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" Before Banks: "
Al-Sabbagh, Munther
Sabra, Adam A.Humphreys, Stephen R.
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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896791
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TL3qw371fm
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| Main Entry
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Al-Sabbagh, Munther
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| Title & Author
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Before Banks:\ Al-Sabbagh, MuntherSabra, Adam A.Humphreys, Stephen R.
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| Date
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2018
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2018
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| Abstract
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This dissertation is a social-legal study of credit in the Middle East before the advent of European-style banking institutions in the 1850s. Although scholars have long observed the importance of credit in daily life since ancient times, little attention has been given to the transformation of credit institutions and practices between the late medieval and early modern eras. This study evaluates how credit structures developed in Syria and Palestine during the long sixteenth century through the lens of Islamic law. While the legalization of market interest and the charitable lending institution known as the cash-waqf are rightly attributed as major interventions of Ottoman Law, I demonstrate how both were underpinned by the Ottoman state-approved legal stratagem of the mu‘āmala, a credit structure that was widely used in Mamluk Syria and Palestine (1250-1516). In the first two chapters, I argue that rather than being a radical move, the Ottoman contribution was in refining and regularizing the use of the mu‘āmala, as reflected in Ottoman legal literature, jurist manuals, and the state’s law courts. The sixteenth century Ottoman legal reforms on credit, I contend, present a continuity of the credit norms of the fifteenth century and represent a clear evolution from Mamluk antecedents. Chapters three through six examine historical changes in specific credit structures across the late Mamluk and early Ottoman periods. Chapter three attends to the lending activities of charitable endowments, waqfs. While the new Ottoman cash-waqf was an institution without a Mamluk parallel, I argue that its use was still predicated on the mu‘āmala form, and similarly allowed for aspects of Mamluk-era legal pluralism to survive into Ottoman Syria and Palestine, such as the widespread practice of registering the loan collateral of debts under Shāfi‘ī law. Also, in contrast to the scholarly consensus, I illustrate how cash-waqfs in the Levant were integral providers of market credit by the third quarter of the sixteenth century. Chapter four addresses the use of mutual surety ties for communal loans. I argue that Ottoman judges continued to recognize this Mamluk-era practice, which allowed creditors to assert corporate liability on a group of debtors for ensuring tax collection of generally weaker social groups, such as religious minorities and hinterland communities. Chapter five presents the long-held custom of investing the capital of orphan estates into interest-bearing market loans. As with the credit of cash-waqfs, such loans were carried out using mu‘āmalāt. Although such credit was supervised by courts, I argue that judicial oversight was loose and different than under the earlier Mamluk era, when a dedicated bureau existed for managing such capital. Chapter six engages in a comparative evaluation of the gender and class dynamics of credit across the Mamluk and Ottoman periods. I compare evidence from sixteenth-century Ottoman court records and fifteenth century Mamluk biographies to show that a remarkable continuity existed in elite women’s use of courts to register and adjudicate debts, particularly those related to marriage.
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Al-Sabbagh, Munther
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UC Santa Barbara
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