A SULTAN'S TITLE DEED AND TWO WOMEN'S BUILDING DOCUMENTS |
Sultan Abdulhamid II's Title Deed
This title deed of Sultan Abdulhamid II documents possession of a state farm in Préveza (in today's Greece) passing from state ownership to the Sultan. Abdulhamid II was the first Ottoman sultan to have title deeds to his own personal property. He owned land in Mosul, Kirkuk, Palestine, Eastern Anatolia, Cukurova, Balıkesir and Balkans, some of which went by the name of "imperial farms". As can be seen from the title of deed dated 1892 in this exhibition, the land was put in his name with stipulation that this property was to be bequeathed in equal parts to his sons and daughters. In fact, according to some documents used in legal cases brought by members of Ottoman royal family in the 1930s concerning land in Mosul and Kirkuk, more than 50.000 title deeds were to be found. In the time of Abdulhamid II, the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire had begun to decrease. Efforts to set up a Jewish state had begun in Palestine and during this period Great Britain had set her eyes on the oil-wells in Iraq. According to many historians, these title-deeds of Abdulhamid II show that he was trying to secure this land for the nation.