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Sharī‘a Court Registers and Land Tenure around Nineteenth-Century Damascus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2016
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The importance of sharī‘a law-court registers as sources for the social and economic history of Syria/Bilād al-Shām in the Ottoman period has been recognized for some time. A number of studies based on them have appeared, but the registers are so vast that scholars have in fact barely begun to investigate them. The Historical Documents Center (Markaz al-Wathā’iq al-Tārīkhīya) in Damascus holds over one thousand volumes. Additional originals exist in Israel/Palestine and a large collection of Syrian and Palestinian registers is available on microfilm at the University of Jordan (Amman). Although it is difficult to use the Lebanese registers nowadays (and those of Sidon may have been destroyed) a volume of the Tripoli registers from the seventeenth century has been published in facsimile by the Lebanese University. Dearth of material, therefore, is not a problem. One obstacle facing researchers, however, is unfamiliarity with the manner in which the registers present information. Persons whose native tongue is not Arabic have the additional problem of language to overcome. Therefore, an orientation to the registers is helpful, and this article is written with that purpose in mind.
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- Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America 1987
References
1 Mandaville, Jon E., “The Ottoman Court Records of Syria and Jordan,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 86 (1966) 311–319CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rafeq, Abdul-Karim, “The Law-Court Registers and Their Importance for a Socio-Economic and Urban Study of Ottoman Syria,” in L’Espace social de ¡a ville arabe, ed. Chevallier, Dominique (Maisonneuve et Larose, Paris 1979) 51–58.Google Scholar
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7 Cf. Cuno, Kenneth M., “Egypt’s Wealthy Peasantry, 1740–1820: A Study of the Region of al-Manṣūra,” in Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East, ed. Khalidi, Tarif (American University of Beirut, Beirut 1984) 303–332Google Scholar, passim; and Tucker, Judith E., Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 1985) 52, 63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 For example, see Pascual, Jean-Paul, “The Janissaries and the Damascus Countryside at the Beginning of the Seventeenth Century according to the Archives of the City’s Military Tribunal,” in Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East, pp. 357–369Google Scholar; and Rafeq, Abdul-Karim, “Land Tenure Problems and their Social Impact on Syria around the Middle of the Nineteenth Century,” in ibid., pp. 371—396.Google Scholar
9 Most of the secondary sources and reference works cited are available in Damascus at the Institut Français de Damas, affiliated with the University of Paris.
10 Inheritance records are potentially useful, but because of time constraints they were not surveyed. In general, they itemize the estate of a deceased person, subtract from it debts which he/she owed, and distribute the remainder among heirs. See Rafeq, Abdul-Karim, “Maẓāhir sukkānīya min Dimashq fīl-’ahd al-’uthmāmī,” Dirāsāt Tārīkhīya 15–16 (1984) 5–28.Google Scholar
11 A representative sales deed is Law Court Registers of Damascus (LCRD) vol. 353, p. 30, case 63, 25 Jumāda II 1254/15 September 1838.
12 The phrase irth shar’ī is used to indicate that a property was legally inherited. Occasionally other phrases are used, reflecting legal procedures used to determine inheritance shares, for example, iqtisām shar’ī, ikhtiṣās shar’ī.
13 The phrase shirā’ shar’ī indicates purchase. Sales documents issued by the courts were known as (sing.) ḥijjat (or ṣakk) al-tabāyu’.
14 In the registers’ phrase, bi-muqtaḍā insha’ihi wa-gharsihi. E.g., LCRD vol. 504, p. 149, case 291, 30 Rabī‘ I 1276/27 October 1859.
15 E.g., LCRD vol. 504, p. 205, case 400, 9 Rajab 1276/1 February 1860. This case is also an example of reckoning shares in minute fractions of qirīrāṭs. The buyer had inherited a share of the property, and after making the purchase his share totaled “five qīrāṭs plus three-fifths plus one-tenth plus one-twentieth of a qīrāṭ.” The qīrāṭ was a fraction of the property, not a standard unit of measure equalling so many square meters. Standard land measurements generally are not used in the registers, making it impossible to determine the price of a property per faddān or per qaṣaba.
16 “The property of [so-and-so],” expressed as bi-yad [fulān].
17 Usually called qirsh (ghirsh) fiḍḍa. ṣaḥīḥ ṣāgh mīrīya, roughly, “soundly minted official silver piasters.” The piaster was itself subdivided into 40 pārahs.
18 The other Ottoman units are the līrā (Turkish Pound) and riyāl, commonly known as the majīdīya al-abyaḍ (“white” or silver majīdī) to distinguish it from the gold majīdīya, a synonym for līrā. (Majīdīya refers to Sultan ‘Abd al-Majīd, during whose reign in 1844 the currency assumed its final nineteenth-century form.) Their equivalent in piasters varied depending on date and place, since each Syrian city had its own market exchange rates. The majīdīya was usually worth between 20 and 25 piasters in Damascus, and the līrā 120 to 130 piasters. Exchange rates between Ottoman and European monies also varied. Information on exchange rates in any particular year can be found in the law-court registers, local histories, and European trade reports. Sometimes due to lack of specific information one must project exchange rates from one year onto the data of another, an unsatisfactory method at best.
19 Muḥammad Kurd ‘Alī, Khiṭaṭ al-Shām, 6 vols. (Al-Maṭba’a al-Ḥadītha, Damascus 1925–28; reprint ed., Maṭba’at al-Nūrī, Damascus 1983) 5:105.
20 In the language of the registers: maqbūḍ ḍhālik bi-yad al-bāyi’ [i.e., bā’i‘] min al-mushtarī al-qabḍ al-shar’ī. … A number of other stock formulae may follow, to establish that neighbors’ rights of preemption have not been violated, or that minors’ interests have been protected, or to grant wakīls their customary ten-piaster commission. These contain no information particular to the case at hand. Sometimes, however, a clause on tax liability also appears, e.g., LCRD vol. 597, pp. 149–151, case 120, 2 Jumāda I 1286/10 August 1869.
21 Chaoui, Joseph, Le régime foncier en Syrie (Paul Roubaud, Aix-en-Provence 1928) 111–112Google Scholar; al-Dīn Sawār, Muḥammad Waḥīd, Sharḥ al-qānūn al-madanī: al-ḥuqūq al-’aynīya. al-taba’īya (Maṭba’at Riyāḍ, Damascus 1981–82) 19Google Scholar; Latron, André, La vie rurale en Syrie et au Liban: Etude d’économie sociale (Institut Français de Damas, Beirut 1936) 100–101.Google Scholar
22 For a bay’ wafā’ case see, e.g., LCRD vol. 703, p. 147, case 317, 8 Rabī’ I 1296/2 March 1879.
23 In some cases, ista’jar is paired with isiaḥkar (“to monopolize”), indicating that the lessee is permitted to acquire ownersliip of buildings or plantations on the rented property, a point discussed further below. See Chaoui, , Régime foncier, pp. 67–68.Google Scholar
24 A representative rental deed is LCRD vol. 862, case 112, 20 Dhū’l-Qa’da 1306/18 July 1889.
25 The standard rendering is ijāra shar’īya lāzima li’l-zirā’a al-shatawīya wa’l-ṣayfīya wa’l-mughill wa’l-istighlāl wa’l-intifā’ bi-dhālik ‘alā al-’āda.
26 LCRD vol. 506, pp. 75–77, case 59, 12 Rabī’ 11276/9 October 1859, an unusually detailed idhn clause which also defines tax obligations.
27 Chaoui, , Régime foncier, p. 69.Google Scholar
28 LCRD vol. 312, pp. 33–34, case 102, 3 Rabī’ I 1244/13 September 1828; vol. 312, p. 76, case 221, 11 Jumādā I 1244/19 November 1828; vol. 411, pp. 120–122, case 136, 9 Muharram 1265/5 December 1848; vol. 411, pp. 199–200, case 222, 6 Ṣafar 1265/1 January 1849; vol. 862, case 54, 17 Muharram 1306/23 September 1888.
29 See, e.g., LCRD vol. 312, p. 76, case 221, 11 Juma I 1244/19 November 1828.
30 E.g., LCRD vol. 312, p. 43, case 128, 17 Rabī’ I 1244/27 September 1828 (ownership dispute); LCRD vol. 312, p. 288, case 289, 1 Rajab 1244/7 January 1829 (village boundary dispute).
31 E.g., LCRD vol. 312, p. 101, case 287, 20 Shawwāl 1244/25 April 1829; vol. 312, pp. 102–103, case 291, 27 Rabī’ I 1244/7 October 1828.
32 The importance of waqf in the Damascus region is underscored in various court cases where entire villages are described as waqf property, e.g., the Marj village of al-Manābiz in LCRD vol. 311, p. 238, case 227, 29 Rabī’ II 1243/20 October 1827. See also ‘Alī, Muhammad Kurd, Ghūṭat Dimashq (Maṭba’at al-Taraqqī, Damascus 1949; reprint ed., Dar al-Fikr, Damascus 1984) 102–103Google Scholar; Pascual, Jean-Paul, Damas à la fin du XVIe siècle d’après trois actes de waqf ottomans (Institut Français de Damas, Damascus 1983) 44–45, note 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
33 LCRD vol. 348, pp. 120–122, case 158, 12 Dhū’l-Qa’da 1254/27 January 1839; vol. 348, pp. 145–147, case 189, 1 Rabī’ I 1255/15 May 1839.
34 The courts and alternatives to them are described in Bowring, John, Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria (William Clowes … Sons, London 1840; reprinted., Arno Press, New York 1973) 101–103.Google Scholar
35 All military officers are called aghā, whether they are local or imperial. Higherranking officers are usually identified by rank as well. Civil officials (governors, mutasalims, etc.) are identified by their office; the bulk of them are non-Damascene imperial appointees. The ‘ulamā, in contrast, are mostly Damascenes, and identified as ‘ulamā, fuḍalā’ and mudarrisīn. Descendants of the Prophet were ashrāf and sādāt, although the singular of sādāt, sayyid, was increasingly applied to respectable gentlemen generally (similar to “mister”) in the second half of the century. Women of the elite were referred to as qādin, khānim and maṣūna. A helpful reference is Tassy, M. Garcin de, Mémoire sur les noms propres et les titres musulmans, 2nd ed. (Maisonneuve, Paris 1878)Google Scholar. Many of the elite’s titles are rendered in Ottoman Turkish, making an appropriate dictionary useful, e.g., Redhouse, James W., A Turkish and English Lexicon Shewing in English the Significations of the Turkish Terms (A. H. Boyajian, Constantinople 1890; reprint ed., Çagri Yayinlari, Istanbul 1978).Google Scholar
36 Prior to the 1850s they are identified as dhimmīs; from the 1850s on they are identified as musawī, ‘isawī, etc.
37 In the first part of the century some bore no title at all, although by the 1850s nearly all townsmen were called sayyid. Another common title was ḥājj, which is not very informative. Women, (including peasant women) were referred to as (sing.) ḥurma.
38 In particular, relevant entries in Barthélémy, A., Dictionnaire arabe-français. Dialectes de Syrie: Alep, Damas, Liban, Jérusalem (Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, Paris 1935—1954)Google Scholar; and al-Qāsimī, Muḥammad Sa’īdet al., Qāmūs al-ṣinā’āt al-shāmīya, 2 vols. (Mouton, Paris 1960).Google Scholar
39 ‘Alī, Kurd, Khiḍaḍ, 510.Google Scholar
40 Thoumin, R., “Notes sur l’aménagement et la distribution des eaux à Damas et dans sa Ghouta,” Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales 4 (1934) 1–26Google Scholar; Tresse, René, “L’irrigation dans la Ghouta de Damas,” Revue des Etudes Islamiques 3 (1929) 461–574.Google Scholar
41 Waqf land is clearly identified in the registers and is easy to distinguish from the other two categories. Distinguishing milk from mīrī land is more difficult. Rafeq has suggested the equation of mazra’as and sometimes ḥānūts with çiftliks, that is, mīrī land leased to individuals (“Land Tenure Problems,” pp. 374, 376). The present writer believes that properties not identified as waqf but whose mashadd maska is transferred may also be mīrī, since the right of usufruct came automatically with ownership of milk land and would therefore not have been sold or transferred apart from it. Identifying milk land is possible by paying close attention to the wording of the sales deeds to see whether the land itself is being sold, e.g., LCRD vol. 312, p. 87, case 250, 14 Jumāda I 1244/22 November 1828.
42 Chaoui, , Régime foncier, p. 67.Google Scholar
43 In the nineteenth century, iḥtirām wa-baqā’ appeared in the idhn clauses of waqf rental deeds to signal cession of full ownership rights to the lessee of new plantations or buildings he might put on the property, e.g., LCRD vol. 614, pp. 77–78, case 138, 20 Jumādā II 1286/27 September 1869. In an earlier period, rights of iḥtirā;m wa-baqā’ were interpreted more narrowly; see Pascual, , Damas à la fin du XVIe siècle, pp. 68–69, note 4.Google Scholar
44 Seikaly, Samir M., “Land Tenure in Seventeenth Century Palestine: The Evidence from al-Fatāwā al-Khairiyya,” in Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East, ed. Khalidi, Tarif (American University of Beirut, Beirut 1984) 404Google Scholar; Kurd ‘Alī, Khiḍaḍ, 5:109. Ḥaqq al-qarār was also called kirdār; see the idhn clause in LCRD vol. 411, pp. 303–304, case 328, 21 Shawwãl 1264/20 September 1848.
45 See Raymond, André, Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle (Institut Français de Damas, Damascus 1973–74) 271Google Scholar. Kidik, khilū; and qamīṣ have been equated with the qīma of agricultural properties, in that they represent all the movable and immovable goods on a property or in a commercial establishment: Kurd ‘Alī, Khiḍaḍ, 5:110.
46 These dates are derived from references to the ḍāpū system found in the registers.
47 LCRD vol. 863, cases 217–18, 10 Muḥarram 1306/16 September 1888.