Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 55)

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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 55)

المحتوى

features which differentiated them from each other. This does not mean
that commonalities among these areas did not exist, it only means that
in order to appreciate the history of a particular region, that region
must be addressed specifically. These specificities play no role in
the approaches discussed above.
The Ottoman E.wpire was not always the centralised despotic state
that it has often been described as. Middle Eastern scholars generally
agree that the beginning of the decentralization of the Ottoman
central authority began as early as the seventeenth century with the
{ntroduction of the "Iltizam" system. The "“Iltizam", or tax farming
system, was introduced by the state aS a measure to solidify its
central auth.iuty. The state, which claimed absolute right over the
land, used this vital means of production (1.e.,land) as a form of
payment for its military and other civil service men. Multazims, or
tax farmers, were sole possessors of this land for a specific period
of time. However, in the process, this phenomenon developed its own
contradictions. Muitazims (tax farmers) began to treat their
"Mugata'a” (their tract of land) as their own private property and
they assumed full rights over its possession, transfer and
inheritance. (Barakat, 1977; Barakat, 1985; Saleh,1979). By the
nineteenth century, as one author noted, "...groups of advantaged
social status..." which had access to large tracts of land were
transformed into "social classes," that is, influential landed
propertied classes (Barakat, 1985: 139-140).
The magnitude and effect of this class varied from one region to
another. In large peasant societies, such as Egypt and Iraq, it was
markedly significant. It has been reported that in Egypt, just prior
to the 1952 revolution, about 6 per cent of Egyptian landowners owned
41
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Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation

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المنشئ

Nahla Abdo-Zubi

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