Defining Village Boundaries at the Time of the Introduction of the <em>Malikane</em> System: The Struggle of the Ottoman State for Reaffirming Ownership of the Land

Abstract

This article examines four cases in which a need arose to define clearly the boundaries of properties belonging to the endowments of Şeyhulislam Feyzullah Efendi (1695-1703). The process of drawing village boundaries not only served the interests of the Ottoman government and the villagers, but also the interests of a land-owning class enabled by mulk grants. In response to the introduction of the malikane system at the end of the seventeenth century, high-ranking functionaries belonging to the old elites strived to secure rural income by attempting to convert public resources into private property. In this process, the preparation of the demarcation document (hududname) was very important. After receiving the official grant, which only mentioned the names of the mulk objects, the interested dignitary wanted to be certain of the boundaries of the defined properties, so that his rule over these properties would be full and unconditional. The article shows that nevertheless the state always retained ultimate ownership of the land. Since land formed the major economic resource for centuries, providing a large share of people's income and an important part of government's taxes, the Ottoman state and Hanafi jurists had to deal with problems and issues relating to ownership, land management, access to agricultural surplus, and the settlement of disputes. 1 As power relations shifted among various forces―the state, provincial administrators, local notables, owners of “free-hold” properties, waqf founders, peasant cultivators, and so forth―the rules of landed property were occasionally recast by legal thinkers and the central government. 2 After all, as Sabrina Joseph asserts, “the law is a dynamic discourse, an integral part of the historical process, which is responsive to existing reality and actively engaged in shaping and re-shaping this reality. Thus, the law, similar to relations of power, is constantly being renegotiated.” 3  Michael Nizri is a Lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and Israel Studies, Ariel University, Ariel, Israel; email: michaelniz@ariel.ac.il *I would like to express my deepest thanks both to Kent F. Schull and the article's anonymous reviewers. 1 The Ottomans officially adopted Hanafi jurisprudence. 2 Baber Johansen, The Islamic Law on Land Tax and Rent (London: Croom Helm, 1988); Huri Islamoglu-Inan, State and Peasant in the Ottoman Empire (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 56-61; Martha Mundy and Richard Saumarez Smith, Governing Property, Making the Modern State: Law, Administration and Production in Ottoman Syria (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), 11-39; Sabrina Joseph, Islamic Law on Peasant Usufruct in Ottoman Syria (Leiden: Brill, 2012). 3 Joseph, Islamic Law, 4. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.4 on Thu, 08 Sep 2016 04:31:28 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms