The literature on nineteenth century Egyptian history is extensive, including many studies on the countryside, the people that inhabited it, and the institutions that regulated their relations and obligations. Many earlier writings relied on various types of accessible primary sources, such as the chronicles written by indigenous thinkers and the reports by European diplomats.Footnote 1 But more recent scholarship has relied on the rich materials of the local archives, allowing for the presentation of significantly modified accounts of various phenomena and for the examination of topics that had received scant mention in previously published or accessible primary sources.Footnote 2
In beginning their research, scholars might start by consulting colleagues’ accounts of their findings and experiences in the Egyptian archives; these aim to facilitate researchers’ work in the archives.Footnote 3 In this article I attempt to contribute to this material. I seek to provide researchers with a description of some of the sources located in two archival houses in Cairo: the Ministry of Finance Archives, or the Dar al-Mahfuzat al-ʿUmumiyya; and the National Archives, or the Dar al-Wathaʾiq al-Qawmiyya.Footnote 4 I will focus on the sources that record the experiences, voices, and socioeconomic status of ordinary people in the countryside during the nineteenth century, with special emphasis on the middle decades of the period.Footnote 5 Specifically, I propose to undertake the following: one, to identify some of the sources that are helpful for the study of peasant society; and two, in describing each of these sources, which involves specifying the nature of the data documented by the source, I highlight the potential use of each source and its limitations. I conclude that the examination of a combination of archival sources, rather than just one, enables the scholar to address some of the limitations of a particular source, and moreover to avoid developing distorted interpretations.
At the outset of this examination of different archival sources, it is helpful to contextualize these sources; I propose doing this by presenting the following brief overview of the nature of the state at mid-century.
The Egyptian state at mid-century
During the middle decades of the nineteenth century, development and reform in Egypt were no longer driven by the needs of the military, as they had been during the time of Muhammad Ali; instead, the “civil bureaucracy emerged as the pre-eminent state institution.”Footnote 6 According to Hunter, the bureaucracy developed very rapidly during this period, primarily because it enabled the new rulers of the country to realize their dynastic aims; most notably the consolidation of their power and the enhancement of the country’s productive capabilities.Footnote 7
In developing the civil bureaucracy, the new rulers increased the number and scope of the regulatory departments, created conciliar bodies with extensive judicial and legislative functions, and established provincial councils with judicial powers throughout the countryside.Footnote 8 When Abbas I (r. 1848–54) succeeded Muhammad Ali, he found that the two major bodies (the Department of Civil Affairs and the Viceregal Cabinet) of the central administration were responsible for many of the day-to-day affairs of government, prompting directors of the various executive departments to pass on many of their problems to these central bodies.Footnote 9 Therefore Abbas reorganized the administrative structure. Most importantly, in 1849, he expanded the responsibilities of the department heads and replaced the High Court of Justice (al-Jamʿiyya al-Haqaniyya, established in 1842) with the Council of Justice (Majlis al-Ahkam), charging it with wide legislative and judicial responsibilities.Footnote 10 Then, in 1852, he established five courts of first instance (majalis ibtidaʾi) in the provinces, creating two in Upper Egypt (Jirja and al-Fashan), two in Lower Egypt (Tanta and Samanud), and one in Sudan. Nijm attributes the 1852 decision to the fact that the provincial administrators, who had been charged with resolving disputes and complaints brought before the civil authorities, were so overburdened with other administrative tasks that they often allowed unresolved cases to pile up.Footnote 11
The development of the civil bureaucracy continued under Said Pasha (r. 1854–63). He started with the Council of Justice, reorganizing it in 1854 so that it was composed of five offices and a tribunal for Upper Egypt, a second tribunal for Lower Egypt, and a third one for the central administration.Footnote 12 Following this reorganization, the Council of Justice experienced some instability during his reign: Said abolished it in 1855, reestablished it in 1856, abolished it again in 1860, and reestablished it in 1861.Footnote 13 When the central body was abolished, problems were sent to the Viceroy himself along with trusted high officials, and the provincial courts continued to function.Footnote 14 Although Hillal attributes the instability experienced by this body to Said’s “great interest in the judicial system, and his desire to see it reach perfection,” Nijm claims that Said wished to centralize authority in his hands as much as was possible, demanding that subordinates keep him updated on all important matters.Footnote 15 The civil bureaucracy also underwent change at the level of the regulatory departments: most notably, Said Pasha abolished the Department of Civil Affairs in 1857 and replaced it with the Department of Interior (Diwan al-Dakhiliyya), assigning it several responsibilities, such as overseeing the civil hospital and the printing press as well as placing the Cairo governorate under its authority. This department also had judicial responsibilities, which included receiving petitions and complaints sent from the rural areas and Cairo, and reviewing the minutes of the Council of Justice’s sessions.Footnote 16 The archival sources suggest that this body remained operative until the spring of 1860.Footnote 17
Upon examining bureaucratic development in Egypt during the mid-century years, Hunter concludes that the reforms ultimately allowed for the establishment of “intrusive government.”Footnote 18 We might say that it was a government that sought to consolidate its power, and that this necessitated compiling records that detailed the activities of the subject population. We now turn to an examination of some of these records.
Village-level sources
Here, I focus on the village land-tax registers and the athurat registers. Both sources are housed in the Ministry of Finance Archives.
Village land-tax registers
From Kenneth Cuno’s research on Egyptian peasant society, we learn that the first cadastre undertaken by Muhammad Ali Pasha in 1813–14 “contains the earliest statistical evidence for the distribution of peasant-held land in Egypt.” At the time of this cadastre, the state ordered the compilation of a “separate register. . . for each administratively defined village.” This was the village land-tax register, or daftar mukallafat al-atyan. According to Cuno, this type of register specified the following: holders’ names; the amount of land each one possessed, which was recorded “plot by plot”; the tax amount due from each holder; the types of land in holders’ possession, with most being classified as peasant, or filaha, land; and finally, classification of the land according to its use, here allowing for the differentiation between cultivated and uncultivated lands.Footnote 19 Thereafter, the state required the preparation of village land-tax registers independently of cadastral survey projects; specifically, this compilation was to be undertaken on a yearly basis for each village across the country.
Examination of the mid-nineteenth century land-tax registers reveals that these were drafted by the village premier headman, the ʿumda, with the assistance of the co-headmen (shaykhs), the peasants’ elders or leaders (ʿumad al-fallahin), and the resident accountant (sarraf). The last page of a register displayed the names of these officials along with the “impressions of their signet rings.”Footnote 20 These registers invariably listed the names of the village landholders, the amount of land in each one’s possession, and the total tax amount due from each. In addition, each landholding was divided by land grade: as a landholding rarely consisted of a contiguous piece of land, but rather of strips of land distributed between the various basins of the village, the tax register distinguished between the different grades of land contained in a basin by allotting different rates of tax to the various land grades. For example, the 1268 [1851–52] register of al-Jazira al-Khadra village (located in Gharbiyya province) includes a peasant named Ali Basha, whose holding consisted of 4 faddans, 22 qirats, 4 sahms.Footnote 21 It was composed of two land strips of different grades: one strip consisted of 2 faddans, 22 qirats, 4 sahms and was assigned a tax rate of 59 piastres, 34 para per faddan, and the second strip comprised 2 faddans and was allotted a tax rate of 50 piastres, 34 para per faddan. Based on these calculations, Ali Basha owed a tax sum of 274 piastres, 39 para in 1268 [1851–52].Footnote 22
But beyond the specification of these basic details, the kind of information contained in these registers differed from one village to another. To illustrate this, I mention several other aspects of state regulation of village life that are disclosed by the land-tax registers of some villages. First, the state imposed several surcharges and extraordinary taxes on peasant landholders. Yet while some village registers specify this information, others do not. For example, in 1268 [1851–52], al-Jazira al-Khadra village smallholders paid two surcharge taxes that year. One was the dum al-ghirsh nisfayn, which consisted of an additional 5 percent of the land taxes; and the other was the wirku al-atyan tax, a certain number of piastres for every faddan that was probably determined by land quality.Footnote 23 In contrast, the land-tax register of Ibyar village (situated in Gharbiyya province) for the same year does not mention any surcharge taxes, and that of Kafr al-Rajallat village (in Qalyubiyya province) refers to a different surcharge tax altogether, the suds, an additional 17 percent of the land’s taxes.Footnote 24
Second, the state divided the village’s arable area into several sections, or hissas. Each section was headed by a shaykh, and included the cultivators that possessed land in that area. The 1268 [1851–52] register of Ibyar village mirrored this organization of the village’s agricultural area. Page 1 of this register starts with the largest section of the village, which comprised 9.5 qirats (roughly 40 percent of the village arable area), included 139 holders, and was headed by the premier shaykh, al-Sayyid Ahmed al-Sharif. The following pages present the same kind of information for the rest of the village hissas (another 8).Footnote 25 Conversely, the relevant register for Jazira al-Khadra village is not organized by hissas; instead this register simply lists the holders without specifying to which section they belonged. The first names listed by this register are those of the two headmen; both can be identified as such because the description of their landholdings includes mention of the tax-exempted lands in their possession (masmuh al-mashaykh), granted to them by the state in exchange for performing various official tasks.Footnote 26
Third, as indicated above, the arable village area lay in different basins. Some registers documented this reality: for example, the 1268 [1851–52] register of Ibyar village specifies the basin in which each of a peasant’s land plots were situated. Ismaʽil Labidi possessed a holding that consisted of approximately 9 faddans, and it was divided between 5 different basins, with the largest of his land plots consisting of a little more than 2 faddans. This register further specifies that most of his landholding (roughly 7 faddans) constituted maʿmur, or cultivated land, and close to 2 faddans were ibʿadiyya, or lesser quality land requiring reclamation work.Footnote 27 But registers of other villages do not identify the different basins in which land strips were located, as is the case with the 1268 [1851–52] register of Jazira al-Khadra village, whereas others not only identify the basin in which a land plot lay, but also identify the name of its original holder (sahib al-athar), as is the case for the 1268 [1851–52] register of Jazirat al-Aʿjam village (in Qalyubiyya province).Footnote 28
Fourth, the land-tax registers may document another dimension of village life. Because village economic activity was not confined to land cultivation but included other activities, these latter might have been recorded in the land-tax registers. In addition to the information on land possession, the 1268 [1851–52] register of al-Jazira al-Khadra lists the date-tree owners and the taxes they owed. Then it lists the various artisanal and economic activities (date-tree climbing, barber-surgeons’ work, fishing, boating, dye work, carpentry, etc.), practiced in the village, here citing the relevant names under each heading or activity and the required income-tax sums (wirku arbab al-sanaʿi) for each individual.Footnote 29
While the above discussion highlights the dissimilarities between registers of different villages, I also draw attention to the fact that village officials did not necessarily organize their registers in the same way each year. For example, the organization of the 1268 [1851–52] land-tax register of al-Jazira al-Khadra, which included land possession, date-tree ownership, and artisanal activities, was similarly observed in the year 1270 [1853–54], but not in the year 1272 [1855–56], when the focus was on land possession and date-tree ownership only.Footnote 30
The examination of the village land-tax registers is helpful for the study of several dimensions of rural life. Most obviously, these registers allow us to track smallholders over a period of time; discerning whether the years were good or bad to them, the components of the land-tax burden, the frequency and extent of increases in taxes, and the extent of economic stratification in villages. In addition, that peasants’ holdings were composed of several land plots situated in different basins speaks to the nature of the system of land cultivation, generally confirming the view that village cultivation practices did not involve economies of scale. In addition, the data concerning the village hissas (sections) may help answer questions concerning the identity of the members of a section, whether these were members of the same extended family or clan, and whether individuals stayed in the same hissa for long periods. Also, to determine the hierarchy of shaykhs in the village we might examine the size of each’s hissa and whether this size changed over the years;Footnote 31 here too we might consider the amount of tax-free land or level of tax exemptions awarded to each headman as masmuh al-mashaykh or masatib (until the system’s abolishment in September 1857.)Footnote 32 Next, we recall that some registers identified the names of landholders, and then described the land strips that made up their holdings, and that these further identified the original holders of the different land strips. These data testify to the occurrence of exchange or transfer of land between peasants. They might shed light on inheritance of land, the level of land transfers, and whether land transfers were confined to village members or included outsiders. Finally, the land-tax registers that provide details on other economic activities in the village allow us to develop some understanding of this dimension of village life. We can, for example, determine the nature of the artisanal and industrial activities that existed in the village, how many were involved in each of these pursuits, whether some smallholders engaged synchronously in other economic activities, if women’s activities (like poultry-raising) were acknowledged as legitimate economic activities, and whether women working in the recognized sectors were counted as legitimate participants.
To address these issues as well as others, the researcher should not focus only on the registers of one village. As shown above, the registers of different villages (and in some cases, different registers of the same village) were not organized in the same way, which further involved the inclusion of particular kinds of data and the omission of others. Accordingly, the examination of the registers of several villages enables us to develop a more complete understanding of major trends.
Village athurat registers
Another helpful source is the village athurat registers. The term athurat comes from the word athar, which refers to the lands cultivated by generations of peasant families. According to historian Shalabi, the government ordered the compilation of these registers because it wished to learn how fully the 1858 land law (promulgated 4 August 1858) had been implemented; accordingly he concludes that this work was carried out in 1859 and 1860.Footnote 33 However, I found evidence that allows for a different interpretation. This evidence consists of two athurat registers that were compiled before 1858. The work on the register of Jazirat al-Aʿjam village was completed on 24 September 1857, about ten months before the introduction of the 1858 law; and that of Kafr al-Rajallat village on 23 July 1857, a full year and some two weeks before the 1858 law was promulgated.Footnote 34 On this basis, I suggest that Said Pasha had an (unsurprisingly) abiding interest in the land tenure arrangements in villages, wanted to know as much as he could about them, and so issued orders for the compilation of the athurat registers soon after coming to power. Nevertheless, it seems that Said’s interest in the 1858 law gave the project greater urgency, and so most of the work was completed in 1859 and 1860.Footnote 35
This means that the athurat registers, a rather unique source, were compiled only once for each village across the countryside, and never again. These list the names of the village landholders, and more importantly, provide an explanation of how each holder acquired each portion of their landholding. In a village of “freeholder” peasants, meaning the land was under the jurisdiction of the provincial government, the register shows whether the peasant inherited or bought (or otherwise acquired) the land plot at issue. But the registers of the villages that were in the care (ʿuhda) of a member of the dhawat, or state elite, were organized differently, reflecting the fact that this landlord (mutaʽhhid) had been charged with the redistribution of village lands among the peasants. There were two junctures at which the mutaʽhhid undertook this redistribution task. The first was when he assumed charge of an insolvent village. At this juncture, he was required to undertake the reassignment of the arable area among the cultivators according to each’s economic capability (qudra) and set aside a small portion of this area for his own use in compensation for assisting the insolvent peasants. The athurat register of the village would record the amount of land assigned to each peasant. This is probably what is recorded in the athurat register of Fuah village (located in Rawdat al-Bahrayn province), which constituted the ʿuhda of a Mustafa Bey as of September 1857.Footnote 36 Here I point out that I did not find the athurat register of this village, nor that of any other village actually held in ʿuhda during the athurat-related work.
However, I did find the registers of ʿuhda villages at another juncture of the mutaʽhhid’s tenure: at the termination of the ʿuhda status of the village and the return of the arable land to the peasant cultivators. At this stage, the overlord, with the assistance of the premier village headman, reassigned the arable land to the cultivators, taking into consideration the original land rights (athariyya rights) of each peasant and the level of each’s economic capability. This was the case for four villages located in Gharbiyyia province in 1276 [1859–1860], Ayjul, Abstu, Abtu, and Billa. The athurat register of each of these villages recorded the amount of land assigned to each peasant cultivator at the time of the termination of the ʿuhda status of the village.Footnote 37
We turn now to the athurat registers of the freeholder villages, the primary focus of our discussion on the athurat records. Ali Shalabi was the first scholar to come upon this source. His searches in the archives led him to conclude that “despite the great importance of this type of source, unfortunately the only such registers that are extant pertain to Gharbiyya province.”Footnote 38 Although some registers may have been lost or destroyed, the athurat registers of villages located in other provinces are available; Hakim consulted the athurat register of Kamshish village, situated in Munifiyya province, and I located and examined the registers of villages situated in both Gharbiyya and Qalyubiyya provinces.Footnote 39 , Footnote 40
Shalabi used the athurat registers to discern how the village elite, specifically the headmen, enlarged their landholdings.Footnote 41 And Hakim, to my knowledge the only other scholar who has examined this source closely,Footnote 42 was interested in only one point: to list the different modes by which peasants transferred land, and then to speciify the total number of faddans transferred by each mode.Footnote 43
I believe we can glean much more from these registers. They basically inform us, as mentioned above, of the different ways (e.g., inheritance) peasants acquired their lands. As this process of acquirement occurred, in most cases, over a period of roughly three to four decades, these registers can inform us about some of the hows and whys of land distribution between the 1820s and late 1850s.
In charge of compiling such a register was the same group of officials that drafted the village land-tax registers, with the addition of a representative of the closest religious court and a delegate from the provincial administration; the registers simply referred to this group as “the committee.”Footnote 44 The information about this group is typically specified in the introductory and concluding sections of a register. But it is only at the end of the register that we see a statement that confirms the veracity of the details documented in the register and acknowledges that any falsification would lead to punishment, after which the names of each of the officials is listed alongside their signet-ring labels.
This brings us to a brief description of the organization of the athurat registers of freeholder villages. These were organized in one of two ways. The first involved the specification of several headings, with each heading naming a particular mode of land transfer, then identifying each peasant who had actually engaged in this kind of transfer as well as the size and location of the land plot at issue. When identifying and discussing land transfers, it is helpful to recall that peasants did not own their land; it was owned by the state and was often referred to in the archival sources as miri (state) land. However peasants possessed usufructuary rights to the lands they cultivated. This reality explains some of the terms scribes utilized to identify modes of land transfer. For instance, peasants engaged in the cession, or isqat, of their land; not its sale, or bayʿ. In similar fashion, peasants might pawn their land, a land transfer (dubbed gharuqa) that worked differently than would a mortgage: when pawning land, the debtor turned over its control to the creditor until he was able to redeem his debt. What is interesting to note here is that peasants and scribes rarely identified the passing of the miri land of the deceased possessor to his son as a transfer, or intiqal, the appropriate term for land held in usufruct, but rather referred to it as inheritance, or mirath, the term used when referring to property.
For an example of an athurat register organized in this way, we turn to that of Kafr al-Rajallat village. This register is divided into several sections, each section identifying one mode of land transfer. The first is “pawn” (gharuqa), with this section being further divided into the redeemed pawns and the pawns still outstanding (at the time of the register’s compilation.) Next is “cession,” then “rent” (ziraʿah-bi-al-mal). Following is land assignment (ramya); this pertains to a system in which vacant land is assigned to financially solvent cultivators by the village authorities. This section is further divided into two parts: the passage of more than fifteen years since the occurrence of the land assignments, and the passage of less than fifteen years since the assignment of the land.Footnote 45 Now we examine an entry in this register. The first entry in the “cessions” section pertains to peasant Hassan Hawash, who acquired by cession a land plot of 1 faddan, 22 qirats, 4 sahms, which was located in al-Saghira al-Qibliyya basin, for which he paid 650 piastres to Ali Jabra, the son of the original holder, Bayumi Jabra, all of which was recorded in a title deed dated 1 Rajab 1259 [28 July 1843]. At the conclusion of this transaction, the land was surveyed in Hassan Hawash’s name.Footnote 46
Another village whose athurat register was organized in the same way, that is, by sections with headings specifying land-transfer modes, is Jazirat al-Aʿjam village. But the two registers differ in one respect: that of Kafr al-Rajallat includes an additional section, titled usya, or land originally possessed by tax farmers (multazims) that devolved to the state (because the original holders had died without issue), and so became the possession of the peasant cultivators. This section names the tax farmers, the date of the devolution of their lands to the state, and the names of the peasants who subsequently assumed control of these lands. When examining this section, we see, for example, that the premier headman of the village, Ibrahim al-Dib, took control of roughly 42.5 faddans of usya land, and that this land had originally constituted portions of the usyas belonging to six tax farmers who had died without issue. That he had taken charge of certain land portions at the time of their devolution ultimately enabled him to register these in his name in 1272 [1855–56]. For example, one of the usya land portions that Ibrahim al-Dib had registered in his name in 1855–56 had originally belonged to tax farmer Hassan Effendi and had devolved to the state in 1246 [1830–31] because he lacked heirs at the time of his death. This usya land consisted of roughly 11.5 faddans and was situated in three basins: 5.5 faddans in al-Batin basin, 3.5 in al-Saghira al-Bahariyya, and 2.5 in al-Murabiʿ.Footnote 47 Conversely, at the end of the athurat register of Jazirat al-Aʿjam village there is no mention of usya lands, but rather of mudaf lands, that is, lands that had originally been part of the arable area of a nearby village (Kafr al-Rajallat) but had been acquired by inhabitants of Jazirat al-Aʿjam village and so were considered part of the arable area of the latter village. As with the first part of this register, this section is subdivided by types of land transfer. Peasants from Jazirat al-Aʿjam acquired land plots that had originally constituted part of Kafr al-Rajallat by inheritance, rent, land assignment, pawn, or cession. Incidentally, mudaf land constituted 21 percent of the high-grade arable area (athar land) of Jazirat al-Aʿjam village.Footnote 48
As mentioned above, the athurat registers were organized in one of two ways. One was the just described style, whereas the other involved specifying the name of the holder, then listing each of their land plots and further detailing the relevant particulars, including size, location, name of the original holder, the names of heirs, and the method of acquirement. For an example of an athurat register that adopted this latter organization, we turn to that of Ibyar village. One of the entries in this register pertained to Ahmad al-ʿAmrushi, who possessed one plot of land that was composed of 16 qirats, 4 sahms, located in Shabman wa al-Mafarish basin, and was originally possessed by Muhammad Qammar, who lacked heirs at the time of his death, prompting the authorities to assign it to Ahmad al-ʿAmrushi in 1268 [1851–52]. The last sentence of this entry reads: “[This land] has been in the name of the controller [Ahmad al-ʿAmrushi] from 1268 until now.” The next entry pertains to Ahmad al-ʿAtqi, under whose name is the following statement: “and with him in the same household are Salama and Muhammad his brothers, and they appeared before the [athurat] committee and acknowledged that each one of them has the right to one-third [of the landholding].” This holding consisted of 8 faddans, 7 sahms, was divided into six plots of various sizes, and was situated in five different basins; five of these plots were acquired by land assignment in 1851–52 and one by cession, which was recorded in a title deed dated 3 November 1851.Footnote 49
The examination of the athurat registers (most obviously) enables the researcher to discern how peasants acquired the lands in their possession. For example, the Ibyar register reveals that as of 1859 rather large proportions of the village holders had depended on two types of land acquirement: 41.5 percent had obtained portions of their lands by inheritance, and 79.82 percent by land assignment.Footnote 50 As these were nonmarket modes of land transfer, such findings may contribute to discussions on the contemporary land market, which may start by highlighting its secondary importance when compared with nonmarket methods. Following that, researchers can study the entries of the athurat register that detail the rent, cession, and pawn transactions to ask questions such as: What are the major characteristics of a village’s land market? Can we discern variations between different villages? Given that land assignment transfers occurred rather frequently, what prompted peasants to acquire land via a market transaction? Did poor peasants engage in such transactions more frequently than did the village affluent? Did women engage in land transactions, and if so what was the preferred type of transaction—rental, cession, or pawn?
Study of the athurat registers sheds light on additional issues. First, this source enables us to revise our notions about the land assignment system. By this system, the village headman was required to assign vacant land (which often emerged because original holders had accumulated tax arrears or lacked heirs at the time of their death) to individuals who could ensure its cultivation and pay its taxes. Although earlier writings on the redistribution process highlight enrichment of the village affluent and dispossession of insolvent cultivators,Footnote 51 the athurat registers contain ample evidence of the assignment of vacant land to poorer people, which was precisely the case of Ahmad al-ʿAmrushi mentioned just above. Notably, prior to his receipt of this land assignment, Ahmad al-ʿAmrushi was not a smallholder, having been completely landless.
Second, these registers reveal the real view of rural society regarding peasants’ rights to the lands they cultivated: that the local and provincial officials used terms related to private property to describe peasant lands, which according to state law was held in usufruct, shows that they considered these lands personal property, thereby ignoring the letter of the law. For example, the athurat registers routinely refer to the inheritance (mirath or irth) of land, not the transfer (intiqal) of land.Footnote 52 Third, from the examples disclosed by the Ibyar register mentioned above, we see that such registers reveal whether smallholders lived in nuclear or joint households. These data enable us to answer questions about the structure of families in villages, why peasants chose one type of household over another, and who was entitled to a share of the family land patrimony and who was excluded. Fourth, the athurat registers specify how the village residents acquired their mudaf lands (land that originally formed part of the arable area of another village), providing us with data that address questions about inter-village relations.
Fifth, the comparison between the land tax and athurat registers of a particular village help the researcher discern some important aspects of rural society. One of these may concern the development of a village. For example, by comparing the athurat register of Jazirat al-Aʿjam village with its land-tax register of the same year (1274 / 1857–58), we see that the first register specifies the total arable area as 213.5 faddans, whereas the second specifies this as 448.5 faddans.Footnote 53 What does this mean? The athurat register focuses on the athariyya land possessed by the peasants, that is, land plots made up of the black, fertile soil kept in cultivation by generations of peasant families. But the land-tax register documents all the land in the possession of the village holders, including the originally barren lands assigned to the peasants by the state. This means that the resident cultivators had very likely recently received land assignments that were composed of barren soil and were originally located outside the village boundaries—this constituted one of the strategies devised by the state to expand the country’s agricultural area.Footnote 54
The comparison between these two registers (land tax and athurat) also helps with the study of women in rural society. In most sources, certainly the very important land-tax registers, peasant women rarely appear as smallholders. For example, the examination of the land-tax registers of Kafr al-Rajallat village between 1850 and 1862 reveals that the number of women holders for any one of these years ranged between one and three, whereas the number of total holders (i.e. men and women) ranged between 97 and 141.Footnote 55 On the other hand, the athurat register of this village, which roughly covers 1815 to 1857, reveals that twenty women acquired land during this period.Footnote 56 These instances of female land acquirement occurred in a setting in which the village smallholder group of 1857 had engaged in a total of 600 land transfers.Footnote 57 Although these numbers confirm that peasant women rarely acquired land during the nineteenth century, they also show that the number of women smallholders in this village was actually higher than was portrayed by the land-tax registers. One reason for this was women’s tendency to turn over the care of their lands to male relatives, which entailed placing the lands in the names of these men. The athurat registers document these situations, specifying the women’s names and those of the male caretakers, as well as describing the particular tenure arrangements with these men.Footnote 58 The land-tax registers, conversely, only specify the name of the (male) controller of the land, in whose name the land was registered.
Finally, the athurat registers reveal some of the unique customs of certain villages. In al-Jazira Khadra village, for instance, women were not permitted access to the village’s most valuable agricultural lands, located in al-Farsha basin, even after the promulgation of the 1858 land law which had granted women full Islamic inheritance rights to miri land.Footnote 59 Also, this same village contained large tracts of waste lands that remained subject to taxation despite their poor quality. The headmen resolved this problem by devising their own strategy: they simply redistributed this land every year among the village cultivators.Footnote 60
Overall, I believe that the athurat registers provide insight into aspects of village life that would otherwise remain hidden from us. Nevertheless, they do have certain limitations. The chief problem is that these registers infrequently mention dates when specifying the peasants’ land transfers—lacunae that hinder our efforts to contextualize and “periodize” various phenomena. Also, these registers are virtually silent about land transactions and transfers between villagers and members outside of peasant society, which impedes our efforts to discern the historical juncture during which town dwellers’ interest in land acquirement became noticeable. Such data would enable us to better understand, among other things, the notions concerning the political, social, and cultural “isolation” of villages. Here we might benefit from the examination of different archival sources, such as the religious and civil court registers.
Provincial-level sources
This section focuses on one type of archival source, the provincial tax-reassessment registers, which are housed in the Ministry of Finance Archives. When the state issued instructions for the revaluation of land taxes, the tax authorities recorded the relevant results in official registers, called dafatir takmil al-daraʼib, or provincial tax-reassessment registers.
I found only two such registers. The first focuses on the miri lands in Gharbiyya province between 1854 and 1855 and is made up of two parts, with each part documenting a discrete stage of the 1855 tax revaluation project.Footnote 61 Sometime between 1855 and 1858, the boundaries of Gharbiyya province were expanded to include parts of Munifiyya province, with the entire unit renamed Rawdat al-Bahrayn. The second register documents the results of the 1858 tax revaluation project carried out in Rawdat al-Bahrayn.Footnote 62 With the registers of other provinces being unavailable, we are particularly fortunate to have access to the Gharbiyya/Rawdat al-Bahrayn registers, rather than those of another province. According to an entry in a civil court (Viceregal Cabinet) register, the state put the governor of Gharbiyya in charge of the first stage of the 1855 tax reassessment project, the first major tax revaluation project of the mid-nineteenth century period. He drew up the guidelines for the related tasks, and all state officials were instructed to follow them, incurring severe reproaches when they diverged.Footnote 63 In a word, the Gharbiyya register constituted a “blueprint” for this tax project that was followed by the officials of the other provinces. Perhaps the same situation applied to the other two tax reassessment projects documented in the Gharbiyya/Rawdat al-Bahrayn registers: the second stage of the 1855 tax code and the 1858 tax code.
Each of the three tax revaluation exercises detailed by these two registers starts with an introduction that specifies the chief results of the project and ends with a conclusion that repeats these results as well as adding a few ancillary points, the latter further specifies the name of the governor, and displays the impression of his signet ring and the date. A typical village entry divides the arable area by land grade and specifies the number of faddans belonging to each grade, each grade’s current tax rate, the new (revised) rate, and the requisite surcharge taxes. Villages were listed in one of three categories: freeholder villages were listed under their districts; insolvent villages that were ʿuhdas were listed under the name of their caretaker; and, finally, the villages that made up the estate ( jiflik) of a member of the royal family were listed under the name of this personage.
Obviously, these registers facilitate a discussion on land taxes. One, they enable us to discern the rates by which peasants’ land taxes increased. Two, they allow us to see that revaluation exercises did not always specify tax increases, as the registers reveal cases in which the tax authorities specified a reduction in tax rates, and other times when they deemed the tax rates appropriate and so approved the status quo. Therefore, although tax revaluation exercises usually generated increases in land taxes, a few villages were spared. Three, when comparing the village land-tax registers and the tax- reassessment registers, we are able to distinguish between the universal surcharge taxes and a few extraordinary taxes designed for certain villages. The comparison between these two archival sources also provides insight into the nature of the work undertaken by the state and local officials. The former, directly responsible to the central government, developed registers that were as precise as they could make them, specifying the tax sums actually required of the peasants. In contrast, the local officials who compiled the village registers did not record all pertinent tax information in their registers. It seems that their responsibility was limited to the specification of the basics of their village: the resident peasants’ names, the size of their holdings, and the various rates of tax imposed on the different land grades. Therefore to learn how much peasants were actually required to pay in land taxes, we cannot depend solely on the village registers, but must turn to records compiled by the central government. Conversely, Amy Singer’s research on the relation between Ottoman officials and Palestinian peasants during the sixteenth century reveals that the tax sums specified by the state survey registers (tapu tahrir defterleri) were general estimates of the amounts the state expected to receive, whereas the local court registers specify the tax sums actually paid by the peasants.Footnote 64
Four, this kind of register enables us to discern the units that made up a province. For example, in 1856 Gharbiyya province was divided into 12 districts, which together included 343 freeholder villages (or villages under the jurisdiction of the provincial government); 15 ʿuhdas that together included 53 villages; and 1 jiflik estate (dubbed Jiflik Sabat) that belonged to Tusun Pasha and comprised 7 peasant villages.Footnote 65
The two tax-reassessment registers of Gharbiyya/Rawdat al-Bahrayn under discussion here specified the details of two major land tax codes introduced at mid-century, the 1855 land code (divided into two stages) and the 1858 code. But there was another instance of land-tax revaluation during this period, which occurred in 1862. I could not locate the tax-reassessment register that documented this information. This limitation was compounded by the unavailability of tax-reassessment registers of any province other than Gharbiyya/Rawdat al-Bahrayn. It was only when I examined the village land-tax registers that I discerned the introduction of the 1862 land-tax code—a finding that again serves to highlight the usefulness of consulting more than one type of archival source.
Religious and civil court registers
Although the above sources enable us to discern the socioeconomic status of the ordinary people living in the countryside, we must rely on another kind of source to discern other crucial dimensions of rural life, including people’s views and voices, their relation to the elite, their dealings with co-villagers and outsiders, how state institutions affected their lives, and how they approached different problems. This brings us to the court registers—those of the provincial religious courts and the civil courts. Both are housed in the National Archives.
The records of the provincial religious courts, or al-mahakim al-sharʿiyyia, are replete with cases that deal with rural affairs. It is here that we see the characteristics and causes of phenomena that other sources describe only in barest outline. For example, the case entries allow us to discern the strategies peasants used to postpone the outright sale of their lands; the main features of the system of “land pawn” and how to distinguish this from modern-day mortgages; and the reasons women so rarely gained possession of their land inheritances. Typically, these entries specify the plaintiff’s complaint, the defendant’s explanation of his/her position, and the reasoning and final ruling of the judge (qadi). Justice in these courts was, as Hanna states, “simple and quick.” That peasants did not need an intermediary to represent them before the judge and did not have to wait to learn the outcome of their petitions were among the particular attractions of the religious courts.Footnote 66
In 1856, the state issued a procedural law that made the religious court “the venue for producing, notarizing and verifying legal documents.” After the issuance of the 1848 regulations that required smallholders to document their land transactions, the state increasingly expanded the rules of legal documentation. Before 1856, all cases were recorded in “a single register series in each court.” But the new law required the courts to keep record of the cases involving “different types of legal actions” (such as property transactions, lawsuits) in separate registers. According to Cuno, the 1856 law “was a rationalizing measure, made necessary by the increased volume of court business.”Footnote 67 Yet some of this business was by necessity moving elsewhere, because between the 1830s and the early 1860s the state introduced several legal codes that regulated different dimensions of society, in this way restricting the jurisdictional scope of the religious courts.
Therefore, during this period, newly established civil courts were receiving petitioners’ complaints. Bureaucratic development had involved the establishment of a number of “executive departments” or diwans, conciliar bodies, and quasi-legislative bodies.Footnote 68 Some of these bodies had a judicial arm, which was headed by a state official, or the hakim siyasi. Footnote 69 Their judicial procedure differed from that of the religious courts, as the latter dealt with petitioners on a face-to-face basis, whereas the civil bodies “reviewed cases solely on the basis of documents presented to them.”Footnote 70 This, however, did not prevent disgruntled rural folks from resorting to the civil courts. The peasants knew about the new judicial councils and turned to them in the full knowledge of their higher authority and ability to overturn the decisions of the religious courts. This particularly pertained to the Council of Justice (Majlis al-Ahkam); “whose functions were akin to what in modern times would be a supreme administrative court and a court of cassation,” making it the highest court in the land.Footnote 71 One plaintiff brought his case to the Majlis al-Ahkam with the hope of overturning an unfavorable ruling issued by a religious court;Footnote 72 in this way, we see that petitioners considered the civil courts a kind of court of appeal. In another case, a peasant turned to a civil court precisely because he had been told by a religious court that because “there are [civil] codes for land cases, and adjudication has been proceeding according to them, there is no need for the investigation to proceed by [the rules of] Islamic Law.”Footnote 73 These two cases demonstrate that the expansion of the body of secular and civil laws that addressed different aspects of rural society did not stop peasants from turning first to the religious courts for the resolution of their problems. (See Map 1 for some of the provincial courts whose registers cover the mid-century years.)Footnote 74
Map 1: Some of the towns whose provincial court registers cover the mid-century years (late 1840s – early 1860s).
Source: J. & F. Tallis, Edinburgh & Dublin, published 1851. Accessed from Library of Congress, Division of Maps, no. 626888.
Bureaucratic development at mid-century further involved empowering a number of administrative bodies (as indicated above) to investigate problems emanating from the rural areas. Such cases were documented in discrete register series. They were divided into four different series: the first distinguished between petitions sent from the provinces of Lower Egypt and those of Upper Egypt; each of these series was further subdivided into summaries of incoming correspondence and outgoing correspondence. As indicated, the petitioner who approached one of these administrative bodies was required to submit the documents pertaining to his case rather than present the case in person. The relevant case details were subsequently recorded in the appropriate register. The register was organized according to provinces: for example, the cases sent from Daqahliyyia province were recorded on the same page. All cases were dated and numbered. A typical case entry specifies the name of the petitioner, his village, his complaint, and its date. The researcher will see that the date on which the petitioner submitted his complaint, specified in the case entry, does not coincide with the date specified on the register page (which denotes the date the case was entered into the register.) Although some case entries can be quite lengthy and detailed, most are very short, only specifying the barest details. But the more important limitation of these court cases is that they most often do not specify the final “ruling;” instead only noting that the case was to be referred to another body or to the viceroy. The exception here pertains to the Council of Justice during Said Pasha’s reign (1854–63), for he had expanded its powers beyond that of the other contemporary quasi-legislative body, the Majlis Khususi (Privy Council).Footnote 75 It is also noteworthy that reliance on the civil court registers pertaining to the mid-century years (as well as other extended periods) requires reading the registers of different administrative bodies. The necessity of this methodology can be found in the institutional fluidity that characterized the Egyptian government during the nineteenth century. The status and responsibilities of the administrative entities changed rather often, with an obvious bearing on the records. On the other hand, a major advantage of relying on the civil court registers (rather than those of the religious court) is that the former provide coverage of wide geographical areas (like the entirety of the Lower Egypt region), whereas the latter basically drew cases from their locale and the surrounding rural hinterland. Finally, these civil courts were abolished between 1875 and 1883, for new civil courts (mixed tribunals and national courts) were henceforth to administer civil law.
Conclusion
This article has identified four types of archival sources, housed in the Ministry of Finance Archives and the National Archives, helpful for the study of peasant society in mid-nineteenth century Egypt: the land-tax registers, the athurat registers, the tax-reassessment registers, and the religious and civil court registers. More importantly than identifying these sources, though, is the attempt to describe the nature of the data each source had recorded, thereby illuminating the potential uses of the source as well as its limitations. It is in this way that this article can be of use to scholars embarking on research in the Cairo archives. Having also shown that the limitations of a source can be addressed by the examination of another type of archival source, it highlights the risk of developing distorted interpretations when focusing on only one type of source.
I end with some comments on two points at the forefront of researchers’ concerns: the completeness of these sources and the accuracy of the numerical data they contain.Footnote 76 Regarding the first, I specify that the archival collections in both houses seem to be gradually expanding, as archivists locate material previously thought to have been destroyed or lost, and add these to the existing collections. This, for example, was the case with the athurat registers: as described, Shalabi assumed that these registers could be found only for Gharbiyya province, but Hakim and I found registers pertaining to Munifiyya and Qalyubiyya provinces.
Addressing the second point may begin with the comparison of village-level sources with provincial-level sources—this reveals that essential data are the same. For example, the 1272 [1855–56] land-tax register of al-Jazira al-Khadra village identifies the resident smallholders, and specifies the following: the different land grades of which the landholding was composed and the tax rate allotted to each; the tax sum required of each individual who possessed date trees; and, with regard to the village headmen, the amount of tax-exempted land each possessed and the tax sums that were deducted; and finally, the total amount of land and the corresponding required tax sums. The end of the register specifies the totals; it is these totals that are noted in the 1271 [1854–55] tax reassessment register.Footnote 77 This synchronization of data can be attributed to the method by which the provincial officials collected village-level information: the governor convened the headmen of the villages at the administrative center of the province, where each relayed the required information pertaining to his village; here, too, headmen were warned against falsification of information, for which they would be penalized.Footnote 78
At this juncture, we may wonder about the reliability of the figures recorded by these registers; did these statistics reflect reality? The official registers undoubtedly recorded some inaccuracies, however these typically were not differences that presented a greatly distorted image of reality. It is pertinent to recall that “Egypt. . . had a long history of bureaucratic administration, officials experienced in gathering data, and populations accustomed to supplying it.”Footnote 79 Therefore, we can count on these registers when attempting to discern some of the general trends, patterns, and phenomena that existed in the Egyptian countryside at mid-century.
