Summary
The majlis al-shura of Nablus: an urban council first channelled by the Egyptian authorities in 1831-1840 and then regulated and expanded under the Ottoman Tanzimat, staffed by religious leaders, rich merchants and political figures, whose records of 1848-1853 are one of Doumani’s principal sources and which became the locus of local political power in Jabal Nablus by the mid-nineteenth century (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 190-206, lines 577-676).
Details
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The council’s records, shown to Doumani by Lubna Abd al-Hadi, are privately owned and, to his knowledge, the only ones of their kind for the entire Fertile Crescent other than a volume covering 1844-1845 for Damascus; they consist almost entirely of letters and reports, mostly responses to inquiries from the governors of Sidon and Jerusalem on fiscal, political and administrative matters, with no direct communication with Istanbul and no minutes (Introduction, note 30) (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 199-380).
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Council members were appointed mediators between the central government and the local population who presented superiors a carefully edited image of Jabal Nablus and creatively interpreted the centre’s demands locally (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 199-233).
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All of the council members in the period covered were actively involved in trade and soap manufacturing (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 621-676).
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On December 26, 1849 the members drafted a letter of defiance over the council’s composition, refusing the centre’s right to choose its members; a compromise list followed four months later, but the excluded naqib al-ashraf Muhammad Murtada Afandi Hanbali continued to attend and sign, and the authorities turned a blind eye (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 621-676).
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After the destruction of Arraba in 1859, struggle for power in Jabal Nablus was limited to competition for positions in the Advisory Council under the direct control and supervision of a non-Nabulsi official (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 621-676).
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In Chapter 3 the council is the instrument through which Nabulsi merchants sought protection and commercial advantage in the politics of free trade, and it also served as an arbitrator for commercial disputes, giving local merchants an important edge (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 2167-2330).
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On April 28, 1851 the council received the Sidon governor’s letter on the distribution of four uqqas of cotton seeds sent from Istanbul, and replied five days later that two uqqas had been delivered to peasants in the Jenin area and one each to those in Bani Sa’b and Sh’arawiyya al-Gharbiyya (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 2167-2330).
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The council successfully defended the unsalaried storehouse employees’ traditional measuring practice — a dome on incoming grains, a levelled container on outgoing — obtaining the Sidon governor’s permission to continue “as in the days of old” (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 2331-2389).
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The council’s September 18, 1849 exchange with Adham Pasha over the sale of taxes-in-kind, its September 9, 1852 letter insisting that the tax on cotton seeds be abolished, and outside merchants’ accusations of delay and sabotage in the Halawani wheat and “Escowage” cotton disputes are detailed in Chapter 3 (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 2331-2389).
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The council’s December 28, 1851 report on the Jaba petition presented whole-village Salam contracts for taxes as “the usual practice among people of the villages”; Doumani reads “usual” and “customary” in the council’s correspondence as a consciously arrogated monopoly in the meanings of tradition, used to strengthen its hand with the central authorities (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 3100-3159).
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Both the Jaba and the Asira al-Shamiyya petitions were addressed directly to the governor of Jerusalem, bypassing the council: the peasants “made it clear that they expected no justice from the council and the qa’immaqam of Nablus,” and the council moved quickly to defuse both, freeing Asira’s prisoners once a 120-piaster fine for the injured cavalryman’s gear was paid (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 3280-3339, lines 3340-3372).
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All the council’s members were engaged in soap manufacturing and relied on cheap olive oil, so, Doumani argues, its vagueness about the Jaba contract’s terms reflected an unwillingness to question moneylending’s legitimacy, whatever the members’ internal political differences (Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, lines 3100-3159).
Related pages
Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, Tanzimat, Jabal Nablus, Nablus, Politics of monopoly