Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

67 DLS.AT.Zabt 1334–1920, February
1919, p. 57, nos 10–12. Khalaf’s 6q pass
to his four surviving sons without mention
of any female heirs, on the basis of
documents from the village council, the
civil registry and the tax office. However
a case was registered in the shar‘i court
in 1923 by Khalaf’s wife ‘A’isha Ahmad
Muhammad Abi-’l-Furs of Sarih claiming
that Khalaf had left four sons and a
daughter Falha as well as their mother
Mahra Ibrahim and herself, and describing
his estate as a quarter-share of land, a
house (boundaries specified), ten cows, a
horse and other animals as well as 80 riyal
majidi (ACR.SC sijill 5, p. 381, case 282, 4
January 1923).
68 DLS.AT.Zabt 1330–34, January
1919, p. 113, nos 4–6, and p. 117, nos 40–5;
ibid. March 1919, p. 134, nos 24–9; and
DLS.AT.Dabt 1334–1920, November 1919,
pp. 161–2, nos 191–6.
69 DLS.AT.Dabt 1924–25, August
1925, pp. 163–4, nos 37–42.
70 ACR.CC jina‘i 1921–22, no. 227/209
of 1922. The case concerns a number of
men who fired shots into the shop of Falih
Khalaf, according to him in retaliation
for a case arising from a marriage dispute
of his cousin who had married a woman
relative of theirs. The decision was dated
28 January 1922 hence the incident had
occurred some time before that. The men
accused were of the Lubani and other
smaller families of Hawwara.
71 There is a record of a loan in
September 1915 from Ahmad Muhammad
Baibars to Muflih Hamd al-Sabbah
against which he mortgages his 12q of
land for 4,510 qurush; the loan is paid
off in January 1921. DLS.AT daftar
al-ruhunat wa-’l-faragh al-wafa’i 1322–32
and 1918–27, p. 36, entry 2. But we have
no trace of credit relations between the
sons of Muflih’s brother Muhammad, who
bought land with the Baibars.
72 The 1895 tax register lists only two
shops, one held by Na’il Gharaiba (within
holding number 72), the other by ‘Ali
283
‘Abdul-Rahman al-Shanab (holding 23)
who had held house number 15 in 1883.
Both shops were valued at 500 guruş. In
1900 four more shops were added, one
to an existing holding (‘Uqla al-Husain,
number 29, value 1,250), the other three
new (numbers 94, 95 and 96 held by
‘Abdul-Latif, Mahmud al-Mutlaq and
Mustafa al-Dibs, respectively, each valued
at 2,000 guruş). Ahmad Tannash himself
had a new shop added to his holding in
1907, valued at 3,000 guruş including a
storeroom (holding 6), as did Mahmud
al-‘Abdullah Abu Kirsanna (holding 106,
also valued at 3,000 guruş including a
storeroom). Two others, each valued at
500 guruş, had been added to existing
holdings in 1903 (‘Abdul-Jalil al-As‘ad
al-Shuha, 24, and Salih Abu Salih, 56).
Mustafa al-Dibs’s shop was successfully
claimed by Khalid al-Muhammad al-
Hasan and reclassified as a house in 1919,
the only positive indication we have that
those listed in the 1895 tax register may
have included tenants.
12 A village of mixed agriculture in
the hills: Kufr `Awan
1 Interview with Yumna Mustafa Nimr
al-Muflih, 22 June 1992.
2 Unfortunately we did not ascertain
exactly what proportion of the crop went
to the blacksmith.
3 See the case of Ahmad Khalifa below
for the circumstances of the sale. In 1910
there were six Christian households in the
village: those of Sa‘d al-Nasir, his brother
Mansur, his sister’s husband Jibra’il Mar‘i,
and Jibra’il’s widowed sister’s son, plus
two unrelated households (ANR Kufr
‘Awan, C1–6). What craft the last four
households practised is unclear.
4 Interview with Abu ‘Umar Muhammad
Ahmad Muhammad al-Da’ud, 13
November 1992. These persons do not
appear in the household census of 1910.
5 According to the 1910 household
census she had been born in 1889 (ANR
Kufr ‘Awan, M46–6).
Notes to chapters 11 and 12