The Record
السِّجلWhat is documented, and by whom
The Land
الأرضGeography is the argument made visible
The Voice
الصوتWhat a people made, and go on making
The Majlis
المجلسThe room where the coffee is poured
The current exhibition
Gaza: Siege and Sumud
One of the oldest cities on earth, under the most documented siege of the modern era — and the people who keep teaching, writing, and reporting through it.
EnterEverything here is free, non-commercial, and cited. How this archive works →
Show me something at randomThe houses
A society remembers itself through its houses. The documented histories of Palestine's notable families — their cities, their scholars, their poets, their mayors.
14 houses · 8 cities · 65 named individuals
Jerusalem's most famous notable dynasty — holders of the city's muftiate and mayoralty across generations, leaders of the Palestinian national movement under the Mandate, and chronic rivals of the Nashashibi clan.
Of this house
The feudal lords of Arraba who governed Nablus under Egyptian rule, were broken by the Ottomans in 1859, and re-emerged in the twentieth century as lawyers, party founders and — on both sides — combatants of the 1936–39 revolt.
Of this house
A Jaffa mercantile family scattered by 1948 — oil dealers and ice makers whose ten-year-old son Talal walked out of the city a refugee and built the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization in exile, spending a career insisting that the record show his birthplace as Jaffa.
Of this house
Jerusalem muftis, mayors and men of letters — a family of Moroccan origin that managed its endowments and governed the city in Ottoman times, and in the twentieth century gave Palestine Sa'd al-Din al-Alami, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem for forty years, and Musa al-Alami of the Arab Development Society.
Of this house
An old Jerusalem family of the Haram's custodians — the al-Danf Ansaris, who by family tradition descend from the Ansar of Medina and kept the waqf registers of their endowments; their sons include Sami al-Ansari, killed in the 1936 revolt and eulogized by Sakakini, and the historian Fahmi al-Ansari.
Of this house
The great clan of the Bani Zeid highlands northwest of Ramallah, centered on the village of Deir Ghassana — sheikhs of the region in Ottoman times, and in the twentieth century a family of lawyers, communists and, above all, poets: Omar al-Saleh al-Barghouti, Bashir Barghouti and Mourid Barghouti.
Of this house
Guardians of the Nabi Daoud shrine on Mount Zion and twice Jerusalem's mayors, the Dajanis were among the city's wealthiest houses before 1948 — with a Jaffa branch that carried the name into the PLO.
Of this house
A Jerusalem house of religious learning — muftis, qadis, madrasa teachers and al-Aqsa preachers documented from the Mamluk period onward, their line culminating in Hussam al-Din Jarallah, who won the most votes in the 1921 mufti election, stepped aside under British pressure, and finally held the Jerusalem muftiate from 1948 until his death.
Of this house
Jerusalem's scholarly dynasty — judges, mayors, parliamentarians and librarians, keepers of the Khalidi Library on Bab al-Silsila Road, and ancestors of some of the best-known historians of modern Palestine.
Of this house
A 'prominent land-owning Hebron and East Jerusalemite family' that gave East Jerusalem two Jordanian-era mayors: Anwar al-Khatib, who governed the Old City for seventeen years, and Ruhi al-Khatib, who never accepted his dismissal by Israel and carried the title of mayor in exile until his death.
Of this house
A prominent merchant family of Nablus whose modern members — industrialists, bankers and a Jordanian prime minister — became some of Palestine's wealthiest businessmen; the surname itself, though, is shared by many unrelated families.
Of this house
The other great house of Jerusalem — landowners and officials since the fifteenth century, and the Husaynis' rival and occasional partner for leadership of Palestinian politics under the Mandate.
Of this house
Gaza City's mayoral family — risen from the butchers' guild to the town hall within two generations, and holders of the city's municipal leadership across the Ottoman, Mandate and occupation eras.
Of this house
Nablus's old ruling house turned literary dynasty — governors of the city in Ottoman times, and in the twentieth century the family of the poets Ibrahim and Fadwa Touqan and the educator Qadri Touqan.
Of this house
No houses recorded for this city yet.
