Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

Part three | 11
more formal discussion in a gathering of older members of the clan. 50 We begin
with the history of the dominant Gharaiba line, that of Ibrahim, examine the
household and marriage links of Na’il Gharaiba’s generation, and then explore
the history in Hawwara of two of the three other lines acknowledged as carrying
the patronym Gharaiba.
The household of Na’il Ibrahim al-Gharaiba
Ibrahim al-Gharaiba was a man of prominence who married wives from
families of regional sheikhs of the Kafarat and the Wustiya. The Gharaiba were
said to be from Jumha where there is still a building known as their guest house,
but by the time of Ibrahim they were cultivating large areas of land in the vicinity
of Kufr Jayiz and storing grain in Maru in the years before they established a
large compound in Hawwara. Ibrahim had married first ‘A’isha of the ‘Ubaidat of
Kufr Saum, who bore sons Mahmud, Hamid, Hamuda and ‘Ali, and then Khadija
of the ‘Azzam family of the Wustiya, who bore sons Faris, Na’il, Muhammad
and Khalil. See Figure 11.5.
By 1876 the political head of the family was Na’il Ibrahim. Knowledgeable
in issues of land, he was said to have served as a kind of adviser to the government.
51 Na’il, his brothers, sisters, and two cousins, ‘Abdullah and Irhail Ahmad
‘Abid-Rabbuh, all lived in a vast compound of four by four arches (qantara), a
total of sixteen rooms. 52 Na’il was responsible for the reception room (madafa)
and political relations of the family, Mahmud and others for cultivation, Na’il’s
cousin ‘Abdullah for the sheep, and Faris and others for the camels that carried
grain down to Acre to be sold. 53 Together they owned four to five hundred sheep.
Huge cooking pots had been shared, each woman taking her food out to her
children; some eighty-five persons were said to have lived in the compound at
one time; marriage thus could entail a woman simply moving from one qantara
to another. 54
Although the compound formed the centre of activity of its members, and
Hawwara their main village for farming, Khalil al-Ibrahim lived and farmed in
Mughaiyir as did most of the stem of the Shahada Gharaiba. Of the cousins
who lived in the compound, Irhail owned a small amount of land in Tuqbul (3q
of the 21½ shares of the village land). 55 And, while Filwa returned with her
children to Hawwara where they bought land, her husband Mufaddi al-Ahmad
never left Jumha.
Family history considers as brothers of Ibrahim not only ‘Abid-Rabbuh but
also Shahada and Sabbah. 56 Another relative, ‘Abdul-Karim al-Gharaiba, may
have been a brother or cousin of Ibrahim; he bore no sons but two daughters,
of whom Fasal married Na’il al-Ibrahim and her sister, whose name was not
recalled, Jabir al-‘Ali Sabbah. 57 As one person noted, the name of a man who has
only daughters is written in faint ink and tends to be forgotten since it is sons
who keep their father’s name alive. Na’il’s second wife was a Gharaiba from the
Shahada branch, Karma Khalid; and three of his brothers, Muhammad, Hamuda
and Hamid, also married Gharaibas. Three other brothers married women from
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