Documents in both Ottoman Turkish and Arabic served as source materials for this book. As a result there is a mixture of citations in both languages. However, I have attempted to follow consistently certain principles when referring to institutions, persons, and places. All references to institutions, persons, and offices which were part of the Ottoman empire have been rendered in Turkish transliteration. For example: timar, vakif, sancak. References from documents in Ottoman Turkish have also been rendered in Turkish transliteration. References from documents in Arabic appear in Arabic transliteration, including the names of all villages and peasants from the sancak of Jerusalem. Place names such as Jerusalem, Hebron, etc. have been given their more familiar English form, although all villages appear in Arabic transliteration. For example: ra'īs al-fallāḥīn, Bayt Lahm (Bethlehem), Rīḥha (Jericho).

The transliteration system of the International Journal of Middle East Studies was followed as a standard. Inconsistencies in transliterations from titles and citations from other works are due to the variety of systems used at different times and in different places around the world.