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Women in 17th-Century Jerusalem: Western and Indigenous Perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Dror Ze'evi
Dror Ze'evi
Affiliation:
Department of History and Middle East Studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel
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Extract

In writing the history of the Middle East there is one aspect that deserves special attention: the influence of the choice of source material on the writer's point of view. Does the choice of different types of sources—in our case Western as opposed to local sources—really dictate an altogether different view of the matter under discussion? Are all sources of equal value, or should we accord each of them a different place on the scale? In this article an attempt will be made to address this question through an examination of one particular topic—the history of women in 17th-century Jerusalem.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , May 1995 , pp. 157 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

NOTES

Author's note: An earlier version of this essay was originally part of my dissertation supervised by Professor Ehud Toledano, to whom I am deeply indebted. I am grateful to Iris Agmon, Amnon Cohen, Minna Rozen, Beth Baron, and Nimrod Hurvitz for their valuable comments and insights. I also thank the anonymous referees for their useful comments on the first draft.

1 This short description of Jerusalem in the 17th century is based on my Ph.D. dissertation entitled “An Ottoman Century: The District of Jerusalem in the Seventeenth Century,” Tel-Aviv University, 1991Google Scholar.

2 Crouch, Nathaniel, Two Journeys to Jerusalem (London, 1699), 74–75Google Scholar. Such views persisted well into the 19th and 20th centuries.

3 Crouch, Nathaniel, Two Journeys to Jerusalem (London, 1699), 74–75Google Scholar. Such views persisted well into the 19th and 20th centuries.

4 Roger, Eugène, La Terre Sainte, ou Description très particulier de la Terre de promission (Paris, 1664), 296–308Google Scholar. The views of Roger described in the next few paragraphs are all summed up in these pages. For Western physicians treating Muslim women, see also Hayes, L., Courmenin, Baron de, Voyage de Levant, fait par le commendement du Roi en l'année 1621 (Paris, 1629), 163Google Scholar.

5 d'Arvieux, Laurent, Voyage dans la Palestine (Amsterdam, 1718)Google Scholar. Apart from Roger, d'Arvieux is perhaps the most notable traveler to have written about women in this period, although his emphasis is on bedouin women of the Turabay family.

6 Morison, Antoine, Relation historique d'un voyage nouvellement fait au Mont de Sinai et de Jerusalem (Paris, 1705)Google Scholar. See also Doubdan, Jean, Le Voyage de la Terre Sainte (Paris, 1666)Google Scholar. French travelers seem to have attained the highest degree of cross-cultural understanding and a keen interest in other societies that is evidently lacking in most other travel accounts of the period. English travelers usually dismiss local Muslim and even Christian society with a few sentences, and do their best to emulate their compatriots' descriptions of holy Christian monuments. Italian travelers, very prominent in the Mamluk period, left a much smaller impact on 17th- and 18th-century literature.

7 Roger, , Terre Sainte, 297Google Scholar, “Soit que le mari luy agree ou non, il faut qu'elle y consente.”

8 D'Arvieux, , Voyage dans la Palestine, 221Google Scholar, “Comme les Arabes n'ont aucune communication avec les femmes ni avec les filles d'autrui, ils ne sauroient être amoureux que par imagination, ou sur le rapport qu'on leur en fait. Ils ne leur approchent point, et ne leur voient en public que par hazard et un peut de loin.”

9 See also d'Arvieux, , Voyage dans la Palestine, 221Google Scholar; Morison, , Relation historique, 710Google Scholar.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 This term does not exist in Palestinian Arabic today. Roger may have got it wrong. Perhaps the word used was kitāb, or maktūb, or another derivation of the root k*t*b.

13 See also d'Arvieux, , Voyage dans la Palestine, 222Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., 225–26.

15 D'Arvieux, , Voyage dans la Palestine, 218Google Scholar.

16 Roger, , Terre Sainte, 299Google Scholar.

17 See also d'Arvieux, , Voyage dans la Palestine, 214Google Scholar.

18 Jerusalem sijill (JSijill) vol. 80, 1599–1600 (1008–9 A.H.); vol. 85, 1603–4 (1012–13 A.H.); vol. 98, 1615–16 (1024–25 A.H.); vol. 107, 1622–23 (1032–33 A.H.); vol. 125, 1635–36 (1045 A.H.); vol. 146, 1650–51 (1061–62 A.H.); vol. 153, 1655–60(1067–70 A.H.); vol. 168, 1667–68 (1078–79 A.H.); vol. 169, 1669–70(1079–81 A.H.); vol. 177, 1674–75 (1085–86 A.H.); vol. 180, 1677–78 (1088–89 A.H.); vol. 183, 1680 (1091 A.H.); vol. 191, 1688–89 (1100 A.H.); vol. 201, 1701–4 (1113–15 A.H.).

19 Nablus sijill (NSijill) vol. 1, 1655–58 (1066–68 A.H.).

20 al-Ramlī, Khayr al-Dīn, Al-Fatāwā al-Khayriyya (Cairo: Bulaq, 1882)Google Scholar.

21 See, for example, Doumani, Beshara, “Palestinian Islamic Court Records: A Source for Socioeconomic History,” Middle Eastern Studies Association Bulletin 19 (1985): 155–72;CrossRefGoogle ScholarReilly, James, “Sharīʿa Court Registers and Land Tenure Around Nineteenth-Century Damascus,” Middle Eastern Studies Association Bulletin 21 (1987): 164–66Google Scholar.

22 About questions of privacy in a neighboring Muslim society, see Marcus, Abraham, “Privacy in Eighteenth Century Aleppo: The Limits of Cultural Ideals,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 18 (1986): 165–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 The Khasikiyya waqf was a large endowment made by Khaseki Hürrem Sultan (Roxellana), wife of Sultan Süleiman the Magnificent in 1552, to build and provide for a mosque-madrasa-imaret complex in Jerusalem. Many villages, including Bayt Iksa, paid their taxes directly to the waqf. Waqf officials had some responsibility for maintaining law and order inside the village. See Peri, Oded, “The Waqf as an Instrument to Increase and Consolidate Political Power: The Case of the Khasseki Sultan Waqf in Late-Eighteenth-Century Jerusalem,” in Studies in Islamic Society, Contributions in Memory of Gabriel Baer, ed. Warburg, G. R. and Gilbar, G. (Haifa: 1984), 47–62Google Scholar.

24 Çokdar (Çuhadar), carrier of the cloth, an important official in the kapi kullari; see Pakahn, M., Osmanli Tarih deyimleri ve terimleri (Istanbul, 1946), 1:384Google Scholar. The muḥḍir was an officer responsible for bringing people to court.

25 JSijill 191:116 (10 Rajab 1100/30 April 1689). For other instances of accidents involving women, see ibid., 191:67 (3 Jumada al-Akhira 1100/25 March 1689); ibid., 183:227 (awasit Rajab 1091/mid-August 1680); NSijill 1:83, no. 2 (2 Dhu al-Hijja 1066/21 September 1656).

26 Bashsha (beççe) is a Persian word meaning “swallow chick.” This is the title given to a member of the kapi kullari, usually of the acemi oğlan (external service); see Pakahn, , Osmanli Tarih, 1:184Google Scholar; subashi (subaşt) is an officer in charge of public order.

27 JSijill, 183:62 (Safar 1091/March 1680).

28 Timars were estates with a small to average annual yield, given by the sultan to his servants, usually sipahi cavalry officers. In return, they had to arm and equip themselves and several other retainers and fulfill their duties as soldiers.

29 JSijill, 177:172 (11 Shaʿban 1100/31 May 1689); Khayr al-Dīn al-Ramlī, al-Fatāwa al-Khayrīyya 1:19–21.

30 Christians and Jews, recognized by the Ottomans as autonomous millets, had the right to maintain their own legal systems. In many cases, however, they preferred to present their case at the shariʿa court. Sometimes the reasons had to do with the qadi's greater authority, sometimes (as in this case, probably) with laws that were better disposed toward the plaintiff.

31 Bi-allāh al-ʿaẓīm al-qādir al-qāhir alladhī anzala al-injīl ʿalā ʿĪsā bin Maryam.

32 NSijill, 1:55 (14 Shaʿban 1066/31 May 1689).

33 Ramiī, al-Fatāwā al-Khayrīyya, 1:19–20. JSijill, 107:260, no. 1149 (Rabiʿ Awwal 1033/January 1624); ibid., 177:46 (6 Dhu al-Qaʿda 1085/31 January 1675); ibid., 183:137 (Jumada al-Ula 1091/June 1680); ibid., 201:325 (20 Jumada al-Ula 1114/12 October 1702); NSijill, 1:246; and others. For the use of wakīl at the time in other parts of the empire, see Jennings, R. C., “The Office of Vekil (Wakil) in 17th Century Ottoman Sharia Courts,” Studia Islamica 42 (1979): 147–68Google Scholar.

34 Cf. Layish, Aharon, Women and Islamic Law in a Non-Muslim State (Jerusalem, 1975), 163–72Google Scholar.

35 Ramlī, , al-Fatāwā al-Khayrīyya, 1:28, 29Google Scholar.

36 See, for example, JSijill, 125:131 (awāʾil Ramadan 1045/February 1636). At the request of a wife, the qadi adds a stipulation to the marriage agreement whereby the husband vows that if he beats his wife again, she would automatically be allowed to divorce him.

37 Husband's impotence as cause for divorce: JSijill, 107:790 (Safar 1033/December 1623); husband's absence: 107:260 (Rabiʿ Awwal 1033/January 1624); NSijill 1:75, 246; JSijill, 183:56 (Safar 1091/March 1680); ibid., 201:317 (20 Jumada al-Ula 1114/12 October 1702); mistreatment and abuse: Ibid., 125:131 (Ramadan 1045/February 1636); renunciation of dower: NSijill, 1:137; JSijill, 177:68 (15 Dhu al-Hijja 1085/12 March 1675); ibid., 177:81 (awāʾil Muharram 1086/April 1675). On preconditions for marriage, including “parity of status,” see Nasir, Jamal J., The Islamic Law of Personal Status (London, 1986), 54Google Scholar. On dissolution of marriage in the various schools of law, see Hodkinson, Keith, Muslim Family Law: A Sourcebook (London, 1984), 224Google Scholar; Nasir, , The Islamic Law, 114Google Scholar. According to Nasir, “the Hanafis maintain that dissolution of marriage is the exclusive right of the husband, with the court having to intervene only in the event of a serious genital defect such as impotence or castration.”

38 Zaʿim, holder of a zeamet, a large timar estate.

39 The term used is min ʿişmatihi (lit., from his protection or custody).

40 JSijill, 191:43 (Awasit Jumada al-Ula 1100/March 1689).

41 Coulson, N., Succession in the Muslim Family (Cambridge, 1971), 40–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Tucker, Judith, Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), 43–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 See, for example, JSijill, 107:444, no. 9 (Dhu al-Hijja 1032/October 1623).

44 Women heirs are most often mentioned when selling their property; See JSijill, 107:284, 318, 324 (5 Rabiʿ al-Thani 1033/26 January 1624); ibid., 125:65 (Rajab 1045/December 1635–January 1636); ibid., 177:85 (10 Muharram 1086/6 April 1675); ibid., 177:97 (Muharram 1086/April 1675); ibid., 183:183 (Jumada al-Ula 1091/June 1680); ibid., 201:380 (Awakhir Jumada al-Akhira 1114/mid-November 1702).

45 On moneylending, see JSijill, 183:236 (Awakhir Rajab 1091/September 1680); a Jewish woman moneylender, ibid., 191:76 (Awaʾil Jumada al-Ula 1100/February 1689).

46 See, for example, NSijill, 1:25 (12 Jumada al-Ula 1066/9 March 1656).

47 Faroqhi, Suraiya, Men of Modest Substance: House Owners and House Property in Seventeenth-Century Ankara and Kayseri (Cambridge, 1987), 159–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On women buying property in Jerusalem, see JSijill, 107:no. 471 (21 Muharram 1033/14 November 1623); ibid., 107:no. 668 (Safar 1033/November-December 1623); Ibid., 107:310, no. 1369 (Rabiʿ al-Thani 1033/January–February 1624); ibid., 125:15, no. 71 (Jumada al-Ula 1045/October–November 1635); ibid., 125:170, no. 746 (Shawwal 1045/March–April 1636); ibid., 168:57 (20 Ramadan 1078/5 March 1668); ibid., 168:62, 92 (Rajab 1078/December 1667–January 1668); NSijill, 1:25, no. 2, (12 Jumada al-Ula 1066/9 March 1656). This situation continued in 18th-century Aleppo: Marcus, Abraham, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity (New York, 1989), 54Google Scholar. According to Marcus, 40 percent of sellers and buyers of houses in Aleppo were women(!).

48 This is part of the formula used in the shariʿa court to ascertain that all aspects of private property were examined by the court and that the property can be sold by the person offering it for sale (mā huwa lahā, wa-jārī fī mulkihā, wa-taḥt taşarrufihā, wa-yaduhā wāḍiʿa ʿalā dhālika).

49 For purposes of transactions or inheritance, property was divided in most cases into twenty-four parts, called qīrāṭ. Parts smaller than one qīrāṭ were usually counted as fractions of a qīrāṭ. One could inherit, for instance, five and one-third qīrāṭs of a house or orchard.

50 JSijill, 177:90 (14 Muharram 1086/10 April 1675).

51 A similar situation existed in 18th-century Aleppo; see Marcus, , Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, 53Google Scholar.

52 JSijill, 177:47 (20 Dhu al-Qaʿda 1085/15 February 1675); Ibid., 177:91 (15 Muharram 1086/11 April 1676).

53 Çelebi, Evliya, Seyahatname (Istanbul, 1935), 9:497Google Scholar; Jennings, R. C., “Women in Early-Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Judicial Records: The Sharia Court of Anatolian Kaiseri,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 18 (1975): 53–114Google Scholar; Gerber, Haim, “Social and Economic Position of Women in an Ottoman City, Bursa, 1600–1700,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 12 (1980): 231–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Dominick LaCapra, “Rethinking Intellectual History and Reading Texts,” in idem, Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (Ithaca, N.Y., 1983), 23–71Google Scholar.

55 Chartier, Roger, “Texts, Printing, Reading,” in The New Cultural History, ed. Hunt, Lynn (Berkeley, 1989), 154–75Google Scholar.

56 False impressions were by no means limited to the West. Muslim travelers visiting the West had their own stereotypes and misconceptions. The liberal attitude toward women in the West was interpreted as shocking sexual behavior; see Lewis, Bernard, The Muslim Discovery of Europe (New York, 1982), 288Google Scholar.

57 On the other hand, as Beth Baron has shown in her research on marriage in Egypt, another Western influence, the idea of romance, pulled in the opposite direction, toward greater access to divorce; see Baron, Beth, “The Making and Breaking of Marital Bonds in Modern Egypt,” in Women in Middle Eastern History, ed. Keddie, N. and Baron, B. (New Haven, Conn.: 1991), 284–87Google Scholar.