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Privacy in Eighteenth-century Aleppo: The Limits of Cultural Ideals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Abraham Marcus
Abraham Marcus
Affiliation:
Department of History University of Texas
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Extract

On the night of May 26, 1762, several residents of the Syrian city of Aleppo entered a house in their neighborhood uninvited. The owners were not in, but several unveiled women sitting in male company were there to greet them. If the scene proved less compromising than the intruders expected, it did confirm their suspicion that the house was a meeting place for illicit relations. The following day they turned in the owners, a man and his mother, to the court and secured the qadi's consent to have them expelled from the neighborhood.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , May 1986 , pp. 165 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

NOTES

1 The court records, Suijill al-mahkama al-shar'iyya, are housed in the National Archives in Damascus, Syria. This paper draws on material in registers 73–104, covering the years 1746–1770 (A.H. 1159–1184). In the notes this source is cited as Sijill, followed by the appropriate register and page numbers. The three cases described above are found in Sijill, 97:123; 90:18; 89:238.

2 Historical studies make up only a small portion of this literature. The works cited in footnote 26 below reflect the growing attention to privacy in past societies. Much of the available writing on privacy focuses on modern experiences and concerns, and represents diverse perspectives ranging all the way from the philosophical to the economic. For examples, see Posner, R. A., The Economics of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), chs. 9 and 10;Google ScholarPennock, J. R. and Chapman, J. W. (eds.), Privacy (New York, 1971);Google ScholarYoung, J. B. (ed.), Privacy (Chichester, 1978);Google ScholarWestin, A. F., Privacy and Freedom (New York, 1970);Google ScholarSciama, L., ‘The Problem of Privacy in Mediterranean Anthropology,” in Ardener, S., ed., Women and Space (London, 1981), pp. 89–111;Google ScholarSchwartz, B., “The Social Psychology of Privacy,” American Journal of Sociology, 73 (1968), 741–752.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Sijill, 97:52.

4 Sijill, 81:29; 97:52; 101:265. For a contemporary description of practices in the public bath houses see Russell, A., The Natural History of Aleppo, 2nd ed. (London, 1794), 1:132–138, 380–382.Google Scholar

5 On Jewish regulations and the communal dispute see Y. Qasin, Mahaneh Yehuda (Livorno, 1803).

6 Detailed regulations issued by the Christian communities are published in Taoutel, F., Watha'iq ta'rikhiyya 'an Halab, vol. 1 (Beirut, 1958), pp. 109–111, 135–138; vol. 2 (Beirut, 1960), pp. 88–89; vol. 3 (Beirut, 1962), pp. 57–58, 135.Google Scholar

7 Archives Nationales (Paris), Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Correspondance Consulaire, Alep, BI 90, folio 14Oa (22 April 1767), and folio 154 (26 May 1767); Rabbath, A. (ed.), Documents inédits pour servir à l'his:toire du Christianisme en Orient (XVI–XIX siècles), vol. 2 (Paris, 1910), p. 55.Google Scholar

8 Sijill, 87:32.

9 Sijill, 79:206; 83:8, 42, 62, 247; 87:335; 89:791; 90:2, 5,7, 23, 42, 67, 149; 91:13, 154, 165, 186, 216, 276, 278, 286; 97:36, 40, 61, 72, 78, 81, 82, 87, 94, 121, 149, 177; 101:13, 113, 153, 205, 311, 378; 102:32, 57, 187, 230.

10 Sijill, 101:133.

11 Russell, Aleppo, vol. 1, p. 295.

12 The data are drawn from all sales deeds recorded for three twelve-month periods: June 1750–May 1751; March 1755–February 1766; and September 1758–August 1759. A modern cadastral survey confirms the predominance of small homes in Aleppo's old sections. The results are analyzed in David, J.-C., “Alep, dégradation et tentatives actuelles de réadaptation des structures urbaines traditiondles,” Bulletin d'études orientales, 28 (1975), 19–49.Google Scholar

13 Many of the properties transferred were shares of houses. In the table their prices were adjusted to reflect the value of the whole properties. For instance, if a one-third share in a house (or, following local usage, 8 qirars out of the 24 which constituted the whole) was sold for 50 piastres, I considered the market value of the whole house to be 150 piastres.

14 Sijill, 90:174–175; 80:40, 51, 52, 74, 99, 106, 108, 129, 133, 157, 164, 181, 204, 214, 236; 86:332; 88:62, 64, 88.

15 Sijill, 76:611; 83:81, 218; 87:154; 89:769; 91:134, 474; 95:10; 102:212.

16 Sijill, 76:475; 80:29, 44, 58, 92, 126, 141, 162; 85:19; 87:3, 92, 102, 134, 144, 169, 199, 264, 306, 371, 374; 89:749; 90:29, 108, 181, 189, 251; 91:4, 278; 95:211; 97:93, 205, 256; 102:63, 107; E. Laniado, Degel Mahaneh Ephraim (Jerusalem, 1901), folio 42; P. Russell, A Treatise of the Plague (London, 1791), pp. 63–64; Russell, Aleppo, 2:63, 69.

17 For descriptions of dwellings in these qaysariyyas see Sijill, 75:290, 305; 76:225, 482, 614; 78:101, 287, 295, 312; 79:169; 85:268; 103:200, 360.

18 For example, Correspondance Consulaire, Alep, Bl 87, folio 376a (30 August 1757), and folio 391 (24 December 1757).

19 al-Tabbakh, Muhammad Raghib, I'rikh Halab al-Shahba', vol. 7 (Aleppo, 1926), p. 24.Google Scholar

20 Sijill, 85:95, 554; 98:398; Shamma', E., Qorban isheh (Livorno, 1820), folio 38a;Google Scholaral-Ghazzi, Kamil, Nahr al-dhahabfi ta'rikh Halab, vol. I (Aleppo, 1923), p. 283;Google Scholar Russell, Aleppo, 1:281–282, 296; 2:79.

21 Russell, Aleppo, 1:280–281.

22 Sijill, 76:478, 479, 483, 508, 509; 79:104, 121, 129, 145, 229; 80:243, 272, 280, 298, 307, 326; 82:415, 472, 498; 83:150; 85:307, 313; 86:343; 88:117; 89:795, 844; 90:49; 91:165, 208, 328, 368; 92:8; 93:71, 119,261;96:140; 102:8, 180,252.

23 For example, Sijill, 91:276, 278.

24 Arabs living in crowded environments have actually been observed to shut themselves off in company as a way of being alone with their own thoughts free of outside intrusion. See Hall, E. T., The Hidden Dimension (New York, 1966), p. 148.Google Scholar

25 For more details see my “Men, Women and Property: Dealers in Real Estate in 18th-Century Aleppo,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 26 (1983), 137–163;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Real Property and Society in the Premodern Middle East; A Case Study,” in Property, Social Structure and Law in the Modern Middle East, Mayer, A. E., ed. (Albany, 1985), pp. 109–128.Google Scholar

26 Stone, L., The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (New York, 1977), p. 253;Google ScholarAries, P., Centuries of Childhood, Baldick, R., trans. (New York, 1962), pp. 390–399;Google ScholarFlaherty, D. H., Privacy in Colonial New England (Charlottsville, Va., 1972), p. 40;Google ScholarFlandrin, J.-L., Families in Former Times: Kinship, Household and Sexuality, Southern, R., trans. (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 92–93.Google Scholar

27 al-Asadi, M. Khayr al-Din, Mawsuat Halab al-muqarana, vol. I (Aleppo, 1981), p. 216.Google Scholar

28 For an example of resistance and evasion in 1849 see Taoutel, Watha'iq, 3:130–131.

29 Shaw, S. J., “The Ottoman Census System and Population, 1831–1914,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 9 (1978):331.Google Scholar

30 Taoutel, Watha'iq, 1:135–138; 2:88–89, 93; 3:57, 85, 135; Taoutel, , “Watha'iq ta'rikhiyya 'an Halab,” al-Mashriq, 42 (1948):234;Google Scholar al-Ghazzi, Nahr, 1:279–280; Laniado, Degel, folio 42; Russells, Aleppo, 1:144.

31 Sijill, 75:11; 78:49, 61, 83, 160, 162, 164, 306; 83:45, 72, 231; 101:9, 94, 150, 155; 102:101, 138, 147, 230, 292.

32 Sijill, 97:177; 87:183, 299; 90:18, 35; 91:276.

33 Sijill, 79:36, 37, 74, 133, 155; 81:53; 83:44, 60, 80, 126, 206, 212; 87:78, 92, 146, 197, 293; 90:27, 50,71, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 117, 126, 129, 132, 140,228;91:128,245,295;93:72, 125; 102:12.

34 Correspondance Consulaire, Alep, Bl 85, folio 13 (15 January 1746); Sijill, 83:62; al -Ghazzi, Nahr, 3:297, 320; Russell, Aleppo, 2:55–56. For references to communal responsibility in the Ottoman penal code see Heyd, U., Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law, Ménage, V., ed. (Oxford, 1973), pp. 106, 115, 117–118, 128–129, 235.Google Scholar

35 Sijill, 82:553; 85:198; 101:219, 262, 370; 102:267, 290, 291.

36 Russell, Aleppo, 2:84.

37 For example, Sijill, 74:264; 90:227.

38 Al-Asadi, Mawsu'at Halab, 1:316.

39 Stone, The Family, p. 4.

40 Stone, The Family, ch. 6; Flaherty, Privacy.

41 See, for example, Coulson, N. J., “The State and the Individual in Islamic Law,” International and Comparative Law Quanerly, 6 (1957), 49–60;CrossRefGoogle ScholarLambton, A. K. S., State and Government in Medieval Islam (Oxford, 1981), esp. pp. xv–xvi;Google ScholarWatt, W. M., Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, 1968), pp. 96–98.Google Scholar

42 Darnton, R., The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1984), pp. 257–259;Google ScholarStone, L., The Past and the Present (Boston, 1981), pp. 80–81.Google Scholar