Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900Drawing on previously unused primary sources, this book paints an intimate and vivid portrait of Palestinian society on the eve of modernity. Through the voices of merchants, peasants, and Ottoman officials, Beshara Doumani offers a major revision of standard interpretations of Ottoman history by investigating the ways in which urban-rural dynamics in a provincial setting appropriated and gave meaning to the larger forces of Ottoman rule and European economic expansion. He traces the relationship between culture, politics, and economic change by looking at how merchant families constructed trade networks and cultivated political power, and by showing how peasants defined their identity and formulated their notions of justice and political authority. Original and accessible, this study challenges nationalist constructions of history and provides a context for understanding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is also the first comprehensive work on the Nablus region, Palestine's trade, manufacturing, and agricultural heartland, and a bastion of local autonomy. Doumani rediscovers Palestine by writing the inhabitants of this ancient land into history. |
Contents
1 | |
Sources | 9 |
THE MEANINGS OF AUTONOMY | 16 |
Tables | 48 |
FAMILY CULTURE AND TRADE | 54 |
COTTON TEXTILES AND THE POLITICS OF TRADE | 95 |
British cotton imports from Turkey 17251789 | 99 |
Cotton production in the Levant 1837 | 104 |
Commissions for soap in the Bishtawi estate 1857 | 197 |
Account of soap cooked in Nabluss soap factories and of taxes assessed for each individual 18421843 | 213 |
CONCLUSION | 233 |
The Discourses of Modernity | 240 |
Weights and Measures | 247 |
Islamic Court records of Nablus 16551865 | 250 |
Soap factories in Nablus early nineteenth century | 255 |
Soap production in the Levant 1837 | 257 |
Other editions - View all
Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900 Beshara Doumani No preview available - 1995 |
Common terms and phrases
Abd al-Hadi Abd al-Razzaq Abdullah Acre Afandi agricultural Ahmad Agha al-Din Arafat Family Arraba Bayt bedouins Beik Tuqan Beirut Bishtawi capital central government Chapter clan clothes commercial commodities cotton council members cultural Damascus economic Egypt elite European example export governor Greater Syria Hajj Hajj Isma'il Hanbali hinterland Ibid Ibrahim important Jabal Nablus Jaffa Jarrar Jenin Jerusalem kiswa land Mahmud Masri merchant community mid-nineteenth century moneylending Muhammad Muhammad Ali Pasha mutasallim Nablus Advisory Council Nablus Council Nablus Islamic Court Nablus's Nabulsi merchants NICR Nimr nineteenth century NMSR olive oil Ottoman Empire Ottoman government Ottoman period Ottoman rule Palestine Palestinian Pasha peasants piasters political purchase qilw religious ruling families rural salam contracts Sayyid Schölch Shaykh soap factory soap merchants soap production soap-factory owners social subdistrict chiefs Sulayman tabkhas Tamimi Tanzimat taxes textile merchants thawb tion trade networks urban village waqf Wilayat Ya'bad Yusuf Zahir al-Umar