Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
On August 9, 1555, Ilyas sipahi (cavalry officer), acknowledged before the kadi of Jerusalem that he had received 19 gold dinars and 35 silver pieces from the villagers of 'Ayn Silwān. The peasants had owed him a total of 27 gold dinars as taxes on the revenues from their annual crops and therefore a debt of 7 gold dinars and 5 silver pieces remained outstanding. All of this was carefully noted in the kadi's ledger.
In December 1554, Nasif sipahi sued Aḥmad of the village of Bayt Dhakariyya, which was part of Nasif's timar (income grant), claiming that Aḥmad had been living in another village for two years although he was registered among the peasants of Bayt Dhakariyya. When the district survey register was produced before the kadi in Aḥmad's presence, it confirmed Nasif's claim and he thus requested that Aḥmad be required to return to Bayt Dhakariyya. Aḥmad, for his part, claimed that he could prove his residence in the other village but then conceded that he was still legally a resident of Bayt Dhakariyya, having left the village only three years earlier. Whereupon the kadi ordered him to return to his village and pay his back taxes to Nasif.
Seven peasants who cultivated lands around Jerusalem came before the kadi on July 11, 1553 and sued Mehmet, the official responsible for the immediate surroundings of the city.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.