Summary
Ruler of Acre (1775-1804), successor to Zahir al-Umar and, in Doumani’s account, an even more powerful one, who maintained good relations with the Ottoman central government by paying taxes on time and making himself indispensable for its hold over southern Syria, eventually becoming governor of both Sidon and Damascus provinces (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 534-576).
Details
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By and large the well-connected Tuqan family received al-Jazzar’s support, while the Jarrar clan, unwilling to bow to his centralization effort, suffered two unsuccessful military campaigns against their Sanur fortress in 1790 and 1795 (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 534-576).
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Al-Jazzar (as “Djezzar”) is named in Chapter 1’s opening epigraph as never having succeeded in completely subduing the people of Nablus (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 367-380).
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Together with Sulayman Pasha, al-Jazzar supported the Abd al-Hadi family as a counterweight to the Jarrars (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 577-620).
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In 1784, nine years after Zahir al-Umar’s death, al-Jazzar was able to enforce an even stricter monopoly over the buying and selling of cotton and cereals; by 1790 he had broken the French merchants’ grip on the cotton trade and expelled them to Sidon (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 1900-2166).
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Volney is quoted on al-Jazzar’s Acre monopoly: he “cornered all cotton stocks, forbade all sales, and became sole master of the market” and put a duty of 10 piasters on each quintal of cotton (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 2167-2330).
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Al-Jazzar’s monopoly system did not survive his death intact; not a single contemporary chronicler, in Doumani’s account, had a kind remark to make about him, and his death was greeted by celebrations as far away as Damascus (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 2167-2330).
Related pages
Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, Acre, Zahir al-Umar, Jabal Nablus, Politics of monopoly, Sulayman Pasha al-Adil