ABSTRACT
The land reform record of the Middle East is extremely important; yet, partly because of its recency, it has received relatively scant attention. The area combines many of the land reform experiences of the other continents already surveyed. Land reform in the Middle East started in Egypt in 1952, and 20 years later had embraced most, though not all, countries of the region to a greater or lesser extent. Middle Eastern society comprises three mutually dependent communities—urbanites, peasants and nomads—each with its own distinctive life-style, each operating in a different setting and each helping to support the other two and thereby to maintain the total cultural equilibrium. Villagers form the majority in every Middle Eastern country except Saudi Arabia and some of the small Gulf oil states, and only the highest mountains and the cores of the great deserts are devoid of settled rural populations.
