Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

Figure 10.5 Kufr `Awan, households of families 9 and 10 in 1910
An example of a mutation of the 1930s which brings landholding within a
family up to date is illustrated in Figure 10.4. The mutation refers back to holding
650 of family-10 in 1884 where Sulaiman al-‘Abdul-Latif and his brother’s son
‘Awwad al-Khalil held one share. 18 The mutation mentions 15 deaths beginning
with those of ‘Awwad followed by Sulaiman 41 and 40 years previously. No further
details are given concerning ‘Awwad’s two sons. Sulaiman’s two sons and three
daughters all subsequently died, their shares passing wholly or partly to their
children. We learn of an exchange marriage among Sulaiman’s children with
family-9 as well as of ties with families 11 and 16, through which marriage links
are recorded to families 3 and 4 as well as back to 9 and the ‘Awwad al-Khalil
branch of 10. Many families in the village had an interest in the devolution
of Sulaiman’s shares. After giving details of the various deaths and heirs, the
mutation refers to a shar‘i court decision and to a clearance certificate from the
civil registry, both of October 1931. The shar‘i court case under that reference
gives the same details of 15 deaths from those of Sulaiman and ‘Awwad, together
with a calculation of shares devolving to the surviving heirs according to both
shar‘i principles and the Land Code for miri land. 19
Although the inheritance mutation of the ‘Abdul-Latif family may appear
complete, it should be noted that, when compared with details of household
composition given in the civil register of 1910, there are curious omissions suggesting
that not every death was in fact recorded. This in turn raises questions
about who registered the case and why. Most notably, Salih al-‘Awwad had already
died by 1910, household M91 consisting of his widow, six sons aged between
16 and 29 of whom four had wives and the oldest had two children (see Figure
10.5). There is no inheritance mutation or shar‘i case for Salih. For ‘Ata’allah,
171
Two hill villages