Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

Figure 9.2 Bait Ra’s, households of the `Uwaida family and affines in 1910
dated from at least 1890, judging from the years of birth of ‘Ali al-Ahmad’s son
Yusuf, head of household M12 in 1910, and of ‘Ali al-Ahmad’s sister ‘Alaya’s son
Muhammad in M8, a household headed by her husband Sa‘id al-Matar. Ahmad
al-‘Ali had been living in the village since 1877 or 1878 and was an ally of Hasan
al-Sabbah; Matar al-‘Uwaida was registered as holding a house and lands in 1895;
the exchange marriages between the two families dated from around 1890. By
itself this does not tell us when Matar al-‘Uwaida may have established residence
in Bait Ra’s. But in conjunction with data on the growth of other households of
the ‘Uwaida family, we may infer that he was living in the village by 1890.
Matar’s brother’s son Dhiyab al-‘Umar was also registered in 1895 with his
own house and lands. The marriages of two daughters of Dhiyab to two sons of
Matar are likely to have taken place around 1900. A third daughter’s marriage
to Salih son of ‘Abdullah al-Mas‘ad (not shown on Figure 9.2) also took place
around 1900. ‘Abdullah and his brother Shahada had been registered in 1880 as
residents of the village, not landholders, but in 1895 ‘Abdullah was registered as
holding 1½ shares of plough land, about the same as what his son Salih held in
1921. They too belonged to the Bani Ta‘an half of the village.
By 1910 the two branches of the ‘Uwaida family had grown into five households,
as shown in Figure 9.2: M8, M9 and M10 for Matar’s three sons, and
M25 and M26 for the households of Dhiyab’s two sons, the second of which
also contained Dhiyab’s brother Dhiban and his family, an unusually complex
household composition.
The extent of household development and of intermarriages is supplementary
evidence for the ‘Uwaida family having been installed in Bait Ra’s at least since
1890. What the exact position had been ten years earlier we cannot say with
certainty. In an interview we conducted in Bait Ra’s in 1992 we noted that
Dhiyab al-‘Umar’s wife Subha, given as daughter of ‘Ali in the nüfus register,
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Two plains villages