From the Pages of the Defter (ص 254)

غرض

عنوان
From the Pages of the Defter (ص 254)
المحتوى
did retain communal patterns of land division (musha) and also registered them with the
tapu.
Part Three: The Moneylenders
So, who were the moneylenders for the Bayt Kahil villagers? They mortgaged their property
to al-Hajj lbrahim Shawar and his three brothers, Hajj Muhammad, Naji, and Musa.
According to the 1905 population registry for Hebron each of the four brothers were sons of
Talib Shawar and Fatima bt. ‘Amr Abu ‘Amr and each was the head of his own household
(hane) in the Sawakne neighborhood.” Hajj Ibrahim was born in 1853/4 (1270H) and was
the oldest of the four brothers.“
In 1905, both he and his brother Hajj Muhammad were
registered as merchants (tacirs) who could read and write Arabic. Their brother Naji was
listed as a merchant and also a grocer (baqqal). The youngest brother, Musa, was also a
“° ISA, 1905 nuftis register #176. According to the Shawar family tree, their father was Talib b. Ibrahim b.
Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Daim. ‘Abd al-Daim is the family patriarch. See shawar.ps/family-tree/ . Amin
Mas’ud Abu Bakr has found reference in the court records to at least one branch of the Shawar family
having lived in the small Madrasa neighborhood next to the Ibrahimi mosque. (See his MA thesis,
written at the University of Jordan and published in 1994 by the university’s Committee for the History
of Bilad al-Sham, titled “Qadha al-Khalil 1864-1918” (61, the relevant case is one of the three listed in
footnote #92 ).) According to the 1905 population register, none of the households in the mahalle were
headed by a Shawar. Its residents were almost exclusively from the Tamimi family. The ‘Aqaba
neighborhood had a gantara known as Qantara Shawar, but Shawars did not reside there.
“6 It is interesting to observe the internal coherence of Ottoman logic. In the court register as in the
population register, the four brothers are named in order of their age. The oldest, Ibrahim,was born in
1270 / 1853-4 and headed #51. Hajj Muhammad, born 1275 / 1858-9, headed hane #52. Naji, born in
1279 / 1862-3, headed hane 53, and Musa, the youngest, born in 1283 /1866-7, headed hane #54. Their
residences were given as: Qantara (arch) Basla, Qantara ‘Alush, Hawsh (courtyard) Jawad, and Qantara
al-Diba(?).
237
هو جزء من
From the Pages of the Defter
تاريخ
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المنشئ
Susynne McElrone

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