| Land settlement law, which created a new category (lazma) of land ownership in addition to the old Ottoman (tapu) holdings. The law allowed all settled tribesmen who had been cultivating, without title, the same piece of land for over 15 years to claim the rights to it. The only restriction was that the peasants not alienate the land from their tribe. The intent of the law was to prevent tribesmen from losing their land and to confirm their position on it. But urban notables and tribal sheiks—the latter of whom had already become large landlords—scrambled to snap up the available land by securing deeds from the government committees in charge of the reform. A large number of the tribesmen became little more than sharecroppers, and some were completely dispossessed. Tensions rose in the countryside, and were violently released shortly thereafter. | 1 |
