British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 226

CHAPTER VIII.

by grant from the State. The holder or possessor is a usufructuary whose tenure resembles a leasehold, subject to certain limitations on the use and disposition of the land and to the payment of certain fees. The interest is indeterminate, assignable and hereditary. The extent of mulk or allodial lands in Palestine is limited, and is usually only found in the old cities or in garden areas. Rural land in this category is rare.

4. Although the State land tenure of Palestine is of feudal origin, comparisons with other feudal tenures which it resembles are misleading. The law and practices regulating land tenure in Palestine are far removed for instance from English land law which is also of feudal origin.

5. Palestine land law is rendered more difficult to understand by the difficulty of translating Ottoman legal terms into English. The terms mulk and miri have not an exact counterpart in English legal terminology. Their translation as "freehold" and "leasehold" or as "estate in fee simple" and "estate tail" is misleading. "Allodium" and "feodum" or "allodial land" and "feudal lands" are only nearer approximations. Similarly the terms "vacant" for khali; "communal profits- a- prendre" for 'matruka murafaqa ; or "easements in common" for matn1.ka. mah1niya, as given in this note, must all be considered as terms suggested as giving a meaning nearest to the Turkish. It is essential to master the characteristics of the various categories in order to understand the land tenure of Palestine.

6. The Ottoman land law classifies land under five kinds or categories. These, with suggested approximate counterparts in English, are :-

1. Mulk = Private or allodial land;

2. Miri

3. Waqf

4. Matruka

5. Mewat

State or feudal land;

Land assured to pious foundations or revenue from land assured to pious foundations;

Communal profits- a- prendre land or laud subject to public easements in common;

Dead or undeveloped land.

A more logical classification, based on the provisions of the Jaw, would be in two main kinds, mulk and miri, with sub-divisions :-

A. Mulk (Allodial or priv ate land).

1. Mulk (allodial land proper);

2. Waqf sahih (allodial land in mortmain tenure).

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