Ottoman Reforms and Power in Jerusalem

Jerusalem in the Tanzimat Period: The New Ottoman Administration and the Notables
Author(s): B. Abu-Manneh
Source: Die Welt des Islams, New Series, Bd. 30, Nr. 1/4 (1990), pp. 1-44
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Die Welt des Islams XXX
(1990)
JERUSALEM IN THE TANZIMAT PERIOD

THE NEW OTTOMAN ADMINISTRATION
AND
THE NOTABLES*
BY
B. ABU-MANNEH
University of Haifa
In memory of the late
Dr. Alexander Sch6lch,
a friend and a colleague
1. Jerusalem and Its Countrysidein the Pre-Tanzimat Period

The pre-Tanzimat sanjak' of Jerusalem was a relatively small
district on the mountain highway that ran from Gaza to Nablus and
from there northward to Damascus. Except for the city of
Jerusalem, the sanjak itself was of limited political and economic
importance. It was rural in character. Jerusalem and Hebron were
the only towns at that time, and Bethlehem was not more than a
townlet. The great majority of the inhabitants were peasants who
farmed small plots of land in valley or mountain terraces that were
barely sufficient for their upkeep. Power in the sanjak rested in the
hand of rural shaikhly families, who, as we shall see, controlled the
* The author of this
paper owes a debt of gratitude to a number of people and
institutions. First of all I am grateful to the Qadi and the officials of the sharCi-court
in Arab Jerusalem and to shaikh AsCad al-Imam al-Husayni of that court. I am
indebted as well to the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Stiftung
of West Germany and
to the Centre for the study of Eretz Yisrael of Yad ben Zvi and the University of
Haifa for their support in the course of the collection of the material for this paper.
Moreover, my thanks are due to the staff of the Bas Bakanlik Arsivi in Istanbul, the
Public Record Office in London and the French Diplomatic Archives in Nantes. I am
also grateful to Professors A. H. Hourani, Roger Owen and Gad Gilbar for
reading the manuscript and commenting on it. The reader's indulgence is asked
for some inconsistencies in the Ottoman and Arabic transliterations.
1 A sub-province in the Ottoman administrative system. It is also called Liva
or Miitesarriflik (Liwa' and Mutasarrifiyya in Arabic). Throughout this paper, the
term sanjak is used and it is transcribed as pronounced in Turkish. See J. Deny,
"Sandjak" in ElI, IV, 150.

B. ABU-MANNEH
countryside almost up to the city walls and held sway over the
peasantry.2
In the later Ottoman centuries, the governor of the sanjak was
appointed by the vali of Damascus and was his personal deputy; he
was hence called miitesellim. But the miitesellimdid not have much
coercive power outside the city walls,3 and if the need to demonstrate power arose, it required the sending of a strong contingent
of troops by the vali, if not his personal appearance.4 The Ottoman
garrison in the citadel was very small, numbering perhaps not more
than a few scores of men, the basic duty of whom was to defend the
city.5 The number
of inhabitants
of Jerusalem
was also relatively
small, an estimated twelve thousand at the beginning of our period,

about half of whom were non-Muslims.6
Jerusalem therefore exercised much less power than the rural
shaikhs who ruled the countryside and equipped their peasants with
See below p. 4ff.

For the weakness of the governor in the 18th century, see A. Cohen, Palestine
in the 18th Century (Jerusalem, 1973), pp. 170, 172: "The Pasa was unable to
extend his control beyond the walls of the towns themselves." This situation did
not change for the better in the early decades of the 19th century. See also M.
Hoexter, "The Role of the Qays and Yaman Factions in Local Political Divisions
...," AAS IX, 3 (1973), p. 308.
4
Cohen, p. 171; Lutfi, Tarih, I, 229; EI2, V, 335.
5 See U.
Heyd, OttomanDocumentson Palestine 1552-1615 (Oxford, 1960), p. 190;
see also p. 102 where he says that in the fortress of Jerusalem there were 90 guards
(miistahfiz) in the middle of the 17th century. For the 18th century, however,
Cohen (op. cit., p. 271) stated that according to Maliye registers, the Porte allocated
salaries for 300 "regular soldiers" (Kapu Kullari) in Jerusalem. But he doubts
whether there was such a large number of soldiers in the city at all times. According to him they were aware of that in Istanbul but "continued to allocate the full
regular sum." Soon after the withdrawal of Ibrahim Pasha in 1840, we find the
qadi of Jerusalem, who held authority until the arrival of an Ottoman governor,
appointing a commander for the citadel and 60 artillerymen. Moreover, he
appointed a commander of police (tiifekfi basi) and thirty policemen to keep order
in the city. See Jerusalem SharCiCourtSijill (Record) [hereafterJSR.] no. 324, pp. 435. See also M. Abir, "Local Leadership and Early Reforms in Palestine 18001834," p. 292, in M. MaCoz (ed.), Studies on Palestine During the Ottoman Period
(Jerusalem, 1975).
6 The estimate of E.
Robinson, who visited the city in 1838, was 11,500 as cited
in Y. Ben-Arieh, "The Population of the Large Towns in Palestine During the
First Eighty Years of the Nineteenth Century, According to Western Sources,"
pp. 49-69 in M. MaCoz (ed.), Studies; see pp. 51, 53.
3

firearms.7 This perhaps explains why the Ottomans, at an early

stage in their rule, decided to rebuild the walls of the city.8
As a religious city and a place of pilgrimage, Jerusalem was in
fact sustained by the imperial power. Ottoman sultans beginning
with Sulaiman the Magnificent paid special attention to the city
and its Muslim holy places. The income derived from services performed in these places formed a basic source of livelihood for many
families of the Muslim elite before our period.9 In fact, until about
the mid-nineteenth century, they seem to have owned no property
beyond the limits of the city, as inheritance or family waqf
documents in the shar'i court records show.10 And when they began
to own property outside the city before 1841, it was in a town like
Jaffa and not within the sanjak of Jerusalem."I Moreover, we have
no evidence that any member of the Jerusalem elite had a lease
(iltizam) or controlled malikanewithin the sanjak itself, which would
have given them power over peasants in the countryside. When
CUmar Fahmi (al-Husayni) attempted as late as 1286/1869-70 to
lease a number of villages in the sanjak of Nablus, for instance, he
was unable to collect the revenue and lost about thirty thousand
qurush. 2 In other words, we can assume that the interest of this elite
was mainly confined to the city.
Indeed, Jerusalem, encircled by walls, had limited interaction
with the countryside even though it was the capital of the sanjak.
Consequently, it was not only incapable of dominating the sur7 On the
question of the spread of firearms in Palestine, see U. Heyd, pp. 61,
80, where he states that the peasants of Palestine were buying and using muskets
as early as the 16th century. For the Tanzimat period in Jerusalem, see FinnMalmesbury, F. 0. 78/1383, desp. 25 (pol.), dated 9.10.1858, where he speaks
of "the accumulation of firearms by the peasantry" and says that "gunpowder is
made by the peasantry themselves when necessary."
8 Built between 1537-1541. See EI2, V, 333f. and 344.
9 For short
biographies of members of this elite in the 18th and 19th centuries,
see Hasan al-Husayni, Tarajim ahl al-Quds fi al-Qarn al-Thani CAshar,ed. S. alNu'aimat (Amman, 1985); Adel Mannac, AClam Filastin fi Awakhir al-CAhd al-
cUthmani(Jerusalem, 1986).
10 This is the
picture that emerges after reviewing many volumes of the sharci
court records of Jerusalem and from talking to a number of elderly people in the
city.
1 Ibid.
12
Bas Bakanllk Arsivi-Istanbul (hereafter BBA.) Meclis-iMahsus,doc. no. 1643

dated 5 Ramadan 1287/[Nov.-Dec. 1870] (the iradeand enclosures).

B. ABU-MANNEH
rounding countryside before the Tanzimat period, it is doubtful

whether the elite had strong incentives for doing so. Some members
of this elite may have had connections with country shaikhs, but
certainly they enjoyed no power over them. On the contrary, power
was in the hands of country shaikhs, as we shall see hereafter.
On the other hand, until our period, the rural areas were selfsubsistent and did not depend on the city for their livelihood, in
contrast to the situation that began to develop in the Tanzimat
period.13
At any rate, perhaps the major interest of the inhabitants of
Jerusalem outside the city in the pre-Tanzimat period was to have
the roads to and from it open and secure, in order to safeguard the
free movement of visitors. This duty seems to have been assigned
to some country shaikhs.
2. The Shaikhly Families in the pre-Tanzimat Period

In the administrative division of provinces in the pre-Tanzimat
period, each province was divided into sanjaks and each sanjak into
nahiyes(sub-districts). In the rural areas, groups of villages of varied
numbers could form nahiyes.'4
In the period of Ottoman decline, when valis became practically
the chief tax farmers of their provinces, collection of taxes took
priority over other considerations.15 The valis entrusted the collection of taxes (miri) in rural nahiyes to the hands of a local shaikh,
13 On the economic
transformation,
see I. M. Smilianskaya, "The disintegration of Feudal Relations in Syria and Lebanon in the Middle of the Nineteenth
Century" in Ch. Issawi, The Economic History of the Middle East (Chicago, 1966),
pp. 226ff.; R. Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy 1800-1914 (London,
1981), pp. 91ff.; on the penetration of European trade and its impact upon
Palestine, see Alexander Sch6lch, Paldstina im Umbruch 1856-1882 (Stuttgart,
1986), pp. 47ff.
14
On Nahiye see M. T. G6kbilgin IA IX, 37-39; on the "Nahiye" following the

Vilayet Law of 1864, see I. Ortayll, Tanzimattan Sonra Mahalli Idareleri(1840-1878)
(Ankara, 1974), pp. 87ff.; see also H. A. R. Gibb, and H. Bowen, Islamic Society
and the West I (London, 1951), p. 153.
15 Gibb and Bowen, I, 201; Cohen,
pp. 197f. Compare M. Nuri, Neta'ic-iilVukuCat,2nd ed. (Istanbul, A.H. 1327) I, 148; II, 90 f.

JERUSALEM
IN THE TANZIMAT
PERIOD
usually the head of a powerful family, in return for a fixed share.16

But along with the collection of taxes, the shaikh was also responsible for law and order in the nahiye and for the dispensing of justice
in accordance with Curfilaw.17 In each village within his nahiye, a
shaikh would also appoint a local deputy, called the village shaikh,
to be his deputy and to run the affairs of that village.18
Once the annual taxes were paid to them, valis tended not to
interfere in the affairs of a nahiye. In other words, the shaikhs
enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy. When these functions
started to pass from father to son, or to a near relative, a local
shaikhly family emerged in each nahiye. Officially these shaikhs
were accountable to the miitesellim of the sanjak, if he controlled
enough power to impose his authority over them. As far as
Jerusalem was concerned, the power of the miitesellimwas, as we
have seen, confined to the city-the country shaikhs were uncontrollable. Moreover, as the deputy of the vali, the miitesellim'stenure
in office was at best limited to the tenure of his master. Thus while
the miitesellim changed often, nahiye shaikhs tended to establish
"ruling" families.
In the rural areas of the sanjak of Jerusalem there were at the
beginning of our period about twelve such shaikhly families.19 The
most powerful among them, however, were four, situated to the
north, west and south of Jerusalem. Three of these families had
their nahzyeson the roads that led to Jerusalem, which suggests that
guaranteeing the safety of these roads fell to them.20 At least one
16 I.
al-Nimr, TarikhJabalNablus wa-l-Balqa'II (Nablus, 1961), pp. 184-5, 233;
R. A. S. Macalister and E. W. G. Mastermann, "Occasional papers on the
Modern Inhabitants of Palestine," part 1 in PEFQS (1905), p. 344. Cohen
assumed (p. 123) that the vali used "to farm out the ... nahiye" to local nahiye
shaikhs. I found no evidence for such a practice in the sanjak of Jerusalem.
17 M. M. al-Dabbagh,
Biladuna Filastin, vol. VIII, 2 (Beirut, 1974), p. 44;
Cohen, 165; E. Pierotti, Customsand Traditions of Palestine (Cambridge, 1864), 205
p.; O. S. el-Barguthy, "Traces of the Feudal System in Palestine," JPOS IX, 2
(1929), pp. 78-9; see also Gibb and Bowen, I, 213.
18
On village shaikhs, see Nimr, II, 184-5.
19 Macalister and Mastermann,
part 2, pp. 352ff.; Hoexter, pp. 285ff.;
Scholch, Paldstina im Umbruch, pp. 212ff.
20
Securing the safety of roads and mountain passes was an important function
in the Ottoman lands. On this subject, see C. Orhunlu, OsmanlzImparatorlugunda
Derbend Teskilati (Istanbul, 1967), esp. pp. 25f. (for Palestine). For the safety of the

B. ABU-MANNEH
of them, the Abu Ghosh family, was known to have such a duty
officially.
To the north of the city there was the family of Ibn Simhan,
which controlled the nahiye of Bani Harith as well as a number of
villages in Jabal al-Quds. The head of this family was regarded as
the principal shaikh along the road between Jerusalem and
Nablus.21 In the west, the Abu Ghosh family controlled the nahiye
of Bani Malik, which comprised the mountain villages on both sides
of the highway to Jaffa. This family was entrusted with the safety
of pilgrims and travellers on that road from the plain at the foot of
the mountain up to the city, a function it continued to perform well
into the Tanzimat period. Formerly, the shaikh of the nahiye was
entitled to charge a fixed toll for safe passage,22 but after the Tanzimat, he was paid a fixed amount by the treasury for this service.23
Thirdly, there was the 'Amr family of Dura, which controlled the
nahiyeofJabal al-Khalil (Mount Hebron) on the high road to Gaza,
and fourthly, the Lahham family, which controlled the mountain
valley to the south-west of Jerusalem.
Each of these shaikhs could muster several hundred peasant warriors armed with muskets or other fire arms.24 But they were
divided among themselves into two hostile factions-Qais
and
Yaman. The first was led by Ibn Simhan, the second by Abu
coastal highway Damascus-Cairo, see Heyd, pp. 102ff. He, however, did not refer
to the alternative route Gaza-Jerusalem-Nablus or to the Jaffa-Jerusalem route.
The role of Nahiye shaikhs in the safety of these roads needs to be studied; see also
Cohen, p. 272.
21 See Finn-Canning,
FO. 195/210, desp. 5, 27.8.1846. No source defines
exactly their domain. It was certain, however, that they controlled the "Nahiye of
Bani Harith" divided after 1841 into the northern part, ruled by Husayn ibn Sacid
with his seat at Ras Karkar, and the southern part, which was smaller and ruled
by his cousin Abdullatif ibn Ismail with his seat at al-Janiya. His brother Muhammad ibn Ismacil was appointed by the qadi of Jerusalem about the end of 1840 on
a quarter of nahiyatJabal al-Quds with his seat at Beit Iksa (JSR no. 324, p. 48).
The villages of Ramallah and Bireh were put under Husayn. See also Abir, in
MaCoz (ed.), Studies, p. 290.
22
Sch6lch, Paldstina im Umbruch, p. 214; A. Rustum, al-Mahfuzat al-Malakiyya
al-Misriyya, 4 vols. (Beirut, 1940-1943), I, 138, 188, docs. 375, 495.
23 He was
paid first by Ibrahim then by the Ottomans 40,000 then 50,000 kurus
per annum (JSR, no. 328, p. 69); J. Finn, Stirring Times (London, 1878), I, 232.
24 Finn-Palmerstone,
F. 0. 195/292, desp. 20, dated Jerusalem 27.9.1850 (for
shaikhs in Mt. Hebron); J. Finn, Stirring Times, II, 188-9.

Ghosh. Until the occupation of Ibrahim Pasha, their power was

more or less equal, so that each side could prevent the other from
gaining overall control of the area, a fact which added to the sense
of security of the city. But as the roads leading to Jerusalem were
under their control, they could also sometimes exercise a certain
power over the city, as happened, for instance, at the start of the
1834 revolt against Ibrahim Pasha. According to the Egyptian commander of Jerusalem, the shaikhs Ibn Simhan on the road to
Nablus and Abu Ghosh on the road to Jaffa put the city practically
under siege. Their peasants "interfered with the food and water
supplies of the city and resorted to looting".25 One thousand
soldiers under his command were inadequate to tackle the situation
or relieve the city. Some of these rural shaikhs seem to have
regarded themselves as superior to the Efendis (i.e. notables) of
Jerusalem. Ihsan al-Nimr may have been right to note that the
notable families of the city were "factionally divided [among themselves] following the two external shaikhs' ,26 i.e. the leaders of the
Qais and Yaman factions in the countryside.
3. Jerusalem and the Tanzimat
The power of the rural shaikhs in the sanjak could not have lasted
long after the Ottoman restoration in 1841. However, the undermining and elimination of their power did not materialize from
within, as happened, for instance, in Galilee at the hands of shaikh
Dahir al-'Umar around the middle of the 18th century. The Judean
hills failed to breed a leader who could have succeeded in
eliminating other shaikhly families and imposing unity upon the
region as Dahir did in Galilee.27 This failure may have been due
to the difficulty of the terrain on the one hand and to the more or
less even power of the two factions on the other. Indeed, only a
stronger external force was capable of affecting a process of change.
There was first Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, who occupied the country
25
Asad I. Rustum, TheRoyalArchivesof Egyptand theDisturbances
in Palestine1834 (Beirut, 1938), p. 56.
26
Nimr, I (2nd ed.), p. 343, n. 1; II, p. 405, n. 1; see also Hoexter, p. 303
and M. Abir, in MaCoz(ed.), Studies,p. 293.
27
N. Qassatly, "Mulakhkhas Tarikh al-Zayadina" in al-JinanVIII (1877), pp.
847ff.

B. ABU-MANNEH
at the end of 1831.28 But his rule was too short to bring about a
substantial change. It was left to the Ottomans to introduce and
maintain a process of change in the land.
One of the first measures taken by the Porte after the restoration
in 1841 was to remove the seat of the governor general of the province of Sidon from Acre to Beirut.29 Acre itself, hit hard by the
war, was reduced to the status of a mere centre of a sanjak, which
consisted of Galilee and the coastal region as far to the South as
Caesarea.30 But the fact that the capital of the province had moved
northwards created the need for a major political and
administrative centre in the central and southern parts of Palestine
due to the distance between Beirut and those regions.
Moreover, those regions had suffered negligence in the preceding
period, something the Ottomans could not have allowed any longer
after the conflict of the previous decade with Muhammad 'Ali
Pasha of Egypt. Consequently, Jerusalem was chosen to become
the capital of the southern sanjaks. This may have been the most
important single decision concerning Jerusalem in the later
Ottoman period.
Immediately after the restoration, the sanjakof Jerusalem, which,
as we have seen, formerly included the Judean hills only, was
extended to include the sanjak of Gaza-Jaffa and in early 1842 the
sanjak of Nablus as well31 (the first permanently and the second
until 1858). In this way the city of Jerusalem became the centre of
a large region which comprised the area from the Esdraelon plain
in the north to Rafah and the Sinai Peninsula in the south. The for28
For the policy of Ibrahim Pasha in Palestine, see Abir, pp. 308f.; Sh. Shamir,
"Egyptian Rule (1832-1840) and the Beginning of the Modern Period in the
History of Palestine", in A. Cohen and G. Baer (eds.), Egypt and Palestine (New
York, 1984), pp. 214-31. See also Asad Rustum, "Idarat al-Sham, ruhuha wahaikaluha wa-atharuha", in Sh. Ghurbal et al., Dhikra Ibrahim Pasha 1848-1948
(Cairo, 1948), pp. 107-28.
29 M.
Ma'oz, OttomanReform in Syria and Palestine (Oxford, 1968), p. 33; see also
B. al-Bustani in Da'irat al-MaCarif, V, 750ff. and Laila Fawwaz, Merchants and
Migrants in Nineteenth CenturyBeirut (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), p. 21.
30 "Akka"
in EI2 I, 341.
31
I. al-Nimr, Tarikh ..., I (Damascus, 1938), p. 267; MaCoz, OttomanReform,
pp. 32-3; see also my article "The Rise of the Sanjak of Jerusalem" in G. Ben
Dor, The Palestinians and the Middle East Conflict (Ramat Gan, 1978), p. 15 and J.
Finn, Stirring Times, I, 161f.

mation of this large sanjak marked a desire at the Porte to end the
fragmentation of the southwestern parts of greater Syria and unite
them under one political and administrative centre. The new sanjak
was separated from Damascus and put under the vali of Sidon,32
perhaps because of the rising importance of this vali after the Egyptian episode and the growth of European interests in the region.
The question is, why was Jerusalem chosen to be the centre of
this new sanjak and not Jaffa, Gaza or Nablus? First of all, it was
the largest town. Its population was estimated at about twelve thousand at this juncture.33 It was in the interior, more secure than Jaffa
or Gaza. Above all, Jerusalem was gaining international importance because of rapidly growing interest among Christian nations
in the Christian holy places and increasing numbers of visitors to
them. The British government had already established a consulate
in the city (1838). Nablus and all the other towns lacked this status.
Indeed, the Ottomans were aware of the "importance and delicate
site of [Jerusalem]" (ehemiyyetve nezaketmevkicz), to use the phrase
of the Ottoman vali of Syria in the late 1860's.34 In other words,
after 1841 Jerusalem had become the major administrative and
political centre in southern Syria, taking the place of Acre before
it and of Nablus (which acquired a temporary primacy in the 18th
century). It can even be suggested that with the rise of Jerusalem,
the modern history of Palestine began.
The new Ottoman administration carried with it a new concept
and a new ideal of government-that of direct and centralized rule,
which was launched by the first Tanzimat edict known as the
Giilhane Rescript. In this edict, the sultan pledged to end arbitrary
government and reinforce the rule of law. Life, honour, and the
property of the inhabitants were to be guaranteed; iltizam, the farming of the taxes of a province by its vali, was to come to an end and
taxes were to be levied by the treasury; and thirdly, regular conscription was to be introduced and evenly applied to the Muslim
See my article, n. 31 above.
Robinson estimated the inhabitants of Jerusalem in 1838 at 11,500 and of
Nablus at 8000. See n. 6 above and Ben-Arieh, p. 64. Acre before the campaign
of Ibraihim Pasha had perhaps a similar number of inhabitants, but after that it
started to decline both in importance and in population.
34
BBA., Meclis-i Mahsus, doc. no. 1386, dated 13 ?evval 1283/[18.2.1867].
32
33

10
B. ABU-MANNEH
population throughout the Empire.35 The state was therefore to

take upon itself full governmental responsibilities and apply them
directly by its own functionaries and not through self-governing
bodies such as rural shaikhs and shaikhly families. There were to
be no intermediaries between governmental institutions and the
people.
The application of these principles meant that the central government in Istanbul would be involved in the affairs of the provinces
far more than was the case during the period of decline; secondly,
the new system would give cities and towns a new role in the
government of their respective districts, one that was far more
active and influential than they had known until then.
4. The New Governmentof Jerusalem
Following the establishment of the new sanjak of Jerusalem in
1841, an officer of the rank of ferik (general), Mehmed Tayyar
Pasha, was appointed as governor (mitesarrif) of the sanjak by the
Porte.36 After that, and until the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the
governors of Jerusalem were on the whole appointed directly by the
central government. They all belonged to the new class of senior
bureaucrats and officers that started to dominate the Ottoman
lands in the Tanzimat period.37
As mentioned above, the miitesellim,the older type of governor of
a sanjak, was the representative or deputy of the vali of Damascus
and was often not a stranger.38 He knew the language and was
35
For the "Guilhane Rescript" see J. C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and
Middle East ... 1535-1914 (New York, 1956), I, 113-6. In the translation of the
Rescript in The Middle East and North Africa in WorldPolitics, vol. I (ed. by the same
author), a long paragraph is missing at the end. See pp. 269-71.
36
On Tayyar Pasha, seeJSR no. 325, p. 36; SO III, 259; (Ata, Tarih, II, 223-6.
According to the latter, Tayyar Pasha "studied Arabic perfectly and was able to
read it" (p. 224). After the Tanzimat period, governors of sanjaks carried the title
of miitesarrifalmost exclusively.
37
For the governors between 1864-1914, see D. Kushner, "The Ottoman
Governors of Palestine, 1864-1914," MES XXIII, 3 (July, 1987), pp. 274-290.
38
Since many of the governors general of Damascus in the 18th and early 19th
centuries were of local origin (the CAzms or members of their household), it is
probable that their mitesellims were also of local origin. There is a list of the
miitesellimsof Jerusalem in al-'Arif, al-Mufassal, pp. 319-21. Nimr gives names of

JERUSALEM
IN THE TANZIMAT
PERIOD
11
familiar with the social milieu of the city. The new governors, however, were on the whole strangers to the land and most of them
ignorant of the language and customs of the people.39
Moreover, where the miitesellimlacked adequate coercive power,
the new miitesarrifdepended upon a much stronger power. After the
withdrawal of Ibrahim Pasha from Syria and Palestine, the
Ottoman fifth army corps was stationed in Syria.40 In Jerusalem
and in other towns of the sanjak, relatively strong regular units were
stationed, better equipped and organized than any local force.41
And though these units were not under the immediate command of
the mutesarrifbut under their own officer who received his orders
directly from the commanding general in Damascus (miisir), the
presence of those units provided the civil authority with the
necessary support, and the governor could coordinate its deployment if need arose.42
But this was only one side of the picture. The new Ottoman
system introduced a new body into the administrative structure of
the sanjak: the administrative council (Meclis-i Idaret). This body was
new in structure and purpose, though it may not have been a completely innovation in Syria.
In the earlier period there existed in Jerusalem a body called the
Diwan which had no defined function but may have been of a
deliberative nature. Neither was its membership defined. Its
meetings seem to have been casual.43 Ibrahim Pasha (1831-1840)
introduced a new type of council called the Majlis al-Shura(the conwho belonged to families from Nablus in the 18th century; see vol.
such mutesellims
I (lst ed.), pp. 89, 94, 104, 109, 110, 117-9, 147, 155, 157, 195. For others who
came from other places in Palestine, see Mannac, pp. 26, 32, 37, 202, 205. See
also Cohen, p. 124, Nimr, I, 158, 239, for mamluks from Acre who served in such
a capacity.
Finn, Stirring Times, I, 163.
On the Ottoman army in Syria, see MaCoz, Ottoman Reform, p. 48. On the
reorganization of the army, see Lutfi, Tarih, VII, 74ff. and Ahmet Rasim, Tarih,
IV, 1894-5.
41
On the army units in Jerusalem, see Young-Aberdeen, F.O. 195/210, desp.
37, dated Jerusalem 23.10.1844. See also E. Pierotti, Customs and Traditions, pp.
257ff.; Finn, Stirring Times, I, 258 and 472-3.
42
See for instance Finn-Canning, F.O. 195/210, desp. 2, dated Jerusalem,
20.5.1946.
43
On the "Diwan" see CArif al-CArif, al-Mufassalfi Tarikh al-Quds (Jerusalem,
1961), pp. 310, 352, 358; Abir in Macoz (ed.), Studies, p. 292.
39
40

12
B. ABU-MANNEH
sultative council). It was composed of leading city notables and

other dignitaries. Its basic duty was to guarantee justice and to
assist the governor in administrative and legal matters.44 In the case
ofJerusalem, its head, called nazir, was in the later 1830's the hanafi
mufti, shaikh Muhammad Tahir al-Husayni.45
There were certain similarities between the council founded by
Ibrahim Pasha and the administrative council (Meclis-i Idaret)of the
Tanzimat.46 But there were also dissimiliarities in structure and
possibly in purpose. When the sultan pledged in the Giilhane
Rescript to end arbitrary government, the question was how to
implement that and secure justice in the provinces, far away from
the supervision of the Porte. In other words, the problem was how
to establish a system of checks and balances for the new Ottoman
provincial authorities.
This is not the place to analyse the structure of this council. It
is sufficient to note that it was composed partly of senior Ottoman
officials of the sanjak, partly of "elected" city notables, and of the
hanafi mufti and the naqib al-ashraf, both of whom were ex-officio
members. In addition, there was one representative from each of
the non-Muslim communities.47 Taken together, the local members
formed a majority in the council. It is significant that according to
the regulations, all the local members came from the city itself and
none from other towns or from the countryside.
44 On the
"Majlis al-Shura," see Y. Hofman, "The Administration of Syria and
Palestine Unter the Egyptian Rule (1831-1840)", in Ma'oz (ed.), Studies, pp.
330ff.; Rustum, al-Mahfuzat, II, 358; IV, 262. For the Majlis in Damascus, see
Amin Sami, Taqwim al-Nil (Cairo, 1928), II, 401.
45
Mahfuzat,IV, 139.
On the Meclis-i Idaret (administrative council), see R. Davison, "The Advent

of the Principle of Representation in the Government of the Ottoman Empire,"
pp. 93-108 in W. Polk and R. L. Chambers, Beginnings of Modernizationin theMiddle
East (Chicago, 1968) and MaCoz, Ottoman Reform, pp. 89ff.
47
Concerning representatives of the non-Muslim communities in the Council
of Jerusalem there were sometimes three: see JSR. no. 324, p. 44 and FinnCanning, F.O. 195/292 desp. 13, dated 21.8.1850; at other times there were more
than three; inJSR. no. 342, p. 57, there were four non-Muslim members. But a
document in 1869 carried the signitures of five non-Muslim members out of 12
signatures; BBA. Dahiliye Iradesi , no. 41579, laf. 3, dated 12, R.2 1286; three of
these were clerics (ra's ruhani), and two were laymen, one Greek Orthodox and one
Latin. Moreover, in 1872 we find even six non-Muslim members of the council.
See BBA. Hariciye Iradesi, no. 15389; of these, four were clerics and two laymen.
46

13
Shortly after the withdrawal of Ibrahim Pasha, such an

administrative council was constituted in Jerusalem. The edict of
its formation, signed by an army general, Hasan Husni, stated that
its members were to be chosen after consultations with the
dignitaries and sharifs (wujuh wa-ashraf) of the city. Its duties were
"to supervise the [assessment and allocation of] taxes and to
examine civil cases in Jerusalem and its countryside (ru'yat al-amwal
al-miriyya wa-l-dacawa al-ahliyyafi al-Quds wa-qarayaha"(sic!). A certain CAliMuhsin [al-Darwish!] was appointed as nazir of the council
and was enjoined to examine with equity all matters brought to the
council for consideration.48
In another edict in 1846, signed by the defterdarof the province
of Sidon, it was stated that the council of Jerusalem "would consider the affairs of the Jerusalem districts and their dependencies
Gaza and its subjoined (region) and observe the interests of the
people (Cibad)and miri affairs".49 In other words, the council was
invested with wide powers. It was perhaps the first time that the
notables of the city were presented with such powers, both vis-a-vis
the new Ottoman authorities and over the countryside. This was
equally true of such other towns in the sanjak as Jaffa, Gaza or
Nablus, where such administrative councils were constituted
during this period.50 But the council of Jerusalem enjoyed a position of primacy among them. It was officially a council for the
whole sanjak.51 In addition, its members had direct access to the
governor and the central administration of the sanjak.
Once the new system was fully implemented, those powers provided the notables of Jerusalem with a privileged position not only
within the district of Jerusalem but among the notables of other
towns in the sanjak as well and with much influence throughout the
country.
48
The appointment of
JSR. no. 324, p. 85, dated 7 Safar 1257/[31.3.1841].
"nazir" was perhaps a continuation of the Egyptian practice. It does not seem to
have been repeated later.
49
JSR. no. 329, p. 92, dated 9 Muharram, 1263/[28.12.846].
50
For an order to establish an administrative council in Jaffa, see YoungPonsonby, F.O. 195/170, desp. 14, dated Jerusalem 28.6.1841.
51 See n. 49 above.

14
B. ABU-MANNEH
5. The New OttomanAdministrationand the Notables

We do not know how the new administrative council of
Jerusalem functioned. No records of its deliberations relevant to the
period under discussion here are available, if they ever existed at
all. But the interaction between the new Ottoman authorities and
the notables in the city appears to have been a central issue during
the Tanzimat and should be analysed in order to understand properly the course of the socio-political development of the city during
that period.
To start with, notability in Jerusalem at the beginning of our
period was not a function of wealth, landownership or of paramilitary power, as was the case in a city like Aleppo, for instance,
or (to a certain extent) Damascus. In keeping with the character of
Jerusalem, it was of a classical kind, i.e. a notability of service and
descent, if we may use these terms.52
In the later Ottoman period, a practice had taken root in
Jerusalem according to which religious or legal functions passed in
the same family from father to son or to the nearest kin. The qadi
within whose administrative responsibility those functions fell used
the following phrase in letters of appointment of new functionaries,
saying that the appointee was entitled to the post "particularly
[because] it was the function of your father and grandfather".53 In
the case of the appointment of shaikh Yasin al-Khalidi as chief
secretary (bashkatib)of the sharci court of Jerusalem in 1864, the qadi
emphasized that the office "passed over to him from his father and
grandfather" in accordance with a legal statement (taqrirsharci) in
his hands dated 1231 (1816).54 Even though certain public functions, such as mufti or naqib al-ashraf, were renewed annually, they
usually remained with the same person or in the same family.
The outcome of this practice was that a limited number of
52 On the
question of notables, see A. H. Hourani, "Ottoman Reform and the
Politics of Notables" in Polk and Chambers, op. cit., pp. 41-68.
53
See my article "The Husaynis: The Rise of a Notable Family in 18th Century Palestine" in D. Kushner (ed.), Palestine in the Late OttomanPeriod (Jerusalem
and Leiden, 1986), pp. 93-108, esp. p. 93; alsoJSR. no. 327, p. 83 concerning
the appointment of Najm al-Din al-JammaCi in place of his father as the chief
preacher (khatib) of al-Aqsa mosque.
54 JSR. no. 347,
p. 198.

15
families monopolised higher legal and religious functions and, in

consequence, acquired status and influence within the city. It is
likely that the Ottoman government in the pre-Tanzimat period
was aware of this outcome, perhaps even interested in it. It
appears, moreover, that by observing this practice, the Ottoman
authorities helped to diminish the bitter rivalry among Jerusalem
families for these posts and to pacify them.
Consequently, in 1841, the returning Ottoman authorities found
an oligarchy of families that controlled among themselves the
higher functions in the city. And though those families were
politically divided into two factions, Qais and Yaman-following
the split in the countryside-,
the social order in the city was
reasonably observed, and the bitter rivalry for functions among
these families seems to have subsided or become dormant.
But due to political considerations that shall be referred to below,
the Tanzimat authorities tended in some cases to disregard the
practice of preserving offices within the family. The outcome of this
deviation from the existing norms in the city was grave. Indeed, it
was not differences in outlook toward the Tanzimat reforms which
caused the revival of tension among those families at this time.
Such differences, if they existed, do not seem to have been serious
before the second half of the Tanzimat period and the 1860's in particular. Thus it is believed that the revival of tension among those
families in the 1840's and 1850's was the result of government
measures taken against certain families, especially against the
Husayni family and some of its allies.
The Husaynis were a large family, perhaps the most powerful in
the city. During the two or three preceding generations, they had
held three senior offices in the city, namely that of the hanafi mufti,
of the naqib al-ashraf (i.e. the doyen of the descendents of the
Prophet), and of shaikh al-haram, the superintendent of the two mosques, the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa, by virtue of which they
enjoyed much influence over their officials and servants.55
Another important notable family was that of the Khalidis. In the
preceding generations they had held the office of the chief secretary
55
On this, see my article in n. 53, and CA. Mannac, A lam Filastin, pp. 102-3,
113-4; 119-22, 125, 127.

16
B. ABU-MANNEH
(bashkatib)of the sharci court and that of the locumtenens(na ib) of the
Ottoman qadi.56By virtue of these posts they controlled the judicial
affairs of the city. But during this phase and until the 1860's they
held no other first rank offices.
The CAlamis were also an ancient family in Jerusalem, but while
it was a large family, it was, unlike the Husaynis, not a united one.
Its members in the 18th century were sufi shaikhs of the shadhili
order. Early in that century we find one of them serving as hanafi
mufti. Others were teachers and preachers at the al-Aqsa mosque.57
In the 19th century, however, some of them served for a time as
custodians of the waqf of the Haramain, namely of Jerusalem and
Hebron, and of the Salahi convent. But they actually started to
become serious rivals to the Husaynis when Abdullah, son of
Wafa', was appointed naqibal-Ashraffor the first time in the 1830's,
after the exile of the Husayni naqib.58 Under the new Ottoman
authorities, Abdullah Efendi was again appointed to this post and
served in it intermittently for many years.59
The Husaynis, who belonged to the Yamani faction, entered the
period at a great disadvantage. During the episode of the Egyptian
occupation in the previous decade, shaikh Muhammad Tahir alHusayni, hanafi mufti ofJerusalem as of 1809, and his cousin CUmar
Efendi, the naqibal-ashrafas of 1800, committed the mistake of signing the fatwa (a formal juristic opinion) issued by the ulama of alAzhar against the sultan in 1832.60 In spite of that they were exiled
56
On the Khalidis in the 18th century, see Hasan al-Husayni, TarajimAhl alQuds, pp. 290ff. For the 19th century, see Mannac, pp. 144-51; see also N. alAsad, MuhammadRuhi al-Khalidi (Cairo, 1970), pp. 25-6 and 36ff.; Scholch,
Paldstina im Umbruch, pp. 225ff.
57 On the CAlamis, see

TarajimAhl al-Quds, pp. 186f. and pp. 250f.; Nimr,
Tarikh,I (Damascus, 1938), p. 76 and n. 2.
58 JSR. no. 324, p. 49 dated 1 Jumada I, 1256,
andJSR. no. 325, p. 16. It must
be added that Sayyid Wafa, Abdullah's father, served in this capacity for a short
time in 1810 instead of CUmaral-Husayni. See JSR. no. 293, pp. 98-9.
59
JSR. no. 324, p. 50; JSR. no. 326, p. 210; JSR. no. 327, p. 82; JSR. 328,
pp. 45, 179, 340. See also Finn-Clarendon, F.O. 78/1217, desp. 54 (pol.), dated
1 September 1856.
60 See A.
Rustum, Mahfuzat, II, 233, doc. 2539. On thisfatwa, see D. Barakat,
al-Batal al-Fatih Ibrahim Pasha (Cairo, n.d.), pp. 26-7; see also CAli al-Wardi,
Lamahat min Tarikh al-'lraq al-Hadith, vol. II (Baghdad, 1971), pp. 28f.; and
Rustum, op. cit., II, 183 and 184, docs. nos. 2280 and 2289. Cf. ibid., I, 179 and
202.

17
to Egypt by Muhammad 'Ali following the disturbances in

Palestine in 1834. After their release two years later, shaikh Tahir
tended toward cooperation with the Egyptian authorities, as did the
Abu Ghosh family.61 As mentioned, he was after his return
appointed nazir of the consultative council, which was established
by Ibrahim Pasha in Jerusalem.62 All this shows a good deal of bad
judgement on the part of shaikh Tahir.63
In spite of his services to the Egyptian authorities, however,
Muhammad Ali Pasha seems to have been unable to protect him
after the withdrawal of Ibrahim. Soon after the restoration of the
Ottoman government, shaikh Tahir was banished to Istanbul and
"was barred from returning to Jerusalem".64 He remained in the
Ottoman capital for over 25 years and died there in 1282 (18656),65 a matter which caused much indignation among the Husayni
family.
It was perhaps a sign of the deep-rooted power of the Husaynis
in Jerusalem and of the strength of their connections in Istanbul
that the post of mufti remained in the family and that Tahir's eldest
son, Mustafa, was appointed deputy (wakil) for his father.66 More
than that, they even regained the post of naqib al-ashraf, perhaps as
a result of the intercession of Giircii Necib Pasha (Nejib Pasha the
Georgian), a friend of the family who served for a short while at this
juncture as vali (governor general) of Damascus.67 Indeed, the post
of naqib had been held by the Husaynis for at least four successive
generations. CUmar ibn Abd al-Salam held it from 1800 almost
61
As is known, Jabir Abu Ghosh was appointed governor of Jerusalem by
Ibrahim in 1834-5. See Rustum, Mahfu,zat,III, 4; M. Dabbagh, Biladunafilastin,
VIII, 2 (Beirut, 1974), pp. 115-7.
62
Mahfuzat, IV, 129, doc. 5915.
H. Bahri, a senior aid to Ibrahim Pasha, reported that at a meeting held at

the tent of Emir Bashir II in 1832, shaikh Tahir "read the hadith: laCnatuallahi
Calaal-sultanal-dacif' (God's curse upon the weak sultan), meaning Mahmud II
63
(Mahfu.zat, I, 724).
64 JSR. no. 326,

p. 63 dated 8 zilkicda, 1258/[August 1842]: "he has residea
in Istanbul for two years."
65
JSR. no. 353, p. 140, dated 1283/[1866] and Sicill-i Osmdni(hereafter SO.),
III, 249.
66
JSr. no. 324, p. 74 and p. 78, dated Muharram 1257/[Feb. 1841].
67
JSR. no. 324, p. 90, dated Muharram 1257/[Feb. 1841];JSR. no. 326, p.
9, dated Jumada I, 1258/[June 1842].

18
B. ABU-MANNEH
until the time he was exiled by Muhammad CAli to Egypt (1834).

He was so much identified with it that his descendents began carrying the family name of al-Naqib, with or without the surname of
Husayni. In 1841, the incumbent naqib, Abdullah al-CAlami, was
dismissed, and Muhammad CAli, the eldest son of CUmar, was
appointed as naqib, as has been mentioned, at the intercession of
Nejib Pasha. Thus, despite the expatriation of Tahir, the Husaynis
held the three posts in Jerusalem that they had traditionally held.
But it did not last long. Nejib Pasha was transferred to Baghdad,
and Jerusalem was separated from Damascus and appended to
Sidon. In June 1842 the mitesarrifTayyar Pasha dismissed Muhammad CAli from the Niqaba and reappointed Abdullah al-CAlami
instead.68 Then in August, Mustafa, the mufti's deputy, was
dismissed and the aged Abdulrahman al-Jammaci, the head
preacher of the al-Aqsa mosque, was appointed hanafi mufti.69 For
no reason known to us, Tayyar then challenged the power of the
Husaynis and other notables in a way that recalls the acts of
Muhammad CAliPasha in 1834. He exiled four leading notables to
Cyprus, among them the elderly CUmar Efendi.70
At one blow the Husaynis lost their leading position in the city.
Though Mustafa was restored four years later to the post of mufti,
the power of the family was shaken. They would, however, soon
recoup their position, as we shall see.
The post of naqibal-ashrafwas among the senior posts in the city,
the naqib enjoying certain prerogatives of a social and legal nature
over the descendents of the Prophet.71 Since we know that many of
68
JSR. no. 326, p. 9, dated 1 Jumada I, 1257/[10.6.1842].

JSR. no. 326, p. 63, dated 24Jumada II, 1258/[3.8.1842];JSR. no. 327, p.
174, dated 21 Jumada I, 1260/[8.6.1844];JSR. no. 329, p. 9, dated 13 RabiCI,
1262/[11.3.1846].
70
They were "CAliEfendi (?), CUmarEfendi [al-Husayni] Muhammad CAlithe
bashkatib[al-Khalidi] and Muhammad Darwish". We do not have a reference for
the time of their exile, but as Tayyar Pasha was removed in September 1842, it
must have taken place before that. They were released by the vali of Sidon in July
1843. See JSR. no. 326, p. 226 dated Rajab 1259. The vali warned them that
"each one should busy himself in his own affairs and not interfere in the affairs
of the sanjak at all" (ibid.).
71 See my article "The Husaynis ...," in n. 53,
pp. 96-7, and documents 1,
2 and 3; see also Gibb and Bowen, IslamicSocietyandthe West,II (London, 1957),
p. 93.
69

19
the leading families in the city claimed sharifian descent, we can

imagine what a powerful position he normally enjoyed, and why
the post was much coveted by the notables. Moreover, the naqib alashraf was an ex-officio member of the administrative council,
which enhanced his position in the city and the sanjak.
Thus, when Abdullah Wafa' al-CAlami was reappointed naqib in
1842 instead of Muhammad 'Ali al-Husayni, it was a change of
considerable importance and a sign of the rising fortunes of the
CAlami family. What helped Abdullah in this venture was his uncle
Yusuf, who was residing at that time in the Ottoman capital, close
enough to ?eyh-iil-Islam Mekki-Zade Mustafa CAsim Efendi to
have been able to protect his nephew at the higher echelons of the
Ottoman government.72
The policy of the Ottoman authorities of undermining the power
of one family and trying to promote others revived the old tensions
among the notable families, and rivalry and intrigue raged again
in Jerusalem-reminding
us of the situation in the early years of the
century.73 This renewed conflict manifested itself in the affair of the
French flag, an event used by those notables to humiliate each
other.
On the second day after the arrival in Jerusalem of the newly
appointed French consul (20 July 1843), Reshid Pasha, the governor, paid him an official congratulatory visit. The consul, Count
de Lantivy, used that occasion to hoist the French flag on top of his
temporary residence, declaring to Reshid Pasha that he was doing
so as a token of honour to him.74 It was the first time the flag of
a foreign country had been hoisted in Jerusalem by a consular or
any other representative. The British consulate, which had opened
five years earlier, had not hoisted the British flag until then:
"There was no precedent for it either in Cairo, Aleppo or Damascus", stated the British consul.75
72
On Yusuf al-CAlami,see SO. IV, 674 and A. Lutfi, TarihIX, 85, ed. M.
Aktepe (Istanbul, 1984); see also Heurs et malheursdes Consuls de France a Jerusalem
... II (Jerusalem, 1948), p. 36.

73 See
p. 99 of my article "The Husaynis ..." in n. 53 above.
74
Heurset malheurs,pp. 33ff.; see also the letter of Abdullah al-'Alami in n. 76
below.
75
Young-Rose, F. 0. 195/221, desp. 29 (confidential), dated 29.7.1843; see
also J. Finn, StirringTimes, II, 31.

20
B. ABU-MANNEH
According to a letter written by Abdullah al-CAlami-the

naqib-and addressed to his uncle in Istanbul,76 no sooner did the
governor return to the Saray, than five notables whose names he
gives,77 went to see him to protest against the consul's act. Reshid
Pasha told them that he himself was displeased by it, but he did not
convene the council to discuss the matter with its members. Instead
he decided along with the five protesters to send a presentation to
the Governor General in Beirut (on 22 July) and ask him what to
do because "the whole population had risen against the act" of the
French consul. When the answer of the Governor General came to
say that he in his turn had turned the matter over to the Porte, the
five lost patience and decided to arouse the public. The Governor,
Reshid Pasha, did not object, and thus on the 29th of July, the consul was invited to the sharci court, apparently to discuss the matter
with the qadi and the mitesarrif (governor). That afternoon, a demonstration took place opposite the consul's temporary residence.
According to the naqib's letter, Faidi al-CAlami, one of the five and
a distant cousin of his, went up to the roof with a lieutenant colonel,
tore down the flag, threw it to the demonstrators below, and broke
the mast.78
What brought Abdullah al-'Alami to write this letter was that
somebody tried to implicate him and 'Ali al-Khalidi, who had until
recently been the bashkatib, in the tumult; they thus reacted by
writing first to the consul, giving the names of the five; then the
naqib wrote to his uncle, explaining what had taken place and
strangely enough asking him to have the letter read to the French
Ambassador, "so that he would distinguish their friends from their
enemies".79
76
A copy of the letter is enclosed in desp. no. 15 of de Lantivy to the French

Ambassador, dated 28.8.1843. See (Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres) Archives
Diplomatiques - Nantes, cote 896 (Jerusalem); see also desp. 13, dated Jerusalem
13.8.1843 in ibid. and enclosure of an original letter signed by Abdullah al-'Alami
and CAli al-Khalidi addressed to the French Consul.
77
They were Muhammad CAli al-Husayni, Khalil al-CAfifi, Faidi al-CAlami,
Ahmad al-Dizdar and Tahir al-Khalidi; see also Lantivy-Ambassador, desp. 13,
dated 13.8.1843, and desp. 15, dated 28.8.1843 in Archives Diplomatiques Nantes, cote 896; Heurs et malheurs, p. 37.
78
Young in his desp. in n. 75 above stated that he was eyewitness to what had
taken place. His dispatch generally agrees with the naqib's letter.
79 See a note
appended to the above letter of the naqib in n. 76.

21
What followed afterwardswas that the Governor, Reshid Pasha,

tried to protect the five, declaring them to be "perfectly innocent
of the charges laid against them".80 In the meantime, the French
Ambassador put pressure on the Porte to dismiss the Governor and
punish the culprits. To prevent this, Reshid claimed that if the five
were punished, riots would take place in town and there would be
a "disturbance of shaikhs in the countryside".81 However, it was
not the five that were punished first but the naqibAbdullah alCAlamiand the ex-bashkatibCAlial-Khalidi. They were invited on
a pretext by Ascad Pasha, the vali of Sidon, and then imprisoned
in Acre (November 1843).82
At about the same time Reshid was recalled, the new Governor,
Haider Pasha, who reached Jerusalem on the 20th of December,
brought with him orders to banish the five. According to the British
consul, they came the next day to congratulate him on his arrival
"when without any delay or ceremony or further communication
with their families, they were apprehended on the spot and placed
in charge of a strong guard of soldiers and hurried out of the city
in the middest of the most tempestious weather' .83 They were sent
to Beirut and stayed away from Jerusalem for many months.84A
few weeks afterwards, Abdullah returned via Beirut on board the
French warship "L'Alcibiad". He landed at Jaffa to a salute of five
guns and was accompanied to Jerusalem by his friends and partisans in addition to the French agent at Jaffa.85
The whole episode was an example of the intense tension that
developed in Jerusalem among the notable families during this
phase. However, the disturbances which Reshid Pasha predicted
dit not take place immediately. Only after the last of the five was
80
81
Young-Canning, F. 0. 195/210, desp. 17, dated Jerusalem 28.10.1843.

De Lantivy-Ambassador, desps. 27 and 28, Jerusalem 3 and 6.10.1843, in
Archives Diplomatiques 82 De
Nantes, cote 896.
Lantivy-Ambassador, desps. 36 and 38, dated 20.11.1843 and
16.12.1843,
83
and Heurs et malheurs ..., p. 36.
Young-Canning, F. 0. 195/210, desp. 20, dated Jerusalem 21.12.1843 and

de Lantivy, desp. 39, dated 20.12.1843.
84
The last two to return were CAlamiand CAfifiin summer 1844; see de Lantivy, desp. 77, dated 9.7.1844.
85
De Lantivy to the Ambassador, desp. 43 Jerusalem 15.1.1844; see also
Young-Canning, F. 0. 195/210 desp. 11, dated 11.3.1844 (fol. 200); Heurs et
malheurs, p. 36.

22
B. ABU-MANNEH
allowed to return did hostilities break out in the countryside. They

were initiated by Abu Ghosh against Ibn Simhan, the leader of the
Qaisi faction, ostensibly because of villages that were the subject of
dispute between them,86 as we shall see in section 6.
Before going any further we should try to define who it was that
made up these factions within the city. Our sources are not clear
enough about who supported whom, but we can perhaps point to
the hard core of each of these factions.
The Yamani faction was led within the city by the Husayni
family, and after the early 1840's by Muhammad CAli, who, as
mentioned, was dismissed as naqibal-ashrafin favour of Abdullah alCAlami and who was one of the five who organized the demonstration against the hoisting of the French flag. The Husaynis were
joined by the Darwish family, which ran the Khasseki Sultan or alTakkiyya (convent), a hostel established in the 16th century to
accomodate pilgrims and other visitors to Jerusalem and to provide
free meals for the needy.87 This was an influential position because
through it much help was distributed among low-paid religious
functionaries in the city.88 The friendship between the Husayni and
Darwish families, which went back to the previous generation, was
strengthened by the marriage of Muhammad Darwish, first to the
sister then to the daughter of Mustafa, the mufti;89 his son, also
called Mustafa, was then married to the granddaughter of the same
mufti.90
Faidi al-CAlami, one of the five mentioned above, seems to have
allied himself with this faction. Faidi was later to become a member
of the administrative council,91 thus preserving the fortunes of this
branch of the CAlami family and keeping it among the front line of
notables in the following generations.
86
87
See below, p. 000.
JSR. no. 324, p. 42, no. 327, p. 63 andno. 340, p. 174. On KhassekiSultan,
see Oded Peri, "The Waqf as [an] Instrumentto Increaseand Consolidate
Political Power: The Case of KhassekiSultan Waqf in Late 18th Century
OttomanJerusalem"in AASXVII (1983), pp. 48f.
88JSR. no. 324 for many entries
concerningsuch help.
89JSR. no. 339, p. 42 and no. 353,
142.
90 Oral traditionand CA. Mannac, p.178.
p.
91
JSR. no. 329, p. 92, dated 9 Muharram 1263/[28.12.1846].

23
But perhaps the most important ally of the Husaynis in the city
at this time, though little known, was Sulaiman al-Nashashibi, a
newcomer among the senior notables in the city who reached the
upper echelons of society not through religious or public service but
through wealth. A very wealthy merchant in Jerusalem, he married
at about this time a niece of Muhammad CAli al-Husayni92 and in
the 1850's became a member of the administrative council.93
Sulaiman might have become better known had he lived longer.
In 1858 while on a pilgrimage to Mecca, he died at an early age,
before any son of his by his Husayni wife had reached maturity.94
However, it is perhaps worth noting here that it was through this
marital connection that Sulaiman laid the foundations for the
political fortunes of the family afterwards. It was first his son
Rashid by his Husayni wife and then his grandson Raghib (son of
Rashid) and later his great-grandson Fakhri who were to challenge
the Husayni dominance in the city and the country that had existed
since early in this century.95
The importance of Sulaiman to the Husayni faction was of a different kind. He seems to have been very close to Mustafa Abu
Ghosh, the leader of the Yamani faction in the countryside, to
whom he had given his sister in marriage (1846).96 He was also his
creditor. At his death shaikh Mustafa owed him a large sum of
money.97 This relationship strengthened the alliance of Hajj
Mustafa with the Husayni faction and made of him the mainstay
of the policy of this faction in the countryside.
These men were perhaps the core members of this faction. There
may have been others upon whom they could have counted when
necessary, but even as such they were quite strong and could withstand the pressure of the authorities.
92
JSR. no. 342, pp. 162ff.

p. 7; Manna', pp. 350-1.
p. 166.
biography of Rashid al-Nashashibi, see Mannac,p. 349; Fakhri
was a grandson of Muhammad, an older son of Sulaiman from a wife of the Qutb
93
JSR. no. 339,
94
JSR. no. 342,
95 For a short
family. See also M. Z. Ormandag (ed.), Who is Who in the Balkans and the Orient,
vol. IV, Palestine1934-1935 (erusalem, n.d.), pp. 47-9.

96
JSR. no. 328, dated awakhir Muharram 1262/[January 1846].
97 JSR. no. 342, p. 162.

24
B. ABU-MANNEH
On the opposite side there stood the CAlami naqib backed

apparently by SaCidal-Mustafa, the contractorof the revenue of the
sanjak,a wealthy man but rather a stranger to the city.98 He died
suddenly, however, in 1844.99His son, Mustafa al-SaCid,served in
various functions as Kehyaof the governor in 1843/4 and later as
Kaimmakamof Gaza or of Jaffa.100Because of this official service,
he could not be openly active in the faction.
The other partner was CAlial-Khalidi, who was, until shortly
before this time, the chief secretary of the sharcicourt. For some
reason he was dismissed from this post in favour of his brother
Tahir, one of the five notables mentioned above. CAlisigned the letter to the consul along with Abdullah al-CAlami,the naqib.Consequently he was exiled together with CAlami,and though the latter
managed to return to his post without much delay, CAliEfendi was
kept in exile much longer at the order of AsCadPasha, the Governor
General of the Province. However, we find him in 1845 as qadiof
Nablus. 0'
In the countryside this faction was supportedby the leaders of the
Qais, the Ibn Simhan family in the nahiyeof Bani Harith, and
Abdulrahman al-CAmrin the nahiyeof Hebron. In the early 1850's,
Uthman al-Lahham of CArqubjoined this faction too. These
shaikhly families were, however, weakened by internal family
strife, as we shall see.
Other notable families seem to have remained neutral in the face
of these factions. One of these was the Abu al-SuCudfamily. The
Abu al-SuCudswere sufi shaikhs who belonged to the Qadiri and
Khalwati orders in the city.102 During the period of Ibrahim Pasha,
98
On Sacid al-Mustafa see Nimr, I (Damascus, 1938), pp. 98 and 132 and on
his farming of the revenues, see Young-Canning, F. 0. 195/210, desp. 2,
Jerusalem, 22.8.1842; see also Manna3, pp. 202-4. He seems to have come
originally from the vicinity of Jenin, settled in Jaffa and served Abdullah Pasha
of Acre before the Egyptian invasion; see al-CArif,al-Mufassal,pp. 275-6.
99 Young-Canning, F. 0. 195/210 desp. 3, Jerusalem 23.1.1844.
100De Lantivy to the French Embassy, desp. 39, dated Jerusalem 20.12.1843;
Young-Canning, F. 0. 195/210, desp. 3 Jerusalem 23.1.1844; Finn-Canning, F.
0. 195/292, desp. 20, dated 22.5.1849; Mannac, pp. 205f.; Nimr, I, 303.
101
JSR. no. 328, p. 1 dated Jumada II, 1261.
102
JSR. no. 324, p. 415 andno. 348, p. 18; Hasanal-Husayni,Tarajim,pp. 297ff.,
and Mannac, pp. 20f.; H. Ayvansaryl, Hadiqat-iilCevamic(Istanbul, A.H. 1281),
I, 250.

25
'Uthman Abu al-SuCud served as a member of the consultative

council (majlis al-shura).'03 We find him again as a member of the
administrative council after the Ottoman restoration and for most
of the 1840's.104 At the same time we find him as custodian
(mutawalli) of the waqf of the Dome of the Rock and of the Mosque
of al-Khalil in Hebron,105 but only for a short time. However, there
is some indication that his brother Muhammad was appointed as
shaikh al-Haram in place of CUmar al-Husayni, at least for a time,
in the 1840's.106
In spite of these favours, CUthman Abu al-Sucud seems to have
remained neutral toward the two contesting factions. Either he was
incapable of or unwilling to oppose the Husaynis. When he did not
prove the man whom the authorities were looking for, they, it
seems, turned to the Khalidi family.
After the affair of the French flag, the Porte found it proper to
send Mustafa Hamid, son of Musa al-Khalidi, a former chief
secretary of the sharci court, to be qadi of Jerusalem in 1844. When
early in the century a conflict developed between shaikh Musa and
the Husaynis, he left for Istanbul and served Sultan Mahmud II.107
Never returning to Jerusalem, his son Mustafa grew up and studied
in the madrasasof Istanbul,108 as such and for all practical purposes,
he was ottomanized. However, his appointment as qadi of
Jerusalem at this time may have boosted the Khalidi fortunes in the
city and the sanjak.
One of his first acts was to restore Muhammad ibn CAli alKhalidi to the post of chief secretary and to make him his na'ib
(locum tenens).109 By far the most capable among his brothers and
cousins, Muhammad ibn CAli was exiled by Ibrahim Pasha in
103
104
105
106
Mahfuzat, IV, 262.

JSR. no. 324, p. 44; no. 325, p. 188; no. 329, p. 92.
JSR. no. 325, p. 70 and JSR. no. 327, p. 172.
Finn-Cowley, F. 0. 195/292, desp. 2, dated 5.1.1848. Finn calls him "the

chief of the Haram."
107
See my article "The Husayini ..." in Kushner (n. 53 above), p. 99. On
Musa al-Khalidi, see also Ahmad Taimur, AClamal-fikr al-Islamifi al- Asr al-Hadith
(Cairo, 1967), pp. 224-5; JSR. no. 297, p. 149, and ;anizade, Tarih, II, 221-2.
108 On Mustafa Hamid
(al-Khalidi), see SO. II, 107-8, Taimur, pp. 234-5, and
Mannac, pp. 147f.
109
JSR. no. 328, pp. 1 and 237, Manna', pp. 145f.

26
B. ABU-MANNEH
1834110 and again by Tayyar Pasha in 1842.11 He was then

appointed qadi of Erzurum in Anatolia before returning to
Jerusalem. He remained chief secretary for the next two decades."2
Moreover, Mustafa Hamid appointed other brothers of Muhammad CAli as na)ibs in other towns of the sanjak. Thus, CAli was
appointed as na'ib of Nablus,"3 Sulaiman as na'ib of Jaffa,"4 and
Ibrahim as na'ib of Lydda."5 But Mustafa Hamid died within a
year of his arrival in Jerusalem, and we do not know for how long
the Khalidi brothers served in these capacities. At any rate, it is not
certain whether the Khalidis were ready at this stage for a leading
political role in the city.
It would appear that the struggle for power and influence in the
city in the first two decades of our period was confined to the
Husaynis and their allies on the one hand and to the naqibAbdullah
al-'Alami and his supporters on the other. Indeed, the Husayni faction was more powerful, and until the late 1850's, few governors
felt powerful enough to stand up against it. These governors were
Tayyar (1841-2), Haider (end of 1843-4) and Mehmed Kibrisli
(December 1845-January 1847). But the latter's successor, Mustafa
Zarif (1847-8), showed favour towards this faction.
The Husayni faction reached the peak of its power between 1851
and 1854 under Hafiz and Yacqub Pashas, two old and feeble
governors. The first having been very ill "was carried down in a
palanquin to Jaffa on his way to Constantinople" 116 and the second
died of old age in the city.117 It was an opportunity for the Husayni
faction to enhance its power in the countryside and to try to
dislodge Qaisi shaikhs from their domains. But Siireyya Pasha, the
governor of the sanjak in the late 1850's, put an end to all this, as
we shall see in the following section.
10
1
112
113
114
115
Spyridon in Journalof the PalestineOrientalSocietyXVIII (1938), p. 120.
JSR. no. 326,

JSR. no. 347,
JSR. no. 328,
Ibid.; Mannac,
JSR. no. 328,
p. 226.
p. 198.
p. 1.
p. 142.
p. 1.
116
See Finn, StirringTimes, I, 395; according to SO., Hafiz Pasha died in
Jerusalem, which is an error (see II, 99). He seems, however, to have died on the
way back.
117
SO. IV, 650-51.

27
6. Nahiye Shaikhs and the New OttomanAuthorities

After the restoration in 1841, the Ottoman authorities did not
attempt to change the existing socio-political order. Nahiye shaikhs
were left in their places. The only change that took place was in the
title, namely from shaikh to nazir.
From the beginning, however, the Ottoman authorities enjoyed
the support of the Qaisi faction, especially the Ibn Simhan family
in Jabal al-Quds and shaikh Abdulrahman al-CAmr in Hebron.
Because these families suffered at the hands of Ibrahim Pasha, they
declared their support for the Ottomans the moment the Egyptian
Pasha started his withdrawal.118 They were consequently rewarded
by the Ottomans. Abdulrahman was appointed governor of
Hebron as well as over the domain of his father, i.e. shaikh of the
nahiye of Jabal al-Khalil.19 The Ibn Simhans held their nahiye of
Bani Harith and received in addition Ramallah and Bireh.l20 At the
same time, two sons of the family were appointed to be the governors of Ramleh and Lydda, respectively.'21
In spite of the fact that the Abu Ghosh family had cooperated
with Ibrahim Pasha, the Ottoman authorities confirmed them in
their function as shaikhs of the nahiye of Bani Malik and wardens
of the road that leads to Jerusalem from Bab al-Wad (Wadi CAli).122
But following the favours of the Ottomans to the Ibn Simhans, the
Abu Ghosh family found itself surrounded by them, their traditional enemies, from the north, northeast, and the west. Consequently, they waited for an opportunity to hit back at the Simhans.
Before long, this opportunity presented itself from two directions.
After the revolt in Palestine in 1834, Ibrahim Pasha put to death shaikh
Ismail al-Simhan, the head of this family, and shaikh CIsa al-'Amr the father of
'Abd al-Rahman. See Macalister and Mastermann, "Occasional Papers ..." in
PEFQS (1905), pt. II, 354, and (1906) pt. III, 39.
119 M. M.
Dabbagh, Biladuna Filastin, V, 2 (Beirut, 1972), pp. 126, 198;
Macalister and Mastermann, "Occasional Papers ...,"II, 352; Scholch, Paldstina
im Umbruch, p. 176; Finn, Stirring Times, I, 237, and MaCoz, OttomanReform, p.
118
119.
120
See n. 21 above and JSR. no. 324, p. 43.

Finn, Stirring Times, I, pp. 232f.
122
Finn, op. cit., p. 232; Scholch, Palistina im Umbruch, pp. 214ff.; see alsoJSR.
no. 327, p. 143, and p. 169;JSR. no. 328, p. 69. I owe special thanks to dr. Subhi
Abu Ghosh for his kind help in obtaining oral information about his family.
121

28
B. ABU-MANNEH
First, from some quarters in the city to whose faction Mustafa Abu
Ghosh belonged, and secondly, following feuds in the Simhan
family, out of which internal strife among the members emerged.123
When Abdullatif found himself threatened by his more powerful
cousin, Husayn, he allied himself with Mustafa Abu Ghosh.'24
In the summer of 1844, when hostilities broke out between the
two shaikhs, Abu Ghosh and Husayn ibn Simhan, Young, the
British Consul, was certain that it was "fomented by parties who
desire to exaggerate and complicate the difficulties of the Turkish
authorities".125 Ramallah, which belonged to Husayn, was seized
by Abu Ghosh along with four villages of the nahiyeof Bani Salem,
the shaikh of which was an ally of Husayn.126 Husayn seems to have
asked shaikh Rabbah al-Wuhaidi, a beduin of the Gaza region, for
help. For his part, Abu Ghosh seems to have asked Muhammad alJarrar and Sadiq al-Rayyan of the Yamani faction in the district of
Nablus to attack the Qaisi nahiye of Bani Zaid, the nearest to this
district, which it seems they did.'27 Following this development, the
miitesarrif, Haider Pasha, sent to the scene his Kehya Mustafa alSacid with a small force armed with cannons.l28 Upon hearing that,
Abu Ghosh "quickly withdrew from Ramallah to his own townQaryat
al-CInab".129
A little later there were rumours in Jerusalem that Mustafa Abu

Ghosh had held a meeting of shaikhs in Bethlehem and called upon
them to take sides with him against the government. Moreover, he
threatened to assault Jerusalem "in order to avenge himself on ...
123
Macalister and Mastermann,
124
Ibid.
"Occasional
Papers ...,"
II, 41.
Young-Canning, Memorandum, F. 0. 195/210 dated 19.7.-3.8.1844.

Macalister and Mastermann, "Occasional Papers ...," III, 44; YoungCanning, F. 0. 195/210, memorandum dated 6th-31th August.
127
Ibid., pp. 41-44; see also BBA. Mesail Miihimme-i Kidiis, no. 2353, lef. 3,
dated 4 Rejeb 1260/+ [20.7.1844].
128 Macalister and Mastermann,
"Occasional Papers ...," III, 44. This must
have happened in 1844 and not in 1846 as the author stated because after describing these events he added "after this a new governor was sent to Jerusalem ...
named M. Kubrusli"; ibid., III, 46. We know that this governor arrived in
Jerusalem late in 1845 (seeJSR. no. 328, p. 139). In Young's memorandum of
6th August (see n. 124 above), there is a reference to a mission sent to the scene
of hostilities from Jerusalem.
129 Macalister and
Mastermann, "Occasional Papers ...," III, 44.
125
126

29
whom he is pleased to designate as obnoxious persons".i30 Had

such an act taken place, a considerable party within the city would
have sided with him.'31 But nothing came of it except the killing of
the two Simhan brothers, the governors of Lydda and Ramleh.
They were on their way to Jerusalem in disguise when discovered
and killed not far from the residence of Abu Ghosh.132 Mustafa Abu
Ghosh was accused, but he denied the charge.
In the fall of 1844, the conflict in Jabal al-Quds district between
the Abu Gosh and Ibn Simhan seems to have subsided when a new
conflict emerged in Jabal al-Khalil (the district of Hebron). Shaikh
Abdulrahman al-'Amr, the leading southern Qaisi shaikh, was
forced to flee Hebron, his seat of government. Muhammad, one of
his younger brothers, revolted against him, accusing him of
"tyranny and general misrule".133 It is difficult to ascertain the
truth of this accusation since we know that there was a feud among
the CAmr brothers over the patrimonial possessions.'34 Accusing
Abdulrahman of appropriating most of it to himself, his brothers
succeeded in turning a faction of the peasantry to their side. Thus
helped by peasants, part of the people of Hebron, and some
Tarabin beduins, Muhammad succeeded in forcing his brother out
of town. The governor of Jerusalem, who sent four hundred
irregular cavalry and two field pieces, failed in the attempt to
restore him. 35
Due perhaps to these disturbances in the sanjak, the Porte decided
to appoint a strong governor in Jerusalem. Mehmed Kibrsli was
dispatched with the assignment of restoring order in the sanjak. He
was a vigorous man who combined both civil and military training.'36 Assembling in Jerusalem more than 3500 troops, regulars
130
Young-Aberdeen, F. O. 195/210, desp. 37, dated 23.10.1844.

Ibid.
132
Young-Rose, F. 0. 195/210, desp. 31, datedJerusalem 16.10.1844; see also
de Barrire to the French Embassy in Istanbul, desp. 2, dated 29.12.1844 cote 896,
ArchivesDiplomatiques, Nantes. According to this evidence, the action occurred in
1844 and not in 1843, as Finn mistakenly stated; Finn, StirringTimes, I, 232.
133
Finn-Canning, F. O. 195/210, desp. 3, Jerusalem 30.5.1846.
134
Finn-Palmerstone, F. O. 195/292, desp. 20, Jerusalem 27.9.1850.
135
Newbott-Canning, F. 0. 195/210, desp. 1, Jerusalem, 19.11.1845 and
Finn-Same, F. 0. 195/210 desp. 3, dated 30.5.1846.
131
136 On
Kibnslh, see M. K. Inal, Son Sadrzazamlar(Istanbul, 1940), pp. 83ff. and
SO. IV, 300f.

30
B. ABU-MANNEH
and irregulars, among whom was Husayn ibn Simhan, the Qaisi
shaikh of Jabal al-Quds district,'37 Klbrlsli marched on 15 May
1846 against Hebron. "The object of the expedition was to restore
the shaikh Abdulrahman ..." to the seat of government in the
town, reported Finn.'38 As we have seen, the shaikh was a supporter of Ottoman rule, and the Ottoman government gave him its
backing for a few more years, at least. Hebron was relatively well
defended by townsmen, peasants and by beduins of the Tarabin
tribe. But after a three-hour battle, it was occupied, and government authority was restored to the region.
After that, Klbrlsl proceeded to Beit Jibrin where he suppressed
all dissatisfaction in the region and carried the leading shaikhs with
him; 139 he then encamped at Ramleh. At this camp were Mustafa
Abu Ghosh and Muhammad 'Ali al-Husayni, the two leaders of the
Yamani faction. Suddenly he ordered their seizure and sent them
to exile along with Muslih al-'Azzeh, the shaikh of Beit Jibrin, and
M. Abd al-Nabi al-CAmleh, the shaikh of Beit CUla.140 The exile of
Husayni was perhaps a sign of the suspicion of the authorities that
he had had a hand in the disturbances that had taken place in the
sanjak during recent years. That Kbnrsli was of such an opinion
could perhaps be inferred from a proclamation which he sent to
Jerusalem after the act of exile mentioned above. In this proclamation he stated that "those who are loyal, the exalted state rewards
them with honours continuously and makes them happy. But those
who deviate from the straight path ... suffer punishment such as
reprimand, imprisonment or exile .... "The wise man, he added,
follows what brings him comfort and avoids what brings him
punishment. It was necessary to issue this proclamation, he concluded, "as a warning to the high and the low that everyone should
busy himself in his affairs and [care for] the livelihood of his family
... and avoid all intrigue and idle talk".141
137 Macalister and
Mastermann,
"Occasional Papers ...," II, 46.

Finn-Canning, F. 0. 195/210, desp. 3, Jerusalem 30.5.1846; see also M.
M. al-Dabbagh, Biladuna Filastin, vol. 5,2 (Beirut, 1972), p. 198.
139
Finn-Canning, F. 0. 195/210, desp. 5, Jerusalem 27.8.1846.
140
Ibid. it is interesting to note that in his book (Stirring Times, I, 228) Finn
erroneously put Abdulrahman al-CAmr among the four exiled instead of M. CAli
al-Husayni, contrary to the dispatches of the preceding two notes. See also Jorelle
to the French Embassy, desp. 16 and 17, dated 16.8. and 15.9.1846, Archives
diplomatiques, cote 897.
141
JSR. no. 328, p. 51, dated [Sept. 1846].
138

31
Whether Klbrlsll succeeded in intimidating the notables by such

threats is perhaps doubtful. However, before he left the sanjakabout
two months later he appointed a new administrative council which,
strangely enough, included among its members three of the five
notables exiled after the affair of the French flag, namely Tahir alKhalidi, Faidi al-CAlami, and Khalil al-CAfifi.l42 The two other
appointed members, CUthman Abu-SuCud and Najm al-Din alJammaCi, were not known to belong to any of the competing factions. Thus the only member that represented the other faction was
the naqib, Abdullah al-CAlami, an ex-officio member. It was
perhaps an attempt to establish balance. While striking at the
Yamani faction in the countryside, the new council gave power to
its partisans in the city.
Mustafa Zarif Pasha replaced Mehmed Kibrlsll as governor of
the sanjak.143During his tenure he seems to have shown favour to
the Husaynis. He brought back with him Muhammad CAli alHusayni, who had been exiled about eight months earlier. In early
May 1847, M. CAli was made naqib al-ashraf in place of Abdullah
al-Alami.l44 His appointment, a year after Mustafa, son of Tahir,
was restored to the post of mufti, 145 represents a comeback of the
Husaynis and a strengthening of their faction. This change of fortunes was due perhaps to the rise of Seyyid Ahmet CArif Hikmet
Bey to the post of Seyhiil-Islam in Istanbul.'46 Ahmet CArif Hikmet
Bey, who claimed to be of sharifian descent,'47 served in his youth
as qadi of Jerusalem in the year 1231/1816.148 During that year a
friendship was forged between him and shaikh Tahir al-Husayni,
who was the then hanafi mufti of Jerusalem and of about the same
JSR. no. 329, p. 92, dated 9 Muharram 1263/[28.12.1846].
On Mustafa Zarif, see SO. III, 262.
144 JSR. no. 330,
p. 11; Finn-Palmerstone, F. 0. 195/210, desp. 21,Jerusalem
26.5.1847.
145 JSR. no. 329, p. 9, dated 13 Rabi) I,
1262/[11.3.1846]. This appointment
took place in the last days of ,eyh-iil-Islam Mekki-zade Mustafa CAslmEfendi.
146 On
Seyyid Ahmet CArifHikmet Bey, see Ahmet Rifrat (Topal), DevhatiilMesayih(Istanbul, n.d.), pp. 129-31; SO. III, 274f.; M. K. Inal, Son Asir Turk
5airleri (Istanbul, 1930) I, 620.
147
E. J. W. Gibb, A Historyof OttomanPoetry(London, 1905), IV, 351.
148
Gibb, ibid., says (p. 350) that he was a "titular" molla of Jerusalem but
according to his Turkish biographers he actually served there. See also M. A.
Ziver (ed.), Divan Arif HikmetBey Efendi(Istanbul, 1283/1866-7) pp. 21 and 68,
where Arif Hikmet refers to his being in Jerusalem.
142
143

32
B. ABU-MANNEH
age. The forced residence of shaikh Tahir in Istanbul after 1841149

may have helped to bring these two men closer together. CArif
Hikmet Bey, who wrote poetry in Turkish as well as in Arabic,
referred to shaikh Tahir as his "dear friend" and praised him in
two different places in his Divan.'50 According to one piece of
evidence, when 'Arif Hikmet Bey died in 1859, shaikh Tahir was
at his bedside,'15 a sign of the strength of their friendship. Thus we
assume that throughout the period during which he served in the
post of seyh-ul-Islam (1846-1854), CArif Hikmet Bey was beneficial
to the Husaynis and provided them with much needed support and
protection at the Porte.
Zarif Pasha's tenure in Jerusalem did not last for more than a
he dismissed shaikh
year. During this time, however,
Abdulrahman from his post as governor of Hebron for no apparent
reason and appointed in his place Rasul Agha, a commander of
irregulars. But Abdulrahman assembled his supporters from
among the fellahin and attacked the town, occupying it in July of
1848. The new governor, Bahri Pasha, restored him officially to his
post, thus closing this matter for the time being.152
To summarize matters, it could be stated that by the end of the
1840's, when Mustafa Abu Ghosh and other shaikhs were in exile,
the Qaisi faction was on the ascendant in the countryside. Husayn
ibn Simhan in Jabal al-Quds, Abdulrahman al-CAmr in Jabal alKhalil (Hebron), and even CUthman al-Lahham, the shaikh of the
nahiye of 'Arqub-who
originally belonged to the Yamani faction,
were to change sides, as we shall see.'53 Within the city, the Yamani
faction led by the Husaynis remained fairly strong.
But time was not on the side of the Qaisi shaikhs, or indeed of
the shaikhs altogether in the countryside. The conflict among them
continued, feuds within the same family broke out again, perhaps
not without intrigues of rival city notables. Moreover, the object of
149
See above, p. 16, and SO. III, 249.

Divan Arif Hikmet Bey Efendi, pp. 43 and 55.
151
See a handwritten note on the margin of CArif Hikmet Bey's biography in
Ahmet Riftat, Devhat ill Mesayih mac zeyl, p. 130 of the Bodleian Library copy
(Turk. d. 2165).
152 Finn-Palmerstone, F. 0. 195/292, desp. 22, dated Jerusalem, 17.7.1848.
153
Finn, Stirring Times, I, 234.
150

JERUSALEM
IN THE TANZIMAT
PERIOD
33
the Ottoman authorities, direct and centralized rule, was never

forgotten.
In the summer of 1853, hostilities flared up again, this time
between Mustafa Abu Ghosh, who returned from exile in 1851,
and CUthman al-Lahham of CArqub, his neighbour to the west.
Both belonged to the Yamani faction, but due to their rivalry for
the villages of the small nahiye of Bani Hasan to the southwest of
Jerusalem, Lahham seems to have allied himself with Abdullah alCAlami, the enemy of the Yamani faction.154
Both sides were of more or less equal strength and the struggle
remained undecided. The field of battle was sometimes too close to
Jerusalem, but the government did not interfere to stop the combating shaikhs. Governor Hafiz Pasha was old and ill.155 However,
a truce of few weeks was then arranged between them. Both shaikhs
were invited to appear before the Pasha and the council, and a further truce of three months was agreed upon.'56
When Mustafa Abu Ghosh found it difficult to beat Lahham, he
worked to create dissension between him and members of his
family. Shortly afterwards a conflict broke out between CUthman
and his cousin Muhammad CAta)allah. The latter was helped by
Mustafa Abu Ghosh (early 1855). Thus weakened, 'Uthman was
forced to accept CAta)allah as a partner. But M. Abu Ghosh wanted
to expel CUthman completely and have the nahiye given to his ally,
M. CAta)allah. At this stage, Muslih al-'Azzeh, the shaikh of the
nahiyeof Beit Jibrin, and CAbdal-Nabi al-CAmleh, the shaikh of Beit
CUla, 'Uthman's neighbours to the west, came to his aid.'57
According to Sureyya Pasha, the governor of the sanjak, a faction
of the beduin tribes of the south known as the "northern alliance"
also came to help CUthman. While the opposite faction, "the
southern alliance", moved to help M. Abu Ghosh, Siireyya sent
officials to them and halted their intervention.'58 Having become a
154
Ibid., II, 196.

On Hafiz Ahmet Pasha, see SO. II, 99; he governed Jerusalem between
December 1851 and November 1853.
156
Finn, Stirring Times, I, 266, 305f., 332ff.
157
Memorandum of Siireyya Pasha the governor in BBA. Meclis-i Vala Iradeleri,
no. 17 603, dated 3 Safer, 1274/[24.11.1857]; see also Finn, Stirring Times, II, 199
and 204ff. see also Scholch, Palistina im Umbruch, pp. 216f.
158
According to Sureyya in the above-mentioned memo.
155

34
B. ABU-MANNEH
scene of strife, and the object of interference of its neighbours, the

nahiyeof CArqub was much weakened and the power of the Lahham
family began a rapid decline.
Similarly, the feuds continued among the CAmr brothers. The
town of Hebron and the nahiye of Jabal al-Khalil were divided
throughout the 1850's between two hostile factions; one supported
shaikh Abdulrahman and the other his brother Salame. In 1851
Abdulrahman was arrested and imprisoned in Jerusalem, but due
to the interference of M. Klbrlsll, his old patron who was then the
commander in chief of the fifth army corps in Damascus, the shaikh
was allowed to escape, after which he reestablished himself in
Hebron.159 Again there was a renewed attempt to depose him in
1855. He was proclaimed a rebel and his brother Salame was
appointed in his place. Following that, Abdulrahman escaped to the
desert, but assisted by 'Abd al-Nabi al-'Amleh of Beit CUla, with
whom Salame was in conflict, he continued to harass his brother.160
This was the situation which Mustafa Sfireyya encountered upon
his arrival in Jerusalem in May 1857 and which he described in a
memorandum written to the Porte about six months later.'16
Sureyya was, in his early thirties, perhaps the youngest governor
appointed to Jerusalem since the Ottoman restoration.'62 His only
experience other than the offices of the Porte, according to one
source, was a chief secretaryship at the Ottoman Embassy in
Paris.163Jerusalem was his first assignment in the provinces. With
no experience in provincial affairs, "he naturally found himself
disgusted at the laxity of rule hitherto allowed here".164 He
detached himself from the notables except when strictly official contact was necessary and planned his moves. After clearing with the
Governor General of the province of Sidon and with the Porte what
159
Finn, Stirring Times, I, 248ff. and II, 287; Finn-Malmesbury, F. 0. 78/913,
desp. 2 (pol.), Jerusalem, 29.5.1952.
160
Finn, Stirring Times, II, 299f., 309; BBA. Meclis-i Vala Iradeleri no. 17 603
(the memo of Siireyya Pasha).
161
See n. 155 above.
162
According to $. Sami in Qamus il-AClam, III, 1740, Siireyya was born in
1241/[1825]; see also SO. II, 64 andJSR. no. 340, pp. 77-8.
163
M. R. al-Tabbakh, IClam al-Nubala) bi-Tarikh Halab al-Shahba), 7 vols.
(Aleppo 1923-6), III, 444f.
164
Finn-Clarendon, F. 0. 78/1383, desp. 1 (pol.), 1.1.1858.

35
he could do, he moved on to implement his plan. His first object

was the troubled nahiye of CArqub, followed by that of Mount
Hebron (Jabal al-Khalil).
In late summer of 1858, over a year after his arrival, Siireyya
Pasha moved against his first object, the Lahham family in CArqub.
Supported by additional troops, he seized the leaders of the two
antagonistic parties, cUthman and Milhem on the one side and
Muhammad and CUmar CAta)allah on the other. They were first
removed to Ramleh and then exiled to Cyprus. The nahiyewas put
under an officer supported by a small military contingent and
assisted by a local council of five village shaikhs with the aim of
restoring tranquility and facilitating the return of villagers-who
had left during the hostilities-to their homes.165
His second step was against Salame al-CAmr, the nazir of Jabal
al-Khalil, "a man of intrigue who cannot stay quiet and who was
the prime instigator of trouble among the beduins".166 In June
1859, a contingent of troops arrested Salame and his brother
A little later
Husayn and removed them to Jerusalem.
Abdulrahman was also seized and the rule of the CAmr family was
thus brought to an end in that region. The brothers CAmr were
exiled to the island of Rhodes and jailed in its castle. Sfireyya
abolished the post of nazir and appointed instead a government
functionary with the title of midur. A local council was also established in Hebron.167
In the cases of both the Lahhams and the CAmrs no tribunal was
held and no verdict was handed down for their banishment.
According to the irade, Sfireyya claimed (in the case of the CAmr
brothers) that he could not keep them in Jerusalem for long or put
them on trial there. Accepting this claim, the Supreme Council of
State in Istanbul authorized their exile according to articles 55 and
165
BBA. Meclis-i Vala Iradeleri no. 17 603 and no. 18 653. Each envelope
includes several documents of various dates between 1274-1276/[1857-December
1859]; see also Finn-Malmesbury, F. 0. 78/1383, desp. 4 (pol.), Jerusalem
18.3.1858, and desp. 6 (pol.), dated 13.4.1858.
166
BBA. DahiliyeIradeleri29 174, dated 21 Zilkade, 1275/[22.6.1858].
167
Finn-Russel,
F. 0. 78/1521 (pol.), Jerusalem 4.1.1860 (a report about the
year 1859); JSR. no. 343, p. 67; Scholch, Paldstinaim Umbruch,pp. 220-1.

36
B. ABU-MANNEH
60 of the criminal law.'68 Thus, soon after their arrest, they were
sent to their destiny in September 1859 and never allowed to
return.
As to Mustafa Abu Ghosh and Muslih al-CAzzeh, Sfireyya
thought in his first memorandum that in order to secure the tranquility of the mountain region, it was necessary to remove them
and the other shaikhs completely from the sanjak. Later on he had
some reservations; Abu Ghosh, he wrote, "has many partisans
among the notables of the city, and since his earlier exile (in 1846)
he seems to be frightened lest it happen again. But if he is left in
his place", continued Siireyya, "it would not be advisable to
remove Muslih al-'Azzeh and the other shaikhs because it would
indirectly contribute to the power of Abu Ghosh, and his insubordination would increase accordingly."'69
The Supreme Council accepted the recommendation of Siireyya
in this matter and considered it "unsuitable" to remove Mustafa
Abu Ghosh and Muslih al-'Azzeh from their posts. The council
authorized Siireyya, however, to caution them as a sufficient
measure for the time being.170
Suireyya's measures were a landmark in the history of the sanjak
of Jerusalem. No more serious trouble occurred in the countryside,
and when Mustafa Abu Ghosh died a few years later (1279/1862-3),
there remained no one capable of challenging government
authority.
At any rate, after the destruction of the power of nahiye shaikhs
or their elimination, their place was taken by government officials.
This process was formalized shortly afterwards. In the VilayetLaw
(Law of the Provinces) of 1864, the office of nazir or nahiye shaikh
was abolished. There came instead a government official called
miidiir(sub-district governor). Moreover, the office of village shaikh
was also abolished. In place of the shaikh there was a government
appointee of local origin called a mukhtar.In this manner, a period
168 BBA.
Meclis-i
Vala Iradeleri no.
18
653,
dated
1276/[29.11.1859].
Jumada
I,
169
BBA. Meclis-i Vala Iradelerino. 17 603, dated 3 Jumada I, 1274/[24.11.1857]
and no. 18 653, dated 12 Jumada I, 1276/[Dec. 1859].
170 BBA.
Meclis-i Vala Iradeleri no. 18 653, dated 4 Jerusalem
I,
1276/[29.11.1859].

37
in the history of the country in which rural areas were autonomous

came to an end.'71
Indeed, in the course of the Tanzimat period, following the
application of the measures of direct and centralized rule, the traditional and "natural" leaders of the peasantry were destroyed or lost
their military and political power, and the countryside, leaderless,
was laid open to the influence and domination of the city.
However, this was not a sudden change but the result of a process. As we have seen, the beginning of this process goes back to
the days of Ibrahim Pasha. It was Ibrahim who first constituted a
council in the city and took action to undermine the power of rural
shaikhs. This policy was continued after the Ottoman restoration;
it was mainly through the administrative council that the city
notables acquired power in the sanjak. We have seen that rural
shaikhs were often asked to appear before the council. In the process, they came to ally themselves with one or the other faction of
notables in order to defend themselves against intrigues of other
shaikhs or against government pressure. Consequently there was a
gradual shift in the leadership from rural shaikhs to city notables,
as we have noted throughout our discussion.
With this shift of leadership, local political activity finally
acquired an urban character; and even though Siireyya had stated
in a report to the Porte that Muhammad CAlial-Husayni was "considered the leader" of the "Yamani faction",172 this term was soon
to lose its significance. It is perhaps right to observe that with the
destruction of the power of the rural shaikhs, the traditional factional split into Qais and Yaman in the countryside started to
diminish and in the course of the following decades, the hostile
attitude of the partisans toward each other started to subside.
In the new socio-political system which started to emerge after
about two decades of the Tanzimat, the condition of the peasantry
worsened. In this new system the peasantry stood powerless in the
face of government officials who either misunderstood their
171
See CAbd al-?Aziz M. CAwad, Al-Idara al-cUthmaniyyafi Wilayat Suriya 18641914 (Cairo, 1969), p. 100; G. Baer, Fellah and Townsman in the Middle East
(London, 1982), pp. 109f.
172
BBA. Meclis-i Vala Iradeleri, no. 18 653, dated 1 Rabi> I 1276 [end of Sept.
1859].

38
B. ABU-MANNEH
problems or cared but little for their well-being. City notables who
assumed the role of intermediaries between the peasantry and the
authorities moved to dominate the countryside and to possess by
various means wide tracts of land which they had never had the
opportunity to acquire previously. E. Grant, an American missionary, had the following to say about the result of this development in a book published in 1906 under the title The Peasantryof
Palestine:
"As one becomes aquainted with Palestine life today, one is impressed
with the submissive attitude of the villagers towards the city dwellers,
especially towards the Moslem official class, the effendiyeh.But we are
assured by those within whose lifetime the period falls, that half a century
or more ago ... the fellahin were often in the ascendency and the city
people glad to treat with them. In those days the walls of Jerusalem were
of practical use in resisting the power of the country folk."173
7. The Husaynis and the Khalidis
Mustafa Sfireyya, as we have seen, was more determined than
his predecessors to apply direct rule in the sanjak. His drive in this
direction revealed the new type of bureaucrat the Porte was training. It reflected, moreover, a tendency in Istanbul in the later Tanzimat period for a wider implementation of a centralized system of
government on the local level.
In the face of such determination, the notables could not have
held their former ground. Country shaikhs must have been a source
of power to them. The fact that these shaikhs had been weakened
or destroyed was bound to leave a mark upon the relationship of the
notables with the authorities. After that it is perhaps not strange to
find that Sureyya Pasha, when he reorganized the administrative
council in 1860, "dismissed representatives of ancient families and
put in their places shopkeepers from the bazaars." Even though
this measure aroused objections and does not seem to have been
carried out in full1,74 it undoubtedly came to supplement and confirm the measures which Sfireyya had taken in the countryside.
173
E. Grant, The People of Palestine, an Enlarged Edition of "The Peasantry of
Palestine ... "(a reprint, Hyperion Press Inc., Westport, Conn., 1976); see Chap.
XI, p. 225.
174
Finn-Russel, F. 0. 424/21, desp. 21, Jerusalem 19.7.1860; see p. 35.

39
Unfortunately, we do not have the names of those dismissed, but

these measures show that by 1860 the notables were unable to resist
a powerful and determined governor. Obviously, they could count
no longer on their allies in the countryside, nor upon connections
or patrons in Istanbul. But above all, the factions in the city were
in decline. As to the Husayni faction, one of its pillars, Sulaiman
al-Nashashibi, died in 1858. Mustafa Abu Ghosh was not active in
the last years of his life and died in 1279/1862-3.175 Muhammad
CAli al-Husayni, though he lived until about the end of the decade,
seems to have been unable to regain his former power.176 Neither
he nor the two others had a successor equally able to carry on after
him. Similarly, Abdullah al-CAlami, the most active of the opposite
faction, also died in 1863. 77
In this light, it appears that in the early 1860's, traditional factional politics in the city as well as in the countryside began a rapid
decline and was on its way out. Political life in the next generation
took a different course. The interest or in some cases the involvement in political trends at the provincial level or even in Istanbul
began to grow.
Formerly, some of the notable families had connections or
patrons in Damascus or in Istanbul which they used in order to
safeguard their posts and further their interests in Jerusalem.
Nevertheless, it does not seem that they took part in the political
life of these centres. But during the second part of the Tanzimat
period, Jerusalem and other major cities in the Arab provinces
became much more closely integrated into the political structure of
the state than they were before. The movement of people and ideas
became easier. Consequently the way was opened for the elite
notable families to become involved in political life at the provincial
as well as at the central level. Indeed the political polarization in
Istanbul in the 1860's and 1870's appears to have contributed to
bringing about such an involvement sooner rather than later, and
it may have also been reflected at the provincial centres.
As carved on his tomb in the village of Abu Ghosh.
He for instance became naqib in 1864 following the death of Abdullah alCAlami, but after less than a year he was dismissed and 'Alami's son, Abdulmuttalib, was appointed instead. See JSR. no. 347, p. 90, dated 6 Rabic II
1280/[20.9.1863] and no. 348, p. 26, dated 8 Rabc I 1281/[11.8.1864].
177
JSR. no. 347, p. 90, dated 1280/[1863].
175
176

40
B. ABU-MANNEH
This political polarization seems to have been the result of two

conflicting concepts of modernization, a westernizing concept, the
proponents of which were 'Ali and Fu'ad, and a concept (or rather
concepts) defended by various groups with a conservative or traditional outlook. The latter lacked a worthy leader until the rise of
Sultan Abdulhamid II in 1876.
The reforms of cAli and Fu'ad Pashas seem to have gained the
support of the Khalidi family in Jerusalem but not that of the
Husaynis. The latter having been the holders of the post of mufti for
a number of generations and likewise of the post of Shaikhal-Haram,
they seem to have felt themselves to be the guardians of Islamic
socio-political values. It was perhaps no accident that "Kfiudislfi
Nakib-zade CUmer", apparently a grandson of CUmar the elder,
having been in Istanbul at the time, joined the "Society of Zealots"
(Ittifak-i Hamiyyet), which organized a conspiracy against 'Ali and
Fu'ad in 1867. One of the founders of this society was Mehmed
Bey, a grandson of Giircfi Necib Pasha (Nejib Pasha the Georgian),
a friend of the Husayni family and a man of strong orthodox
beliefs. During the crackdown on the members of the society by the
police in 1867, Kiidfislfi CUmer was arrested and sentenced to four
years imprisonment in Widdin castle (later changed to Rhodes).178
The case of CUmer is by itself indicative but obviously not a sufficient proof for the tendencies of the leading members of the
Husayni family. But judging from other evidence, such as the connections of shaikh Tahir, the ex-mufti, in Istanbul, or from the fact
that the Husaynis in Jerusalem remained in the shadows throughout the ascendancy of CAli and Fu'ad, we can assume that their
sympathy was with the conservative trends, which explains why,
under Sultan Abdulhamid II, they had flourished.179
On the other hand, the attitude of the Khalidis towards the
policies and reforms of CAli and Fu'ad was clearly favourable. First
of all the Khalidis had given their support to Reshid Pasha, the
Governor of the Province of Syria (1866-71), who was a protege of
CAli Pasha. According to Ruhi al-Khalidi, the son of Yasin, his
178
BBA. Muhime-i Maktum Defterleri no. 10, pp. 53-4 and 56. For his release,
see 'Ayniyat defterleri,no. 905, dated 8 Rabic I, 1288/[27.6.1871].
179 The notable families of Jerusalem during the Hamidian period will
hopefully be the subject of a further study.

41
family belonged to a party called the "reform party" (hizb al-islah),

which seems to have shared the views of Reshid.'80
Yasin, son of Muhammad CAlial-Khalidi, represented the sanjak
of Jerusalem in the General Council (Meclis-i CUmumi)of the province convened by Reshid in Beirut in December 1867 to discuss
the necessary reforms for Syria.181 Above all, when the
municipality was established in Jerusalem in 1866/7 during the
governorship of Nazif Pasha, it was Yusuf Diya' (another son of
Muhammad CAli), a supporter of Reshid and of his reform policy,
who was appointed mayor in spite of his age (he was about 25 years
old). He remained in this post for over six years before leaving for
Istanbul early in 1874 when Reshid Pasha was appointed Foreign
Minister, but he returned to Jerusalem about a year later to resume
his function as mayor.'82
The career of Yusuf Diya' and other members of his family
shows that the adherence of the family of Muhammad CAli alKhalidi to the idea of "islah" was a conviction and not a matter of
personal support for one governor or the other. While mayor,
Yusuf Diya' was elected to represent Jerusalem in the Meclis-i
Mebcusan, the first Ottoman parliament, in 1877/8. In the
parliamentary debates, he was one of the most eloquent speakers
against the policy of Sultan Abdulhamid II. Consequently he was
180
al-Asad, Nasir al-Din, Muhammad Ruhi al-Khalidi (Cairo, 1970), p. 38;

Sch6lch, Paldstina im Umbruch, p. 228; Mannac, pp. 154-5.
181
See al-Asad, p. 38; on the Meclis-i Umumi in 1867, see BBA. Ayniyat Defterleri
no. 905, dated 4 Sevval 1284/[30.1.1868] and entry dated 13 Muharram 1285; see
also Rogers-Elliot, F. 0. 195/903, desp. 9, dated Beirut, 3.2.1868.
182
See Scholch, Paldstina im Umbruch, pp. 225ff.; Mannac, pp. 156ff. It should
be added that Yusuf Diya' was a unique figure at that time in Jerusalem. According to an oral tradition in the Khalidi family, he was the son of a Greek lady, Anais
(or as commonly called in the family Anahisa) whom M. CAlimarried apparently
when exiled in 1834 by Ibrahim Pasha. This perhaps explains why Yusuf Diya'
acquired a different education than other young men of his age and place. First
he studied at Bishop Gobat School in Jerusalem, then at the Protestant College
at Malta for two years, then for a short time at Robert College in Istanbul before
returning home. With such a cultural background it is not amazing that Yusuf
Diya' appeared exceptional: "... he spoke English and French very well ... [and]
was almost as liberal as a French republican both in politics and religion ...,"
observed Eugene Schuyler, the American Consul General in Istanbul at the time
(see R. Devereux,
n. 40).
The First OttomanConstitutionalPeriod [Baltimore, 1963], p. 267,

42
B. ABU-MANNEH
among the ten deputies whom the Sultan ordered to leave Istanbul
without delay when he prorogued the parliament in February
1878. 183
Yusuf Diya3 returned to Jerusalem, but a little later he left the

country for Europe. He reached Vienna, where he seems to have
earned his living by teaching Arabic at the Oriental Academy. In
1880 he edited and published in Vienna a collection of poems of the
pre-Islamic poet Labid ibn Rabica.184At the end of this edition he
added some remarks which shed light on his views:
"We have stronghopethatthe Arabswill soon restoretheirplaceamong
the prevailingcivilizednationsbecausethis people(milla)... is stilllarge,
its countries are wide, its honoured language prevails among many
peoplesin Asia and Africa,and it is the nearestamongthe peopleof the
east and the west (sic!) to this new ... civilizationwithoutwhich it is
impossibleto obtainthe requiredcomfortbeside those Franks...."
After that he thanks the European Orientalists for their contributions to the teaching of Arabic and for their translation of many
Arabic books into European languages, hoping that their example
"will arouseArabzeal (al-hamiyya
and move the brothersin
al-Carabzyya)
the easternlands to returnto the ways of their ancestorsin the fieldsof
literature and knowledge". 85
Views that emphasized Arabic rather than Islamic culture were

obviously secular in nature and reflect the attitudes of those who
supported the idea of islahin the Syrian cites at the time. They show
moreover to which political trend Yusuf Diya' belonged in the later
Tanzimat period in Istanbul.
Once Sultan Abdulhamid II secured his position in Istanbul, he
turned against the supporters of the reforms of the previous two
decades. The leading members of the Khalidi family were
"removed" from Jerusalem. Yasin was appointed a local judge
(na'ib) in Tripoli in Syria.'86 Yusuf Diya:, after returning from

183 Sch6lch, Paldstinaim Umbruch,
p. 229; see also Devereux, ibid., pp. 148,
156f., 245, 247 and n. 24; see also A. Scholch, "Ein palistinensischer Reprasentant der Tanzimat Periode ..." in Der Islam 57 (1980), pp. 316ff.
184
Yusuf Diya3 al-Din al-Khalidi al-Maqdisi, Diwan Labid al-CAmiririwayat al-
Tusi (Vienna, 1880).

185
Ibid., pp. 147-50.
186
al-Asad, loc. cit., Mannac, pp. 154f.

43
Vienna, was appointed to various middle-level administrative posts

in eastern Anatolia, then in Syria.'87 Other members of the family
suffered a similar fate. Although they were allowed to return to
Jerusalem after a while, as long as Sultan Abdulhamid II was in
control, they never were able to regain their former primacy. However, they continued to be regarded as belonging to the leading
notable and learned families in the city.
Epilogue
This paper attempts to analyse the socio-political changes which
took place in Jerusalem and its district during the Tanzimat period.
This period marks the beginning of the rise of the city from a centre
of a small marginal sanjak to a political and administrative centre
of much importance. With this came the rise of city notables to
leading positions and the decline of rural shaikhs and shaikhly
families. The countryside, which for all practical purposes had
formerly enjoyed a degree of self-government, fell, as a result of the
measures of direct and centralized rule, under the domination of
the city and city notables. Inevitably, the condition of the peasantry
deteriorated. Indeed, a major consequence of these measures was
the decline of local power with no effective substitute for it.
Before bringing this paper to a close, it is perhaps appropriate to
refer to the act taken by the Porte in summer 1872 according to
which the sanjak of Jerusalem was separated from the province of
Syria188 and attached directly to the Ministry of the Interior at the
Porte. By this act it became a separate (mistekil) sanjak. 89If making
187
Scholch, Palastina im Umbruch, p. 233; Zirikli, A'lam, 5th ed. (Beirut, 1980),
VIII, 235; see also my article "The Rise of the Sanjak of Jerusalem" in n. 31
above, p. 27.
188
The province of "Syria" was established in 1865 following the "Law of the
Provinces" of 1864. It was created by uniting the province of Sidon with the Province of Damascus. The latter city became the capital of the new province. It
existed as a unified entity until March 1888 when Sidon was separated from it and
came to be called "the Province of Beirut".
189 On this
question see BBA. CAyniyatDefterleri, no. 905, entry dated 23 R. II,
1287/[30.6.1872] and entry of 4 Shacban, 1289/[7.10.1972]; see also my article
"The Rise of the Sanjak of Jerusalem" in Ben Dor (ed.), in n. 31 above, esp. n.
22. The late Dr. Sch6lch mentioned in his book Palastina im Umbruch that
Jerusalem was made a separate sanjak in 1874, which must be a printing error as
the correct date is 1872.

44
B. ABU-MANNEH
of Jerusalem a centre of a large sanjakin 1841 was a major contribution to its future development, the raising of its sanjak to a separate
status also contributed to the enhancement of its importance as a
political centre. Whatever the reason may have been for adopting
this measure, by creating a political centre in southern Syria of
almost equal status to Damascus or Aleppo, one which controlled
a relatively large sanjak, the Porte helped to lay the foundations for
the emergence of Palestine in the future.190
190 Cf. A. Scholch, "The
Emergence of Modern Palestine (1856-1882)" in H.
Nashabe (ed.), Studia Palestina, Studies in Honour of ConstantineZurayk(Beirut, 1988),
pp. 69-82. My thanks are due to Prof. A. H. Hourani for drawing my attention
to this article.


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Jerusalem in the Tanzimat Period: The New Ottoman Administration and the Notables

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Die Welt des Islams XXX

JERUSALEM IN THE TANZIMAT PERIOD

1. Jerusalem and Its Countrysidein the Pre-Tanzimat Period

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was also relatively

small, an estimated twelve thousand at the beginning of our period,

See below p. 4ff.

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firearms.7 This perhaps explains why the Ottomans, at an early

Bas Bakanllk Arsivi-Istanbul (hereafter BBA.) Meclis-iMahsus,doc. no. 1643

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rounding countryside before the Tanzimat period, it is doubtful

2. The Shaikhly Families in the pre-Tanzimat Period

On Nahiye see M. T. G6kbilgin IA IX, 37-39; on the "Nahiye" following the

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usually the head of a powerful family, in return for a fixed share.16

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Ghosh. Until the occupation of Ibrahim Pasha, their power was

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population throughout the Empire.35 The state was therefore to

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sultative council). It was composed of leading city notables and

On the Meclis-i Idaret (administrative council), see R. Davison, "The Advent

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Shortly after the withdrawal of Ibrahim Pasha, such an

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5. The New OttomanAdministrationand the Notables

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families monopolised higher legal and religious functions and, in

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Paldstina im Umbruch, pp. 225ff.

57 On the CAlamis, see

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to Egypt by Muhammad 'Ali following the disturbances in

Mahfuzat, IV, 129, doc. 5915.

H. Bahri, a senior aid to Ibrahim Pasha, reported that at a meeting held at

64 JSR. no. 326,

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until the time he was exiled by Muhammad CAli to Egypt (1834).

JSR. no. 326, p. 9, dated 1 Jumada I, 1257/[10.6.1842].

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the leading families in the city claimed sharifian descent, we can

... II (Jerusalem, 1948), p. 36.

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According to a letter written by Abdullah al-CAlami-the

A copy of the letter is enclosed in desp. no. 15 of de Lantivy to the French

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What followed afterwardswas that the Governor, Reshid Pasha,