Records of the Nablus Islamic Court
The Islamic court records (sijills) of Palestine began to be collected and bound in 1923 on the initiative of Hajj Amin al-Husayni, then both mufti of Jerusalem and head of the Islamic Higher Council.[1] The Nablus sijills are located in the Nablus Islamic Court, and the ones used in this study are listed in Table 10. As indicated below, few records from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries have survived. A flash flood near the end of the eighteenth century apparently destroyed all but five volumes, and these cover only a handful of years.[2] From 1798 onward, the records are complete.
10. Islamic Court Records of Nablus, 1655-1865 | Volume Number | Period Covered | Number of Pages |
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| Sources: NICR, 1-13B. |
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| Note: The period covered and the number of pages of each volume in this table differs from the ones provided in Muhammad Adnan al-Bakhit, et. al., Kashshaf ihsa’i zamani li-sijillat al-mahakem al-shar‘iyya wa al-awqaf al-islamiyya fi Bilad al-Sham (Statistical and Chronological Index of the Islamic Court Records and Muslim waqfs in Greater Syria) (Amman, 1984), p. 199. They also differ from the list in Ramini, Nablus fi al-qarn al-tasi ashar, pp. 7-9. Both calculated the period covered by looking at the first and last pages of each volume. These volumes, however, consist of two parts: a listing of cases brought before the court starting form the first page and a chronological listing of all administrative correspondence received, starting from the last page and moving inward. The range of years covered by the second part is substantially longer than that covered by the first. The most important miscalculation is for Volume 7, which they date from 1808-1809, but which in fact covers the years 1808-1817. For many of the volumes they also miscalculated the number of pages. |
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| 1 | 1655-1658 | 360 |
| 2 | 1685-1689 | 432 |
| 3 | 1689-1692 | 194 |
| 4 | 1722-1726 | 351 |
| 5 | 1728-1729 | 186 |
| 6 | 1798-1807 | 370 |
| 7 | 1808-1817 | 402 |
| 8 | 1817-1830 | 432 |
| 9 | 1831-1839 | 417 |
| 10 | 1840-1847 | 307 |
| 11 | 1847-1850 | 193 |
| 12 | 1850-1860 | 382 |
| 13A | 1860-1863 | 378 |
| 13B | 1863-1865 | 244 |
