From the Pages of the Defter (ص 240)

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From the Pages of the Defter (ص 240)

المحتوى

The mortgage was a potentially disastrous loss for the landholders. If they could not
repay this loan/sale, they risked losing these lands for just a small fraction of their worth,
and this after a four-year period during which they were to pay taxes on the crops and the
lands (the ‘ushr and the vergi) and interest on the mortgage. The ‘ushr and the interest alone
would be equivalent to almost half the fruits the land bore.
It need be recalled, however, this was a calculated risk. A number of scholars of
Palestine have argued that usury was rampant in the Ottoman Empire because
moneylenders faced no competition. Consequently, fallahin were forced to take loans with
unrealistic terms, and when the agreed-upon period had passed the borrower automatically
In Hebron, the “Jewish Colonial Bank of London with its offshoot, the Anglo-Palestine Company”,
which was “principally engaged in making loans at very low rates of interest to Jewish agriculturalists
and traders” was operating in Hebron by 1912. (“Jewish Colonists Redeem Palestine”, NYTimes, 13
October 1912.) According to the International Banking Directory of 1920 (New York: The Bankers’
Publishing Company), p. 519, it was still the only bank in Hebron in the early years of British rule,
whereas there were by then six banks operating in Jerusalem (p.519), including the Imperial Ottoman
Bank, which had opened its Jerusalem branch in 1904 (“Osmanli Bankasi Tarihcesi” (History of the Bank),
found on the Osmanli Bankasi Arsiv ve Arastirma Merkezi (Ottoman Bank Archives and Research
Centre) website: http://www.obarsiv.com/ob-tarih.html .)
Documentary evidence stored at the ISA indicates that the Ottoman credit-banking system was
operating in Palestine, and used by at least some Hebron-district residents, already at the tail end of the
nineteenth century. Two Ottoman loan registers (Emval gayr menkiul Ikrazat-I Defterleri) for the years
1311-1314 (1895-1898) and 1314-1316 (1898-1900) include Hebron borrowers. An Ottoman
Agricultural Bank (Ziraaet Bankas: ) loan register for the years 1315-1317 (1899-1901), also stored at the
ISA, likewise includes some Hebron borrowers. These files are: ISA 5/10 tet, 19/1 tet, and 9/3 tet.
According to Martin Bunton, officers of the Ottoman Agricultural Bank were established in every district
(gaza) in Palestine to manage loans. As in the informal market, most of these loans were given against a
property mortgage, but annual interest was fixed at 6 percent, likely to be paid not in kind but, rather in
cash. (Bunton (2007): 103, 107).
223

هو جزء من

From the Pages of the Defter

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المنشئ

Susynne McElrone

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Generated Pages Set

Theses رسائل ماجستير ودكتوراه