From the Pages of the Defter (ص 237)

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عنوان

From the Pages of the Defter (ص 237)

المحتوى

certainty is that regardless of the manner in which the ownership situation was defined on
paper, the situation on the ground was known and honored by the villagers themselves and,
it appears, Ottoman law was flexible enough to accommodate the situation.
The court case demonstrates that the nineteen owners were following the letter of
the law. It cannot be argued that they were ignorant of it or did not fully understand it.
Concomitantly, it can be argued that this case and the two preceding it clearly demonstrate
that these villagers in the 1890s were conversant with the land laws and rules of procedure
related to them. In fact, the attention to detail that the Em/ak register reveals, line after line
for more than three-hundred pages, indicates that the land registration process on the
ground in the Hebron district was taken quite seriously by locals, at least for tax purposes.
Part Two: The Mortgage
So far, this discussion has focused on the sellers and their land. Now we may turn to the
terms of the mortgage and the interesting case of the buyers. Each seller in turn made a
declaration before the court regarding the number of shares he was selling, and the price he
received for them. The sale contained a written stipulation characteristic of the bay’ wifa
sale (i.e. mortgage): the sellers could purchase their lands back for the same price that they
sold them. In this case a time limit of four years limited this usually timeless stipulation.“””
The court record also explicitly stated that should the sellers not repay the mortgage, the
“°° | base these observations on my investigation of the Hebron sharia court registers rom 1867-1914.
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From the Pages of the Defter

تاريخ

٢٠١٦

المنشئ

Susynne McElrone

مجموعات العناصر

Generated Pages Set

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