Summary
English writer, sister of the British vice-consul in Haifa, whose Domestic Life in Palestine (London, 1862) Beshara Doumani quotes throughout Rediscovering Palestine — for the Khan al-Tujjar, for her February 1856 visit to the Abd al-Hadi family’s Arraba compound, and at length for the Conclusion’s opening scene of April 17, 1859 (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 5074-5153, lines 5810-5900).
Details
- Rogers called Khan al-Tujjar “the finest arcade in Palestine” (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 1231-1284).
- Her February 1856 visit to the Abd al-Hadis’ Arraba compound opens Chapter 4: the household’s women asked of her father how many camels he had and whether his olive trees were new and fruitful, the two key indicators of an important family’s material base (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 3028-3099).
- The Conclusion opens with her description of April 17, 1859, when Salih Bek Abd al-Hadi’s sons and nephews, brought in haste and secrecy from Arraba by a tall black slave, burst into her brother’s Haifa residence crying “Ya dakhaliek! Ya dakhaliek!” and sought asylum while Ottoman troops besieged Arraba (Rogers, Domestic Life, p. 389, emphasis in original, as cited in the Conclusion’s note 1) (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 5074-5153, lines 5154-5187).
- Salih Abd al-Hadi was a frequent chess partner of Rogers, she had visited his family in Haifa and Arraba on a number of occasions, and he named his youngest daughter after her (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 5074-5153).
- In the Conclusion’s note 6 Doumani quotes Rogers on the Jarrar leaders — “I never heard of a Jerrar who could read or write, or even sign his name” — against the educated men and polished ladies of the Abd al-Hadis (Rogers, Domestic Life, p. 239), while cautioning that her and James Finn’s contrasting observations of the two families “reduced a complicated reality into a simplistic Eurocentric vision of tradition versus modernity” (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 5154-5187).
Related pages
Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, Abd al-Hadi family, Jarrar clan, Khan al-Tujjar, Jabal Nablus