Damascene Probate Inventories of the 17th and 18th Centuries: Some Preliminary Approaches and Results

Abstract

“Our present knowledge concerning the Arab city's past history is unsatisfactory,” remarked André Raymond in his Grandes villes arabes à l'époque ottomane.1 He went on to state that “the mediocrity of our information concerning the history of Arab cities is particularly noticeable for the modern period, that is, for the four Ottoman centuries.” Several explanations account for this insufficiency. First of all, “the absence of all statistical and numerical information about the urban population's social structure in relation to its dwelling conditions renders numerical and cartographical analysis difficult. As a result, specific descriptions concerning the geography of residential areas in relation to the different socioeconomic groups within a population and their dwellings is problematic.” Secondly, our knowledge concerning the better-off groups far overshadows that for the poorer levels of society: “We are only really well acquainted with the rich or middle-class dwellings in the Arab cities. In fact, it is only these types of dwellings for which urban archaeology provides a satisfactory sampling"2; archival documents usually concern only the most sumptuous and luxurious residences belonging to the highest urban real estate bracket. Finally, the study of Arab cities is obscured by several traditional ideas that affect all research in this field, particularly, the notion that traditional Islamic society was basically egalitarian and that therefore spatial segregation based upon socioeconomic criteria did not exist.