Rural notables (Palestine)

Rural notables, as individuals, or the rural notability as a collective, was a social class of local notables (known in Arabic as a'yan-, wujaha'-, zu'ama- rifiyya, qarawiyya, mahaliyya) in late Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine, with equivalent groups developing throughout the Levant.[1] Most rural notables originated in, and belonged to, the fellahin/peasantry class, forming a lower-echelon land-owning gentry in Palestine's post-Tanzimat countryside and emergent towns.[2] Numerically, rural notables form the majority of Palestinian elites, although certainly not the richest.[3]

In contrast to urban elites traditionally made of city-dwelling merchants (tujjar),[4] clerics ('ulema), ashraf, military officers, and governmental functionaries,[5][6][7] the rural notability was composed of rural sheikhs, village or clan mukhtars. Rural notables took advantage of changing legal, administrative and political conditions, and global economic realities, to achieve socio-economic and political ascendancy using households, marriage alliances and networks of patronage.[3] Over all, they played a leading role in the development of modern Palestine into the late 20th century.[8]

References

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  1. ^ Batatu, Hanna (2012-09-17), "Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics", Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics, Princeton University Press, doi:10.1515/9781400845842/html, ISBN 978-1-4008-4584-2, retrieved 2024-05-03
  2. ^ "Landed Property and Elite Conflict in Ottoman Tulkarm". Institute for Palestine Studies. Retrieved 2024-05-03.
  3. ^ a b Marom, Roy (April 2024). "The Palestinian Rural Notables' Class in Ascendency: The Hannun Family of Tulkarm (Palestine)". Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies. 23 (1): 77–108. doi:10.3366/hlps.2024.0327. ISSN 2054-1988 – via Academia.
  4. ^ Gilbar, Gad (2022-10-31). Trade and Enterprise: The Muslim Tujjar in the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran, 1860-1914. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003177425/trade-enterprise-gad-gilbar. ISBN 978-1-003-17742-5.
  5. ^ Gelvin, James L. (2006). "The "Politics of Notables" Forty Years After". Middle East Studies Association Bulletin. 40 (1): 19–29. ISSN 0026-3184.
  6. ^ Cleveland, William L. (1989). Muslih, Muhammad Y. (ed.). "Politics of the Notables". Journal of Palestine Studies. 18 (3): 142–144. doi:10.2307/2537348. ISSN 0377-919X.
  7. ^ Toledano, Ehud R. "Ehud R. Toledano, "The Emergence of Ottoman-Local Elites (1700-1800): A Framework for Research," in I. Pappé and M. Ma'oz (eds.), Middle Eastern Politics and Ideas: A History from within, London and New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 1997, 145-162". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. ^ "The Dynamics of Palestinian Elite Formation". Institute for Palestine Studies. Retrieved 2024-05-03.