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'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918' [194] (203/568)
The record is made up of 1 volume (282 folios). It was created in 1918. It was written in English, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish and Syriac. The original is part of the British Library: India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. Records and Private Papers Documents collected in a private capacity. .
Transcription
This transcription is created automatically. It may contain errors.
194 AGRICULTURE AND LAND TENURE
paying tenants on lands which they regarded as their own. Many
of the new landlords were absentees and quite unconnected with the
tribesmen who cultivated their estates. How far the icipu proprietors
fulfilled their duties of canal clearance and so forth is not clear. At
any rate their claims were bitterly resented by the cultivators. Thus
when the Government's authority Was weakened after the Revolution
of 1908-9 a kind of agrarian revolution followed. The result has been
that owners of tapu estates have become unable either to collect their
rents or to undertake their responsibilities. The tribesmen look
upon the landlords as intruders who make oppressive and unjust
demands upon the cultivators and rightful owners of the soil. The
landlords appeal to their title-deeds and complain that they are
being robbed of what by law and justice is clearly theirs. Both
sides look to the Government of the country to support their claims,
which need careful consideration and adjustment.
Apart from this difficult question of the estates there were
many abuses and anomalies in the system of land tenure and land
taxation as it was at the beginning of the war. Corruption entered
into all transactions of the administration touching the land,
especially into the leasing of the lands which the State had at its
disposal and into the assessment and collection of the revenue
derived from the produce of the soil. Tnus in the Amara district,
where in theory the miri and samyeh lands paid a proportion of
their produce to the Crown, in practice the land was put up to
auction and leased for cash rents to the highest bidder. There was
intense rivalry among the tribes, and wholly fictitious prices were
bid which could never be paid but which were pleasing to the heads
of the revenue department. The highest bidder, usually a sheikh,
sublet the lands, which were again sublet to the result being
a chain of debt and extortion which the land could never support
and which was liable at any moment to bring ruin to all concerned
in it.
About this item
- Content
This volume is A Handbook of Mesopotamia, Volume I, General (Naval Staff, Intelligence Department: November 1918). This is an updated and expanded edition of A Handbook of Mesopotamia, Volume I, General (Admiralty War Staff, Intelligence Department: August 1916) (IOR/L/MIL17/15/41/1). This is an introductory volume containing matter of a general nature giving an account of conditions in Mesopotamia, for the most part as they were before the First World War.
The volume includes a note on official use, a title page and 'Note'. There is a page of 'Contents' that includes the following chapters and sections:
- Chapter 1: Boundaries and Physical Features;
- Chapter 2: Climate;
- Chapter 3: Minerals;
- Chapter 4: Fauna and Flora;
- Chapter 5: Hygiene;
- Chapter 6: History;
- Chapter 7: Inhabitants;
- Chapter 8: Religions;
- Chapter 9: Administration;
- Chapter 10: Irrigation of Irak [Iraq];
- Chapter 11: Agriculture and Land Tenure;
- Chapter 12: Commerce and Industry;
- Chapter 13: Currency, Weights, and Measures;
- Chapter 14: Communications and Transport;
- Vocabularies;
- Index.
- Extent and format
- 1 volume (282 folios)
- Arrangement
The volume is arranged in numbered chapters. There is a contents page and an alphabetically arranged index.
- Physical characteristics
Foliation: The foliation sequence commences at the first folio and terminates at the last folio; these numbers are written in pencil, are circled, and are located in the top right corner of the recto The front of a sheet of paper or leaf, often abbreviated to 'r'. of the folio.
Pagination: The volume also contains an original printed pagination sequence.
- Written in
- English, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish and Syriac in Latin and Arabic script View the complete information for this record
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'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918' [194] (203/568), British Library: India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/L/MIL/17/15/41/2, in Qatar Digital Library <https://www.qdl.qa/archive/81055/vdc_100023472674.0x000004> [accessed 7 June 2026]
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Copyright: How to use this content
- Reference
- IOR/L/MIL/17/15/41/2
- Title
- 'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918'
- Pages
- front, back, spine, edge, head, tail, front-i, i-r:i-v, 1:556, ii-r:ii-v, back-i
- Author
- East India Company, the Board of Control, the India Office, or other British Government Department
- Usage terms
- Open Government Licence