Summary
Nabulsi local historian whose Tarikh Jabal Nablus wa al-Balqa (4 vols.; Nablus, 1936-1961), cited as NIMR, is a principal narrative source for Doumani’s Rediscovering Palestine, and whose extensive collection of private family papers was made publicly accessible when Husam al-Sharif arranged for it to be photocopied (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 66-79, lines 80-125).
Details
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When asked to share his collection of private family papers, Nimr always referred researchers to his book instead; the photocopying arranged by Husam al-Sharif made the collection publicly accessible for the first time (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 66-79).
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Shaykh Yusuf Jarrar’s 1799 poem is taken from NIMR 1:210-211, and the 1798-1801 firman episode, the caravansary burnings and the claim that Nabulsi fighters entered besieged Acre are documented from NIMR vol. 1 (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 367-409, lines 677-843).
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Doumani flags that no confirmation was found for Nimr’s Acre-entry story and that it may have originated in a similar incident in 1832 (Chapter 1, note 13) (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 677-843).
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Nimr is quoted on the 1657 expedition leaders’ properties: “Their properties, of all different kinds, were the symbol of their power and princely status” (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 496-526).
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Nimr names the Christian families of Jabal Nablus and claims many were brought from Damascus and Jerusalem by his ancestors to work as tanners, weavers, carpenters, jewelers or ironsmiths (NIMR 2:272-273) (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 677-843).
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Chapter 1’s notes call the Tarikh the most detailed and comprehensive source on the political history of Jabal Nablus during the Ottoman period, based on family papers, Islamic court records and oral history — an intimate, albeit often unreliable, narrative by a native son (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 844-1172).
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Where Nimr errs and where he is vindicated, per the notes: al-Abbasi mistakenly omitted Bani Sa’b from a list drawn from the same 1723 document; Nimr was mistaken in claiming Umar Agha Nimr was then mutasallim of Nablus, the document showing he was Salih Pasha Tuqan’s deputy; and on the Sha’rawiyya subdistrict the 1723 document shows Nimr was right against Amnon Cohen, who had taken him to task for including it in the sanjaq of Nablus instead of Lajjun (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 844-1172).
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In Chapter 3 Nimr’s section entitled “The Undermining and Destruction of the [Jabal Nablus] Manufactures” is quoted at length — including “Local industry was undermined in inverse proportion to [the import of] Western manufactures” — and qualified as painted from the vantage point of the second half of the twentieth century, conflating developments of several periods, most of which took place after World War I (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 2390-2529).
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Nimr claims that in Nablus it was mostly women who spun the cotton and wool, either as paid workers or as individual producers for the market, a claim Doumani substantiates from inheritance estates of merchants who dealt in wool and cotton (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 2390-2529).
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Nimr also provided examples of how ruling families spoke in two voices in a calculated carrot-and-stick policy (NIMR, 4:361-364), cited in Chapter 2’s notes (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 1900-2166).
Related pages
Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, Jabal Nablus, Nimr family, Deindustrialization