Iraq’s People and Resources
Doris Goodrich Adams
University of California
The basis of this study is a doctoral thesis, “Population Trends in Relation to the Economic Development of Iraq,” submitted in July, 1955, in the Department of Economics of the University of California, Berkeley. The research was made possible by a thirty-one-month fellowship from the Board on Overseas Training and Research of the Ford Foundation. The first year of the fellowship was spent in research and Arabic studies in Washington, D.C., and the remainder of the fellowship period, from September, 1953, to March, 1955, in travel and study in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries. It must be noted that the Ford Foundation is not the author, owner, publisher, or proprietor of this work and is not to be understood as approving by virtue of its grant any of the statements made or views expressed herein.
The manuscript was substantially rewritten, with the addition of ...
Contents
I. Introduction / 1
The problem in its historical setting / 1
Physical characteristics of Iraq / 4
II. A Cultural Description of the People / 11
Ethnic and religious differences / 13
Different ways of life / 16
Desert nomads—Agricultural people of the alluvial plain—Marsh dwellers—
Mountain people —Urban people
III. Population Structure / 34
The census of 1947 / 35
Total numbers and population density—Rural-urban distribution—Age-sex structure—Literacy—Marital status—Religion—Occupation—Type of residence— Liwa of birth and residence
Summary / 59
IV. Vital Rates / 62
Estimates of fertility / 68
Estimates of mortality / 69
Rate of natural increase and size of the present population / 70
Factors explaining mortality and the vitality of the population / 72
Ignorance and superstition—Nutrition—Sanitation and medical services—
Declining mortality
Factors explaining the level of fertility / 83
V. Income and Consumption / 89
Estimates / 90
Explanation of current levels / 95
Agricultural productivity—Industrial productivity
VI. Economic Development: Potentialities and Programs / 102
Oil revenues and the development board / 102
Agricultural development / 107
Industrial development / 111
Development of human resources / 114
VII. Obstacles to Economic Development / 120
Economic obstacles / 120
Limitations on investment capital—Limitations on the inducement to invest—
Government participation
Noneconomic obstacles / 126
Cultural factors—Administrative deficiencies—Agricultural institutions—
Population growth
VIII. Concluding Observations / 141
Appendix: Arabic Words and Place Names in Iraq / 148
Literature Cited / 151
Index / 157
PREFACE
The basis of this study is a doctoral thesis, “Population Trends in Relation to the Economic Development of Iraq,” submitted in July, 1955, in the Department of Economics of the University of California, Berkeley. The research was made possible by a thirty-one-month fellowship from the Board on Overseas Training and Research of the Ford Foundation. The first year of the fellowship was spent in research and Arabic studies in Washington, D.C., and the remainder of the fellowship period, from September, 1953, to March, 1955, in travel and study in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries. It must be noted that the Ford Foundation is not the author, owner, publisher, or proprietor of this work and is not to be understood as approving by virtue of its grant any of the statements made or views expressed herein.
The manuscript was substantially rewritten, with the addition of newly available materials, after my return to Iraq in October, 1955. Much has taken place in the Middle East since the completion of the manuscript in its present form in July, 1956. I have made a few additions and modifications, but have been unable to rewrite the entire work. I present it with misgivings, aware that recent political and social developments have undoubtedly disproved some of my statements and obviated some of my policy suggestions.
The empirical basis of the chapters which follow is a combination of statistics assembled by the Government of Iraq and technical assistance agencies, field trips, small-scale studies which I made in various parts of the country, and innumerable conversations and interviews. However, the individuals and agencies who supplied information are in no way responsible for opinions, expressed or implied, nor for any misinterpretations, errors, or omissions which may appear in this study. I alone am responsible for all choice of relevance, all judgments in regard to accuracy of data, and all interpretations of information provided by others.
In studying a society with institutions very different from one’s own, one has the advantage of objectivity, but the disadvantage of the lack of prolonged familiarity with its institutions. This deficiency may be remedied in part through close contact with that society, or wide reading, or both. But, try as one may to bar ethnocentric judgments, they will creep into his thinking and writing. I have attempted, in making suggestions on policy, to assess the suitability of institutions and the viability of programs with respect to the economic goal of the majority of Iraq’s people—a self-sustaining increase in per capita real income—rather than according to my own goals and values. However, there are undoubtedly many places in which “my bias is showing,” and for these I ask the reader’s indulgence.
Without the cooperation of the Government of Iraq through its various departments this study could not have been attempted. Special thanks are due Dr. Fu’ad G. Massa, of the Directorate General of Census; Mr. Fu’ad Jamil, of the Ministry of Education; Dr. Hasan Thanrir and Mr. Muhammad Zaki Abdul Karim, of the Development Board; Mr. Badi’ Butti, of the Ministry of Economics; and Dr. Salah Haider, of the Ministry of Finance. I am grateful to Dr. K. G. Fenelon, Expert in Statistics, Ministry of Economics, who supplied much of my statistical information and offered advice and encouragement.
The personnel of the United Nations and its specialized agencies aided in many ways. I wish to thank especially Dr. Salah Abd, United Nations Technical Assistance Expert on Community Development, and his staff in the Ministry of Social Affairs; Dr. Kataya Cama, United Nations Technical Assistance Expert on Social Welfare; and Dr. Otto Jager, of the World Health Organization. Mr. Norman Burns, of the United States Department of State, merits special thanks for having suggested Iraq as an interesting field for research. American technical assistance personnel, especially in the programs for community development, public health, and land settlement, were cooperative.
Among my advisers at the University of California, Professor Emily H. Huntington gave unstintingly of her time and energy in helping me to complete the thesis and its subsequent revision; Professor Howard S. Ellis and Professor William Petersen offered many helpful suggestions; and Professor Emeritus Melvin M. Knight first stimulated my interest in economic development.
It was a privilege to live and work in Iraq on the eve of momentous economic and social changes. I wish to dedicate this work to my countless hosts in every walk of life, who contributed to such understanding of their country as I have.
D. G. A.
University Park, Pennsylvania
February, 1958
Chapter I
Introduction
The Problem in Its Historical Setting
The Kingdom of Iraq is at the same time one of the newest and one of the oldest countries in the world. A political entity only since the end of the First World War and an independent state only since 1932, Iraq is also the site of the first civilization. The earliest known settlers migrated into the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates during the sixth millennium, b.c., from the mountainous north and east, areas in which the wild ancestors of wheat and barley were indigenous. These people lived in villages, an indication that they were not primitive food gatherers but had brought with them the cultivation of domesticated grains. The dawn of written history found them living in houses much like those seen in Middle Eastern villages today. They gradually learned that, through irrigation, a much more productive agriculture was possible on Mesopotamia's alluvial plain than in rain-fed mountainous regions. The surplus over subsistence that could be produced by improved methods of cultivation allowed the growth of a sizable non-agricultural population ami the founding of great cities such as Eridu, Ur, Babylon, and Nineveh. The citizens, freed from the toil which had hitherto been man’s lot, were able to turn their attention to other matters. The cylinder seal, writing, a written code of law, the wheel, ornamental architecture—all were products of this new freedom.
Mesopotamia’s development was not continuous. Waves of migration involved warfare, and some conquerors did not learn the necessity of the irrigation system for agriculture in an arid region until after they had destroyed it or allowed it to fall into decay. The rule of the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Sassanide Persians, and the Abbaside caliphs, who used their power and influence to encourage a productive agriculture, coincided with a high level of culture. Others who, through ignorance, lethargy, corruption, or malice, allowed the irrigation system to decline, initiated periods of cultural eclipse. Moreover, during much of its history Mesopotamia was a frontier province between two powerful empires, each of which coveted it. Persia held it at intervals from the sixth century B.c., when Cjtus annexed it to his empire, until the brief tenure of Baghdad by Shah Abbas in the seventeenth century a.d. The major contenders from the west were Alexander the Great and the Seleueid Greeks, followed by the Romans, who tried repeatedly to conquer Mesopotamia but never fully succeeded. The Arabs founded the Abbaside caliphate in the eighth century a.d., and Baghdad became the center of the Muslim world. The zenith had been passed when the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century initiated a deterioration from which Iraq has not yet recovered. Finally, in the sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire wrested control of Mesopotamia from Persia and held it, with brief interruptions, for four centuries.1
Even during the flowering of Mesopotamia’s culture—as under the Abbaside caliphs, when “Its great towns were the seat of learning and progressive thought; …
1 Tlie best single work on tho history of Iraq is Lloyd, Twin Rivers. See also Longrigg, Four Centuries of Modern Iraq and ’Iraq, 1900 to 1950. For recent political history, see Khadduri, Independent Iraq.
Doris Goodrich Adams
Iraq’s People and Resources
University of California
University of California Press
Iraq’s People and Resources
By Doris Goodrich Adams
University of California Publications in Economics
Volume 18
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles
1958
Editors
H. S. Ellis
R. A. Brady
G. F. Break
Harvey Leibenstein
University of California Publications in Economics
Editors (Berkeley): H. S. Ellis, R. A. Brady, G. F. Break, Harvey Leibenstein
Volume 18, 7 figures in text
Submitted by editors July 1, 1957
Issued October 30,1958
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles
California
Cambridge University Press
London, England
Printed in the United States of America
