The Political Economy of Population Counts in Ottoman Palestine: Nablus, circa 1850

Author(s): Beshara B. Doumani

Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Feb., 1994), pp. 1-17
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/164049
Accessed: 03/03/2009 11:51

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
International Journal of Middle East Studies.

http://www.jstor.org
Int. J. Middle East Stud. 26 (1994), 1-17. Printed in the United States of America

Beshara B. Doumani

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF POPULATION

COUNTS IN OTTOMAN PALESTINE:
NABLUS, CIRCA 1850

New evidence, culled from the Nablus advisory council (majlis al-shiira) records
and based on an actual Ottoman population count taken in December 1849, indi-
cates that the city's population at that time numbered at least 20,000 people, more
than twice the frequently cited figure of 8,000-9,000.' This revision raises serious
doubts about the veracity of hitherto commonly accepted population figures, most
of them based on contemporary estimates by Western observers, for the various
regions of Palestine during the first three-quartersof the 19th century. Moreover,
when compared to available data for Nablus from the 16th and the late 19th cen-
turies, it seems that the pattern of Nablus's demographic development differs from
what the proponents of Ottoman decline and modernization theses have argued.2
Instead of decreasing during the so-called dark ages of Ottoman decline in the 17th
and 18th centuries, Nablus's population increased significantly; and instead of
growing robustly during the so-called period of modernization in the second half of
the 19th century, it appears to have leveled off.
This against-the-grain demographic pattern reflects the fact that Nablus-an in-
terior city whose economy was based on local and regional trade, manufacture,
and the provision of services to the surrounding hinterland-enjoyed a fair mea-
sure of economic prosperity and political stability during the middle Ottoman cen-
turies when the power of the central government was weak. Conversely, Nablus's
economy in the latter part of the 19th century, when compared to the efferves-
cence of some other towns in Greater Syria, seems to have become lethargic as a
result of Ottoman centralization and the deepening integration of Palestine into the
European-dominatedworld economy. Just as Damascus was superseded by Beirut,
a rapidly growing coastal city energized by the increasing volume of trade with
Europe, so was Nablus negatively affected by the shifting of economic and poli-
tical power toward the coastal trade cities of Jaffa and Haifa, and to Jerusalem.
Further comparative study is needed to determine whether Nablus's demographic
development during the Ottoman period is unique or typical of other interior urban
centers in Greater Syria characterized by similar economic and social structures.

Beshara B. Doumani teaches at the Department of History, University of Pennsylvania, 207 College
Hall, Philadelphia, Pa. 19104, U.S.A.

? 1994 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/94 $5.00 + .00

2 Beshara B. Doumani

TABLE 1 Population according to Western sources

City 1800 1840 1860 1880 1922

Nablus 7,500 8,000 9,500 12,500 16,000

Jerusalem 9,000 13,000 19,000 30,000 62,500
Jaffa 2,750 4,750 6,520 10,000 47,700
Haifa 1,000 2,000 3,000 6,000 24,600
Gaza 8,000 12,000 15,000 19,000 17,500
Hebron 5,000 6,500 7,500 10,000 16,600
Acre 8,000 10,000 10,000 8,500 6,400

Source: Abridged from summary table in Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, "The Population of the Large Towns in
Palestine During the First Eighty Years of the Nineteenth Century, According to Western Sources," in
Studies on Palestine During the Ottoman Period, ed. Moshe Ma'oz (Jerusalem, 1975), 68.

By using the label "political economy" to describe Ottoman population counts,

I am referring to the contested nature of a process usually assumed to be technical
in nature. In Jabal Nablus,3 as elsewhere in Greater Syria during the mid-19th cen-
tury, counting people involved a struggle over taxation, conscription, control of
rural production, and the drawing of political and social boundaries during a tran-
sitional and fluid stage of Ottoman rule. From this perspective, the events sur-
rounding the population count of 1849 were but part of a larger discourse between
local and central authorities. The context and way in which the count was carried
out, and the subsequent disagreement about the final numbers between the Nablus
council and the central Ottoman authorities, illustrate the inherent contradictions
of Ottoman reform as applied to semiautonomous regions such as Jabal Nablus.
The campaign of population counts in Greater Syria during the mid-19th century
also heralded the slow, but sure, creation of new categories through which the
Ottoman state attempted to redefine, manipulate, and extend its authority over the
populations within its territories during the Tanzimat period.4

THE 1849 COUNT

Although numerous studies on the demography of Ottoman Palestine have been

published in the past two decades, very large gaps in our knowledge about size and
trends still remain. Known official Ottoman population statistics cover only parts
of the 16th century and the last quarter of the 19th century, and most research
efforts have been limited to these two periods.5 We cannot even begin to guess
about the demographic changes in Palestine during the 17th and 18th centuries,
although the prevalent assumption is that the population declined.6 The opposite
holds true for the first three-quartersof the 19th century: the proliferation of West-
ern travelers' accounts and consular reports generated a plethora of guesses, all of
which assumed a general rise in population.
The Israeli scholar Yehoshua Ben-Arieh was the first to systematically inves-
tigate Western sources for the population of Palestinian cities in the first three-
quartersof the 19th century, and his conclusions (Table 1) have been widely cited.7
 Population Counts in Ottoman Palestine 3

As these figures suggest, Nablus is estimated to have grown at a sluggish rate,

especially when compared to Jerusalem and Jaffa, whose population is said to have
tripled. The sluggish response of Nablus and its hinterland to either increasing or
decreasing population levels as a whole is a recurrenttheme in studies on demo-
graphic change in Palestine and clearly reflects the stability of patterns of settle-
ment in this region.8
Yehoshua Ben-Arieh's conclusions cannot be accepted at face value. Justin
McCarthy and Kamal Karpat have shown that travelers' and consular reports are
not reliable, because the Ottoman government was the only one that did any sys-
tematic counting.9 All other estimates were simply guesses, and no contemporary
observers could have known enough about such a large geographic area to report
numbers accurately. Ben-Arieh's findings were also colored by an assumption,
stated categorically and without evidence or elaboration, that Palestine in 1800 was
"in a state of utter devastation,"10an assumption based on an unrestrainedversion
of the Ottoman-decline thesis.1'
Demographic studies on Palestine are also politically sensitive.'2 A few years
after the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, Ben-Arieh,
acutely aware of the Palestinian demographic "problem,"wrote that it was "highly
importantto ... provide basic knowledge about the density of the population in the
country before the beginning of modern Jewish settlement."'3 In choosing from
among the estimates made by various European travelers, Ben-Arieh then usually
picked the lower, ratherthan the higher, figures. In the case of Nablus, for example,
he dismissed the estimates of 14,000 for mid-century by Orelli, and of 20,760 for
1881 by Falsher, and settled on substantially lower figures (see Table 1).14 He does
not, moreover, cite Reverend John Mills's report of being told by an Ottoman
official in Nablus, not long after the regional census office was established, that the
city's population ranged from 20,000 to 25,000 in the mid-1850s.15
Ben-Arieh's estimate that 8,000-9,000 people lived in the city of Nablus at mid-
century, however, does seem to be borne out by a report submitted in 1861 by
Rosen, the Prussian consul based in Jerusalem, to his superiors in Istanbul. Alex-
ander Scholch published a table based on data that Consul Rosen claimed came
from the 1849 register of souls (defter-i nufuis) in Jerusalem, and this shows a
figure of 4,513 souls (nafs; pl. nufuis) for the city of Nablus.'6 Scholch, having
accepted Rosen's claim that the registration unit nafs refers to males of all ages,
concluded that a total of 9,026 people lived in Nablus, for the number had to be
doubled to include females.
The above estimates run counter to information contained in the records of the
Nablus advisory council. According to these records, the Ottoman military com-
mander Muhammad Pasha rode into the city of Nablus in late December 1849,
accompanied by a large contingent of troops.17MuhammadPasha did not come to
collect taxes, punish rebels, or install a new deputy-governor (qda'im maqdm, also
called mutasallim). Rather, he came to count people in what, as far as we know, was
the first serious attempt by the Ottoman government at people counting since the
16th century. December was an appropriatemonth for it: most of the peasants and
agricultural workers were huddled in their homes following the olive harvest sea-
son, and they were busy repairingtheir houses and tools and fortifying the domestic
4 Beshara B. Doumani

sphere in anticipation of the sowing of winter crops. For the vast majority of the
urban male population-artisans, workers, shopkeepers, and itinerant merchants-
December, with its rains and short days, was also a slow month with less than the
usual work and travel.
The drama of Muhammad Pasha's arrival and the inconvenience of troops to be
billeted were no doubt regarded as intrusions by the local population. Nablus was
the capital of a largely autonomous hill region, long ruled by native sons and infa-
mous for being one of the most difficult areas for the central government to control,
much less collect taxes on a systematic basis. There was no Ottoman garrison in
the city, and its population was characterized by a strong sense of regional iden-
tification. The tensions generated by this operation can be detected in a letter from
the council delivered to Muhammad Pasha in early January 1850, then sent to the
governor of Sidon province. In a detailed summary of the undertaking, the council
members assured the higher authorities that the count proceeded peacefully and
posed no undue burden on the people. The letter states, in part,
A short while ago, the entourage of his eminence ... Muhammad Basha.. . arrived . . .
with ... a firman . . . ordering a survey of souls of the city of Nablus and its hinterland sub-
districts . . and Jenin and its subdistricts. The noble firman was read at the council
[premises] in the presence of the city's notables, heads of the city quarters (mashayikh al-
harat), and the tax collectors of the subdistricts. The population count of the city of Nablus
was carried out, and immediately thereafter, the officials brought by his excellency departed
to the subdistricts accompanied by the tax collectors. Thus a survey of souls in all the parts
of the districts of Nablus and Jenin was carried out without the least burden on the people
by the officials, neither in terms of food nor drink. All the people have complete assurance
and peace of mind. . . . The officials'. . . mission was completed ... and all the expenses
incurred by the Victorious Military ... during their stay . . . whether inside or outside [the
city] were paid by the council to the parties involved. All . .. were satisfied with his ... ex-
cellency . . . and the officials in his entourage, for his eminence always has compassion for
the people of these two districts and, due to his wisdom, all enjoy comfort, security, and
prosperity.... 18
Soon after Muhammad Pasha left, however, disagreements arose between the
Nablus council members and the central authorities over the actual number of
people living in the city of Nablus and its hinterland. On 9 January 1850, three
days after the letter cited earlier, the council members sent another communique to
the same Muhammad Pasha:

We have put our seal on ... the (census) registers of the city of Nablus [the number] 6,626
nafs as decided by the officials who registered the souls in Nablus for your excellency. After
your excellency's entourage left these parts ... the council reviewed [the registers] . . . and
found that the number of souls in the city of Nablus, including non-Muslims (dhimmiyyun),
is exactly 5,626; so our sealed letter has a mistake of 1,000 extra nafs.... In this case we
beg your indulgence ... to send us back the sealed report... so that it can be destroyed and
another one prepared which shows the correct number.... 19

Setting the disagreement aside for the moment, it must be immediately pointed
out that the figures of 6,626 or 5,626 nafs are the most concrete and reliable popu-
lation numbers available for Nablus during the mid-19th century: they were arrived
 Population Counts in Ottoman Palestine 5

at as a result of a joint and systematic count by both the central and the local
authorities and were recorded immediately after the census was carried out. Ac-
cording to these numbers and again assuming that nafs referred only to males
regardless of age, the population of Nablus must have ranged between 11,252
and 13,262 at mid-century, or 3,000-4,000 more than the figures put forward by
Ben-Arieh and Schilch.

THE MEANINGS OF NUMBERS

How can it be explained that a single population count of the city of Nablus in
1849 produced three such widely different numbers: the one by Consul Rosen and
the two mentioned in the document above? And what are the meanings of these
numbers? The answer has something to do with the political economy of popula-
tion counts on the one hand, and the contradictions inherent in the process of Otto-
man reform on the other. It is precisely the uncertain nature of demographic data
that is the most significant and intriguing point at this juncture, for it exposes the
struggle between local forces and the central government over power, labor, and
surplus.
Karpat, in an evaluation of 19th-century Ottoman population counts beginning
in the 1830s, argued that taxation and conscription were the driving forces behind
them.20The military, in his words, "was the first to show keen interest in popula-
tion records and to exert pressure on the Sultan."21It was not a coincidence, there-
fore, that the 1849 census of Nablus was planned and carried out by a military unit
headed by Muhammad Pasha. After all, the head tax and conscription were very
unpopular measures, and, as Muhammad Pasha must have known, the attempts of
the Egyptian administration to impose them precipitated the 1834 revolt, led by
none other than the sheikhs of Jabal Nablus.22
Because the object of the census was to determine both the tax base and the
number of young men eligible for conscription into the military, local notables had
powerful incentives to undercount the population. For one thing, they could, and
indeed tried to, pocket the difference between the amount of money collected and
the amount paid to the government by lowering their estimate of the number of
taxpayers.23Underreportingcould be used as a means of increasing the popularity
of and patronage obligations (and profit) to a local notable if he demonstrated the
power to reduce the tax burden. Undercounting also meant that more peasants
could stay on the land and continue producing the agricultural commodities that
were the most profitable source of income for the urban elite. Finally, the very act
of counting constituted an infringement on the notables' control over the local
population: it reaffirmedOttoman authority during an aggressive period of central-
ization, and it provided the government with valuable knowledge that could be
used to manipulate the local population directly.
The general population, especially the poor, exerted pressure for undercounting
from below, for they had equally powerful motivations. Even though a relatively
small number of people were directly affected by conscription, its specter, raised
by population counts, haunted the general population and generated a great deal of
tension, not just in Nablus but also in Mount Lebanon and Aleppo.24Practically,
6 Beshara B. Doumani

conscription could mean the breakup of the family unit for long periods of time,
impoverishment, and loss of land due to the absence, in some instances, of the
male head of the family. Those who could avoided registration altogether. The un-
fortunate who could not either accepted their fate or ran away. The well-to-do had
a third option: they could pay someone a large amount of money to be conscripted
in their place.25
Registration also meant the possibility of an increased tax burden. More im-
portant, perhaps, it reinforced the idea of individual responsibility in meeting tax
obligations. This threatened to undermine one of the fundamental defense mecha-
nisms of the urban poor and a peasantry dependent on rain-fed agriculture:collec-
tive payment of taxes on the quarterand village levels. Moreover, Jabal Nablus at
this time was embroiled in a violent struggle between the Tuqan and CAbdal-Hadi
families for control of this region. This struggle, in turn, was fueled by numerous
disputes and armed engagements between leading peasant clans, especially in the
subdistricts of Wadi al-Shcir and Jammacin. This volatile environment reduced
even further the willingness of peasants to submit to a population count.
In any case, the local authorities and the population as a whole certainly ex-
perienced the count as more of a military and fiscal operation than a scientific
undertaking. That same year, Urquhart, who accompanied the Ottoman military
commander 'Izzat Pasha, during one of his population count sweeps in Mount
Lebanon, wrote of the "great commotion" in which this operation was conducted.26
As in Jabal Nablus, dozens of local leaders were assembled, then occasional forays
were made that involved house-by-house searches.27The apprehensiveness of the
leaders and of the general population in Mount Lebanon was only surpassed by their
efforts to underestimatetheir true number-efforts that 'Izzat Pasha was well aware
of. According to Urquhart,the local governor, Sacid Bey, was "sending man after
man to detect concealed persons, and each new pressure bringing more and more
men to light. It was like an oil press-another turn and another squirt. The chiefs
helped the government to detect the men, the people to detect the property."28
These apprehensions were well founded. Shortly after the population count was
completed in Jabal Nablus, the local census officials were instructed to submit all
names in triplicate and send copies to the central government headquartersin Istan-
bul, to the regional military headquarters,and to Beirut, then the fiscal capital of
Sidon province.29
The military and economic aspects of Ottoman population counts fed into a
political and administrativedilemma. The Tanzimat of 1839 heralded, among other
things, the first stage of a concerted effort by the central government to consolidate
its hold on regions then only nominally under its control. The Nablus advisory
council and the newly created census bureau were but two of the bureaucraticagen-
cies through which this control was to be exercised. But herein lay one of the
primary contradictions of Ottoman reform efforts: these agencies could function
effectively at the district and subdistrict levels only if they were staffed by local
leaders who knew the area well and who exercised some measure of influence.
In short, the very social elements who stood to lose from the extension of cen-
tral control manned the official bureaucraticposts charged with implementing these
reforms.
 Population Counts in Ottoman Palestine 7

This is not to say that all aspects of the Tanzimat were seen by influential mer-
chants, ruling families, and religious leaders as potentially undermining their
power. On the contrary, many welcomed their cooptation in the hope of taking
advantage of new opportunities. This was especially true for the merchants of Jabal
Nablus because reforms, such as the establishment of a city council, gave them
direct access to official political positions for the first time in memory. Instead of
resisting the new arrangements,therefore, many competed over the new positions,
then tried to use them for their own purposes. Membership in the council could
mean, for example, power over competitors in such vital arenas in awarding tax
farms; approving bids for auctions on commodities collected as taxes in kind; and
appointment of relatives and friends to head newly established institutions.
Thus, even though the impetus for establishing a census bureau came from the
central government, it was left up to the Nablus council members to appoint its
administrators. Sulayman Beik Tuqan, the mutasallim of Nablus at the time, duly
appointed two of his relatives, 'Ali Beik Tuqan and Muhammad Amin Tuqan, to
the posts. Their assistants for the hinterland were picked by the rural leaders, all
of whom headed clans that controlled the position of subdistrict chief for genera-
tions.30These rural appointees used their positions in the census bureau exactly as
the members of the council used theirs: to resist, alter, or only selectively imple-
ment the responsibilities they were instructed to carry out.
The Ottoman authorities were well aware of this dilemma. In the late 1840s, for
example, they were involved in bitter disputes with the Nablus council over serious
issues such as the composition of the council's membership,31and the solid support
of the council to soap manufacturerswho were currently on a tax strike, refusing
to pay hundreds of thousands of piasters in export taxes.32All the members of the
council, one must immediately add, were involved in soap production.
No wonder, therefore, that Muhammad Pasha personally supervised the 1849
census in a military-style operation while the newly appointed local census officials
were in Beirut receiving instructions. Clearly, he wanted the first crucial step-
counting people-to be executed under his direct control before these officials re-
turned home. Otherwise, the basic numbers could have been easily manipulated.
The process of people counting, therefore, progressed in stages: the initiative came
from the central authorities; the actual census was a joint operation under clear
hierarchical command; and only the updating of records and day-to-day manage-
ment was left to local officials.
This calculated and well-coordinated arrangementfailed to prevent a confron-
tation, however. When the local chief registrar returned from Beirut, the council
members saw fit to review the census books and consequently "discovered" that
the figure 6,626 was exactly 1,000 nafs over the "real" number. In the letter ask-
ing that the number be reduced, no explanation was given for how this "mistake"
was discovered. Not enough time had elapsed to have taken yet another count
(Muhammad Pasha had left three days earlier), and there is no reference in the
correspondence to a new count. Even if the new figure of 5,626 had been based on
a recount, it is highly unlikely that the difference would amount to exactly 1,000
nafs. At the same time, it is equally unlikely that such a large mistake could be a
simple counting error, because all the parties concerned were certainly aware of
8 Beshara B. Doumani

the larger implications of a census and all the council members and thirteen tax
collectors put their seal of approval on the original document. The only explana-
tion, it seems, is that the leaders of Jabal Nablus did what they had done on previ-
ous occasions and were to do again: they simply asserted their local will.
In short, Ottoman population counts were subject to political negotiations be-
tween local and central authorities, and the bargaining over numbers led to a de-
liberate undercount of the population by local forces that controlled the advisory
council. It is fairly safe to conclude, therefore, that the original figure of 6,626 nafs
more correctly corresponded to the actual size of the population.
This conclusion is buttressed by another example of undercounting the popu-
lation. In a petition dated 20 December 1851 and addressed to Hafiz Pasha, the
governor (mutasarrif) of Jerusalem, the Nablus council argued that the central
government's claim of 34,563 nafs in the hinterland villages of Nablus and Jenin is
wrong and should be reduced by exactly 5,000 to 29,563. They noted quite bra-
zenly that the taxes they were responsible for collecting, therefore, were 100,000
piasters less than stated, as every nafs was to pay 20 piasters.33
Their reasons were that their own census records showed only 31,302 nafs, or
3,261 less than the central government's figures. They also claimed that a further
722 bedouin and peasant nufufsregistered had since left their villages and pastures
because of civil strife (harakat al-fasad), and harassment by the Saqr bedouin
tribe. In addition, they continued, the chief registrarhad not had the time to delete
the names of those who had died in the intervening period (one year). Finally, they
stated that when the count was taken, many twelve-year-old children were counted,
and now that they had reached fifteen years of age, they were added again to the
census book preparedby the chief registrar of nufus.
The major discrepancy, that of 3,126 nafs, was again asserted rather than ex-
plained, very much in line with the 1,000-person "mistake." The other explana-
tions drive home the point that the council members knew their population best and
possessed the means by which to manipulate numbers. Unless the central govern-
ment was willing to pay to investigate and retake the census, it would have no
option but to accept these assertions at face value.
The council's records yield no response to these petitions, so the final outcome
of this bargaining process is unknown. Either petition calling for reducing the
official number of nufus may have been approved or ignored; but it is more likely
that a compromise was reached.34What is clear is that the council members were
most anxious for a reply. Only eleven days after they sent the first letter calling for
reducing the Nablus population count by 1,000 nafs, they drafted another memo-
randum to the military commander, Muhammad Pasha, reiterating their demand
that the "mistaken"census books be forwarded without delay so that they could be
destroyed and replaced with the "correct" ones. They generously offered that "no
doubt [someone] forgot to order that the [census] document be sent back," and
noted that the new census registrar,CAliBeik Tuqan, would personally accompany
this letter.35
The council's own sense of urgency was deepened by pressures from rural and
urban inhabitants worried about the possible consequences of this intrusion into
 Population Counts in Ottoman Palestine 9

their affairs. One note of resistance, for example, was sounded by a subdistrict
chief, Mahmud al-Qasim, son of Qasim al-Ahmad (sheikh of the subdistrict of
Jammacinand governor of Nablus until his execution by IbrahimPasha for leading
the 1834 revolt). When al-Qasim received instructions to appoint in each village of
his subdistrict a local leader (Cumda)charged with recording every birth and death
and with submitting a monthly report to the Nablus census office, he sent the mes-
senger back with the cynical response that he could not carry out this duty because
he did not have paper on which to write an answer.36

THE MEANING OF NAFS

In addition to attempts at deliberate undercounting by the Nablus council, another

problem interferes with an accurate count of the population of Nablus in the mid-
19th century: the meaning of the registration unit nafs. Consul Rosen-and, con-
sequently, Alexander Sch6lch-assumed that the term nafs referred to all males.
Yet, at the time of the 1849 census (although not necessarily afterwards), both the
central government and the local employees of the Nablus census bureau used nafs
to refer to males who reached their legal majority, not all males regardless of age.
The correspondence of the council clearly says that each nafs was subject to taxa-
tion and conscription, and these only applied to adult males.37As mentioned pre-
viously, one letter concerning the count noted that each nafs was subject to an
annual head tax of twenty piasters and explicitly identified nafs as persons fifteen
years of age and older.38
In his study of the Ottoman census systems, Karpatalso concludes that, "For the
1831-1838 census the adult male, regardless of household status, became the
official registration unit; he remained so until the 1881/82-1883 census, at which
time the basic unit became the individual regardless of age or sex."39Finally, the
simultaneous counts in Mount Lebanon, Beirut, and Aleppo all used adult males as
the unit of counting. In the case of Beirut, for example, Urquhart multiplied the
number of nufus by 3.5 to estimate the total population, the implication being that
it was clearly understood at the time of the counts that the official registration unit,
nafs, referred to adult males.40
While the meaning of the term nafs might have changed in subsequent official
Ottoman counts, all the available evidence for the mid-century population counts
in Greater Syria spells out that nafs refers to adult males. Therefore, one can only
conclude that the population of Nablus, based on the figure of 6,626 nafs multi-
plied by the conservative coefficient of 3, was approximately 19,878 people.4'
This figure does not take into account the structuralproblems in the way Ottoman
census surveys were conducted in the first place, which led to serious undercounts
of the population, especially females and children in the countryside.42Karpat, for
example, estimates that the undercounthovered around 8 percent in urbanareas and
up to 15 percent in outlying mountain regions.43Hence, it would be safe to estimate
that at least 20,000 people lived in the city of Nablus at mid-century; that is two to
three times the hitherto accepted number, and the same figure that John Mills
reported being told him by an Ottoman official in 1855.
10 Beshara B. Doumani

IMPLICATIONS

Even if the term nafs meant males regardless of age, the revised figures for the
population of Nablus based on the 1849 count would still be significantly larger
than hitherto assumed. This assessment has many implications. First, it raises seri-
ous doubts about the accuracy of numbers, which were based on estimates by con-
temporary Western observers, for Palestinian cities and their hinterlands during
the first three-quarters of the 19th century. Even the much more credible (and
higher) figures based on actual Ottoman population counts for this period must
be seen as subject to serious undercounting, whether deliberately, as a result of
political negotiations; structurally, due to technical difficulties and fear of con-
scription and taxation; or because of the mistaken assumption that the term nafs
referred to all males during the mid-19th century. Granted, autonomous Jabal
Nablus was probably undercounted more than the Jerusalem region or the coastal
cities, but this still leaves other large areas, such as Jabal al-Khalil, which also
posed difficulties of access to Westerners and Ottoman census officers.
One also cannot be certain about the veracity of official Ottoman figures pub-
lished in the Ottoman yearbooks (silname) during the last quarterof the 19th cen-
tury. As McCarthy noted, there was a time gap between the actual count and the
date of publication, and normally the date of the count was not mentioned.44For
example, the Syria yearbook for the year 1878-79 lists the number 6,625 nafs for
Nablus,45exactly one person less than the 1849 census of 6,626. Because there is
no evidence, to my knowledge, that a second population count was carried out in
Nablus between 1849 and 1878,46and assuming that the nearly identical numbers
are not the manifestation of incredible coincidence, one can seriously question
whether this particular yearbook's figure can be taken at face value.47
Second, the revised numbers challenge the assumption that the population of the
region declined in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially when compared with the
numbers available for the first century of Ottoman rule over the Arab lands. In a
study of the detailed cadastral surveys (defter-i mufassal) for Palestine in the 16th
century, Cohen and Lewis show that, at its peak, the population of Nablus totaled
1,099 households (hdne) as registered in the 1538-39 survey, but then dropped to
849 households by 1596-97.48 This is consistent with their overall argument that
the population of Palestinian towns began to decline in the 1560s.49
Although it is generally agreed that the term hdne means household, there is no
consensus on what exactly is meant by household or about its size and hence about
the coefficient it must be multiplied with to turn up a population number. A de-
tailed discussion of these issues lies beyond the scope of this study.50Suffice it to
say that the coefficients used by various scholars range between five and seven
people per hane, and that 16th-centurycadastral surveys aimed primarily at assess-
ing areas of cultivated land for tax purposes.51Undercounting, therefore, was a
serious problem. Nevertheless, even if the number of households is multiplied by
seven, it is clear that the population of Nablus increased considerably by the time
the 1849 count was taken.
This rise, probably the result of both population growth and increasing urbaniza-
tion, must have startedno later than the mid- 17th century and continued through the
 Population Counts in Ottoman Palestine 11

18th, precisely the time when the population of Palestine was supposed to be at its
lowest because of "Ottomandecline" and "lack of security." Whereas it is unlikely
that the population grew in a smooth upward curve, it would have been impossible
for all the growth to have occurred between the early 1830s and the mid- 1850s, con-
sidering the historically stable patternsof settlement in the hill regions and the slug-
gish response of Jabal Nablus to either population increases or decreases.52(This
decade, one must emphasize, is the magic starting point for modernization theorists
who argue that the Egyptian invasion led to the slow reversal of Ottoman decline
through the injection of Western modes of social and cultural organization and,
more importantly, the establishment of "law and order." Consequently, prosperity
followed and along with it population growth.53)
Weaker central control does not necessarily mean a "lack of security," for re-
gional alliances were established to ensure the safety of trade routes and to protect
agricultural production. Ihsan Nimr, a local historian of Jabal Nablus, gave ex-
amples of these alliances and argued that the 18th century was a golden age in
terms of prosperity, peace, and self-rule.54Because he credited his own ancestors
with leading Nablus during this period, his conclusions were undoubtedly self-
serving, but that does not mean they were completely untrue. Indeed, the weaken-
ing of central control during the 17th and 18th centuries may have encouraged,
instead of hindered, economic and demographic growth in Nablus. In part, the in-
ability of the Ottoman government to siphon off the surplus as efficiently as before
meant that more of it stayed in Nablus. More importantly, the ruling and merchant
families of Nablus had the capital and entrepreneurialability to (1) take advantage
of an enlarged regional trading area under the umbrella of Ottoman rule; (2) reap
the financial rewards associated with their proximity to the Damascus contingent
of the pilgrimage caravan to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina-a massive an-
nual event consistently supported by the central Ottoman authorities; and (3) man-
age the local organization of commercial agricultural production fueled by the
burgeoning trade with Europe.
Jabal Nablus was also a refuge for both peasants and well-to-do merchants eager
to put some distance between themselves and the brutal confiscatory and exploit-
ative policies of Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar, governor of Sidon province, and ruler of
northernPalestine (1775-1804).55 In short, it seems that the demographic develop-
ment of Nablus does not fit the theme of Ottoman decline or, more accurately, the
idea that weakness in the center in comparison with growing European strength
necessarily led to an economic and demographic decline in all the regions under
Ottoman control.
Third, not only did the population of Nablus grow when it was supposed to be
declining, it seems to have stagnated when it was supposed to be increasing as a
result of Western penetration starting in the second half of the 19th century. True,
many Palestinian cities did increase in population and showed significant eco-
nomic growth during the 1850-1914 period, especially Jerusalem, Jaffa, and
Haifa. But some others either declined (Acre) or stagnated (Nablus). Generaliza-
tions about population growth or decline, therefore, need to be held in abeyance
until in-depth studies of the different regions of Greater Syria can be undertaken
on a case-by-case basis.
12 Beshara B. Doumani

The task of assessing trends in the demographic patterns of Jabal Nablus during
the third and fourth quartersof the 19th century is complicated by shifting admin-
istrative boundaries, changes in the definition of the registration unit, incom-
pleteness of some counts, and the lack of information on when official Ottoman
population counts actually took place. The political, military, and administrative
goals of the Ottoman government, as well as changing local conditions, must also
be taken into account. Nevertheless, published Ottoman statistics for the districts
of Nablus and Jenin, reproduced in detail by Justin McCarthy for the years 1886-
92, 1888-89, 1896, 1905-6, and 1911-12, show only a slow increase in line with
the historically sluggish response of this region to larger population trends.56The
same holds true for the city's population. Official Ottoman figures for the years
1900-1, 1901-2, 1904-5, and 1909-10, state that the number of people in Nablus
amounted to, respectively, 17,472, 19,208, 19,202, and 21,072.57 Keeping in mind
that these statistics are only approximations and that they need to be corrected for
undercounting, we are still left with the impression that there was no vigorous
population growth in Nablus and its hinterland during the second half of the 19th
century.
This conclusion is reinforced by a mixed assessment of Nablus's economic
performance during this period. Scholch, for example, convincingly argued for a
steady expansion of Palestine's economy between 1856 and 1882.58Much of this
growth, however, was concentrated in the coastal areas, as well as in Jerusalem
and Bethlehem; and, as Scholch also showed, economic prosperity did not always
translate into population increases, especially in the 1850s and 1860s. Jabal Nab-
lus, for example, was wracked by violent internal strife (1853-59); an unknown
number were recruited during the Crimean War; and a serious cholera epidemic
(1865-66) broke out, in which 1,760 deaths were reported in the city within eigh-
teen days.59Moreover, the quickening integration of Palestine into the world econ-
omy during this period may have been a mixed blessing for a city deeply rooted in
local and regional trade and manufacture. The soap industry grew in leaps and
bounds, as did the production of various agricultural products for export. At
the same time, a generally declining manufacturing base-especially in textiles,
leather, dyes, pottery, and other products-combined with the growing attraction
of Haifa, Jaffa, and Jerusalem to encourage shifts in population to places outside of
the central hill region. Hence, the seemingly static demographic picture.
Fourth, there is a possibility that the demographic development of Nablus might
be typical of other interior urban centers with similar social, economic, and cul-
tural characteristics-such as Homs, Hama, Zgharta, and Nabatiyya, to mention
but a few. Because histories of Greater Syria during the modern period are often
written from the vantage points of the rising coastal cities such as Beirut or Jaffa,
or the large centers of administration and international trade such as Aleppo and
Damascus, a closer look at smaller interior cities and towns (not to mention cen-
tral villages) might suggest a more complicated historical trajectory for the area as
a whole. The black/white dichotomy of decline/modernization cannot account for
the fluctuating and contradictory patterns of development taking place in various
regions of Greater Syria during the same historical period.
 Population Counts in Ottoman Palestine 13

The final implication of the 1849 census has little to do with numbers, but rather
with how the very process of counting people affected the relationship between the
inhabitants of Jabal Nablus and the Ottoman government during this period. The
central authorities' use of population counts to pave the way for conscription and
more efficient collection of taxes met with far less local resistance than had Egyp-
tian attempts to impose these two measures two decades earlier. Partly due to the
crushing defeat of the 1834 revolt but mostly as a result of changing economic and
political realities, the leading ruling and merchantfamilies of Jabal Nablus favored
guarded cooperation with the central authorities during this transitional phase of
Ottoman reforms. Through their position in the advisory council, they sought to
reduce the population count and to manipulate registration rather than oppose the
census itself or reject the establishment of the census bureau. Indeed, the chief reg-
istrar (muqayyid awwal) of souls, CAliBeik Tuqan, and vice-registrar, Muhammad
Amin Tuqan, complained of overwork, asked for extra forms, pleaded that more
employees be hired, and demanded that their salaries be raised.
The willingness of local leaders to cooperate stemmed also from their recogni-
tion that the extension of central control through population-count campaigns had
larger repercussions than simply mobilizing adult males for fiscal and military pur-
poses. People counting, essentially, was an exercise in hegemony that involved the
(re)definition of the individual's place in the Ottoman polity and the use of knowl-
edge to facilitate greater control. In this sense, population counts, perhaps more
than any other single administrative action of the Ottoman authorities during the
Tanzimat period, had a dramatic effect in that they literally touched the majority of
the local population in one brief, but comprehensive, sweep. For historically au-
tonomous regions such as Jabal Nablus, this campaign signaled the moment when
Ottoman rule became part of the daily consciousness, not only of local leaders but
also of the population as a whole.
Perhaps no local officials in Jabal Nablus were more aware of people counting
as a potentially powerful process of information gathering and social control than
the census registrars. In one of several petitions raised to the central authorities
through the Nablus council, they stated, in part,

Yesterdaywe received a memorandumfrom the venerableal-sayyid naqib al-ashraf of

Jerusalem,chief executiveof the census. . . relayingan ... orderfrom. . . the governorof
Sidon province . . . that the census books of Muslims should be prepared in triplicate, one
sent to Istanbul, another to the headquartersof the Victorious Military, and a third to census
[bureau] of Beirut. As for the census books of the dhimiyyun, [they are to be prepared in]
duplicates, one sent to Istanbul, and the other to Beirut.... These ... copies are to be pre-
sented [to the naqib al-ashraf] between the beginning of March and August. Each of the
said [census] books is to be signed by us and by ... the governor [of Nablus]. . .. They are
to be annotated in Turkish [and] written in red and black [ink] as necessary to highlight the
annotations. It is not a secret to you, venerable sirs, that the following duties-recording of
new names in the registers; notation of incoming (raft) and outgoing (amd) taxes [for each
name]; updating old books; and issuing travel and export (khardj) passes-are all part of the
jurisdiction of this office, and perhaps other duties will be added in the future. Therefore,
when considering the responsibilities of this office, it is clear that two or even three persons
14 Beshara B. Doumani

do not have the capability to administer it.... Therefore we beg of the venerable sirs that
they see it fit to write a memorandum to the governor of Sidon asking him ... to appoint
two (more) assistant registrars . . . and to provide a salary for them paid by the central trea-
sury; [and] to either hire a salaried registrar for each subdistrict so we can depend on
them-as was arranged during the taking of the census . . under the supervision of...
Muhammad Basha-or to add this responsibility to the duties of the tax collectors of these
subdistricts.... We also beg your indulgence that an order be given to [increase] our sala-
ries for ... this is a continuous process... 60

This petition clearly recognized the widening jurisdiction of the census bureau
and the importance of the continuity of this work to effective conscription, taxation,
and political manipulation. By the end of that century all individuals regardless of
sex and age would become the basic unit of counting, further facilitating the inte-
gration of the local population into new administrative, cultural, and legal catego-
ries aimed at undermining local affiliations and creating loyal Ottoman "citizens."

NOTES

Author's note: This research was assisted by a grant from the Joint Committee on the Near and Mid-
dle East of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies with
funds provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Lubna CAbdal-Hadi kindly facilitated my
access to some of the documents on which this article is based.
'In mid-March 1849, a firman from Istanbul outlined the duties of the Nablus council as overseeing
administrative and fiscal matters in Jabal Nablus as a whole, carrying out the government's policies,
maintaining law and order, and supervising public works; Nablus Islamic Court Records (hereafter
NICR), 11:160-61. Its members normally included the deputy-governor (mutasallim), qadi, mufti, and
leading notables. Between 1848 and 1852, all were owners of soap factories, the core of the manufac-
turing sector in Nablus. For a detailed history of the council and changes in the social composition of its
members, see Beshara Doumani, "Merchants, Socioeconomic Change, and the State in Ottoman Pales-
tine: Nablus Region, 1800-1860" (Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1990), 140-68.
2See, for example, the conclusions by Wolf-Dieter Hutteroth and Kamal Abdulfattah, Historical
Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and Southern Syria in the Late Sixteenth Century (Erlangen,
1977), 56-63.
3In 1850, Jabal Nablus occupied the central hill region of Palestine spanning, east to west, the Jordan
valley to the Mediterranean coast, and north to south, the plains of Marj Ibn 'Amir to the hills of
Ramallah. Administratively, Jabal Nablus was composed of the districts (sanjaqs) of Nablus and Jenin
along with their seven rural subdistricts. Each subdistrict (nahiya; pl. nawahi) was essentially a cluster
of villages administered by a rurally based chief who headed the area's strongest clan.
4For similar developments in Mount Lebanon and Aleppo, see David Urquhart,The Lebanon (Mount
Souria): A History and a Diary, 2 vols. (London, 1860), 1:187, 190-93, 206; and Bruce Masters, "The
1850 Events in Aleppo: An Aftershock of Syria's Incorporationinto the Capitalist Economy," Interna-
tional Journal of Middle East Studies 22 (February 1990): 5.
5For the 16th century, see Hiitteroth and Abdulfattah, Historical Geography of Palestine; Amnon
Cohen and Bernard Lewis, Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Century
(Princeton, N.J., 1978). For the 19th century, in chronological order of publication, see Yehoshua Ben-
Arieh, "The Population of the Large Towns in Palestine During the First Eighty Years of the Nineteenth
Century, According to Western Sources," in Studies on Palestine during the OttomanPeriod, ed. Moshe
Ma'oz (Jerusalem, 1975), 49-69; Haim Gerber, "The Population of Syria and Palestine in the Nineteenth
Century,"Asian and African Studies 17, 1 (March 1979): 58-80; Fred M. Gottheil, "The Population of
Palestine, circa 1875," Middle Eastern Studies 15 (October 1979): 310-21; Alexander Scholch, "The
Demographic Development of Palestine, 1850-1882," International Journal of Middle East Studies 17
(November 1985): 485-505; see also, by Scholch, Palastina im Umbruch, 1856-1882: Untersuchungen
zur wirtschaftlichen und sociopolitischen Entwicklung (Stuttgart, 1986); Justin McCarthy's exhaustive
 Population Counts in Ottoman Palestine 15

and well-documented study, The Population of Palestine: Population Statistics of the Late Ottoman
Period and the Mandate, Institute for Palestine Studies Series (New York, 1990). For more general stud-
ies on the Ottoman census system and population counts, see Stanford Shaw, "The Ottoman Census Sys-
tem and Population, 1831-1914," International Journal of Middle East Studies 9 (May 1978): 325-38;
Justin McCarthy, Muslims and Minorities (New York, 1983); Kamal H. Karpat, Ottoman Population,
1830-1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics (Madison, Wisc., 1985).
6Hutterothand Abdulfattah, Historical Geography of Palestine, 60; Ben-Arieh, "The Population of
the Large Towns," 49.
7For example, see McCarthy, Population of Palestine, 15.
8BernardLewis and Amnon Cohen argue that the population of Nablus decreased at the slowest rate
of all other Palestinian cities after the mid-16th-century peak (Population and Revenue, 21). Similarly,
Hiitteroth and Abdulfattah, in a comparative study of 16th-centuryand 19th-centurypopulation figures,
argue that the density of population in the Nablus region was the most resistant to change (Historical
Geography of Palestine, 61). D. H. K. Amiran also notes that "with the mountain towns, the keynote is
stability," in "The Patterns of Settlement in Palestine," Israel Exploration Journal 3 (1953): 193.
9Justin McCarthy, "The Population of Ottoman Syria and Iraq, 1878-1914," Asian and African
Studies 15, 1 (March 1981): 4; Kamal Karpat,OttomanPopulation, xi, 4-5. For a discussion of the lim-
itations of the Ottoman system of population registration see McCarthy, Population of Palestine, 2-5.
l0Ben-Arieh, "Population of the Large Towns," 49.
1tFor a critical discussion of the decline thesis, see the introductorychapter in The Ottoman Empire
and the World Economy, ed. Huri Islamoglu-Inan (Cambridge, Eng.,1987).
12Theinfamous Zionist slogan "land without people, for a people without land" is but one indication
of this political sensitivity. An example of the extreme lengths some scholars go to substantiate this
phrase is Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine
(New York, 1984). This work was hailed by the major press in the United States (although not in Israel)
as an authoritative revisionist account, despite the fact it has been thoroughly discredited. See articles
by Edward Said and Norman Finkelstein in Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Pales-
tinian Question, ed. Edward Said and ChristopherHitchens (London, 1988).
13Ben-Arieh,"Population of the Large Towns," 49.
14Ibid.,64.
15JohnMills, Three Months'Residence at Nablus and an Account of the Modern Samaritans (London,
1864), 94. Mills, unlike most of the Western observers cited by Ben-Arieh, actually lived in Nablus for
an extended period of time. Mills's own impression, however, is that the Ottomanofficial was wrong, and
that Nablus's population at that time was closer to 10,000 people.
t6Scholch, "Demographic Development of Palestine," 492, 505. The naqib al-ashrdaf(steward of the
descendants of the Prophet) of Jerusalem was the chief executive official for the census bureaus in
southern Syria and reported to officials based in Beirut.
1 Nablus majlis al-shiuri records (hereafter NMSR), 22.
"Ibid., 22. This letter was signed by the eight members of the Nablus advisory council and thirteen
tax collectors.
'9Ibid., 23.
20Karpat,Ottoman Population, 6; see also the discussion in McCarthy, Population of Palestine, 2.
21Karpat,Ottoman Population, 8.
22See Asad Rustum, The Royal Archives of Egypt and the Disturbances in Palestine in 1834 (Beirut,
1936).
23NMSR, 225.
24"Ifind considerable apprehensions respecting the draft for the army, recollecting as they do the ad-
ministration of Mehemet Ali," Urquhartwrote about the fears unleashed by the 1849 population count
(The Lebanon, 1:92); and Bruce Masters argues that these fears directly percipitated the 1850 riots in
Aleppo ("The 1850 Events in Aleppo," 5).
25NMSR, 137, 180, 184, 185.
26cIzzatPasha, based in Beirut, was the commanding officer of MuhammadPasha who conducted the
population count in Jabal Nablus. He also personally approved the salaries of the census-bureau officials
in Jerusalem who, in turn, supervised the work of their counterpartsin Nablus (NMSR, 52; dated 6 Sep-
tember 1850).
27Urquhart,The Lebanon, 1:187, 190-92.
16 Beshara B. Doumani

28Ibid., 206.
29NMSR, 55.
30Ibid., 15.
31Forexample, and despite explicit instructions by the central authorities to the contrary, the council
member not only made the naqib al-ashrdf a member but also designated him head of this body to boot.
For details, see Doumani, "Merchants,Socioeconomic Change and the State in OttomanPalestine,"chap. 3.
32Ibid.,chap. 8.
33NMSR, 255. Urquhartalso mentions that each soul was to pay 20 piasters (Urquhart, The Leba-
non, 1:192).
34Compromises, often facilitated through bribes and various forms of pressure, were regularly re-
sorted to to resolve disagreements between local and central authorities. It is entirely possible that the
number was further reduced to 4,513 by the time it was registered in the Jerusalem census office. This
assumes, of course, that Consul Rosen was given accurate figures by the local officials in 1861.
35NMSR, 25.
36Ibid.,70.
37NMSR, 255.
38Ibid.,255.
39Karpat,Ottoman Population, 10. McCarthy argues that, due to lack of effective control, "satisfac-
tory" registration of the Palestinian population did not begin until after 1860, and that the first pub-
lished Ottoman registration appeared in the 1871-72 (1288) Syria yearbook (sdlndme). He mentions
that only males were counted at that time, the implication being all males, regardless of age, were in-
cluded (Population of Palestine, 5). This meaning of nafs, however, cannot be projected backwards.
Moreover, the similarity of bureaucraticorganization of the census offices in Palestine at mid-century
to that discussed by McCarthy for the last quarterof the century suggests that serious Ottoman popula-
tion counts in Greater Syria as a whole actually started in 1849.
40Urquhart,The Lebanon, 2:190; Masters, "The 1850 Events in Aleppo," 5.
411Itis generally agreed that males fifteen years of age and older constituted about one-third of pre-
industrialized populations; J. C. Russel, "Late Medieval Balkan and Asia Minor Population," Journal
of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 3 (1960), 265. See also, Scholch, "The Demographic
Development of Palestine," 496; Gerber, "The Population of Syria and Palestine," 60. The latter cites
contemporaryobservers-such as Bowring, Urquhart,and Volney-who used coefficients ranging from
three to four per adult male.
42McCarthy,"Population of Ottoman Syria," 7-11; idem, Population of Palestine, 4-5; also Karpat,
Ottoman Population, 9.
43Karpat,Ottoman Population, 9-10. See also the correction factor discussed by McCarthy, Popula-
tion of Palestine, 4-5.
44McCarthy,Population of Palestine, 4.
45Ibid., 15, 48 (Table A1-5).
46We can be certain that a second count was not taken before 1861, because that is the year Consul
Rosen reports on the population of Palestine based on the 1849 census figures made available to him by
the census official in Jerusalem.
47McCarthystates that this numberrefers to males, but because no evidence is provided, this assump-
tion and, consequently, his estimate of Nablus's population at that period must be reconsidered (Popu-
lation of Palestine, 15).
48Cohen and Lewis, Population and Revenue, 149.
49Ibid., 26.
50For discussion of this term, see 0. L. Barkan, "Research on the Ottoman Fiscal Surveys," in
Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East, ed. M. A. Cook (London, 1970), 168; Cohen and
Lewis, Population and Revenue, 15-16; Huiitteroth and Abdelfattah, Historical Geography of Palestine,
36-46.
5
Karpat, Ottoman Population, 9.
52Gerberalso questions the notion of depopulation in Syria and Palestine during this period; see his
article, "Population of Syria and Palestine," 76-80.
53See, for example, Shimon Shamir, "Egyptian Rule (1832-1840) and the Beginning of the Modern
Period in the History of Palestine," in Egypt and Palestine: A Millennium of Association (868-1948),
 Population Counts in Ottoman Palestine 17

ed. Amnon Cohen and Gabriel Baer (Jerusalem, 1984), 214-31. For a critical discussion of the histori-
ography of Ottoman Palestine, see Beshara Doumani, "Rediscovering Ottoman Palestine: Writing Pal-
estinians into History," Journal of Palestine Studies 21, 2 (Winter 1992): 5-28.
54Ihsan Nimr, Tarikh Jabal Nablus wa-al-Balqd' (History of Jabal Nablus and al-Balqa'), 4 vols.
(Nablus, 1936-1975). See esp. vol. 2, Ahwal cahd al-iqtdc (Conditions in the Feudal Era), (Nablus,
1961).
55Ibrahim'Awra, Tarikh wilayat Sulayman bdsha al-cddil (History of the reign of Sulayman Pasha
the Just) (Sidon, 1936), 22. This book was written in 1853 by the head scribe of Sulayman Pasha who
was Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar's successor.
56See Tables A1-7, Al-9, A1-12, A1-13, and A1-14 in McCarthy, Population of Palestine, 49-53.
57The first three numbers are listed in Beirut province yearbooks for the years (Hijra) 1318, 1319,
and 1322. The fourth number was cited by Tamimi and Bajat, two Ottoman officials who based their
figures on census-bureau statistics of Beirut province; MuhammadRafiq Tamimi and Muhammad Bah-
jat, Bajat, Wilayat Beirut (Beirut, 1916-17), 113-14.
58Scholch, "European Penetration and the Economic Development of Palestine, 1856-1882," in
Studies in the Economic and Social History of Palestine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed.
Roger Owen (London, 1982), 51.
59Schijlch, "Demographic Development of Palestine," 494, 503, 505.
60NMSR, 55; dated 10 September 1850.