UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title An Empty Land? Nomads and Property Administration in Hamidian Syria Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3mk2f52r Author Barakat, Nora Elizabeth Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California An Empty Land? Nomads and Property Administration in Hamidian Syria By Nora Elizabeth Barakat A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in Charge: Professor Beshara Doumani, Co-Chair Professor James Vernon, Co-Chair Associate Professor Rebecca M. McLennan Associate Professor Cihan Z. Tuğal Spring 2015 Copyright 2015 by Nora Elizabeth Barakat All rights reserved Abstract An Empty Land? Nomads and Property Administration in Hamidian Syria by Nora Elizabeth Barakat Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Beshara Doumani, Co-Chair Professor James Vernon, Co-Chair This dissertation explores the development of modern property administration and governance in the Ottoman Empire from the perspective of pastoral nomads. Utilizing both central state archival material and district court and land registers, the study combines analysis of governance, administration and the development of modern private property regimes with a social history of pastoral nomadic groups during the Hamidian period (1876-1909). The research employs a case study of the district of Salt in the southern half of the Ottoman province of Syria (contemporary Jordan) to advance three main arguments. First is the imperative to rethink the characterization of pastoral nomads in the historiography of the Ottoman Arab provinces as members of autonomous “tribes” with marginal roles in processes of modern state building. I show how Ottomanization in the Arab provinces extended beyond urban elites to include nomadic communities in the Hamidian period. Using a fine-grained case study, the dissertation demonstrates that interaction with Hamidian property administration facilitated the rise of a “middling group” of nomads who obtained positions as low-level bureaucrats with powers to sanction claims over land and livestock as well as to allocate tax burdens. Analyzing how the growing wealth and power of this middling group was challenged from above and below, the dissertation introduces differentiation and internal contestation into nomadic groups usually discussed exclusively in terms of their leaders. Second, the dissertation challenges the narrative of Ottoman law and administration as emanating from Istanbul and the related peripheral status of the Empire’s Arab provinces. By detailing the involvement of pastoral nomads in district-level property administration, I show how provincial struggles shaped the social meaning of Ottoman legal and administrative categories and prompted central bureaucrats and jurists to continually clarify and adapt their attempts to survey, tax and regulate people and property. Third, the dissertation offers new perspectives on the making of modern property relations in the Ottoman Empire and beyond. It details attempts to regulate and exploit both land legally categorized as “empty” and livestock resources in the Empire’s far-flung provinces. Moving beyond narratives of modernizing Ottoman reforms as derivative, rigid or Orientalist that suppose a unitary state agent, the dissertation emphasizes the uneven, internally contested and regionally interconnected aspects of these projects. The dissertation therefore highlights the parallels between contested modernization projects in the Ottoman Empire and other 1 contemporary imperial settings while rethinking the role of marginalized populations in those efforts. 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Note on Transliteration, Dates, Currencies and Measures iv Introduction: Location and Isolation: Rethinking the “Tribe” in Ottoman History 1 Chapter One: Land, Population and Sovereignty in Hamidian Syria 29 Chapter Two: The Limits of Legal Pluralism and the Politics of Local 55 Governance in Hamidian Salt Chapter Three: Ottoman Authority in Crisis: Land Trouble and Wayward Mukhtars 80 Chapter Four: Beyond Land: Animals as Property in Late Ottoman Salt 112 Conclusion: Tribes, Nomads and the Hamidian Legacy 133 Bibliography 139 Appendix A: Tables, Figures, and Photos 148 Appendix B: Salt Detailed Census 156 i Acknowledgements For their support, help, time, comments and criticism, I offer my deepest gratitude: To my graduate student colleagues, who have made studying historiography, modern and Ottoman Turkish, and archival material rewarding, especially Carrie Ritter, Hannah Farber, Nick Kardahji, Beatrice Schraa, Chris Church, Brandon Schechter, Faiz Ahmed, Osamah Khalil, Murat Daǧlı, Malissa Taylor, Heather Ferguson, Melanie Schulze-Tanielian, Julia Shatz, Aimee Genell, Murat Yıldız, Ella Fratantuono, Chris Gratien, Sam Dolbee, Emily Neumeier, Sotiris Dimitriadis, and Nir Shafir. Special thanks to Hilary Falb Kalisman and Zoe Griffith, who have provided extensive comments and editing to the dissertation and support at crucial moments, and to Elizabeth Williams, whose passion both for Ottoman rural history and organizing MESA panels has made great contributions to my work; To Ayla Algar, Hamid Algar, Yorgos Dedes, and Selim Kuru, for introducing me to modern and Ottoman Turkish; To scholars who have sent materials, commented on my work and presentations, and supported my interests even when some of them never met me face to face: Eugene Rogan, Martha Mundy, James Reilly, Safa Saraçoğlu, Johann Büssow, Astrid Meier, Yücel Terzibaşoğlu, Michael Reimer, and Alan Mikhail; To Rashid Khalidi for introducing me to History and encouraging me to pursue the Ph.D.; To the anonymous reviewers at the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient and the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association for improving Chapters 2 and 4, and to Orient-Institut Beirut for organizing two conferences on Bedouin during my research and writing period that greatly contributed to my thinking. In Jordan, to scholars at the University of Jordan’s Center for Documents and Manuscripts and History Department, especially Prof. Muhammad Khuraysat, Prof. Adnan al-Bakhit, Prof. Nawfan Humud, Manal Haddad, and Ahmad Khuraysat; To the staff of the Amman Department of Lands and Surveys, especially Mahmud Qaryuti, Ismail Allawi, and Ishaq Khalil for their assistance and friendship; To the staff and scholars at the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, who provided an institutional home in Amman during the first stages of my research, especially Mohammad Masri, Ibrahim Saif and Sara Ababneh; For their patience and encouragement, to the staff and scholars at the American Center for Oriental Research, who hosted my family at vital moments in the research and writing process: Barbara Porter, Chris Tuttle, Julie Peteet, Sarah Harpending, Humi Ayyoubi, Samya Kafafi, Nisreen Abu al-Shaikh, and Kathy Nimri, and to Alain McNamara for his passion and adept assistance navigating every aspect of life in Amman. In Istanbul, I am indebted to the staff and archivists of the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives, the İslam Arıştırmaları Merkezi, and the Millet Kütüphanesi; To the institutions that supported my work: Fulbright Institute of International Education, Fulbright-Hays, the Council on Library and Information Resources, the Mellon Foundation, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, the American Center for Oriental Research, the University of California at Berkeley Center for Middle East Studies, and the University of California at Berkeley History Department; To close friends who have provided support and reassurance throughout: Sarah Tobin, Ava Leone, Charles Anderson, Rana Abdul-Aziz, Allison Monroe Nasser, Natasha Quariab, Israa Thiab, and Tamara Maaita; ii To Mabel Lee, whose attention to detail and compassion gets so many of us through; To Raka Ray and Baki Tezcan for their contributions to my coursework and for examining me, and to Maureen Miller for her mentorship and last-minute help with my exams; To Cihan Tuğal and Rebecca McLennan, both of whom agreed to serve on the dissertation committee in late stages; To James Vernon, who is the most efficient and dedicated mentor I have ever had. I am grateful not only for his brilliant comments and academic strategizing but also for his adept modeling of how to juggle scholarship, teaching, parenting and what appear to be hundreds of graduate student mentorees; This dissertation would be nowhere without the support, friendship and razor-sharp commentary and scholarship of Huri Islamoğlu. From Berkeley to Istanbul to Büyükada, she pushed me to challenge every aspect of wisdom I did not even know I had received while welcoming my family and making Istanbul our third home; From the moment I wrote to him with an idea for a dissertation project, Beshara Doumani has been there. He has taught me about court document collections, weathered my mistakes, challenged me to glean the larger relevance of my sometimes-esoteric interests, and so much more. It is difficult to express my gratitude for his mentorship, concern, and friendship; To the Barakat and Elayyan families, whose love, encouragement, boisterous Friday afternoon lunches and faith that I would eventually finish buoyed me through the process. In memory of my late