Summary
The deeply rooted system of unwritten customary practices that spelled out rights and responsibilities and the mechanisms for conflict resolution, compensation and punishment in the peasant society of Jabal Nablus, differing significantly from the urban application of Islamic law (shari’a) and drawing on concepts originally articulated in bedouin communities (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 446-495).
Details
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Clan elders settled internal disputes according to urf, and subdistrict chiefs reinforced their authority by arbitrating disputes and dispensing justice under it; their actions were circumscribed by the social and cultural boundaries it defined (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 446-526).
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Peasant society’s internal cultural and legal autonomy under urf is why, before the mid-nineteenth century, peasants rarely went to the urban-based Islamic court for disputes, partnerships, property, loans or personal-status matters (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 446-495).
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In a letter of February 18, 1853 the Nablus Advisory Council cited peasant urf traditions and what it called “stupid customs” to explain to the governor of Sidon why suspects from Jamma’in village could not be released despite lack of proof: the obstacle to extending the state’s legal codes was that peasants were members of clans insisting on collective rights (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 446-495).
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Chapter 1’s notes add that customary codes differed by region — the inhabitants of Jabal al-Khalil had their own codes called Abraham’s Law (shari’at Ibrahim) — citing NIMR, 2:494-509, Jamil al-Salhut, Al-Qada al-asha’iri (Clan Law) (Acre, 1987), and Finn, Stirring Times, 1:216 (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, Hamula, Jabal Nablus