Summary
Financial manager to Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar, to Sulayman Pasha al-Adil and, for a time, to the latter’s successor Abdullah Pasha (1819-1831), who proposed, in Doumani’s account, a limited monopoly on the sale of grain, oil and cotton to foreigners that would not preempt local and regional consumption and trade (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 2167-2330).
Details
- Farhi and Ibrahim Awra — a Jew and a Christian, respectively — aggressively defended the interests of these two minority communities, many of whose members were well-to-do merchants (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 2167-2330).
- His advice to Sulayman Pasha is quoted: “We must…reduce the taxation of our subjects and impose it on the foreigners” (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 2167-2330).
- Farhi sought to maintain some political control over a profitable trade without endangering the peasant base of production that had suffered greatly under al-Jazzar; where he drew the line in terms of how much cotton was bought, what prices were offered to peasants and how much foreign merchants were charged is not clear, and he and other high-ranking Acre officials amassed large fortunes through speculation in cash crops (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, Sulayman Pasha al-Adil, Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar, Acre, Politics of monopoly