1. A person appointed by the governor (wali) of a province (wilaya) to head a district within that province was given the title of mutasallim and, later on, qa’immaqam. To translate these words as deputy-governor would be technically correct, but because Jabal Nablus was ruled by native sons for most of the Ottoman period, this translation would not adequately reflect the large degree of authority and autonomy they enjoyed in practice. Therefore, the transliterated terms will be used throughout this study. [BACK]

2. NIMR, 1:210–211. [BACK]

3. Separate firmans were sent to Hasan Agha Nimr, Khalil Beik Tuqan, and Shaykh Isa Burqawi, among others: NICR, 6:337–339, 341, 351, 353–354, 356–360, 362, 365, 370; and NIMR, 1:119, 206, 208, 216, 217. Beik, from Bey, is a military/administrative rank. In Nablus the ruling Tuqan and Nimr families were commonly referred to as the Beikawat and the Aghawat, respectively. [BACK]

4. For a discussion of Ottoman military garrisons in Palestine during the eighteenth century, see Cohen, Palestine, pp. 270–292. [BACK]

5. The timing of the dawra was determined by the departure of the annual pilgrimage caravan to the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. For details, see Rafeq, Province of Damascus, pp. 21–22; Karl Barbir, Ottoman Rule in Damascus, 1708–1758 (Princeton, N.J., 1980), pp. 122–125; and NIMR, 1:111. For an example of annual campaigns by the central authorities in North Africa during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, see Valensi, Tunisian Peasants, p. 229. [BACK]

6. For an example from the sixteenth century, see Heyd, Ottoman Documents, pp. 92–93. Even though the Ottoman government became more effective in the collection of taxes by the mid-nineteenth century, there were still villages in Jabal Nablus at that time which had not paid some or all of their taxes since the Egyptian occupation a decade earlier (NMSR, pp. 152, 155–156). Jabal Nablus’s reputation was widespread. John Mills, writing in the 1860s, noted: “No district in Syria has been more turbulent and less manageable to the Turkish government, than that of Nablus and the surrounding villages” (John Mills, Three Months’ Residence at Nablus and an Account of the Modern Samaritans (London, 1864), p. 95). [BACK]

7. NICR, 6:370. [BACK]

8. JICR, 281:130–136. Also see Adel Manna, “The Sijill as Source for the Study of Palestine during the Ottoman Period, with Special Reference to the French Invasion,” in David Kushner, ed., Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period: Political, Social, and Economic Transformation (Jerusalem, 1986), pp. 351–362. [BACK]

9. NICR, 6:351, 353. [BACK]

10. Ibid., 6:337. This firman was registered on February 23, 1801. [BACK]

11. Ibid., 6:351. [BACK]

12. NIMR, 1:226–243. [BACK]

13. Ibid., 1:222–223. No confirmation of this claim was found. In a footnote, Nimr explicitly traced the genealogy of this story to eyewitness accounts. However, it is also possible that this story actually originated from a similar incident that took place in 1832, when 600 Nabulsi irregulars stormed through Egyptian lines and entered Acre when it was besieged by the forces of Ibrahim Pasha (Mikhayil Mishaqa, Muntakhabat min al-jawab alaiqtirah al-ahbab (Selected Answers to Inquiries from Loved Ones) [ed. Asad Rustum and Subhi Abu Shaqra; Beirut, 1955; reprint, Beirut, 1985], p. 112). [BACK]

14. NIMR, 1:225–236. [BACK]

15. Mills, Three Months’ Residence, p. 88. [BACK]

16. For a general discussion, see Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System (2 vols.; New York, 1974, 1980); and Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, vol. 2, The Perspective of the World (New York, 1986). For a comparative perspective on the dynamics of Aleppo as a social space within the context of Ottoman rule, see Masters, Origins, chap. 1. [BACK]

17. J. Thomas, Travels in Egypt and Palestine (Philadelphia, 1853), p. 113. On the next page Thomas noted that the hinterland, “although finely diversified with hills...is almost everywhere cultivable, and in fact highly cultivated.” [BACK]

18. By way of example, John Mills concluded a detailed description with the words, “one of the richest and most delightful scenes in the whole country” (Three Months’ Residence, p. 6). Crosby wrote that the olive groves around the city were so thick that his party did not see the town until they arrived at the gate. He then noted: “Everywhere were running streams and fountains, by the side of which grew pomegranates, magnolias, figs, olives, oranges, and apricots, in the greatest luxuriance and profusion” (Crosby [El-Mukattem], Lands of the Moslem: A Narrative of Oriental Travel [New York, 1851], pp. 293–295). [BACK]

19. Shams al-Din al-Ansari, Nukhbat al-dahr fi aja’ib al-barr wa al-bahr (Time’s Selected Wonders in Land and Sea) (St. Petersburg, Russia, 1866), p. 201. [BACK]

20. Mills, Three Months’ Residence, pp. 27–28. [BACK]

21. H. B. Tristram, Pathways to Palestine (2 vols.; London, 1881–1882), 2:31–32. [BACK]

22. A few Jewish families undoubtedly lived in Nablus sometime in the past, for a small stairway near the middle of the central marketplace was referred to as “the Jews’ stairs” (daraj al-yahud). Their number must have been very small, for it did not warrant a Jewish representative on the local city council alongside those representing the Christian and Samaritan communities. In fact, Jewish individuals appeared in only three out of the thousands of cases registered in the Nablus Islamic court records between 1798 and 1865. [BACK]

23. Christians also lived in some villages in Jabal Nablus. One example is the village of Rafidya. Nimr names the Christian families in Jabal Nablus and claims that many were “brought over” from Damascus and Jerusalem by his ancestors to work, among other things, as tanners, weavers, carpenters, jewelers, or ironsmiths. He also claims that a great many of them moved to Jerusalem, Jaffa, Salt, and Egypt when the manufacturing sector in Nablus started to decline (NIMR, 2:272–273). [BACK]

24. The Church Missionary Society was founded in 1799. The school, in which classes of Muslim boys were segregated from those of Christian boys, was funded by the Anglo-Prussian Episcopal See, established in Jerusalem in 1841. See Finn, Stirring Times, 1:389–390; 2:74, 149–154, 368. Also, see Mills, Three Months’ Residence, pp. 97–103. For background on missionary activities in Palestine, see Schölch, Palestine in Transformation, chap. 3. [BACK]

25. NIMR, 2:50; Tuqan Family Papers, 1.16; and NICR, 6:283, 11:145, 12:90. Although the Samaritan community was very small and generally poor, some of its members—such as al-Abd al-Samiri, Abd al-Latif al-Shalabi al-Samiri, and his son Isra’il—practically monopolized the sensitive positions of scribe and treasurer of the Nablus city government throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, partly because of their expertise in accounting but mostly because they lacked natural local allies. Presumably they were at the mercy of their masters and incapable of crossing them. [BACK]

26. By the time carriage roads and railroad lines were laid in the late nineteenth century, the economic center of gravity had already shifted from the interior to the coastal cities of Jaffa and Haifa as the latter became the points of departure for the burgeoning trade with Europe. [BACK]

27. Not enough information has been unearthed thus far concerning the dynamics of these networks prior to 1850. The important question—How “national” was the economy of Palestine during the Ottoman period?—is one that has yet to be systematically investigated. [BACK]

28. For a discussion of the commercial interdependence between Egypt and Greater Syria, see Asad Rustum, The Struggle of Mehmet Ali Pasha with Sultan Mahmud II and Some of Its Geographical Aspects (Cairo, 1925). [BACK]

29. Nablus was also close to the Damascus–Cairo coastal highway on the west. The Ottoman government’s concern that functioning outposts be maintained for the security of travelers led them to earmark some of the taxes of Jabal Nablus, at least until the mid-eighteenth century, for supplying and manning these posts (NICR, 4:340; Heyd, Ottoman Documents, pp. 45–46). [BACK]

30. Abdul-Rahim Abu-Husayn, Provincial Leadership in Syria, 1575–1650 (Beirut, 1985), pp. 175–177. In 1708 the Damascus governor became commander of the Damascus caravan. After the mid-nineteenth century, the Damascus caravan began to decline in size and importance. For an historical overview, see Abdul-Karim Rafeq, “Qafilat al-hajj wa ahimmiyatuha fi al-ahd al-uthmani” (The Pilgrimage Caravan and Its Importance in the Ottoman Era), Dirasat Tarikhiyya, 6 (1981), pp. 5–28. [BACK]

31. NIMR, 1:77. [BACK]

32. As early as 1572, orders were issued to use some revenues from Palestine for meeting the expenses of this caravan (Heyd, Ottoman Documents, p. 119). [BACK]

33. Barbir, Ottoman Rule in Damascus, p. 124. [BACK]

34. For example, see the registration of the payment of 2,412 piasters by the Nabulsi tax clerk to the head of the tanners’ guild (dabbaghin), Hajj Mahmud Kalbuna, in 1822–1823 (NICR, 8:420). [BACK]

35. Letters regarding payment for the leather pouches, prices, and amounts produced during the mid-nineteenth century can be found in NMSR, pp. 163, 295–296, 307. By the mid-nineteenth century, Hebron began to outproduce Nablus in this regard. [BACK]

36. NMSR, p. 307. Nabulsi artisans were also commissioned to make woolen sacks, ropes, and other miscellaneous items for the pilgrimage caravan. See NMSR, pp. 295–296; and Ibrahim Awra, Tarikh wilayat Sulayman basha al-adil (History of the Reign of Sulayman Pasha the Just) (ed. Constantine Pasha al-Mukhlasi; Sidon, 1936), p. 290. [BACK]

37. Doumani, “Merchants,” chap. 3. [BACK]

38. Beshara Doumani, “The Political Economy of Population Counts in Ottoman Palestine: Nablus, circa 1850,” IJMES, 26 (1994), pp. 1–17. [BACK]

39. Ibid., p. 15, n. 8. Also, see Cohen and Lewis, Population and Revenue, p. 21; and Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, Historical Geography, pp. 45–47, 61. [BACK]

40. Peasant weddings were the backbone of the local textile trade in Nablus (see Chapter 2). The types of products that artisans made for peasants included: plows, pickaxes, sickles, cowbells, winnowing forks, threshing boards, wedding chests, kitchen implements (made of clay, wood, or copper), leather shoes, saddles, and jewelry. See Shukri Arraf, Al-Ard;bn al-insan;bn wa al-juhd: Dirasa li hadaratina al-madiya ala ardina (Land, Man, and Effort: A Study of Our Past Civilization on Our Land) (Acre, 1982), pp. 132–160. [BACK]

41. These same six names appear in the sixteenth-century Ottoman cadastral surveys of Nablus (Cohen and Lewis, Population and Revenue, p. 147). Al-Habala was the largest quarter. Population growth led to the development of two subquarters: al-Arda and Tal al-Kreim. [BACK]

42. Amiry, “Space, Kinship and Gender,” pp. 97–103. [BACK]

43. For a discussion of urf in the context of Nablus, see NIMR, 2:494–509. See also Jamil al-Salhut, Al-Qada al-asha’iri (Clan Law) (Acre, 1987). Various aspects of customary law differed from one region to another. The inhabitants of Jabal al-Khalil, for example, had their own particular set of codes called Abraham’s Law (shari‘at Ibrahim). See Finn, Stirring Times, 1:216. [BACK]

44. Finn, Stirring Times, 1:216. [BACK]

45. NMSR, pp. 279–280. [BACK]

46. Rosemary Sayigh’s study of how refugee camps in Lebanon were socially and physically constructed along village and clan lines is a case in point (Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries (London, 1979). [BACK]

47. I am indebted for this information to Shawki Kassis, from Rama village near Nazareth. [BACK]

48. See the discussion in Owen, Middle East, pp. 41–42. [BACK]

49. Marj Ibn Amir, the wide, fertile plain that separates the central and northern hill regions, formed a natural boundary to the north, as did the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan in the west and east, respectively. There was no natural boundary separating Jabal Nablus from Jabal al-Quds, but the line tended to be drawn through the lands of Kafr Malik, Sinjil, Dayr Ghassana, and Rantis from east to west. The villages of Sinjil, Turmus Ayya, Lubban al-Sharqiyya, and Rantis were at one point or another under the control of the Jamma‘in subdistrict chiefs in Jabal Nablus. For example, see the petition presented to the Nablus council by the peasants of Rantis, who complained that Shaykh Sadiq Rayyan had taken over some of their lands (NMSR, pp. 209, 211). [BACK]

50. There was, for example, a marked concentration of mills in Wadi al-Far‘a in the sixteenth century (Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, Historical Geography, p. 33). [BACK]

51. The increased demand for grain was driven by the general rise in population and by European merchants who were willing to pay high prices, especially during the Crimean War. For a general overview of the grain trade, see Schilcher, Families in Politics, pp. 75–78. This expansion eventually reached beyond the east bank of the River Jordan, especially after the Ottoman government reimposed its control in the late nineteenth century. See the next section for details. [BACK]

52. Mustafa Murad al-Dabbagh, Biladuna Filastin (Our Country, Palestine), 11 vols. (Beirut, 1988), 6:438–439. [BACK]

53. NMSR, p. 34. Similarly, the inhabitants of the largest village in northeast Jabal Nablus, Tubas, spent much of their time every year living in tents in order to work on their distant lands and to graze their flocks of sheep and goats (Dabbagh, Biladuna, 6:444–445). [BACK]

54. A sizable portion of Marj Ibn Amir was eventually sold to Jewish settlers by the Lebanese Sursuq family. The metamorphosis of Marj Ibn Amir sheds a great deal of light on the larger socioeconomic transformations of Palestine, and the area is deserving of further study. [BACK]

55. NMSR, pp. 18–19. [BACK]

56. Some of the more important mother villages in the Nablus region are Tubas, Bayta, Dayr al-Ghusun, Ya‘bad, Qabatya, Aqraba, Kafr Qaddum, Dayr Istya, Kafr Thuluth, Attil, and Umm al-Fahm. See Shukri Arraf, Al-Qarya al-arabiyya al-filastiniyya: Mabna wa isti‘malat aradi (The Palestinian-Arab Village: Structure and Land Use) (Jerusalem, 1986), pp. 144–162. [BACK]

57. This was not a new phenomenon but, rather, a cyclical one coinciding with periods of increased cultivation and relative security. For a comparative study of one “mother” village during the Roman-Byzantine times and the modern era, see David Grossman and Zeev Safrai, “Satellite Settlements in Western Samaria,” The Geographical Review, 70 (1980), pp. 446–461. [BACK]

58. The best of these lands were described in land-sale documents as “good for winter and summer crops.” On such lands, peasants would normally plant wheat and barley every other winter and sow sesame and corn (dhurra) during the summers. For details about agricultural practices, see Nabil Badran, “Al-Rif al-filastini qabl al-harb al-alamiyya al-ula” (The Palestinian Countryside before the First World War), Shu’un Filastiniyya, 7 (March 1972), pp. 116–129. [BACK]

59. Valensi, Tunisian Peasants, pp. 116–120. [BACK]

60. Braudel, The Mediterranean, 1:236. [BACK]

61. For Tunisia, see Valensi, Tunisian Peasants, pp. 223–228. [BACK]

62. One such story, told to me by the elders of Bayt Wazan village in July 1990, concerned the building of Ahmad al-Qasim’s house in the middle of their village sometime in the 1820s. Similar stories about other houses of the powerful Qasim clan were told to me by the elders of Jamma‘in and Salfit villages. It is not clear whether olive oil helped make a significantly better mortar. More likely, the use of olive oil in these instances was a calculated expression of power, wealth, and conspicuous consumption. [BACK]

63. The most detailed and comprehensive source on the political history of Jabal Nablus during the Ottoman period is Ihsan Nimr’s Tarikh Jabal Nablus wa al-Balqa (History of Jabal Nablus and al-Balqa) (4 vols.; Nablus, 1936–1961), especially the first volume. Based on a wide variety of sources, including family papers, Islamic court records, and oral history, it provides an intimate, albeit often unreliable, narrative by a native son. A helpful political overview that relies extensively on Nimr’s work can be found in two articles by Meriam Hoexter: “The Role of the Qays and Yaman Factions in Local Political Divisions: Jabal Nablus Compared with the Judean Hills in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,” AAS, 9:3 (1973), pp. 249–311; and “Egyptian Involvement in the Politics of Notables in Palestine: Ibrahim Pasha in Jabal Nablus,” in Amnon Cohen and Gabriel Baer, eds., Egypt and Palestine: A Millennium of Association (868–1948) (New York, 1984), pp. 190–213. A detailed compilation of information on Jabal Nablus during the Ottoman period from published Arabic sources is Muhammad Izzat Darwaza, Al-Arab wa al-uruba fi haqabat al-taqallub al-turki min al-qarn al-thalith hatta al-qarn al-rabi ashar al-hijri (Arabs and Arabism during the Upheavals of the Turkish Era from the Thirteenth to the Fourteenth Islamic Centuries) (11 vols.; 2d ed.), vol. 5, Fi sharq al-Urdun wa Filastin (In East Jordan and Palestine) (Sidon, 1981). Three other helpful works are Akram al-Ramini, Nablus fi al-qarn al-tasi ashar (Nablus in the Nineteenth Century) (Amman, 1977); Mustafa al-Abbasi, Tarikh al Tuqan fi Jabal Nablus (History of the Tuqan Household in Jabal Nablus) (Shfa‘amr, Israel, 1990); and Walid Al-Arid, “XIX. Yüzyilda Cebel-i Nablus” (Ph.D. diss., Istanbul University, 1992). [BACK]

64. Abdul-Karim Rafeq, Al-Arab wa al-uthmaniyun, 1516–1916 (The Arabs and the Ottomans, 1516–1916) (Damascus, 1974), pp. 95–100; Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, Historical Geography, pp. 17–20. [BACK]

65. Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, Historical Geography, pp. 5, 125–141. [BACK]

66. Heyd, Ottoman Documents, pp. 96–97, 99. [BACK]

67. Some of these still stand, especially in Bayt Wazan (Qasim) and Kur (Jayyusi). The most famous was the Jarrar compound in Sanur village, which had towers. For more information, see NIMR, 1:197–198. [BACK]

68. Attempts to choose different leaders inevitably led to rebellions and to refusal to pay taxes. Consequently, the Ottoman government’s freedom of choice in this matter was limited to appointing a brother or a cousin instead. [BACK]

69. NIMR, 1:86. [BACK]

70. Officially, the former generated no more than 20,000 akjas (an old Ottoman currency) annually, whereas the latter could go up to 100,000. For a subtle discussion of this institution, see Kunt, Sultan’s Servants, pp. 9–14. A fairly comprehensive list of names of timar and za‘ama holders in Jabal Nablus during the early eighteenth century can be found in NICR, 4:342; 5:8, 36. Remarkably, this arrangement, at least in its outer form, survived well into the nineteenth century. For example, a document dated June 29, 1852, lists the timar holders in Jabal Nablus and indicates whether they served in the armed escort contingent (jarda) of the pilgrimage caravan (NMSR, p. 223–225). Additional information can be gleaned from NMSR, pp. 215–216, 231, 301–302, and 306. [BACK]

71. NIMR, 2:224–227. Nimr’s contention is borne out by a list of revenues from Lajjun district in the sixteenth century, according to Ottoman cadastral survey records. The list shows that individuals with timar revenues from more than one village had these villages dispersed at separate geographical ends of the district (Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, Historical Geography, p. 103). [BACK]

72. The Nimr papers show that timar villages in southeastern Jabal Nablus remained within the Nimr household for more than 200 years. Some examples which show the mechanics of this process during the early part of the eighteenth century can be found in NICR, 4:342; 5:106, 176. [BACK]

73. For examples of sale and purchase, see NICR, 4:125, 226, 269; 5:36, 62, 173, 175, 181. An example of timar rentals is in NICR, 4:101. All of these cases date from between the years 1723 and 1730. For the nineteenth century, see NICR, 8:366; 9:343. The latter case is dated December 22, 1837. [BACK]

74. For example, NICR, 4:58. This document, dated mid-January 1724, shows that a peasant actually lost his land to a middleman who paid out the peasant’s dues to the timar holder in advance. For the interweaving of timar with iltizam (tax farming), see NICR, 4:314, dated early April 1726. [BACK]

75. NIMR, 2:459–460. [BACK]

76. Some of the new leading families—such as the Tamimis, Jawharis, Khammashs, and Mir‘is—came to dominate important posts in the religious hierarchy. Others—such as the ancestors of the Bishtawi, Nabulsi, and Sadder families—joined the merchant elite. Still others—such as the Nimrs, Shafi‘is, Sultans, Akhramis, Bayrams, and Asqalans—retained their military orientation (NIMR, 1:86–105). [BACK]

77. Early on, most began to avoid military duty by paying for replacements when called upon. In 1724, for example, Muhammad Agha Nimr arranged for the payment of one lump sum (2,000 piasters) on behalf of all 52 timar and za‘ama holders (NICR, 4:341). [BACK]

78. NIMR, 1:159–160 [BACK]

79. For example, Shaykh Yusuf Jarrar, who wrote the poem discussed above, was mutasallim of Nablus in 1772 (NIMR, 1:202–203, 205). [BACK]

80. I am referring primarily to the political branch of this family, whose ancestor is Salih Pasha Tuqan. This branch carried the appellation beik, as opposed, for example, to the khawaja branch, which was mainly involved in trade. For the origins and history of the Tuqan family, see al-Abbasi, Tarikh al Tuqan. [BACK]

81. His grandfather, Hajj Mahmud, was a rich merchant (NICR, 2:395–397). His father, Ibrahim Agha, secured a za‘ama and served as a commander in the military contingent of the pilgrimage caravan. Other members of the Tuqan family also became timar holders (NICR, 5:181). [BACK]

82. Ibid., 4:5–6. [BACK]

83. Ibid., 4:12–13, 171. [BACK]

84. Ibid., 4:340. Al-Abbasi, referring to the same document, mistakenly omitted Bani Sa‘b from this list (Tarikh al Tuqan, p. 20). Nimr was also mistaken in claiming that Umar Agha Nimr was the mutasallim of Nablus at that time (NIMR, 1:131–132). This document shows that he was appointed by Salih Pasha Tuqan as his deputy, although the official appointment letter might have been issued from Damascus. [BACK]

85. Shaykh Mansur was a subdistrict chief who, most likely, belonged to the Mansur branch of the Hajj Muhammad clan, the dominant one in this area of Jabal Nablus (NIMR, 2:185). This subdistrict later became known as Mashariq al-Baytawi in reference to Bayta, its seat (kursi) village. [BACK]

86. Abu-Husayn, Provincial Leadership, pp. 155, 168–169, 172, 175–177. [BACK]

87. Ibid., pp. 183–198; Heyd, Ottoman Documents, pp. 45–46. [BACK]

88. Cohen, Palestine, pp. 158–160. [BACK]

89. Amnon Cohen, basing himself on central Ottoman archives, took Nimr to task for including the Sha‘rawiyya subdistrict in the sanjaq of Nablus insteadof Lajjun (Cohen, Palestine, p. 165, n. 202). This document shows that Nimr was right all along. In fact, it casts doubt on Cohen’s entire discussion of the Lajjun district, which assumes its integrity throughout the eighteenth century even though its urban center, Jenin, had long been under the control of the Jarrars. [BACK]

90. For example, some of the holders of timar and za‘ama properties in the Lajjun district resided in Nablus, not Jenin (NICR, 4:179). The Turabays did not make Nablus their headquarters, but their close connections to the city, particularly its merchant community, were such that they were sometimes referred to in the central Ottoman archives as the “shaykhs of Nablus” (Abu-Husayn, Provincial Leadership, pp. 185–186). [BACK]

91. NICR, 5:178. For historical context, see NIMR, 1:107, 114, 117, 119–123, 134–135, 143–146; and al-Abbasi, Tarikh al Tuqan, pp. 63–67. [BACK]

92. Rafeq, Province of Damascus, p. 130. [BACK]

93. Abd al-Aziz Muhammad Awad, Al-Idara al-uthmaniyya fi wilayat Suriyya, 1864–1914A.D. (Ottoman Administration in the Province of Syria, 1864–1914) (Cairo, 1969), pp. 62–66, 72, 78. [BACK]

94. For background on Zahir al-Umar from secondary sources, see Cohen, Palestine; Joudah, Revolt in Palestine; and Tawfiq Mu‘ammar, Zahir al-Umar: Kitab yatanawal tarikh al-Jalil khassatan wa al-bilad al-suriyya ammatan min sanat 1698 hatta sanat 1777 (Zahir al-Umar: A Book Dealing with the History of the Galilee in Particular and the Syrian Lands in General from the Year 1698 to the Year 1777) (Nazareth, 1979). [BACK]

95. Uthman Pasha (1760–1771) and the Azm household, which held the post of Damascus governor nine times between 1725 and 1808 (Schilcher, Families in Politics, p. 30). [BACK]

96. According to Ibrahim Awra, head scribe of one of the Acre governors, Acre was considered a life-grant (malikana) by the Ottoman government (Tarikh, p. 308). [BACK]

97. Ibid., pp. 303–316. [BACK]

98. In 1830 the leaders of Nablus rebelled against attempts by Abdullah Pasha to collect more than what was demanded from them by the mutasallim of Nablus (Mishaqa, Muntakhabat, pp. 108–109). [BACK]

99. Barbir, Ottoman Rule, pp. 3–10. [BACK]

100. For a general overview, see Halil Iṅalcik, “Centralization and Decentralization in Ottoman Administration,” in Thomas Naff and Roger Owen, eds., Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History (Carbondale, Ill., and London, 1977), pp. 27–52. For the province of Damascus, see Rafeq, Province of Damascus, pp. 4–1.; and Barbir, Ottoman Rule, pp. 81–110. [BACK]

101. Mu‘ammar, Zahir al-Umar, pp. 62–65. [BACK]

102. For examples, see Awra, Tarikh, pp. 305–317. [BACK]

104. Nimr argues, for example, that the Tuqan’s strong ties to the Ottoman government were in large part due to the clever way in which they claimed credit for the defense of Nablus during the sieges by Zahir al-Umar (NIMR, 1:183–196). [BACK]

105. Cohen, Palestine, pp. 70–77. [BACK]

106. NIMR, 1:252; al-Abbasi, Tarikh al Tuqan, p. 97. [BACK]

107. Ahmad Haidar Shihab, Tarikh Ahmad basha Jazzar (History of Ahmad Pasha Jazzar) (ed. Antoine Chibli and Ignace-Abdo Khalife; 2 vols.; Beirut, 1955), 1:102, 447–448. [BACK]

108. The Abd al-Hadis were chiefs of the Sha‘rawiyya subdistrict. They increased their power during this period by representing themselves as a counterweight to the Jarrars, their distant cousins. [BACK]

109. NIMR, 1:243–299. [BACK]

110. Ibid., 1:238–239, 243. [BACK]

111. Ibid., 1:291. [BACK]

112. The struggle with the Tuqans clearly exposed the Nimrs’ already very limited political role. The Nimrs were important only in the sense that they led the urban opposition to the Tuqans. After the Egyptian occupation the Nimrs quietly turned their attention to business and real estate. [BACK]

113. For example, see William R. Polk, The Opening of South Lebanon, 1788–1840: A Study of the Impact of the West on the Middle East (Cambridge, Mass., 1963); Ma‘oz, Ottoman Reform; and Shimon Shamir, “Egyptian Rule (1832–1840) and the Beginning of the Modern Period in the History of Palestine,” in Cohen and Baer, eds., Egypt and Palestine, pp. 214–231. [BACK]

114. The literature on these events is extensive. Two of the more useful works are Asad Rustum, The Royal Archives of Egypt and the Disturbances in Palestine, 1834 (Beirut, 1938); and S. N. Spyridon, “Annals of Palestine, 1821–1841,” JPOS, 18 (1938), pp. 63–132. Rustum notes that the 1834 conscription order demanded the largest share from Nablus (Disturbances in Palestine, p. 53). Also see Asad Rustum, Bashir bayna al-sultan wa al-aziz: 1804–1841 (Bashir Between the Sultan and the Khedive) (2 vols.; Beirut, 1956). [BACK]

115. NMSR, p. 170. These villages were Tayba, Na‘ura, Nin, Shatta, Solem, Tamra, and Arrana. [BACK]

116. Ibid., pp. 104–105. [BACK]

117. Raouf Sa‘d Abujaber, Pioneers over Jordan: The Frontier of Settlement in Transjordan, 1850–1914 (London, 1989); and Eugene Rogan, “Incorporating the Periphery: The Ottoman Extension of Direct Rule over Southeastern Syria (Transjordan), 1867–1914” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1991). [BACK]

118. They were: the mutasallim, Sulayman Beik Tuqan; the judge, Muhammad Sulayman Khalidi, from Jerusalem; the mufti (juriconsultant), Ahmad Abu al-Hida Khammash; the naqib al-ashraf, Muhammad Murtada Hanbali; Abd al-Wahid Khammash (longest-serving qadi in nineteenth-century Nablus and temporarily replaced by Khalidi); Muhammad Shehada Khammash (a former judge and cousin of Abd al-Wahid Khammash); Abd al-Fattah Agha Nimr; and As‘ad al-Tahir (ally of the Abd al-Hadi family). See NMSR, p. 19. [BACK]

119. Ibid., p. 19; recorded on December 18, 1849. The letter had been received nine months earlier, in mid-March 1849. It summarized the regulations governing the functions, jurisdiction, and composition of advisory councils in the provinces (NICR, 11:160–161). The Nablus Advisory Council was charged with carrying out the government’s policies, overseeing administrative and fiscal matters in Jabal Nablus as a whole, maintaining law and order, and supervising public works. For a detailed history of this council and changes in the social composition of its members, see Doumani, “Merchants,” pp. 140–168. [BACK]

120. This edict was drafted by Reshid Pasha, author of the Hatt-i-Sherif of Gulhane which proclaimed the 1839 reforms. See Halil Iṅalcik, Application of the Tanzimat and Its Social Effects (Lisse, 1976), pp. 6–7. [BACK]

121. For example, in the twelve times that the names of the council members were listed up to June, 1850, not once were members of the Samaritan and Christian communities mentioned. They did, however, appear regularly after this date (NMSR, pp. 8, 10–13, 17, 23–24, 29, 43–45). [BACK]

122. Ibid., p. 19. [BACK]

123. Ibid., p. 46. [BACK]

124. Ibid., pp. 126, 129, 249, 252. [BACK]