Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

Part three | 12
al-Ahmad bore ‘Awad, Fatima and Fiddiya. 49 Qasim died aged 43 leaving his
wives Muhra and Fatima, Muhammad aged 18, ‘Ali aged 6 and the yet smaller
children. 50 After Qasim’s death, his second wife Fatima remarried Muhammad
Musa al-Hamd al-Ahmad, his sister Zahiya’s son, leaving ‘Awad in the care of his
step-mother Muhra and his half-brothers. 51 The household when ‘Ali was young
was thus led by his mother and older brother. They were to live together almost
ten years after his father Qasim’s death until in 1935, when ‘Ali was 14, a series
of disasters struck the household.
‘Ali’s elder brother Muhammad’s first wife Amira Hamud al-‘Ali Hamud
(family-5), none of whose children survived, died a few days after childbirth. And
his second wife, Naufa Mahmud al-‘Ali ‘Abdul-Nabi also died in the same year,
likewise within a couple of days of giving birth. Their mother Muhra died in
the same year, so the three young men were left without a woman in the house.
And, finally, in the same year all but 25 of a flock of 120 black-haired goats died
of a disease general in the village at that time, there being no veterinary care.
Naufa’s mother Rishda then came to keep house for the three brothers.
After his two wives’ early deaths Muhammad married a third wife called
Fiddiya Musa al-Hamd al-Ahmad for 20 lira. ‘Ali left school in 1938 and about
a year later in 1939 when he was 18 he married his present wife Rishda Mahmud
Bani Hamid of Khanzira, who was 13 at the time. About this marriage, ‘Ali
said that he had been shy to marry and that his brother Muhammad arranged
his engagement. The document was written by a marriage specialist in Kufr
Abil called Sheikh Khalid al-Hami, but this document was lost. 52 Rishda’s mahr
muqaddam was 31 lira, which was mostly paid in animals, whereas the delayed
dower (mahr mu’ajjal) was fixed at only one lira, which raised a laugh that divorce
had been so cheap (although, it was emphasized, rare). 53
As for the household economy, ‘Ali Qasim recalled that the three brothers
inherited four qirat of land. 54 They had only one plough team (faddan) and no
milk-cows, all the milk products for the family coming from the goats. Muhammad
was responsible for the house (‘qa’im ‘ala-’l-bait’), which lay on the hill just
down from the village core. Their land was usually given out to ploughmen from
the village, who changed from year to year and were paid in different ways. They
had two olive trees within the village site; and they raised chickens. ‘Ali spent
much of his time living away from the village (mu‘azzib) herding in the area
facing Sartaba; sometimes cooked food would be brought him from the house; he
would play the reed flute (mijwiz or naya) which, ‘Ali Qasim remarked, animals
would recognize and could therefore be used in their training. One night he was
by himself, as usual without a light, and lying playing the flute, he thought to
get a drink of water (though he had drunk tea earlier and considers his desire
unnecessary), so he went up to his skin of water and was bitten by a snake. He
kept on vomiting, his leg became swollen and red, and he lay there throughout
the night. At daylight he couldn’t walk at all but dragged himself under the shade
of a tree. There was nothing the other herders could do about it. He was in the
region of abu ’l-khass, north of Sartaba, across wadi al-mulawi. He spent two
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