A Mamluk Household in Jaffa: The Case of Abu Nabbut (1805–1819)

Abstract

After the death of Dahir al-ʿUmar in 1775, a local Galilean leader, Ahmad Paşa al-Jazzar, a manumitted Bosnian mamluk was nominated wali (governor) of the wilaya (province) of Sidon/Acre. He set up a mamluk household that governed various districts in Palestine. Abu Nabbut, a manumitted mamluk of Jazzar, became the mutasallim (governor of a district) of Jaffa in 1805, under Sulayman Paşa, who was also a manumitted mamluk of Jazzar. Abu Nabbut’s mamluk household in Jaffa governed Jaffa and Palestine’s southern sub-districts. Abu Nabbut’s monumental construction efforts in Jaffa between 1805 and 1817 were intended to make Jaffa look different from other localities in the southern sanjaq, and give it the semblance of a capital similar to Acre, the capital of the wilaya.