Author's note: I thank the following people for their advice and support at the various stages of preparing this article: Richard Bulliet, Bruce Masters, Rhoads Murphey, Linda Schilcher, and David Waldner.

¹ Register of the al-ʿAli, Majlis Shūra al-Shām, 22 October 1844 to 31 October 1845, ʿ Awāmir al-Sultaniyya, vol. 5 (Damascus: Historical Documents Center), 363–64, 370.Google Scholar

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³ See especially Ma'oz, Moshe, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine 1840–1861 (Oxford, 1968), 87–100;Google Scholar and Khoury, Philip S., Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus 1860–1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ Majlis register, 370.

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¹⁵ Ghazzal, Zouhair, “Les Fondements de l'économie politique de Damas durant le XIXe siècle: structures traditionnelles et capitalisme” (Ph.D. diss., University of Paris, Sorbonne, 1986), 2–5, 123–24.Google Scholar See also James Riley, A., “Urban Hegemony in the Hinterland of Ottoman Damascus: Villages, Estates, and Farms in the Nineteenth Century” (Paper delivered at the Sixth International Conference of Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, Aix-en-Provence, July 1992).Google Scholar

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²⁵ Chairmanship of each session was not designated, but one member always arrived a half-hour or more earlier than the others, and I have hypothesized that this member organized the day's session.

²⁶ The Jerusalem council in 1851 met only under the direct guidance of the governor, and was "forced" to sign decisions (madabii). See Hirschfeld, Yair, “Prussian and Ottoman Policies in Palestine during the 1840s,” in Kushner, Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period, 263–79.Google Scholar

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³⁴ See Kerr, Malcolm H., Lebanon in the Last Years of Feudalism 1840–1868 (Beirut, 1959),Google Scholar intro.

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³⁶ Ibid., 425.

³⁷ Chevallier, Dominique, “Lyon et la Syrie: Les bases d'une intervention,” in his Villes et travail en Syrie du XIXe au XXe siècle (Paris, 1982), 41–52.Google Scholar

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⁴¹ Ghazzal, , “Les Fondements,” 92.Google Scholar A Jew had been a member of the council in 1840, but the circumstances of his removal are also unclear, though it may have been related to the blood libel case.

⁴² Davison, , Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 42–45.Google Scholar

⁴³ Ma'oz, , Ottoman Reform, 198.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Inalcik, , “Application of Tanzimat,“ 20–29.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Ma'oz, , Ottoman Reform, 92, 198.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ibid., 99, 197–99.

⁴⁷ Ibid., 87.

⁴⁸ Majlis register, 186–87, 214–16, 368–70.

⁴⁹ Ibid., 19, 207, 333–34.

⁵⁰ See, for example, Hourani, , “Ottoman Reform,” 43Google Scholar, where he says: “The process of change which took place in this period was one which, by and large, the population of the empire and its dependent states—even the educated part of it—did not understand.” See also Heper, Metin, “Center and Periphery in the Ottoman Empire,” International Political Science Review 1 (1980): 81–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁵⁵ See Ma'oz, , Ottoman Reform, 112,Google Scholar where he characterizes the incident as an act of vengeance by the Sunni council against the Shiʿi Harfush. The text of the report in the record book does not support this interpretation, for it focuses mainly on concrete accounts of villagers’ complaints and shortfalls in the Harfush's submission of tax revenues to the treasury.

⁵⁶ For Damascus diwans in the 18th century, see Rafeq, Abdul-Karim, The Province of Damascus 1723–1783 (Beirut, 1970), 23–24.Google Scholar For Aleppo, see Marcus, Abraham, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1989), 82–83.Google Scholar And for the whole Ottoman Empire, see Inalcik, Halil, “Centralization and Decentralization in Ottoman Administration,” in Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History, ed. Naff, Thomas and Owen, Roger (Carbondale, III., 1977), 33, 41–43.Google Scholar

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⁵⁹ This observation is based on the analysis of paired signatures. A more conclusive study would require the extensive statistical process of multiple factor analysis. However, the polarity suggested by the pairing patterns is so strong that similar results are likely in the more extensive procedure.

⁶⁰ See Inalcik, , “Application of Tanzimat,” 13;Google ScholarFindley, , “Evolution of System,” 5;Google Scholar and Heper, , “Center and Periphery,” 94.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Binder, Leonard, “The Natural History of Development Theory,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 28, 1 (01 1986): 8–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁶³ See, for example, Rafeq, Province of Damascus, for an illustration of local rule interrupted only intermittently by the Porte during the 18th century; and also Barbir, Karl, “From Pasha to Efendi: The Assimilation of Ottomans into Damascene Society 1516–1783,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 1 (1979–80): 69,Google Scholar where he suggests that Ottoman officials behaved from local interests, not loyalty to Istanbul.

⁶⁴ Ghazzal, , “Les Fondements,” 340–45;Google Scholar and Khoury, , Urban Notables, 2–5.Google Scholar See also Hanna, Abdullah, “The Agricultural Problem in Syria from the Early 19th Century to 1945,” M.E.S. Series, n. 16 (Tokyo: Institute of Developing Economies, 1985), 24–32,Google Scholar where he calls the 1858 land reform a new feudalism.

⁶⁵ Grémion, Pierre, Le pouvoir périphérique (Paris, 1976), 10–14, 162, 340–43.Google Scholar

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