Summary
An Ottoman land-revenue grant held by cavalry officers (sipahis): in Rediscovering Palestine the 1657 campaign’s officers in Jabal Nablus were paid with timar or the larger za’ama grants, deliberately dispersed and annually renewable, yet settled in Nablus, passed the grants to descendants, and sold, rented and farmed out their rights, founding the region’s ruling families (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 496-526).
Details
- Officially a timar generated no more than 20,000 akjas annually, whereas a za’ama could go up to 100,000 (Chapter 1, notes) (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 844-1172).
- The arrangement survived in outer form well into the nineteenth century: a document dated June 29, 1852 lists Jabal Nablus’s timar holders and whether they served in the pilgrimage caravan’s armed escort contingent (jarda) (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 844-1172).
- The Nimr family papers show timar villages in southeastern Jabal Nablus remained within the Nimr household for more than 200 years; holders early avoided military duty by paying for replacements, Muhammad Agha Nimr arranging one lump sum of 2,000 piasters in 1724 on behalf of all 52 timar and za’ama holders (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 844-1172).
- Timar rights interwove with Iltizam (tax farming), as in a case dated early April 1726 (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 844-1172).
Related pages
Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, Iltizam, Jabal Nablus, Nimr family, Tuqan family