Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

succeeded in June of that year by As‘ad
Efendi. BOA.BEO, vol. 349, entries 65
and 86 for 1290AM. He is also noted as
having cleared his financial responsibilities
(beraet-i zimmeti) in March 1875, ibid.,
item 13 of 1291AM.
39 For earlier practice of appointment
of a sheikh to a village in the Hauran, see
the document dated 1863 reproduced in
Abu Fakhr, Ta’rikh liwa’ Hauran al-ijtima‘i
(1999), p. 334.
40 This word is problematical, appearing
in this form in neither Turkish nor
Persian. Engin Akarlı (personal note) has
suggested the following possible derivation.
‘Çapan may be a corrupted version of
çapa, which means hoe. Çapalamak means
hoeing or to hoe. Çapalık means a piece of
land worked by hoe (as opposed to plough)
and thus a vegetable garden (as opposed
to a field). Phonetically, it is quite easy to
move from çapalık to çapanlık.’ Another
possible meaning would come from the Persian
roots shaban (with shin) and chopan
(with che), which both mean shepherd
(Ziba Mir-Hosseini, personal note).
The first derivation would make better
sense in its etymology as it would then be
a Turkish abstract of the object, rather
than a derivation from a Persian word for
a person.
41 The first is presumably the vali
Muhammad Halet Pasha and the second
Ahmed Hamdi Pasha whose dates in the
post were according to Gross: Ottoman
Rule, p. 559, respectively, February
1873–September 1874 and February
1875–June 1876.
42 It is possible that this figure is Yusuf
Agha of the Mahayini family of grain
merchants of the Maidan who served on the
Municipal Council of Damascus in 1871–
72, see Schatkowski-Schilcher, Families in
Politics (1985), pp. 149–50. A Muhammed
Yusuf Bey appears as mütemayiz member
of the vilayet administrative council in
1868: Salname-i Suriye i (1285AH), p. 22;
again in Salname-i Suriye vii (1292/1875),
p. 52, a Yusuf Başazade Muhammad Bey
261
appears, perhaps the same as Midhat
Pasha’s Yusuf Mamluk (see next note) or
the Kurd Yusuf Bey of the document.
43 Midhat Pasha notifies the Porte
that Jubran Ispir Efendi was elected to the
administrative council and Yusuf Mamluk
Efendi to the court: BOA.ŞD.2272/32,
document 1 dated 27 Mart 1295AM/8 April
1879. The former is presumably Ispir
Acemi Efendi, a member of the administrative
council of the vilayet in 1872–74
– Salname-i Suriye iv (1289AH), p. 72, and
v (1291AH), p. 47. Jubran Ispir Efendi continues
to appear as an elected member of
the administrative council until 1881–82,
see Salname-i Suriye xiv (1299AH), p. 103.
Ispir Acemi Efendi also serves as a member
of the Special Commission for the Lands
of Hauran, see Chapter 8, note 6.
44 It is unclear whether the name
Ibrahim simply dropped here or whether
in fact the father of Na’il Ibrahim, here
named Ibrahim Na’il, was in fact first appointed,
although his son was already the
active figure at the time of the case.
45 The Şura-yı Devlet sent a first
report to Damascus on 29 Teşrinievvel
1291/19 October 1875, further instructions
on how to proceed on 5 Teşrinisani
1291/17 November, and another note
concerning the lands cultivated in the
village on 16 Şubat 1291/28 February 1876
(BOA.BEO, vol. 349, entries 162, 172 and
290). Both of the main protagonists in the
case had by then sent correspondence to
the Porte: on 15 Mart 1292/27 March 1876
a response from the justice administration
concerning the legal claim/istida of ‘Abdullah
Ahmad that the village land be awarded
by hakk-ı karar is forwarded by Şura-yi
Devlet to the province and on 26 Nisan
1292/8 May 1876 the justice administration
responds to the correspondence of the village
headman (muhtar-ı lahik, holding the
office of headman) Na’il Ibrahim. BOA.
BEO, Suriye, Giden, vol. 350, entries 11
and 50. The last entry in the same register
concerning the case notes that further
clarification was sent from Şura-yı Devlet
Notes to chapter 6