The transformation of the rural economy from…

The transformation of the rural economy from subsistence to cash-crop agriculture has caused dramatic changes, including the privatization of land in fewer hands and the dispossession of peasants.

The privatization of land had begun during the reign of Muhammad Ali, who in the 1840s distributed half the agricultural land to royal family members, Turco-Circassian officials, and Egyptian notables or village headmen.

Although many land grants had been rescinded during the reign of Abbas, consolidation of landholdings proceeds during the reigns of Said and Ismail at the expense of small and middle-sized peasant proprietors.

By the 1870s, the royal family owns one-fifth of all the cultivated land in the country.

The largest royal estates can be as large as ten thousand feddans (a feddan is slightly more than an acre).

By the 1890s, 42.5 percent of all registered land will be held in tracts of more than fifty feddans.

The largest landowners include members of the royal family, and the Turco-Circassian elite of officers and officials.

Their estates are worked by sharecroppers or agricultural laborers.

By the time of Ismail, these landowners have developed into a landed aristocracy.

Another group of landholding elite originated with Muhammad Ali's appointment of Egyptians as village headmen (umada; sing., umdah), the state's agents in the countryside.

This was Muhammad Ali's attempt to reduce the power of the Turco-Circassians.

With the privatization of land, the Egyptian notables have become substantial landowners with considerable political influence.