Governing property, making the modern state - PSI424

qirat in 1932 whereas Dahaimish died in
1910 before the nüfus registration. The
sellers are the heirs of two men who died
during the First World War: the surviving
daughter and a deceased daughter’s son of
Muhammad ‘Ali Muhammad (d. 1917 of
natural causes), the widow and three sons
of ‘Awad Dahaimish (d. 1918 in the Ottoman
army) and two of ‘Awad Dahaimish’s
three sisters. The family will only declare
Dahaimish’s death in 1938 and bring
its paperwork up to date just before the
cadastre. This was not an uncommon
strategy, for it allowed a family to see
how things developed over the years. DLS.
AT.Dabt 1931–32, November 1932, p. 186,
nos 36–9, and ACR.SC 1932–34 hasr
al-irth, vol. 14, p. 18, case 27, and 1938–41
hasr al-irth, vol. 18, p. 28, case 105.
49 In the 1910 registration Qasim’s
second wife is given as Fatima daughter of
Najib and Kasaba (M124–6). This appears
to be yet another wife, married earlier than
Fatima Muhammad Hamd al-Ahmad. In
a case concerning the legal guardianship
(wisaya) of Qasim’s minor children ‘Ali,
‘Awad and Husain, all his sons are said to
be from Muhra and the daughters from
Fatima whereas ‘Ali Qasim stated clearly
that ‘Awad was a son of Fatima (ACR.SC
1929–35 al-wisaya wa-’l-talaqa, vol. 13,
p. 78, case 31, 10 September 1932). ‘Ali
Qasim was uncomfortable mentioning
the names of sisters and hence for the
daughters of Qasim, we have relied on the
official records.
50 ‘Ali Qasim, interview of 28 June
1992, stated that his father died when he
was 6 or 7. The above-cited 1932 guardianship
case states that Qasim had died six
years before.
51 ‘Ali Qasim, interview of 28 June 1992
52 When they went on the hajj
together they had to prove that they were
married, so had to go to the authorities in
‘Ajlun to declare officially that the document
had been lost.
53 Antoun, Arab Village (1972),
pp. 123 and 170, n. 19, states that mahr
287
mu’ajjal became important only after 1960
in the Kura. On marriage payments more
generally, see Mundy and Saumarez Smith,
‘Al-mahr zaituna’, in Doumani (ed.),
Family History in the Middle East (2003),
pp. 136–43.
54 ‘Ali Qasim remembered that the
rate of land tax in the early 1930s was 60
Palestinian qurush per qirat.
55 The Arabic proverb puns, the tais
being the billy-goat and tayasat, foolishness
or, after the butting of the billy-goat,
thick-headedness.
56 The larger size of such a skin was
called zarf which takes 20 ratl (generally
large skins are qirb or jur); a small samna
skin was called ‘uqqa, holding 2–3 ratl.
57 DLS.AT.Yoklama, August 1884,
p. 79, nos 682–3. In 1884 ‘Abdullah Salih
farmed his land together with another
farmer, ‘Uthman al-Shihab who similarly
held 6q. Yumna identified her husband’s
father as ‘Abdullah Salih Hamd al-Muflih.
58 Ibid. 680–81.
59 ANR Kufr ‘Awan, M83 for Nimr.
‘Abdullah had died by the time of the 1910
household census.
60 DLS.AT.Yoklama, August 1884,
p. 79, nos 684–5 and p. 81, entry 721. It
is not clear whether Musa al-Muflih was
son of the same Muflih al-Musa, father of
Muhammad, Mahmud, Nimr and ‘Abdullah.
The latter Muflih’s holdings of two
houses, an olive grove and the 15 olive trees
thereon (ibid. 710–11, 595 and 775) were
definitely registered in the names of Nimr
and ‘Abdullah, Muflih’s sons by Mahra,
in 1889, for the boundaries correspond.
With both Musa al-Muflih and Muflih
al-Musa, the father was registered with a
house or individual plot while the son was
registered with shares in the plough land.
A genealogical connection cannot be firmly
asserted, however, since Musa al-Muflih
did not survive to be registered in 1910.
In Figure 12.6, as in Table 10.1, ‘Ali Musa
al-Muflih and his brother Ahmad are of
family–23, whereas Nimr al-Muflih and his
three brothers are of family–20.
Notes to chapter 12