The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty
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Within society the notables were at the top of the hierarchy, and in the empire they were a substratum below the officials governing the provinces from the capital of the main province or, later on, directly from Istanbul. Among the notables, primus inter pares seemed to be the rule of the game – one family would hold this advantageous position. The position of seniority was the naqib al-ashraf, which until the 1860s was one of the most coveted in Jerusalem next to that of the mufti, the most senior religious position to which a notable could aspire. An appointment as naqib al-ashraf carried with it certain duties as an arbitrator, as a representative of certain awqaf and as an objective witness in matters involving local elite groups.
The titles and functions of notable families were inherited from father to son, making the Husaynis a kind of hereditary aristocracy. This aristocratic status was won with religious respectability and a prestigious lineage. Furthermore, families such as the Husaynis augmented their power by establishing alliances with the military chieftains (aghawat) whose power was based on clientele and the control of suburban quarters and the grain trade that passed through them.
THE ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL BASIS
But prestige, alliances and connections were not enough to sustain the clan as a political force; they also needed financial resources. Most of these resources came with the appointments rather than ensuring them. The tax-farming system in the Ottoman Empire was such that it enabled the notables both to be enriched by and to accumulate political power. In a way, it was an alternative to the European banking system. As Sevket Pamuk explains:
While loans to kings, princes and governments were part of the regular business of European banking houses in the late medieval and early modern periods, in the Islamic world advances of cash to the rulers and the public treasury were handled differently. They took the form of tax-farming arrangements in which individuals possessing liquid capital assets advanced cash to the government in return for the right to farm the taxes of a given region or fiscal unit for a fixed period.10
At first this right was given for a year to three years, but during financial crises the tendency was to grant it for longer periods. The Ottoman Empire relied on tax-farming for urban taxes in particular, and hence the importance of notables who could serve as tax collectors. A different system was at work in the rural areas until the sixteenth century, but it was replaced by tax-farming thereafter, the concessions for which were auctioned in Istanbul.
Another source of income, and probably the most profitable one, was the ability of the notables to benefit from supervising, and later on breaking up, religious endowments – the awqaf (plural of waqf).
Before the emergence of municipal services, the authorities attended to the essential needs of the urban population through the waqf, the source for funding the restoration and maintenance of religious buildings and centers, educational systems and social services. Moreover, the waqf financed the expansion of infrastructure, the construction of bridges and the introduction of more systematic water supplies to the cities. The waqf was not invented by the Ottomans but was used more extensively by them as the best means of catering to the urban society’s concerns and requirements.11
Usually, Ottoman officials such as local governors founded the awqaf and appointed notables to look after them (as mutawallis and nazirs). At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Husaynis established three awqaf of their own, while others of the family were appointed as mutawallis and nazirs, which meant the family as a whole became the beneficiary of the waqf.12 Gabriel Baer, who investigated the period from 1790 to 1801, discovered that the Husaynis had a larger share than any other group in founding new awqaf and in being appointed mutawallis (one third of the former and half of the latter).13
Awqaf that were endowed by the state for public services included profitable assets such as muzara’ fields (lands cultivated on a permanent basis), the total cultivated lands of several villages, factories, workshops, etc. Out of the profits salaries were paid. Sons of the notable families in Jerusalem were already receiving generous allowances from the profits of the awqaf in the early nineteenth century. Among them were the Husaynis, who were given the title wujah-i-murtazaqa (those who benefit most in several lists of awqaf). But they were not the only ones; they had to compete with many other families. There were about 1,000 to 1,500 notables in Jerusalem at the end of the eighteenth century, and they were about 20 percent of the overall population of several thousand. (Figures are not easily attainable for that period, and there is no room here to enter the debate about them.) Their high proportion within the overall Muslim community explains why they were so numerous among those enjoying the profits of the awqaf.14
At the end of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman central government found they could use the awqaf to reward families who cooperated with them.15 Supervision at the beginning of the nineteenth century was lax, and therefore families could expand their financial benefits from the endowments, which in principle were meant to serve the public. One imperial decree, a firman from 17 April 1797, decries the excessive number of beneficiaries drawing on these sources without the sultan’s permission, which led to growing debts that disabled the proper functioning of the endowed institutions.16
Inclusion on such a list required authorization from either the governors of the province or the city – or those who represented them: the supreme qadi (Islamic judge) in the region, the qadi of Jerusalem or his deputy. This explains the networking a notable family needed to do to sustain its economic prosperity. In the eighteenth century, an innovation was introduced: the beneficiary documents could be passed to the next of kin, a fact that expanded the lists and overburdened the debts of the awqaf. The notables themselves approached the governor from time to time and asked him to limit the lists so as to ensure smoother operations in the field of charity and aid to the poor.17 Of course, they made this request without giving up their own privileged positions.
In 1777, after a period of political upheaval, the central government transferred the right to grant beneficiary status exclusively to the Ottoman officials dealing with the finances of the empire. The ministry was ordered to consider further documents only on a purely economic basis. There was worse to come. The move annulled past documents, which generated a strong protest and a demand to return the old system. The outcry worked, and the old system was reinstated.18
The waqf became a particularly profitable asset in the beginning of the nineteenth century when it was broken up. Gaining control of public waqf domains and making them a family’s own private property was legal. Some cases were sanctioned by the local qadi and the properties registered in the sijjilat as privately owned land. Alongside the Khalidis, Nammaris, Nusaybas and al-Dajanis, the Husaynis were the most important family to amass wealth in such a way. These families held high posts in the waqf administration and in the Shari‘a judicial system and other Islamic institutions, so they exploited their economic power. But there were those who truly meant to help develop an endowment, and thus they re-endowed their investments.
This redistribution was executed in more than one way. The most common was followed by the deterioration of the asset so that it could be dismembered in a long-term, or perpetual, lease. This was a down payment of a lump sum by the tenant to cover the debt owed by the waqf, or from expenses on repairs and restoration in the form of long-term (90-year) leases at a very low rent. Transactions of this and similar kinds enriched the Husaynis considerably in the early nineteenth century.19
Assets that were not leased or dismembered still benefited the Husaynis. Being a mutawalli of other people’s endowments promised the family a large share in those assets, as well as a prestigious position in society.20 Again, research shows that for the first part of the nineteenth century, the Husaynis had a proportionately larger share in transactions involving endowments.
Apart from the waqf, the urban notables of Palestine also relied on the rural economy to thrive. In the nineteenth century, Palestine wa
s a largely rural country, and revenues were directly connected to agriculture. Through the process of centralization that characterized the Tanzimat period, power shifted from rural lords to urban notables such as the Husaynis. Before the Tanzimat, the lords of the Palestinian hills owned a large share of the rural hinterland and received a considerable share of the land taxes and custom posts. These assets were now transferred to the urban elite.21
But generally speaking, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Jerusalem was not very important to the Palestinian economy either as a trading center or in its commercial activity. It was less its connection to the land and much more its holiness that provided income for many in the city, as did the frequent pilgrimages.22
Matters changed somewhat with the promulgation of the Land Law of 1858, which transformed the basis for landownership in the empire. The law required the registration and categorization of land for the sake of greater taxation. The Husaynis acquired land in many areas and became one of the leading landowning families. (However, since it took time for the Land Law to be applied in Jerusalem, the initiatives of the family occurred later on.)23
The sources of power varied with time. Once they held power, they found ways of maintaining it. By the time the Husaynis were both a religious and landowning elite, their fortified position in society was reflected in the educational orientation they chose for their children, who during the nineteenth century were sent to Ottoman professional schools to compete for places in Ottoman governmental service.
But while the nineteenth century brought with it new sources of power, it also set in motion processes that limited the notables’ influence in society. During their rule (1831–40), the Egyptians tried to overcome local independence, establish a centralized government and promote economic development. The Egyptian rulers tried to disarm the local population and introduced conscription, forced labor and new head taxes, as well as economic monopolies. The position of the notables was challenged again by the Ottoman programs of centralization, the Tanzimat.
When the Ottomans returned to Syria in 1840, they introduced some reforms that weakened the family Husayni to fulfill the reformers’ wish to centralize power, eliminate intermediary notables and mobilize mass support for the state. The family was also negatively affected by central authorities’ drive to secularize the judicial system and to introduce formal equality between Muslims and non-Muslims. However, they benefited from the local and municipal councils that were created to counterbalance local governors – councils within which they enjoyed important fiscal and administrative powers.24
With the advent of the age of nationalism, social standing no longer ensured the maintenance of financial and economic gains. Family wealth was now also part of the nation.
THE POLITICS OF NATIONALISM
This book tries to avoid the conventional school of thought that views nationalism as merely a product of modernization with a clear date and location of origin. Lebanon is typically singled out as the cradle of Arab nationalism, which is seen as an influential concept early on that then moved from Beirut to Jerusalem via Damascus.25
This is, of course, only one possible way of looking at it. Relying on more updated theoretical analysis of the phenomenon that has inspired a few intriguing volumes on Arab nationalism, this book treats the emergence of a nationalist point of view as a much more enigmatic subject. It examines nationalism before it became such a powerful feature dominating life in Palestine and Israel in the second half of the twentieth century – a period that is beyond the historical scope of this work.
The theoretical literature views nationalism in various contradictory ways: as an ideology, a product of the imagination, a cultural product or an act of social engineering. But there is a common thread running through recent critiques of nationalism. National identity, whether imagined, engineered or manipulated, is shown to be a recent human invention born of the integration of conflicting ethnic or cultural identities or the disintegration of such identities. This is the process described here.
Nationalism appears in this book as a modern invention that provides a new axis of social and political inclusion and exclusion that is neither organic nor natural. An artificial identification emerged, as in the case of the last years of Turkish rule, amongst those who belonged to the nation and more importantly amongst those who were excluded from it.
Late in the life of the Husaynis as notables of nationalism, Zionism came along and started a process that caused the Palestinians to construct an ‘other’ to their newly born national identity, an ‘other’ that became crucial to the formation of their national self. Hence, as is shown in the book, a Zionist threat was necessary to clarifying the uniqueness of the Palestinian national experience within the overall Arab one. But Zionism was not necessary for the emergence of such nationalism.
This book illustrates how national identity demands the subordination of other identities – communal, religious, ethnic, etc. This subjugation defines the parameters of ‘otherness’ and the degree to which it is constituted as a source of menace to the prevalent or hegemonic identity. The Husaynis followed through to the end of this process and in so doing delayed this subjugation – a disaster in the face of Zionism but a potential blessing for those who wished Palestine to continue benefiting from the more cosmopolitical and pluralist air of the previous Ottoman era.
SOURCES
Since the Husayni family was an integral part of local government, its political history can be traced with the help of the sijjilat, the records of the Shari‘a court in Jerusalem. This is a useful source for many who research Jerusalem’s history in the nineteenth century. The sijjil in Jerusalem is still kept in the storeroom of the Shari‘a court, and it covers the period from 936 to 1948. Like many other scholars much more experienced in using this type of source, I was fortunate to be able to see them with the help of the loyal staff of the Haram al-Sharif.
Reports by European diplomats and travelers were another important source. Albert Hourani believed the diplomats to be more reliable than the travelers.26 But in the context of our subject, some travelers’ reports seemed to be more trustworthy than the diplomats’ summaries, such as the ones sent by the British consul in Jerusalem, James Finn, in the mid-nineteenth century. These sources served me well into the mandatory period and provided depth that drier sources lacked.
Palestinian biographical and autobiographical works complemented the very thorough archival material found in both the Public Record Office and the Central Zionist Archives. Together these sources helped me to reconstruct the mandatory period. I also relied on the the valuable and amazingly vivid memories of Amina al-Husayni and other family members who recall this period.
The Arab Studies Society, which was headed by Faysal al-Husayni for many years, hosts a small family archive. I was fortunate enough to be helped by Faysal al-Husayni and Dr Budeiri, the chief librarian, with the materials present there (mainly secondary sources that relate to the family, as well as some letters and documents).
I also used quite a few sources in Hebrew – mainly secondary historiographical works that are unavailable in English. This may seem strange since this work seeks to challenge the scholarly and popular narrative common to most Israeli historiographies. The reason I used these sources is that industrious Israeli scholars have mined, and continue to mine, this relevant archival material in a systematic and admirable way – though their conclusions and interpretations follow the Zionist metanarrative very closely. Hence, while there are many references in this work to the empirical data they gathered, the plot woven here seriously challenges many of their conclusions and ideological assumptions.
Prologue
In the middle of the night between 28 and 29 October 1705, Muhammad ibn-Mustafa al-Husayni al-Wafa’i, naqib al-ashraf of Jerusalem, fled the holy city. (The naqib was the head of the families who claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad in the city of Jerusalem, and his position was one of the highest to which a local could aspire
in the Ottoman Empire.) The naqib and a group of his followers opened the Nablus Gate in the wall of the Old City and fled under cover of darkness to the Mount of Olives. Halfway up the hillside they met other rebels who had come out of the city by way of the Mughrabi Gate. By daybreak, the rumor had spread throughout the city: the great uprising against the representatives of Ottoman rule had been crushed.
Though the revolt did not break out openly until May 1703, worrying information had been reaching the court of Sultan Mustafa II since early 1702. Ever since a new ruler was appointed the previous year, Jerusalem had been in turmoil – not only the city but also the nearby districts of Gaza and Nablus. The new governor was sent to collect taxes more efficiently.1 The Porte hoped that this would serve as an example to others, showing that the empire was still the mighty force that made Europe tremble – despite its unprecedented losses to Europe at the end of the seventeenth century – and was respected by its multitudinous subjects.
The new ruler brought with him extra troops to help him enforce the new collection. Any attempt to avoid paying taxes was dealt with by the governor’s troops at once. The troops, however, were not content to collect the due tax, and so they also periodically robbed the citizens. Any failure to pay the demanded tax was punished with a severe fine, and the general burden of taxation increased. The combination of taxation and looting was enough to drive the inhabitants to the verge of an uprising.
In May 1703, the burden of taxation and the savagery of the governor’s emissaries the year before had provoked general resistance, which intensified with the imminent arrival of the tax gatherers in the spring. Led by two young and inexperienced notables, a revolt broke out that was unique in the history of the district of Jerusalem in that it allied peasants and Bedouins with dignitaries and notables. The revolt went on for two and a half years (1703–5), centered around the mosque of al-Aqsa and the citadel. The governor’s limited troops were unable to subdue the determined rebels, and the naqib became the city’s de facto ruler.2