Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

1940). The other ¾q of Zarifa’s share had been inherited through her father ‘Ali
from both his mother and, presumably, his father ‘Abdul-‘Aziz. According to the
‘Abdul-Latif inheritance mutation Zarifa and her brother (not shown on Figure
10.6) had each inherited 84/11200 (0.18q) through their father’s mother, of which
her brother’s share would have reverted partly to her when he died, apparently
after falling in a well (interview with Ni‘ma Muhammad Mahmud al-‘Abid , 25
October 1991). There is no inheritance case or mutation relating to ‘Abdul-‘Aziz’s
original 15q which he had held in 1884. Zarifa herself died at the end of 1939
after the final register had been approved, her share reverting to her husband (½)
her mother Hamda (⅓) and her half-brother ‘through her mother’, Muhammad
son of Mahmud (1⁄6) (although according to the civil register of 1910 Muhammad
was the son of a wife of Mahmud called Fiddiya) (ACR.SC sijill 18, hasr al-irth
1938–41, p. 100, case 118, 17 December 1939).
Zarifa’s husband Nayif was one of five brothers who all held more land than
he, moreover land in the predominantly Khashashna block of fields as befitted
the family’s affiliation, whereas Nayif’s holding, shared with Zarifa, was in the
block associated with the Dawaghira families, Nayif having bought his ¼q from
his wife’s mother at the time of the cadastre. We learnt from Nayif’s nephew that
when Nayif had expressed the wish to marry Zarifa her family asked his brothers
to find a bride for her half-brother Muhammad al-Mahmud. They did this by
paying mahr in animals to a family in the neighbouring village of Kufr Rakib
(interview with Muhammad Falih al-Ibrahim, 19 November 1991). But this does
not quite explain where Nayif’s share of his family’s inheritance went.
To complete the picture, mention should be made of the three daughters of
Hamda Sulaiman ‘Abdul-Latif who each inherited 224/11200 (approximately
½q) from their mother (Figure 10.4). Fatima married Muhammad the son of
Salih al-‘Awwad in an exchange marriage whereby her brother Mahmud married
Muhammad’s sister Hamda. A second daughter of Hamda Sulaiman, Fiddiya,
shared holding 5–71 with Mustafa son of Mahmud al-Ahmad of family-11, her
mother’s sister’s son who had also inherited land (160/11200) originating from Sulaiman
‘Abdul-Latif. Fiddiya’s share was a full 1½q, equal to that of her husband.
Fiddiya would have inherited land from ‘Abdul-‘Aziz as well as from her mother.
In 1910 she had been living in her father’s household M92, aged only 10, while
Mustafa lived with his first wife, daughter of Hasan Sulaiman (Fiddiya’s mother’s
brother) in a household of their own (M107) as yet without children. Finally, the
third of Hamda Sulaiman’s daughters, Baika, also held 1½q in holding 1–16
shared with her husband ‘Isa al-‘Ali Hamud who held 4q. ‘Isa probably belonged
to family-5, although we are not certain since he was not listed in the 1910 census,
neither in his own household nor in the household of his possible brother Hamud
‘Ali Hamud (M129, not shown on Figure 10.6) whose sister Baika was already
married and with children to Muhammad ‘Abdul-‘Aziz (in M5, see Figure 10.5).
At some time between 1923 and 1934 ‘Isa had bought ¾q from the children of
Ahmad ‘Abdul-‘Aziz that had come to them by inheritance from Ahmad’s wife
Zarifa, the daughter of Mahmud al-Ahmad of family-11. But ‘Isa’s other 3¼q
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Two hill villages