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Women and Waqf: Toward a Reconsideration of Women's Place in the Mamluk Household

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Mary Ann Fay
Mary Ann Fay
Affiliation:
Associate Professor in the Department of History, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Va. 24450, U.S.A.
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Extract

ʿUthman Katkhuda, Ibrahim Katkhuda, ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Katkhuda, ʿAli Bey al-Kabir, Muhammad Bey Abu Dhahab, Ibrahim Bey, and Murad Bey will be familiar to students and scholars of Ottoman Egypt as the names of men who were in the forefront of the Mamluk resurgence and the leaders of the bayt, the Qazdughli, that became the dominant household from the mid-18th century to the French invasion of 1798. Less familiar—indeed, almost unknown—are the names of women such as Shawikar Qadin, the favorite concubine of ʿUthman Katkhuda and the wife and widow of three powerful Qazdughli amirs, including Ibrahim Katkhuda, the architect of Qazdughli dominance; Amnatullah al-Bayda, widow of ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Katkhuda; and Nafisa al-Bayda, the beautiful, intelligent, and literate widow of ʿAli Bey al-Kabir and wife of Murad Bey, who was also admired by the French during their occupation of the country.

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Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , February 1997 , pp. 33 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

NOTES

Author's note: Research for this study was conducted on a Fulbright-Hays research grant in Cairo in 1990–91. I thank for their assistance the staff of the Bi-National Fulbright Commission in Egypt and particularly the director, Ann Radwan; the director of the daftarkhāna at the Ministry of Awqaf, Muhammad Husam al-Din Kinj ʾUthman; and John Willoughby for his invaluable comments and advice.

1 Shaw, Stanford, The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Modern Egypt 1517–1798 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

2 Crecelius, Daniel has devoted some attention to the female elite of the 18th century. See in particular Chapter 4, “Transformation of the Qazdughli Bayt into an Autonomous Regime,” in The Roots of Modern Egypt (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1981)Google Scholar. See also Staffa, Susan Jane, “Dimensions of Women's Power in Historic Cairo,” in Islamic and Middle Eastern Societies: A Festschrift in Honor of Professor Wadie Jwaideh, ed. Olson, Robert (Brattleboro, Vt.: Amana Books, 1987)Google Scholar.

3 Crecelius, , The Roots of Modern Egypt, 114.Google Scholar

4 An emerging debate among historians of Ottoman Egypt is whether the political system and household of the grandees should be defined as Mamluk or neo-Mamluk. The challenge to the designation of these households as neo-Mamluk has been made by , Jane Hathawayin “Years of Ocak Power: The Rise of the Qazdaghli Household and the Transformation of Egypt's Military Society, 1670–1750” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1992)Google Scholar, and in a recent article, “The Military Household in Ottoman Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 27 (1995): 39–52.Google Scholar Among those arguing for the neo-Mamluk nature of the politics and households of the 18th century are Gabriel Piterberg and Michael Winter. See Piterberg's, “The Formation of an Ottoman Egyptian Elite in the 18th Century,“ International Journal of Middle East Studies 22 (1990): 275–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Winter's, Egyptian Society under Ottoman Rule 1517–1798 (London and New York: Routledge, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My position is closer to Piterberg's and Winter's than Hathaway's. See Fay, Mary Ann, “Women and Households: Gender, Power and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Egypt” (Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1993)Google Scholar.

5 A recent exception is Hathaway's, “Marriage Alliances among the Military Households of Ottoman Egypt,” Annales Islamologiques 29 (1995)Google Scholar.

6 Davis, Fanny, The Ottoman Lady, A Social History from 1718 to 1918 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Bates, Ulku, “Women as Patrons of Architecture in Turkey,” in Women in the Muslim World, ed. Beck, Lois and Keddie, Nikki (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 245–60Google Scholar; Baer, Gabriel, “Women and Waqf: An Analysis of the Istanbul Taḥrīr of 1546,” Asian and African Studies 17 (1983): 9–28Google Scholar; Amīn, Muḥammad Muḥammad, Fahrasat Wathāʾiq al-Qāhira (Cairo: Institut Français d'Archèologie du Caire, 1981)Google Scholar; and ʿAfīfī, Muḥammad, Al-Awqāf wa al-Ḥayāt al-Iqtiṣādiyya fi Miṣr fī al-ʿAṣr al-ʿUthmānī (Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization, 1991)Google Scholar.

7 For a good general survey of the waqf institution during the Ottoman period, see Barnes, John Robert, An Introduction to Religious Foundations in the Ottoman Empire (London: E. J. Brill, 1986)Google Scholar. Also see Gerber, Haim, “The Waqf Institution in Early Ottoman Edirne,” Asian and African Studies 17 (1983): 29–45Google Scholar; and Deguilhem-Schoem, Randi Carolyn, “History of Waqf and Case Studies from Damascus in Late Ottoman and French Mandatory Times” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1986)Google Scholar. On various aspects of the waqf, see the following by Peri, Oded: “The Waqf as an Instrument to Increase and Consolidate Political Power: The Case of Khasseki Sultan Waqf in Late Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Jerusalem,” Asian and African Studies 17 (1983): 47–62Google Scholar; “Waqf and Ottoman Welfare Policy: The Poor Kitchen of Hasseki Sultan in Eighteenth-Century Jerusalem,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 35 (1992): 167–86Google Scholar. For case studies, see Layish, Aharon, “The Maliki Family Waqf According to Wills and Waqfiyyāt” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 46 (1983): 1–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and al-Malik, Butrus ʿAbd and Crecelius, Daniel, “A Late Eighteenth-Century Egyptian Waqf Endowed by a Sister of the Mamluk Shaykh al-Eyey Muḥammad Bey Abou al-Dhahab,” Arab Historical Review for Ottoman Studies 1–2 (1990): 9–14Google Scholar.

8 Crecelius, has made this point in his article “The Incidence of Waqf Cases in Three Cairo Courts,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 29 (1986): 176–89Google Scholar.

9 See Winter, , Egyptian Society, 50Google Scholar, for a discussion of Mamluk political culture and its factionalism. Also see the essay by Raymond, André, “Le Caire sous les Ottomans (1517–1798)” in Palais et Maisons du Caire, Volume II, Époque Ottomane (XVI-XVIIIe siècles) ed. Maury, Bernard et al. (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1983), 15–89Google Scholar.

10 For a useful discussion of the functioning of the waqf system in Ottoman Cairo, see the chapter “Structures et Institutions” in Hanna's, NellyHabiter au Caire; La maison moyenne et ses habitants aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Cairo: Institut Francais D'Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 1991), 5–36Google Scholar.

11 Baer, , “Women and Waqf,” 27Google Scholar.

12 Endowed property did circulate among the elite through the mechanism of legal exchange (istibdāl), but few waqfs seem to have been dismantled outright in the 18th century. One example of a waqf violated within months of the donor's death is that of Muhammad Bey Abu Dhahab, whose waqfiyya has been translated and analyzed by Crecelius. In his analysis of the waqfiyya, Crecelius notes that Muhammad Bey's successors, Ibrahim and Murad, apportioned between themselves the revenues of a district endowed by Muhammad Bey, and that the functions of the collegiate mosque that Muhammad Bey founded were suspended within one year of his death. See “The Waqfiyah of Muḥammad Bey Abū al-Dhahab,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt XV (1978): 83–105Google Scholar, and “The Waqfiyah of Muḥammad Bey Abū al-Dhahab,” XVI (1971): 125–46Google Scholar.

13 Crecelius, , “Incidence of Waqf Cases,” 176–89Google Scholar.

14 These figures include the number of waqfs established by women individually or with other women, not those established with husbands or male relatives.

15 This is according to Muhammad Husam al-Din Kinj ʿUthman, the director of the archives section (daftarkhāna) of the Ministry of Awqaf.

16 In 1996, when this article was being written, the archives of the Shahr al-Aqari were being moved to the Dar al-Wathaʾiq al-Qawmiyya.

17 See Gerber, , ”The Waqf Institution,” 37Google Scholar.

18 Baer, , ”Women and Waqf” 10Google Scholar.

19 Waqf No. 2239, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo. The enterprise is described as Makān muʿadd li-tajhīz amwāt al-muslimīn.

20 Wehr, Hans, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, ed. Cowan, J. Milton (Beirut: Librarie du Liban, 1980), 847Google Scholar. Al-Musṭalaḥāt al-Miʿmāriyya fī al-Wathāʾiq al-Mamlūkiyya (Architectural Terms in Mamluk Documents), ed. Amin, Muhammad M. and Ibrahim, Laila A. (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1990), 115Google Scholar, makān is defined as “place”; this source also says that ”the term is used in the documents to mean any building or unit of a building except a mosque, a madrasa (Qurʾanic school) or palace.” Although the terms were compiled from documents of the classical Mamluk period (1250–1517), they are relevant to the 18th century because the Mamluk style of architecture, particularly domestic architecture, continued to dominate building styles until the Muhammad ʿAli period.

21 Waqf No. 190, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

22 The waqfs that use the word manzil are numbers 3155 and 758Google Scholar; the waqfs that use the word dār are numbers 2772, 746Google Scholar, and 784. Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

23 Waqf No. 2700, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

24 Waqf No. 3131, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

25 Raymond, André, Artisans et Commerçants au Caire (Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1974), 1:409Google Scholar.

26 Baer, , “Women and Waqf,” 27Google Scholar.

27 Waqf No. 509, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo. The ministry's index gives four different numbers for this waqf—509, 510, 513, and 514—established between 1790 and 1804. As can be seen from this waqf, one of the most notable features of the waqfs of the period is the endowment of a portion of property, which could legally be divided into twenty-four parts, called qirāṭ. In the documents, the donor is recorded as endowing a share, or ḥiṣṣa (pl. ḥiṣaṣ), of a certain piece of property, and then the value of the share is given. Undoubtedly, the parcelization of property is due at least in part to the rules governing Islamic inheritance. After property was divided, each party receiving a share was considered a unique and independent proprietor, so that shares in commercial or agricultural property could be endowed by the owner. Another reason for the division of property, as Nelly Hanna has noted, was the ancient practice of Cairenes' buying property jointly. In her study of middle-class housing during the Ottoman period, Hanna found that only 49 percent of the buyers (1, 486 of 3, 041) bought an entire property. See Hanna, , Habiter au Caire, 28Google Scholar.

28 Raymond has traced the evolution of the term wakāla from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, when wakāla displaced older usages such as funduq and qaysāriyya and was used more frequently than khān, although the two seemed to be identical in meaning. See Raymond, , Artisans et Commerçants, 1:251–54Google Scholar.

29 Raymond, , Artisans et Commerçants, 1:258–59Google Scholar.

30 Raymond gives two figures: the first in contemporary paras, and the second in constant paras. The values reported in this article are contemporary values. The method of converting contemporary values and a chart can be found in Raymond, , Artisans et Commerçants, 1:LIVGoogle Scholar. The example of the silk agent's estate can be found on 2:406.

31 Raymond, , Artisans et Commerçants, 2:406Google Scholar.

32 Waqf Nos. 91 and 2441, respectively, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

33 Waqf No. 2441, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

34 Waqf No. 3131, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

35 Waqf No. 190, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

36 There is a debate in the literature over the definition of the word tābiʿ. David Ayalon has defined the word tābiʿ (pl. atbāʿ) as synonymous with mamlūk. Crecelius has argued that by the mid-18th century, tābiʿ indicated both the personal mamlūks of a master (either slave or manumitted) and the mamlūks of other masters who, after the dissolution of their bayts, attached themselves to him. Hathaway has argued that the term designated members of the entourage of a grandee, slave, manumitted slave and free-born—in other words, a military client in a patron–client relationship. On the basis of the names in waqfiyyāt, I would argue that the most appropriate translation of tābiʿ is “dependent” or “follower.” While I do not believe that the term is synonymous with slave, I also do not think we can assume that it necessarily indicates free-born status, either. For example, Zulaykha Khatun's waqfiyya (No. 190, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo) gives her husband's name as “al-Amir Muḥammad Kashif Ibn ʿAbd Allah Tabiʿal-Marhum al-Amir Muhammad Bey Qaʾ;immaqam Misr al-Mahrusa.” Thus, Muhammad Kashif is a former slave, as “Ibn ʿAbd Allah” is the male equivalent of “Bint ʿAbd Allah, ” and a tābiʿ of Muhammad Bey. What is most likely is that Muhammad Kashif was once the slave or mamlūk of Muhammad Bey, who upon his manumission remained in his former master's entourage or household as a tābiʿ or client.

37 Waqf No. 152, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

38 Waqf No. 208, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

39 Waqf No. 37, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

40 Waqf No. 921, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

41 Waqf No. 2215, Ministry of Awqaf, Cairo.

42 Winter, , Egyptian Society, 50Google Scholar.

43 Holt, P. M., “The Last Phase of the Neo-Mamluk Regime in Egypt,” Groupe de Recherches et d'Études sur le Proche Orient, Égypte au XIXe Siècle (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1982), 144Google Scholar.

44 For a discussion of the use of kinship terminology by the Mamluks during this period, see Ayalon, David, “Studies in Al-Jabarti, Notes on the Transformation of Mamluk Society in Egypt under the Ottomans, ” in Studies on the Mamluks of Egypt (1250–1517) (London: Valorium Reprints, 1977)Google Scholar.

45 al-Jabarti, Abd al-Rahman, ʿAjāʾib al-Athār fī al-Tarājim waʾl-Akhbār (Cairo: Lajnat al-Bayān alʿArabī), 2:57–58Google Scholar, and Merveilles Biographiques et Historiques ou Chroniques du Cheikh Abd-el-Rahman El-Jabarti, reprint of the 1970 edition (Cairo: Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited, 1988), 2:72–73Google Scholar.

46 Al-Damurdāshī's Chronicle of Egypt 1866–1755, translated and annotated by Crecelius, Daniel and Bakr, Abd al-Wahhab (Leiden: E. J. Brill), 319–20Google Scholar.

47 Al-Jabarti, , ʿAjaʾib, 1:114Google Scholar.

48 Wemple, Suzanne F., “Sanctity and Power: The Dual Pursuit of Early Medieval Women, ” in Becoming Visible: Women in European History, 2nd ed., ed. Bridenthal, Renate et al. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987), 131–51Google Scholar; Peirce, Leslie Penn, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Otto man Empire (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; and Maza, Sara, Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Celebres of Prerevolutionary France (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

49 Crecelius has given one example of a woman who successfully refused an offer of marriage: Salun, one of the widows of ʿAli Bey al-Ghazzawi. Ismaʿil Agha, ʿAli Bey's brother, asked Salun to marry him, but she rejected him and entered another harem. She eventually married Ismaʿil, but only after the death of his first wife, Fatima, who was the daughter of Salun's former patron. See Crecelius, , Roots of Modern Egypt, 118Google Scholar.

50 A fuller explanation requires a discussion of the Islamic norms to which the Mamluk elite and 18thcentury Egyptian society adhered—specifically, the segregation of the sexes and the seclusion of women. For an expanded discussion of this topic, see chaps. 3 and 4 of my doctoral dissertation, “Women and Households.”

51 Al-Jabarti, , ʿAjāʾib, 7:382Google Scholar.

52 Peirce, , The Imperial Harem, 149Google Scholar.