Foreign land holdings in Iran 1828 to 1911

Abstract

The issue of the purchase of land in one country, in this case Iran, by other countries, in this case Britain and Russia, is one of great significance because of light it may throw on the strength or weakness of national sovereignty, and the ways and degree to which it may be undermined.1 It can also show the strategies deployed by the country challenged to protect its territorial integrity, as here in the case of Iran. The intricacies of foreign landownership patterns thus have implications for international relations, on which they can provide telling detail in terms of contemporary power politics. The details of land purchase also demonstrate considerable differences as between the two outside powers involved in terms of their objectives in Iran, and thus challenge a tendency in the literature to see them as similar. At the same time, from this particular study, Qajar Iran, which is so often represented as weak, näýve and ineffectual in the face of the challenge of great power intervention, emerges as having dealt skilfully with this particular form of intrusion with a variety of stratagems that were not without success for much of the nineteenth century. Finally, the whole issue can be demonstrated as having become inextricably entwined with internal policies of reform which sought to strengthen the government of Iran by centralisation and growing taxation on those who were hitherto exempt. This movement, however, which occurs late in the period, that is to say in the early twentieth century, was to stall during its very weak second decade. Despite the significance of the subject of foreign land ownership and tenancies in Iran in the Qajar period, no detailed study of it exists. Issawi notes that there was a considerable amount of land purchase in Astarabad, Gilan and Azerbaijan byRussian subjects,who became settled there during the second half of the nineteenth century.2 In 1864 Eastwick observed that Gilan was the residence of a large number of Russian prot́eǵees.3 They were especially dominant in Rasht, where they held entire villages by right of mortgage. However, as will be shown, the picture was more complex than it appeared, it varied from region to region, and in particular there was a contrast between the north and the British-dominated south. The nature of the claims of foreigners on land also evolved over time, much depending on the impact of the central government and of foreign trade. Within this framework the present study sets out to examine broadly the ways in which land was acquired between the signing of the Treaty of Turkmanchai in 1828 and the breakdown of Iranian government central control by 1911. It will consider not only claims and ownership themselves, but also the ways in which land was acquired and by what rights, including the legal arguments deployed for and against foreign ownership and leaseholds. It is hoped that the article will thereby trace changes in Iran both in terms of foreign relationships and influence, and in internal development. © 2011 The Royal Asiatic Society.