1A preliminary version of this essay was presented at the workshop “Lire et écrire l’histoire ottomane. ‘Al‑amr ka‑mā fīhi’: Examen critique des documents des tribunaux ottomans du Bilād al-Shām”, 5-6 June 2006 in Damascus. The present version has been revised and I am grateful for all the comments and suggestions made by Stephen McPhillips, Astrid Meier, Nur Sobers Khan, the organisers, and the anonymous reviewer. The use of perishable building material increased the risk of devastation through neglect, fire or natural disasters, which is the reason why no sixteenth-century house has survived intact in Damascus. However, elements from buildings of that period have survived or been re-used in more recent structures. There are two examples of remaining material evidence: the Bayt al-ʿAqqād in the Sūq al-Ṣūf and the Qaṣr al-ʿImādī in Bāb Tūma. They were probably both part of luxurious residences built in the late Mamluk or early Ottoman period. For a more detailed study of these buildings, see Mortensen and Weber 2005 and Weber 2004.

2There are some uncertainties about the location of this court. According to Bakhit 1982, p. 120, it was held in several different madrasas in Damascus, while Meier and Weber 2005, p. 380-81, locates it in the Sūq al-Buzūriyya.

3Over 10% (77 out of 666) of the documents (ḥuǧǧa) in this register deal with transactions concerning residential buildings. Complementary information can be found in registers from the military court, but these are less continuous; see selected defters recorded in mušawwaš 1-3 from the military court (qisma ʿaskariyya). SMST mušawwaš 1 (1001-1092/1592-1681), SMST mušawwaš 2 (1001-1099/1592-1687) and SMST mušawwaš 3 (1001-1174/1592-1760). For further information, see Marino and Okawara 1999, p. 109-110.

4This judge was most probably of Turkish origin, as is for instance indicated by his title effendi. For further information on the office of chief and deputy judges, see Bakhit 1982, p. 119-123.

5According to Bakhit 1982, p. 6, one sulṭānī was equivalent to eight akçes. This remark implies that the akçe would be the same as a šāhiyya which is how the value of a sulṭānī is explained in SMST 1.

6Muḥammad b. Suʿūd.

7The šuhūd al‑ḥāl are almost identical in both cases. They were all part of the Damascene urban elite (ʿulamāʾ), which seems to have been the case in Damascus until 999/1590; see Bakhit 1982, p. 124-125. Interestingly, the same people were listed in 999/1590; see Anṣārī, Nuẓhat al‑ḫāṭir, vol. 1, p. 56.

8I would like to thank Astrid Meier for drawing my attention to the interest in this clause.

9For more information on this topic, see for instance Fay 1997, p. 5, Rapoport 2005, p. 64, Zarinebaf-Shahr 1997, p. 252.

10Jennings 1975, p. 58.

11He had also held this office at the Darwīšiyya mosque since its foundation a decade earlier. For more information about him, see Bakhit 1982, p. 117, Anṣārī, Nuẓhat al‑ḫāṭir, vol. 2, p. 180 (938-993/1530-1586), Al-Ġazzī, Al-Kawākib, vol. 3, p. 130-35, Al-Burīnī, Tarāǧim al-aʿyān, vol. 2, p. 61 and 79, Zawareh 1992, p. 161 and 241, Wulzinger and Watzinger 1924, p. 68, catalogue C.4.6. According to Tamari 2001, p. 21, the family maintained their privileged position until the mid-eighteenth century.

12ʿUmar, Muḥammad, Muḥammad al-Dīn, al-Samsar/Samsī Muḥammad and ḥurma Fāṭima.

13Possibly the family from which the author of the famous work al-dāris fī tārīḫ al-madāris originated (Nuʿaymī, Al-Dāris fī tārīḫ al-madāris). This work lists both religious monuments and notable families in Damascus on the eve of the Ottoman conquest.

14Pascual 1983, p. 20, 75, 105. See also Zawareh 1992, p. 196, Al-Ġazzī, Al‑Kawākib, vol. 1, p. 184, 327, Muḥibbī, Ḫulāṣat al-aṯar fī aʿyān al-qarn al-ḥādī ʿašar, vol. 1, p. 373 and 375, idem, vol. 4, p. 356.

15Anṣārī, Nuẓhat al‑ḫāṭir, vol. 1, p. 161, mentions a Faḍl Allah b. Ḫudāwardī al-Ḥanafī nāʾib al-Qāḍī in Damascus in 999/1590, and Zawareh 1992, p. 174, mentions Ibrāhīm b. Ḫudāwardī as the founder of a cash waqf, but the name is fairly common so there is no way of knowing whether they were related.

16In fact, based on the number of rooms and value of properties in other transactions recorded in this area in SMST 1, it would seem that the cohabitation of people from different social strata and ethnic groups was far more common than is shown in this document.

17The same scribe recorded several cases including people with this title, but only one (SMST 1/242/464) records the ḫawāǧa among the aʿyān. Hanna 1998, p. 22, states that the ḫawāǧa was a step up on the social ladder from artisan or tradesman. He usually worked in trans-regional trade, which would enable him to amass a considerable fortune. This is confirmed by the work of Establet and Pascual 1994, p. 34, who translate ḫawāǧa with ‘grand négociant’. According to their records, there were only six of them in Damascus in the period considered in their study (idem, p. 41).

18According to Al-Gazzī, Al-Kawākib, vol. 3, p. 130, Ismāʻīl al-Nābulsī built a house, the Dār al-Nābulsī, close to the Bāb al-Ziyyāda in the Sūq al-Silāḥ before 989/1581 According to the same source, his son, the Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Laṭīf b. Muḥibb al-Dīn al-Ḥamawī, had another house built very close to this one, near the Ḫān al-Harrafān, next to the Madrasa al-Amīniyya and Bāb Suyūra. Sack 1989, p. 108, 4.14, mentions another Dār al-Nābulsī in the quarter of Qaymariyya, Establet and Pascual 1994, p. 139-40 and 155, Boqvist 2006, p. 87, Marino 1997, p. 171.

19See Bakhit 1982, p. 43 and 126, and Winter 2007, p. 90.

20Marino 1997, p. 140-157.

21Ottoman women established more waqfs and left bigger inheritances than Damascene women. According to Marino 1997, p. 158 and 276, women in the suburb of Mīdān were responsible for around one third of the real-estate transactions concluded in the eighteenth century. According to Zawareh 1992, p. 197, out of the forty waqfiyyas inventoried for his work, thirteen were established by women while eleven of those women were designated as ʿaskariyya. See also Establet and Pascual 1994, p. 38.

22Of the four real estate transactions in this register, in which women are involved (which amounts to one third of the qāʿas registered), two were intra‑muros (Bāb Ǧayrūn, Bāb al-Ǧābiya) and one, the transaction described in document one, was extra‑muros (ʿAyn ʿAlī).

23Establet and Pascual 1994, p. 159-160.

24Establet and Pascual 1994, p. 103-104.

25I would particularly like to thank Astrid Meier for providing me with this information.

26Al-Munaǧǧid, Kitāb waqf... p. 15-18, Garcin 1990, p. 374-75.

27This document has been transferred from the Başbakanlık archives to the directorate of Evkaf archives in Ankara. The old reference was BOA, Defter 4, Gömlek 50.

28Tate 1987, p. 25-27.

29Weber 2004, p. 285, fig. 23.

30In other cities, such as Sidon, Lebanon, the qāʿa was commonly positioned on the upper floor, above the stables. This does not seem to be a common feature in Damascus, however, although we do find buildings with rooms (ṭabaqa) on top of stables. This type of building is then generally called sifl wa‑ʿulūw: SMST mušawwaš 1/76/224 (dār), SMST mušawwaš 1/87/259 (dār), SMST mušawwaš 3/10/26 (sifl wa‑ṭabaqa), SMST mušawwaš 3/27/68 (sifl wa-ʿulūw) SMST 1/135/264 (dār sifl wa‑ʿulūw), SMST mušawwaš 3/33/81 (sākin sifl waʿulūw), SMST mušawwaš 5/7/14 (sifl wa-ʿulūw).

31Noweir and Panerai 1987, p. 28.

32Noweir and Panerai 1987, p. 26 and 28.

33Weber 2004, p. 284.

34Weber 2004, p. 268.

35Weber 2004. See also Mortensen and Weber 2005.

36Weber 2004, p. 285-288, Wulzinger and Watzinger 1924, p. 67, catalogue I.33 (ʿAmadī Mosque) and Noweir and Panerai 1987, p. 30, 34-35.

37Noweir and Panerai 1987, p. 26.

38Boqvist 2006, p. 228, 236.

39Boqvist 2006, p. 236.

40These houses would cost between 10 and 25 sulṭānī and seem to have been a combination of a workshop with a storage and a living unit with only limited facilities.

41Marino 1997, p. 124 and Yahiya 1979, p. 301.

42For instance, the waqf of the Madrasat Šayḫ Abū Bakr ʿAlī al-Mawṣilī from 870/1465 has one in Mīdān al-Ḥaṣā and another one in Bāb al-Faradīs/al-Faraǧ, together with two ṭabaqa. The waqf of the Zāwiya al-Ḥuḍayriyya, 879/1474, had a qāʿa in Bāb al-Ǧābiya.

43There are several neighbourhoods designated in this way and located intra‑muros, such as Šaġūr Ǧūwaniyya, or extra-muros, such as Sūq Sārūǧa. The many property transactions involving ʿaskarī took place in these quarters. For further information, see for instance Yerasimos 1997, p. 215, on Ottoman choices of strategic locations in and outside a conquered city.

44SMST 1/3/4, SMST 1/13/24, SMST 1/135/264, SMST 1/256/492, SMST 1/257/494, SMST 1/298/566-67, SMST 1/324/611, SMST 1/289-90/553, SMST 1/290-91/554, SMST 1/256/492.

45The qāʿa in Bayt al-ʿAqqād was completely restructured (and the position of the ʿataba and the īwān actually inversed) in the eighteenth century. Its original shape was rediscovered during the restoration process. This qāʿa has only one īwān; Mortensen and Weber 2005, p. 256-61.

46David 1987, p. 46-47 There were some freestanding īwāns from the sixteenth century in Aleppo, such as the Īwān Tshaleq, containing a second floor with a ṭabaqa, murabbaʿ and a qāʿa; see David 1991, p. 177 Maury 1988, p. 15-16.