Property, Status, and Class in Ottoman Damascus

Relying mainly on data from sharica law-court registers, the article examines the relationship between status-group affiliation and property ownership and interests in four branches of the Damascus economy in the middle and latter parts of the nineteenth century. These branches are grain wholesaling, primary food processing, services, and spinning and weaving of textiles. The data suggest only a tenuous relationship between status-group affiliation and economic interests and activities. In each of the four branches persons of widely varying backgrounds and origins had similar interests. This finding supports the hypothesis that the social order of Damascus, like that of other Middle Eastern towns in the same period, was in transition from one based on ascribed status to one based on property ownership

Art · Business · Class (philosophy) · Demographic economics · Economics · Economy · Geography · Legal status · Middle class · Order (exchange) · Period (music) · Political science · Property (philosophy) · Social class · Social status · Sociology · Weaving · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Engineering · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy

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