Mushaʿ: A system of collective land USE in Palestine in the context of the 1858 Ottoman land code and the British mandate
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Abstract
The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the mushaʿ system – a distinctive form of collective land use that dominated Palestine and the Levant throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The study approaches the subject from four analytical perspectives: legal, agro-economic, anthropological, and political. The article examines the five official land categories established by the Ottoman Land Code of 1858, with particular attention to the miri category (state-owned arable land held under usufruct), and situates mushaʿ within this legal framework. It analyses the central scholarly debate between the traditional interpretation of mushaʿ as communal property and Yaakov Firestone’s revisionist argument that it constituted collectively managed individual land tenure. The article demonstrates that mushaʿ was not a legally uniform institution: its characteristics varied considerably across regions of Greater Syria, rendering any single legal definition inadequate. From an agro-economic perspective, the article reconstructs mushaʿ as a rational response to dry farming conditions, irregular rainfall, and the need for coordinated harvest scheduling in areas bordering the steppe. Three principal methods of land redistribution are identified and analysed – the zukur, faddan, and the fixed-share systems – and the institution is compared with the European open-field system and the Russian cherespolositsa. From an anthropological standpoint, mushaʿ is shown to have structured village social life, determined community boundaries, and reinforced solidarity among competing hamulas (extended kinship groups). The article demonstrates that the legal vulnerability of mushaʿ under the British Mandate – arising from the absence of individual title deeds among the fellaheen and the legal possibility of acquiring shares through absentee landowners – contributed significantly to the escalation of Arab-Jewish tensions in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Jezreel Valley transactions are examined as a paradigmatic case. The article concludes that mushaʿ can only be adequately understood through a combined legal, agro-economic, anthropological, and political lens.
How to Cite
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mushaʿ, land question, Palestine, Ottoman Land Code of 1858, British Mandate, collective land use, Arab-Jewish conflict
Семиволос І. (2023), “Форми колективної власності на землю в Палестині та її вплив на людську безпеку” в Матеріали Міжнародної наукової конференції “ХХVI Сходознавчі читання А. Кримського”, 30 листопада 2023 р., Київ, Liha-Press, Львів – Торунь, с. 328–31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.36059/978-966-397-346-3-84
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Firestone Y. (1990), “The Land Equalizing Mushaʿ Village – A Reassessment”, in Gilbar G. (ed.), Ottoman Palestine 1800–1914, E. J. Brill, Leiden, pp. 91–129.
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Grossman D. (1992), Rural Process-Pattern Relationships: Nomadization, Sedentarization, and Settlement Fixation, Praeger Publishers, New York.
Hope Simpson J. (1930), Palestine. Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, HMSO, London.
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Mundy M. (1994), “Village Land and Individual Title: Mushaʿ and the Ottoman Land Registration in the ʿAjlūn District”, in Rogan E. L. and Tell T. (eds), Village, Steppe and State: The Social Origins of Modern Jordan, British Academic Press, London, pp. 58–79.
Owen R. (1981), The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800–1914, Methuen, London.
Post G. (1891), “Essays on the Sects and Nationalities of Syria and Palestine”, Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, April, pp. 100–12.
Stein K. (1984), The Land Question in Palestine, 1917–1939, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
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Weulersse J. (1946), Paysans de Syrie et du Proche-Orient, Gallimard, Paris.
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Baer G. (1982), Fellah and Townsman in the Middle East: Studies in Social History, Frank Cass, London.
Bergheim S. (1894), “Land Tenure in Palestine”, Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, pp. 191–9.
Fischbach M. R. (2000), State, Society and Land in Jordan, Brill, Boston.
Firestone Y. (1981), “Land Equalization and Factor Scarcities”, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 813–33.
Firestone Y. (1990), “The Land Equalizing Mushaʿ Village – A Reassessment”, in Gilbar G. (ed.), Ottoman Palestine 1800–1914, E. J. Brill, Leiden, pp. 91–129.
Gerber H. (1985), Ottoman Rule in Jerusalem, 1890–1914, Klaus Schwarz Verlag, Berlin.
Granott A. (1952), The Land System in Palestine, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London.
Grossman D. (1992), Rural Process-Pattern Relationships: Nomadization, Sedentarization, and Settlement Fixation, Praeger Publishers, New York.
Hope Simpson J. (1930), Palestine. Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, HMSO, London.
Inalcik H. (1973), The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London.
Mundy M. (1994), “Village Land and Individual Title: Mushaʿ and the Ottoman Land Registration in the ʿAjlūn District”, in Rogan E. L. and Tell T. (eds), Village, Steppe and State: The Social Origins of Modern Jordan, British Academic Press, London, pp. 58–79.
Owen R. (1981), The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800–1914, Methuen, London.
Post G. (1891), “Essays on the Sects and Nationalities of Syria and Palestine”, Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement, April, pp. 100–12.
Stein K. (1984), The Land Question in Palestine, 1917–1939, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.
Warriner D. (1948), Land and Poverty in the Middle East, Royal Institute of International Affairs, London.
Weulersse J. (1946), Paysans de Syrie et du Proche-Orient, Gallimard, Paris.