Muhammad `Ali'S Tax Inspectors
from Chronicles of al-Jabarti - cAbd al-Rahman al-Jabarti cajaib
al-athar f-il-tarajim w-al-akhbar, Cairo 1297/1879 IV,
93-94,141-142, 154, 183, 208-209).
And in [1224 ah/ 1809 ad] they began to prepare a register
for the taking of half the yield from the multazim-s and another
for the imposition of taxes on produce of waqf devoted to
mosques, foundations, alms, and charitable works. . .
Proclamations were despatched to the villages and countryside and
officials were sent by the various provincial governors with
power to investigate the property belonging to mosques or used
for charitable works. Each person controlling such land was
ordered to present his title deed to the central government
office and replace it with a new one; a delay of forty days was
allowed for this, after which the title of the property could be
taken away and given to another person. The pretext used in the
proclamation was one which had never been advanced before, that
when a sultan died or was deposed his orders and decrees ceased
to be valid, and that the same applied to the sultan's deputies,
and that therefore they had to be renewed by the new governor -
and other such statements!
It should be remembered that these endowments dated back
to Saladin's time - in the fifth century ah [sic, read sixth, ie
twelfth century ad] - who paid for them out of the central
treasury to facilitate matters for those who were entitled to
receive allowances from the treasury. His example was followed
by kings, sultans, and princes until our day: they built mosques,
hospices, asylums, and fountains, endowing them with land taken
from their own private property, and the taxes or revenues which
were used for that purpose. Similarly they would make endowments
in favour of scholars or poor people, as a charity, enabling them
to live and pursue learning; and when the beneficiary died the
judge or the supervisor would appoint some deserving person in
his place. the beneficiary's name would then be put down in the
record of the judge and also in the register of the sultan's
office, which were kept by a special official known as the clerk
of the waqf property. This official would deliver a title deed,
under the terms of the decree, and would put on it his seal and
that of the Pasha and the chancellor. . . And thus the office of
the waqf property remained preserved in perfect order in all the
lands of Egypt, generation after generation . . .
The French occupied Egypt but did not touch this
institution. But Sharif Effendi, the chancellor, who came shortly
after the arrival of Yusif Pasha, the wazir [in 1801], ordered
all multazim-s to pay to the government again . . . Their pretext
was that the French occupation had rendered Egypt a war area [dar
harb] which had been reconquered and whose lands had therefore
become the property of the government; therefore anyone who
desired to take possession of a piece of land or other property
had to buy it from the sultan's deputy by payment of the
prescribed amount.
In [1227 ah / 1812 ad] Ibrahim Bey, the son of the Pasha
[Muhammad cAli] went to Upper Egypt, followed by Ahmad Agha Laz,
the governor of Qina and Qus and the other sub-governors; they
carried out a cadastral survey of the lands of Upper Egypt and
imposed on them a tax of 7 riyals per faddan, a very high
rate. The also made a survey of all the waqf devoted to mosques,
alms and charity in Upper and Lower Egypt; the total amounted to
6,000,000 faddans. They then proclaimed that mosque waqf-s would
pay half the assessed rate, ie, 3 1/2 riyals. The beneficiaries
of the waqf-s were greatly disturbed and many of them appealed
to the sheikhs, who went of to speak to the Pasha on this
subject. They said to him that that would lead to the ruin of the
mosques, whereupon he replied: 'Where are the flourishing
mosques? If anyone is not satisfied with this arrangement let him
raise his hand and I will restore the ruined mosques and provide
them with the necessary means.' Their protests were of no avail
and they returned to their homes. . .
And he [Muhammad cAli] seized all the iltizams, leaving
something to their former owners only in exceptional cases, and
even so only in very small amounts. His pretext was that the
Mamluk princes had seized these lands when they fled from Cairo
[after the massacre of the Mamluks in 1811] to Upper Egypt and
that he had fought and chased and killed them and therefore had
inherited all their possessions, whether legitimately or
illegitimately acquired [by them]. . . Lands which belonged to
the local multazim-s, resident in Upper Egypt or Lower Egypt at
the time of the influx of the Mamluks, and with whom he wished
to keep on good terms, were treated differently. If the owner
made an appeal and asked for permission to continue in possession
and declared that he had been free of obligations at the time of
the Mamluk influx, and if he proved that with documents - drawn
from the archives or other offices - he would either be allowed
to continue in possession or told he could get compensation in
the form of land in Lower Egypt. But the Pasha would then
procrastinate and let time slip by , or else he would refer the
matter to his son Ibrahim Pasha, saying he had nothing to do with
Upper Egypt, which was under the authority of Ibrahim Pasha. And
if the claimant then went to Ibrahim Pasha, the latter would
say: " I will give you the compensation". If he consented to this
he would get a very small amount, and if he did not he would be
told: "Bring an authorisation from our Lord." And both [Muhammad
cAli and Ibrahim would either be travelling or absent, or only
one of them would be present and he would be left hanging in the
air like a dangling participle! . . . And in [1229 ah/ 1814 ad]
the chief of the archives and the other officials came, after the
Coptic clerks had filled in, at their dictation, the registers
with the names of the multazim-s and the extent of their
shares. Then Mahmud Bey and Ghali and their retinue realised what
they had contrived and devised in the matter of the
cadaster. For, owing to the fact that they used a measuring
instrument smaller than that previously employed, the extent of
the land showed an increase of a third or a quarter. And they
measured the waqf properties, noting the names of their lands
separately, including the threshing floors and land not fit for
cultivation and lands which could be reclaimed but which were not
actually being cultivated or were uncultivable. When this was
done they reckoned the land in the new faddan, showing an
increase in the area, and proceeded to tax it at the rate of 15
or 14 or 12 or 11 or 10 riyals per faddan, according to the
nature of the region and the quality of the soil. The result was
an enormous increase: thus a village which had formerly paid
1,000 riyals in taxes - a sum that had given rise to complaints
on the part of the multazim-s and of the peasants and had
resulted in uncollectible arrears - was now assessed at between
10,000 and 100,000 riyals, more or less.
And the Pasha's lieutenant bade Ibrahim Agha al-Razzaz and
Shaykh Ahmad Yusuf come into his presence and gave them robes of
honour. A special office was set up for them. Those who undertook
to pay the taxes assessed on the share to which they were
entitled received a title deed confirming their possessions, in
return for which they engaged themselves to pay a stipulated sum
at designated dates. This done, they could dispose of their share
. . . cultivating it directly if they wished or else leasing it
to others. . . And all the excess land resulting from the new
cadastral survey. . . was taken over by the ruler.
As for the waqf property devoted to alms and charity, and
to the upkeep of mosques, fountains, libraries, and other
philanthropic works, they too were measured in the new unit and
all the resulting excess was taken over by the government. The
remaining part was registered in the name of the actual
beneficiary and the original maker of the endowment and the
actual cultivator. . . Such land was subjected to the same tax
as village land. if the beneficiary could show satisfactory
title, or had a new deed dating from the time of the Wazir and
Sharif Effendi or later, half the rental value of the land would
be registered in his name, the other half going to the
government.
The clerk of the waqf property was ordered to set up a
special office for that purpose, staffed by a large number of
clerks. People would come to him with their title deeds and those
who had new deeds would receive a copy of the entry in the
register, which he would take to the Council, where it would be
entered after investigation and much argument on both
sides. Doubts often arose regarding the names of the
title-holders of those block or plots. In such cases the claimant
would be asked to prove his claims and orders would be given to
him to take to the local judges and district headmen, asking them
to help him provide the evidence. He would then have to travel
back to the village, incurring trouble and expense as well as
encountering the difficulties created by the judges and
headmen. After that he would return to the council with the
required answers, where, however, he might be met with a
counter-claim. And all this trouble and toil might be for a
faddan of so! And the people crowded in on the office of the
clerk of the waqf. This opened a door for abuse, for the clerk
would not issue a deed until he had received a certain sum of
money, the amount of which depended on the size of the land in
question, the position of the claimants, the state of their deeds
etc. . .
Contributed by C. R. Pennell, University of Melbourne, rpennell@unimelb.edu.au
