The transformation of rural society : the Syrian interior, 1830-1930

Thesis

The subject of this study concerns the transformation of the traditional rural society and economy of Syria in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The research focuses on the important agricultural regions of the Homs-Hama plain and the Ghuta of Damascus while examining the wider developments of the ‘transitional period', taken as the century spanning from 1830-1930. These regions are to be considered in terms of the particular and varied response of each to changing conditions brought about in large measure by the gradual absorption of the Levant into a world economic order emanating from an industrialized Europe.

European economic penetration in the 19th century and the expansion of merchant and usurious capital linked to this process unleashed forces which led to the creation of new relations of production. The study considers the extent to which capitalist forms of production and enterprise could take root because they were placed into the framework of traditional agrarian arrangements, such as the sharika contract and musha, The principal developments of the period: an increased emphasis upon production for the market and the growth of an export oriented agriculture, the evolution of a private property regime and the emergence of huge estates upon which peasants were transformed into mere share croppers and the sedentarization of nomadic society are examined in terms of the forces European economic expansion and Ottoman reform set in motion.

Much of this study is devoted to the social implications of the development of private land ownership in Syria from the mid-19th century onwards. In this context, the effects of the Ottoman Land Code, which is closely associated with the increased privatization of land holdings, are examined. This process was frequently accompanied by the dispossession of the peasantry and their transformation from small proprietors and partners in communal landholdings into share-cropping tenants. In the 1870's, in particular, much of the land of the Ghuta and the Homs-Hama plain passed into the hands of urban-based notable families and merchant-moneylending groups. This process accelerated during the Mandate period.

Authors: Frank, CA

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-z6w2mbj8k
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: rural conditions; rural society; rural development; Syrian; Syria; interior
• Subjects: Rural development -- Syria -- History; Syria -- Rural conditions -- History