With the coming of the Ghaznavis and the subsequent Seljuk conquest across the country, we are faced with gradually concentrated power and the formation of strong hereditary monarchy that takes all worldly and political rights of Baghdad caliphs in Eastern regions and Iran. It was during the Seljuks that the Central Government encroaches the farming estates...
With the coming of the Ghaznavis and the subsequent Seljuk conquest across the country, we are faced with gradually concentrated power and the formation of strong hereditary monarchy that takes all worldly and political rights of Baghdad caliphs in Eastern regions and Iran. It was during the Seljuks that the Central Government encroaches the farming estates extensively. And the Seljuk Shah relying on centralized bureaucracy, announces itself as the owner of all conquered lands, and is placed at the head of the pyramid of power, and ultimately benefiting from land leasing system significantly, the Seljuk’s ways of landowning evolves to its broad form.
Subsequent to the great Seljuk period, and their immediate followers in Iran up to the ultimate establishment of the Mongol Ilkhanis, land ownership gets more specific forms. In this period we encounter four types of land ownership: 1. Civilian (private), 2. Endowments, 3. Governmental, 4. Injo. The two latter forms of landowning included the government and imperial lands which in most cases there was no significant difference between them and their incomes were used completely by the Ilkhans as they desired.
Therefore, the crown lands included those lands, the properties and incomes of which were offered to the king and the central government, and was often leased to farmers or placed in the form of fief at the hands of civil or military authorities.
The four forms of land ownership, with oscillations, was continued until the end of the Pahlavi period.
With the establishment of the Safavid government in early fifteenth century which was the origin of a central Shiite government in Iran, no remarkable change was applied to the composition of land ownership. But some changes were made in the extent of these ownerships. Especially, since Shah Abbas I, the crown lands were increased extensively, due to his centralization policy and the formation of regular army by him. The expansion of crown lands was continued at the time of his successors.
The crown lands of Nasseraddin Shah was obtained through various ways. As it was mentioned before, there were extensive real estate especially through the last kings of the Safavids. Another part of the lands were those that due to civil wars of the 18th century, and the murder of most aristocratic families and landowners in those wars, and non existence of any heirs to get hold of them, consequently, were confiscated by Agha Mohammad khan Qajar.
On the other hand, the expansionist policy of Nader Shah in land owning, especially the endowed lands added to these lands significantly. Despite Mohammad Shah’s endeavor to return the confiscated lands of Nader Shah to their true owners, they were still left in the hold of the central government.
Some of these properties were bought by the kings, for example the crown lands of Mazandaran and Astarabad were bought by Agha Mohammad Khan and were added to the already owned lands. Of courses, in most cases the owners of these lands were forced to sell them in low prices to the king and central government. At times they had to donate the lands to the Shah under twofold pressures of state officials. To this reason, most landowners paid great bribes to state officials to save their lands and prevent land conversion to crown lands.
In some cases, due to the prevalence of crop pests and drought and other disasters that caused the land owners and farmers leave their land, the central government would add this property to the crown land, as it was the case under FathAli Shah and Mohammad Shah in the suburbs of Isfahan, in the period of Nasseraddin Shah in Sistan and Baluchestan.
The crown lands were mostly obtained through land expropriation which was mostly due to the crisis in the land ownership and its roots in Iranian history up to Nasseraddin Shah’s period, and it was considered an important factor in non development of agro economy of the country. On the importance of confiscation is enough to remember that a foreign traveler of Nasseraddian Shah’s period identifies the crown lands with those confiscated lands that the royalty charges his employees with its cultivation and harvesting. The extent of extortion and abuses was so widespread that some property owners would endow their lands to their children to get rid of the violations of government agents.
The grounds for the sale of crown lands which had begun under Nasseraddin Shah, and continued in Mozaffaraddin Shah’s period were numerous and a brief evaluation of the more important ones are given here.
A. global economic developments and the immediate needs of the king and government to ready cash.
B. Role trading agriculture in the sale of crown lands.
C. Inefficiency of crown lands
It seems that crown lands sale scheme did not go as planned and as it was referred before, most of these lands were bought by the governor and the upper class and influential groups of the society who could harm the agricultural economy of the country whenever they saw it to their benefit. Subsequently, it imposed great losses and extortions on the farmers, and these new landowners did not hesitate to have recourse to such tactics including hoarding of products or raising the price of cereals. Loss in selling of crown lands was so tangible and obvious that even its designer, Nezamossaltaneh Mafi expressed his dissatisfaction of the sale process, as " despite my opinion, other rulers bought high grade lands and took advantages of them and still they are taking advantage.”
The Qajar rulers sold the lands without a clear and constructive plan for the period after the sale of these lands, and they did it only for obtaining much more cash money. There is no record or witness indicating the positive results of sale plane. Therefore, this action was a sort of a government auction of property without any realistic criteria. The Qajar rulers carried out this plan without having an accurate understanding of the state of affairs, and dealt with the problems of economic crisis without thinking out well. Due to this blind policy of "privatization" and not exploiting of the capital obtained from the sale of these lands in economic affairs with more efficient productivity, as observed by the observers, it was doomed to failure.
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