Musha' lands (مشاع) are common

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...

lands owned jointly by the community and loosely taxed, as defined in the Land Code of 1858.

Redistribution

Lands designated as ''musha'' are periodically redistributed among the heads of the prominent families of the tribe usually by drawing lots. The longest period between redistributions is at most nine years. If ten years elapses there is a rule of established possession for that land. The parcels of land are distributed so no one is assigned the same parcel for two consecutive periods.

Composition of land

According to

S. Ilan Troen Ilan Troen is an Israeli scholar. He is the Karl, Harry and Helen Stoll Professor of Israel Studies at Brandeis University. Biography Selwyn Ilan Troen grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts area. He is a graduate of Brandeis, with an M.A. and Ph.D ...

70% of land in Palestine was ''musha'' in 1918.

Kenneth W. Stein Kenneth W. Stein is a professor known for studying the Arab–Israeli conflict, in both historical and social-economic context. He spent many years working with the Carter Center from the 1980s, before cutting ties in 2006; and decades teaching at ...

says that by 1923 ''musha'' lands had been reduced to around half the lands under the British colonial regime in Mandatory Palestine. By 1946 only 20% of the lands were ''musha''.

References

Land management in the Ottoman Empire Agriculture in the Ottoman Empire {{Ottoman-stub