From the Pages of the Defter (ص 243)

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From the Pages of the Defter (ص 243)

المحتوى

continued to form the most prevalent form of loan-banking during the Mandate period,
415 He makes a
despite attempts by the British to build up a formal agricultural-loan system.
compelling argument regarding credit in the Mandate period, based in part on a series of
interviews with Nazarene wholesale merchants. He argues that fallahtn preferred to take
non-institutional credit, with its variable interest rate tied to the harvest and payable in kind,
rather than fixed-rate loans from banks (when they could be secured), repayable only in
cash.
It is not surprising, then, that in the 1890s when formal loan-granting institutions for
Palestinian farmers were in their infancy in the Empire, this was likewise the case. In
Hebron’s court, the mortgage/loan business, known both as bay’ w’ad (lit. sale of promise)
and bay’ wifa, was booming throughout the period under discussion. To term this system an
“informal” loan system in the Ottoman period would be a misnomer. It was mainstream.
Further, the Ottoman judicial system was flexible, aiming for agreed-upon
416
settlements.
Automatic forfeiture of the mortgaged property would have been
contradictory to this principle. The loanee continued to have rights, even when unable to
repay the loan. For one, moneylending was a cash business. As Iris Agmon has observed,
“the fictitious buyers expected to get their money back because their investment was based
**° Amos Nadan, “The Competitive Advantage of Moneylenders over Banks in Rural Palestine”, Journal of
the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 48/1 (2005): 1-39.
*"® Abdiilmecid Mutaf, “Amicable Settlement in Ottoman Law: Sulh System”, Turcica 36 (2004): 125-140;
Bogac Ergene, “Why did Ummii Gillstim Go to Court? Ototman Legal Practice between History and
Anthropology”, Islamic Law and Society 17 (2010): 215-244.
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From the Pages of the Defter

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Susynne McElrone

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