Arable Lands

Abstract

This chapter reconstructs Ottoman irrigation policies in the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial plain. Numerous considerations shaped the Ottoman management of irrigation agriculture in the region. The state’s active support for agricultural development, for instance, was tied to Ottoman concepts of upholding precedent and justice. On the other hand, the ecology and location of the Tigris and Euphrates within the empire restrained whatever agricultural investment the Ottoman state desired to make in the region. Istanbul balanced those cultural, political, and environmental considerations to maintain a hybrid irrigation landscape, largely small in scale and local in character, but with a few giant canals that were administered directly by Ottoman imperial authorities.