1. A detailed description can be found in NICR, 12:154. This account is also based on personal visits. Often, soap factories had residential apartments built above the second floor; that is, buildings were three or sometimes four stories high. Most of the soap factories discussed in Chapter 5 are still standing.

2. For example, the al-Qadi soap factory had four wells, each with a capacity of 750 jars of olive oil (about 15 tons), enough for three cooked batches of soap (tabkhas). This soap factory is one of the smaller ones in Nablus. Larger ones have wells with at least twice this capacity. This information is based on a visit to the factory and on a conversation with Husni Ali Abd al-Haq (b. 1922), who, at the time of the interview (August 1, 1990), supervised soap production in this facility.

3. Limestone is abundant in the hill regions of Palestine. To make shid, soft limestone is piled in a large pit, covered with wood, and burned. Produced mostly in villages, shid was also used in construction.

4. After the oil is pressed, the crushed olive pits are sun dried, then packed for use as fuel. They retain heat and burn for a long time, like small coals.

5. NIMR, 2:290.

6. Bowring refers to it as a “copper” (Commercial Statistics, p. 19).

7. NIMR, 2:291. Tamimi and Bahjat, Wilayat Bayrut, p. 120. Their accounts were confirmed by the account-books of the Yusifiyya soap factory and the inheritance estate of the Bishtawi brothers. See Chapter 5.

8. Nimr claims that 10 qintars of qilw went into each tabkha (NIMR, 2:291).

9. This figure was calculated using a log of expenses and profits for the Yusufiyya soap factory (see Chapter 5). According to this log, dated 1826, approximately 147 qintars of shid were used for 21 batches of soap. See below for details.

10. Not a single source mentions the amount of water, and some ignore it al-together. The figure of 25 jars is calculated from the formula provided in Muhammad Sa‘id al-Qasimi, Qamus al-sina‘at al-shamiyya (2 vols.; Paris, 1962), 2:268.

11. The size of each falqa differed, depending on the destination. Those exported to Egypt measured about 3 by 5 by 5 centimeters and were twice as large as the ones cut for local consumption.

12. NIMR, 2:291; Tamimi and Bahjat, Wilayat Bayrut, p. 120.

13. G. Rosen, “Über Nablus und Umgegend,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländdischen Gesellschaft, 14 (1860), p. 638; cited in Schölch, “European Penetration,” p. 50.

14. Cited in ibid.

15. Tamimi and Bahjat, Wilayat Bayrut, p. 119.

16. Some of the new names were Shaqrawiyya, Salihiyya, Khayyatiyya, Asaliyya, Ayshiyya, and al-Qadi. See Chapter 5.

17. Soap factories were rarely sold as a whole. The following prices were calculated from the sale of shares.

18. NICR, 6:165.

19. Ibid., 7:84. A year earlier the Bishtawiyya soap factory had sold for 900 piasters (ibid., 7:40), but five years later, in January 1816, another factory, the Bashawiyya soap factory, sold for 9,000 piasters (ibid., 7:363).

20. Ibid., 12:154.

21. Respectively, ibid., 8:328, 361; 9:151; 10:267. In September 1839 the Uthmaniyya soap factory sold for roughly 33,556 piasters (ibid., 9:399).

22. Ibid., 9:180.

23. Ibid., 13A:31–36, 74–75, 110–111.

24. Olive trees produce abundantly only every other year.

25. For example, Kurd Ali, Khitat al-Sham, 4:159; Tamimi and Bahjat, Wilayat Bayrut, p. 54.

26. Bowring, Commercial Statistics, p. 19. There is also some confusion concerning the size of each tabkha. Bowring gives the figure of 20 to 22 qintars of soap each for Aleppo, Idlib, and Kilis but specifies 3,200 uqqas, which only comes to 16 qintars, for all other cities and towns. As we have seen, however, in Nablus each tabkha produced about 20–22.5 qintars of dry soap.

27. Schölch, “European Penetration,” p. 50.

28. Ibid.

29. Abd al-Hadi Family Papers, 1.1.4.

30. NICR, 9:393.

31. For example, NMSR, pp. 221–222.

32. Tamimi and Bahjat, Wilayat Bayrut, p. 119.