merciless man is generally likened to a 'Ashar, and held up to execration just as were the Publicans of old.
A great many strangers from the hill country go down to the villages on the plains during harvest time; the men to help to reap and the women and children to glean. Gleaning is only allowed in all the fields after the sheaves have been removed.
Sometimes, but only in very special cases, permission is given to glean between or among the sheaves. See Ruth ii, 15, "Let her glean even among the sheaves."
In some villages the custom of leaving at the close of the general harvest a part of the mawaress unreaped is still in vogue. This is called Jaru'âa, جَروعَه, the portion for the widow, the fatherless and the strangers, who are all allowed to gather the standing grain for themselves.[1]
III. واقف, wakuf, or wakf, stopped—dedicated, not transferable, inalienable, or lands devoted towards the maintenance of a mosque or religious institution.
Most of the wakuf lands were ameeriyeh lands the revenues of which were devoted by Sultans or other rulers since the time of the Mohammedan conquest for the maintenance of a particular mosque or makam, such as the mosque of Omar, the tomb of David at Jerusalem, the mosque over the tomb of Abraham at Hebron, &c.
The revenues consist of similar taxes to those on ameeriyeh lands, viz., a money tax and a tithe, and are collected in the same way as above described, but instead of being paid into the Imperial Treasury they are paid into the wakuf treasury which distributes the revenues to the various institutions. The Imperial Government has, however, now taken over the control of the wakuf treasury and looks after the outlays itself.
No ameeriyeh land can be made wakf, but by the will of the Sultan himself. Mulk lands or houses can be so dedicated.
Arable wakuf lands are held by the villagers in exactly the same way as the arable ameeriyeh lands, viz., in musha'â.
A HITTITE MONUMENT.
By William Simpson, Esq.
I have an old volume, published in 1736, with no author's name, entitled "A Journey from Aleppo to Damascus." The date of the journey is not given, but the details of the route from place to place seem to be made
- ↑ See Leviticus xxiii, 22, "When ye reap the harvest of your field thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field; thou shalt leave them unto the poor and the stranger."
