Company at the

Dead Sea

109 Qalya 888

110 Qatr al-Nimr 65 1890

111 Al-Samta 1,617 1888

112 Al-Shiqaq 174 1893

113 Al-Suwayd 15,623 1900

114 Umm al-Tawab›n 95 1893 Two tracts

115 Al-Was›l 1,251 1888-1890 Three tracts

Total 114,002

Jerusalem – Total 393,330

Palestine – Total 832,222

The table was prepared by Fischel and Kark

Sources: Copies of Registers from the tapu, ISA, RG 22, file 3335, box 11; Statement Prepared withReferences to List of Lands Alleged to be Claimed by Heirs of Sultan Abdul Hamid Accompanied byChief Secretary’s Letter (letter missing), 20 June 1936, ISA, RG 22, file 3335 box 11; A letter from theTurkish Embassy in London, 27 April 1936, Hebrew translation, no original, ISA, RG 2, file L/109/36;Schedule of the Sultan Lands in the Jerusalem District, Ottoman Turkish transliterated into Latinscript, Central Zionist Archive (CZA), RG A202, file 143; Schedule of Lands and Properties of SultanAbdul Hamid within the Jurisdiction of the Land Court of Haifa, ISA, RG 3, file 12/27, box 707;Telegram from the Commissioner for Lands and Surveys, Jerusalem, to the Chief Secretary(Government of Palestine?), Jerusalem, 9 December 1936, ISA, RG 2, file L/109/36; Letters to the

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High Commissioner for Palestine, Jerusalem, 29 July 1943, to which attached statements of the heirsas submitted to the land courts of Nablus, Jaffa and Haifa on 20 July 1943, ISA, RG 2, file L/218/33;a letter from the Turkish embassador in London to the minister of foreign affairs, London, 26February 1936, to which attached a list of the assets of Abdülhamid II, ISA, RG 2, files L/218/33,L/109/36, French original and Hebrew translation; Copy of the tapu registration of Hajla, Jericho,Fashkha and ‘Alma, Kark Archive; Copy of the tapu registration of ‘Alma, Husayniyya, Mansura,Jaladiyya, Kawfakha, Muharraqa and Rasm-Muharraqa, ISA, RG 22, file 3335, box 11; Register ofImmovable Property Transferred from the Private Sultanic Wakfs, English translation of a missingTurkish original, CZA, file 525/7433; Secret and Urgent Telegram to the Director of Land Registrationof Palestine, Jerusalem, 12 April 1946, including an appendix with a list of the claimed lands in thevicinity of Jerusalem, ISA, RG 3, file 12/27, box 707; Confidential Telegram from J. Hathorn Hall,Officer administering the Government of Palestine, Jerusalem, to the Attorney General and theCommissioner for Lands and Surveys, Jerusalem, 16 February 1937, includes the list of lands claimedby the heirs of Abdülhamid II still citizens of Turkey, ISA, RG 3, file 12/29, box 707; Ben-Arieh andGolan, “Sandjak Nablus”; Ben-Arieh, “Sanjak Acre”; Ben-Arieh, “Sanjak Jerusalem”; Palestine, Indexto Villages & Settlements, State Domain, 1:250,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 197, Mt. Scopus mapLibrary, KB 900 B (ADM)-46 [1947(1)]; Palestine, Administration Map (State domain and forestreserves), 1:250,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1936, Mt. Scopus map library 900 B(ADM)-61; Mapsof Lands Arrangement of the çiftliks of Muharraqa, Kawfakha and Jaladiyya; Bethlehem, 11,1:100,000, F. J. Salmon, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1939, Mt. Scopus map library, BB 900C [1a]1939/1; Gaza, 9, 1:100,000, F. J. Salmon, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1936, Mt. Scopus map library, BB900C [1a] 1936/1; Hebron, 10, 1:100,000, F. J. Salmon, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1939, Mt. Scopusmap library, BB 900C [1a] 1939/5; Beersheba, 11 new, 1:100,000, F.J. Salmon, Survey of Palestine,Jaffa, 1939, Mt. Scopus map library, BB 900C [1a] 1939/4; Rafah, 10 new, 1:100,000, F. J. Salmon,Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1938, Mt. Scopus map library, BB 900C [1a] 1938/2; Haifa, 1, 1:100,000, F.J. Salmon, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1941, Mt. Scopus map library, BB 900C [1a] 1941/1; Safad, 2,1:100,000, F. J. Salmon, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1935, Mt. Scopus map library, BB 900C [1] 1935/1;Zikhron Ya’akov, 3, 1:100,000, F. J. Salmon, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1938, Mt. Scopus map library,BB 900C [1] 1938/3; Beisan, 4, 1:100,000, F. J. Salmon, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1937, Mt. Scopusmap library, BB 900C [1] 1937/1; Nablus, 6, 1:100,000, F. J. Salmon, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1936,Mt. Scopus map library, BB 900C [1] 1937/1; Jerusalem, 8, 1:100,000, F. J. Salmon, Survey ofPalestine, Jaffa, 1939, Mt. Scopus map library, BB 900C [1] 1939/1; Jericho, Topocadastral series,Sheet 19-14, 1:20,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1942, Mt. Scopus map library, AD 900 A[1] 1942/4;Esh Shune, Topocadastral series, Sheet 20-14, 1:20,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1948, Mt. Scopusmap library, AD 900 A[1] 1948; Wadi el Qilt, Topocadastral series, Sheet 18-13, 1:20,000, Survey ofPalestine, Jaffa, 1941, Mt. Scopus map library, AD 900 A[1] 1941; Kallia, Topocadastral series, Sheet19-13, 1:20,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1942, Mt. Scopus map library, AD 900 A[1] 1942; Sweime,Topocadastral series, Sheet 20-13, 1:20,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1948, Mt. Scopus map library,AD 900 A[1] 1948; Wadi el Fari’a, Topocadastral series, Sheet 19-17, 1:20,000, Survey of Palestine,Jaffa, 1942, Mt. Scopus map library, AD 900 A[1] 1942/4; Kh. Es Samra, Topocadastral series, Sheet19-18, 1:20,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1948, Mt. Scopus map library, AD 900 A[1] 1948; Bardala,Topocadastral series, Sheet 19/20-19, 1:20,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1942, Mt. Scopus maplibrary, AD 900 A[1] 1942; Es Samiriya, Topocadastral series, Sheet 19-20, 1:20,000, Survey ofPalestine, Jaffa, 1948, Mt. Scopus map library, AD 900 A[1] 1948; Es Safa, Topocadastral series, Sheet20-20, 1:20,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1942, Mt. Scopus map library, AD 900 A[1] 1942/2; Biesan,Topocadastral series, Sheet 19-21, 1:20,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1949, Mt. Scopus map library,AD 900 A[1] 1949; Sirin, Topocadastral series, Sheet 19-22, 1:20,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1940,Mt. Scopus map library, AD 900 A[1] 1940/12; Jisr el Majami, Topocadastral series, Sheet 20-22,1:20,000, Survey of Palestine, Jaffa, 1940, Mt. Scopus map library, AD 900 A[1] 1940/12; PalestineRemembered – The Home of all Ethnically Cleansed Palestinians, Lists of Destroyed Villages,http://palestineremembered.com; Zochrot – The Nakba (in Hebrew), Map of the Destroyed Villagesof 1948, http://www.nakbainhebrew1948; Palestine Exploration Fund Archive Web-site.

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