This body of document is composed of registers from the records of the awqāf of the Maghariba neighborhood. They mainly deal with appointments, promotions, and dismissals of waqf employees.
The appointment registers (esās/şaẖsiyāt) are an other primary sources to provide us with adequate information on the actual nature of the social and economic activities of a waqf, or on the changes in these activities over time.
The registers are bound in leather, cloth, or marbled paper, and are written in the inaccessible ṣiyaḳat writing style [...]. Ṣiyaḳat refers to letters and numbers expressed in the “stairs” style of writing, used in Ottoman accounting documents to establish a powerful regime of surveillance, inspection, and communication. Each register starts with an index page. In the index, the records are organized under the headings of the district names and the records were entered on this basis. Records are usually written vertically. The contents provide detailed information about the administrative structure of the area, the names of the district, names of the awqāf and their founders, types of work, previous and current names of office holders, reasons for new postings, fees, names of administrators who can request different postings, and the dates of documents recorded in a specific order and sequence.
While the records in the ʿatīḳ registers are arranged according to their administrative units, the cedīd structure is identical to the waqf registers. These registers began to be kept after 1300/1882, with a specific reference to the ʿatīḳ series. These are also hardcover volumes bound in leather, cloth, or marbled
paper, written in rikʿa, rikʿa crumble, dīvanī or tāʿlīk style. The records are usually written horizontally. Four series of registers make up this collection. The cedīd registers are also organized differently than the ʿatīḳ registers and are written in a systematic way in a chart called the “Register of Professions” (Defter Esās Cihāt). All new appointments and other additions are written in the events section of the chart. Thus, this chart acts as a summary of the activities of the waqfiyya.
The records of the Maghariba neighborhood are located in number 515 of the ʿatīḳ registers (Kudüs ʿatīḳ) and in number 160 of the cedīd (Kudüs cedīd) registers. There is also an index register numbered 163 called the Index of Benghazi and Jerusalem, which includes the index of the ʿatīḳ and cedīd registers.
