Family life in the Ottoman Mediterranean : a social history / Beshara B. Doumani.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 312-332) and index.

1. Maryam's Final Word -- 1.1. A Copper Pot with Its Lid -- 1.2. Why Should We Care About Maryam 'Anklis? -- 1.3. Property Devolution and Family Life -- 1.4. The Geography of Modernity -- 1.5. The Political and Spiritual Economies of Difference -- 1.6. Historicizing the Encounter between Kin and Court -- 1.7. Methodological Choices -- 1.8. Chapter Overview -- 2. Hamida's Children Come of Age: The Shari'a Court and Its Archives -- 2.1. The Shari'a Court Registers as Communal Textual Memory -- 2.2. Hamida's Children Go to Court -- 2.3. Lawsuit Narratives -- 2.4. The Centrality of Waqfs -- 2.5. Conclusion -- 3. Husayn's and Àbd al-Wahid's Designs: The Waqf as a Family Charter -- 3.1. Husayn's Design -- 3.2. 'Abd al-Wahid's Design -- 3.3. Waqf Preferences in the Absence of a Male Heir -- 3.4. Conclusion -- 4. Good Deeds: The Family Waqf as a Social Act -- 4.1. Who?: Class, Kinship, and Gender -- 4.2. Why?: Disciplinary, Supplemental, and Constitutive Waqfs -- 4.3. Rise of the Baraka Family: The Social Life of a Constitutive Waqf -- 4.4. Conclusion -- 5. Who's In? Who's Out?: The Waqf as a Boundary Marker -- 5.1. Four Patterns: No More, No Less -- 5.2. Pattern Two -- 5.3. Pattern One -- 5.4. Patterns Three and Four -- 5.5. Conclusion -- 6. Property and Gender: The Political Economy of Difference -- 6.1. Legal and Spiritual Economies -- 6.2. The Family Firm in Nablus -- 6.3. Urban Agriculture in Tripoli -- 6.4. The Tree and the Worm -- 6.5. Silk, Power, and Class -- 6.6. Co-cultivation Contracts -- 6.7. 'Atika's Options -- 6.8. Bustān vs. Dār -- 6.9. Conclusion -- 7. Fatima's Determination -- 7.1. What if Fatima Lived in Nablus? -- 7.2. Endowing Family, Litigating Kinship -- 7.3. Understanding Fatima's Determination -- 7.4. Challenges -- Appendix : Note on the Tripoli Shar'a Court Registers.

"In writings about Islam, women and modernity in the Middle East, family and religion are frequently invoked but rarely historicized. Based on a wide range of local sources spanning two centuries (1660-1860), Beshara B. Doumani argues that there is no such thing as the Muslim or Arab family type that is so central to Orientalist, nationalist, and Islamist narratives. Rather, one finds dramatic regional differences, even within the same cultural zone, in the ways that family was understood, organized, and reproduced. In his comparative examination of the property devolution strategies and gender regimes in the context of local political economies, Doumani offers a groundbreaking examination of the stories and priorities of ordinary people and how they shaped the making of the modern Middle East"--