"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [و‎‎٢‎٨‎٩] (٨٦٢/٥٨٠)

IRRIGATION, AGRICULTURE, AND MINOR INDUSTRY 445
family Waqfs established for the benefit of particular persons are
administered by private trustees, and the continual increase in the
number of the beneficiaries and the decrease in the value of their
shares lead to the neglect of the land. In 1943 Waqf lands totalled
about 1*4 per cent, of the lands then assessed.
Farmers and Tenants
The conditions of land tenure affect only indirectly the vast
majority of the peasant population, because there is very little peasant
proprietorship in Iraq despite the fact that the unit of landed pro
perty, i.e. the estate, tends to be very small. Land is generally owned
as an investment by wealthy townsmen or by tribal shaikhs and aghas,
and so is worked on a peculiar system of share-cropping by the
fellahin. Thus there are very few farm labourers paid in cash wages
and organized in groups, but each fellah cultivates a separate plot
of land for the landowner in return for a share in the produce. Yet
in some respects the fellah is closer to a labourer than to a smallholder
because he is not responsible for the general organization of his duties.
This is divided between the landowner and the sarkal or agent, whom
the landowner employs for the supervision of the fellahin in return
for a share in the produce. The customs which regulate the division
of duties between landowner, sarkal, and fellah have been codified
in the ‘Law on the Rights and Duties of Farmers’ of 1933. The
landowner or occupier (in the case of Luzma or simple Miri) deter
mines the amount of seed to be sown and the distribution and rotation
of crops, the times and methods of cultivation and of harvesting, the
planning of the irrigation channels, and the times and methods of
irrigation. It is the duty of the sarkal to see that the general arrange
ments thus made by the landowner are carried out by the fellahin:
he not only supervises but directs them to specific jobs. His contract
is for the period of the agricultural year and until the harvest has
been gathered in. The fellah’s part is to sow, cultivate, and harvest
the crops and to carry out the orders given by the sarkal. His contract
is also for the agricultural year from sowing to harvest, and his
reward is a share of the crops.
The system is more complex than in adjacent Arab countries,
where the fellah is usually both labourer and farmer. The main
reason is that the methods of irrigation necessitate central organiza
tion in the management even of the smallest distributary channels
which water the separate plots. The system is elastic and the land-
owner may in practice leave more or less of the direction to the sarkal.