Sharecropping in the Yemen: A Study in Islamic Theory, Custom and Pragmatism

VARISCO, DANIEL MARTIN

Sharecropping in the Yemen: A Study in Islamic Theory, Custom and Pragmatism. By WILLIAM J. DONALDSON. Studies in Islamic Law and Society, vol. 13. Leiden: BRILL, 2000. Pp. xvii + 278.

Over the past two decades the number of academic studies on Yemen's culture and history has expanded from hardly any to over two dozen important monographs. Donaldson's detailed analysis of sharecropping in Islamic law and Yemeni practice is a welcome addition. Sharecropping, for Donaldson, is "a system of leasing in which the rent is expressed as a proportion of the harvest (such as a half or a quarter) rather than as an absolute value (such as a certain fixed monetary amount or so many tons or bushels of produce)" (p. 1). The main issues in Islamic contexts are that several statements of Muhammad prohibit certain types of sharecropping agreements and the element of not knowing an exact amount of rent is highly problematic for Muslim scholars. The author provides a succinct account of the variety of Islamic legal views on sharecropping. No one interested in the subject should fail to read this concise analysis.

There are many strengths in this study, including rigorous examination of how the traditions have been interpreted, explanation of complex legal arguments, and explication of actual sharecropping contracts. There is a wealth of linguistic and methodological material that makes this a valuable resource for anyone interested in Islamic legal contracts and land tenure. The book is aimed at both someone beginning study of Islamic law and seasoned scholars. The author has an excellent command of the Arabic legal sources, from which examples appear on virtually every page.

Donaldson's study follows in the tradition of the late R. B. Serjeant in that it combines textual study with collection of field data (over a four-month stay in Yemen). The first part of the book looks at the history of sharecropping in Islamic cultures of the Middle East, starting with the relevant traditions of Muhammad and following with positions taken in the various Islamic legal schools. The focus here is on the [Shafi.sup.[subset]]i and Zaydi schools, which are the most relevant for Yemen, and the relatively recent Yemeni Civil Code. The second part expands on the legal issues in comparison to field data collected by the author in sixty-six interviews in twenty-four locations across the major geographical regions. Donaldson's interviews, most of which were recorded on tape, provided information on sharecropping arrangements, land tenure, and even sharecropping of animals. A valuable addition to the study is the documentation of Arabic terms and Yemeni texts (relevant articles from the Yemeni Civil Cod e, examples of sharecropping contracts, a fatwa on sharecropping for irrigated agriculture from Ibn [Ja.sup.[sebset]]man). The lexical discussion would be more useful if it utilized the cited Yemeni lexicons more directly and avoided uncritical derivative sources such as Piamenta's flawed Dictionary of Post-Classical Yemeni Arabic (Leiden, 1990-91).

The outline format of the text allows for ease in locating information. At times, however, the narrative' reads more like a technical report than a flowing narrative. Parts are uneven, with some of the more technical information better placed in footnotes, e.g., the comment on abyar as a colloquial plural for 'well' (pp. 134-35). The two-and-a-half page conclusion reads like an abstract and could more effectively have reiterated the valuable points contained in the narrative. The author misunderstands a few Yemeni colloquial terms. The term lubiya (p. 8) should be cowpea (Vigna sinensis) not chickpeas; even so this usage is not as common as dijr. Wheat is rarely called qamh (p. 8) in Yemeni dialects, but usually birr or burr. The reference to "sugarcane" (p. 141) in Ahjur should be sorghum stalk. The spice "habb (!) [sawda.sub.[contains]] (p. 172) is Nigella sativa, commonly used in Yemeni cooking.

A major drawback to the study is that the author missed a number of relevant sources for sharecropping patterns in Yemen. Most of these are unpublished, but available in Yemen, especially at the excellent library of the Ministry of Agriculture. Especially important is the agricultural census conducted from 1977 to 1983 by the Ministry of Agriculture. There are development reports for virtually all of the major coastal wadis and socioeconomic survey data on sharecropping for such areas as West Khawlan (A. Zaman, A Report on Socio-Economic Survey of West Khawlan Yemen Arab Republic [Rome, 1983]), [Rada.sup.[subset]] (ILACO, Report on Farming Systems Research Survey in Wadi Tha [Arnhem, 1982]) and, most importantly, Dhamar. For Dhamar, Hywel Rees-Jones provided in-depth farm surveys for the Dhamar Agricultural Improvement Centre. Extensive details on sharecropping in the Hajja area were collected by Jon Swanson (J. Lewis et al., Local Organization, Participation, and Rural Development in the Yemen Arab Republic [Ithaca, 1980]).

Information on Yemeni sharecropping is also available in several ethnographic studies by Andre Gingrich (Sudwestarabische Sternkalender [Vienna, 1994]), Tutwiler and Carapico (Yemeni Agriculture and Economic Change [Portland, 1981]) and my own summary article on land tenure ("Land Use and Agricultural Development in the Yemen Arab Republic," in Anthropology and Development in North Africa and the Middle East [Boulder, 1990], 292-311). Donaldson is also unaware of a number of reports relevant to animal sharecropping from the Dutch Range and Livestock Improvement Project in Risaba, It is also unclear why a book published in 2000 is unable to include demographic results from the 1994 census in Yemen (p. 169 n. 9).

The author is at his best when examining the legal arguments, although a reading of Messick's The Calligraphic State (Berkeley, 1993) would help put the application of contract law in Yemeni context. The most problematic part of the book is chapter six, where Donaldson analyzes his field data. Although the author recognizes the limitations of his sample, the presentation of the data in sixteen tables suggests a statistical authority that can be misleading. First there is a considerable amount of comparative data on sharecropping arrangements that has not been consulted. Secondly, it is difficult to explain the choice of shares without other relevant socioeconomic data, especially soil quality, crop yield, local supply and demand for labor, and overall relationship of tenant as client to owner. This kind of data requires more intensive ethnographic fieldwork. As an example of how the changing socioeconomic context is relevant for understanding share distribution, I found examples during my fieldwork in Ahjur i n 1978-79 where tenant shares had increased from two-thirds to three-fourths due to a shortage of labor. While it is admirable that the author conducted interviews, it appears the lack of training in ethnographic methods does not allow him to go very far with the material. The facile conclusion (p. 163) that share differences are primarily due to personal preference and established custom is inadequate for a work that has so much else to offer.