The Shenouda Family
20th century official documents
INDEX I. Historical context...............................................................p.1 II.Introduction........................................................................p.2 III.Family tree....................................................................p.4-3 IV.Shawky Shenouda a) Shawky›s land-related documentsp...................p.13-9 b) Shawky›s property-related documents...............p.16-14 V.Shawky›s Death.........................................................p.21-17 VI.Nssser Shenouda›s land document .........................p.23-22
II. INTRODUCTION
I.HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The following documents belong to the Shenouda family. It mainly consists of contracts, official papers and governmental documents that have to do with my greatfather›s inheritence, custody landownership, log keeping, expenses and .more
-1801-1798 French invasion and occupation of Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte. This ends Mamluke rule in Egypt. -1882 British Conquest of Egypt. 1922 -British declare the independence of Egypt. British still retained control of Egyptian foreign policy and basic administration of the country -1949-1948 War with Israel in the First Arab-Israeli War. Egypt gains control of the Gaza Strip. -1952 Egyptian Revolution of 1952. King Farouk overthown by Lieutenant General Muhammad Naguib and Gamel Abdel Nasser. Naguib becomes Egypt›s first President.
My Grandfather is Nasser Shawky Shenouda was born in the year1936. His father Shawky Shenouda away in 1944 The Family owned five pieces of land in the following governerates: However after Shawky bek Shenouda passed away, his wife Mounira, sold these scattered pieces of land to buy one piece of land in Meet Rabeea el beida markaz Belbeis in el sharkeya Governerate.
-1954 Nasser becomes Prime Minister and effectively rules Egypt with President Naguib as a figurehead. 1956 (June)-Nasser becomes President of Egypt. His philosophy of Pan-Arab cooperation, nationalism, and unity becomes known as «Nasserism.» 1956 (July)-The United States pulls back from its promise to aid Egypt in building the Aswan Dam project. Nasser turns to the Soviet Union for aid, beginning a long and vital alliance between Egypt and the Soviets. 1956 (October-November)-War with Israel, Britain, and France in the «Suez War.» -1958 Egypt united with Syria to form the United Arab Republic. The UAR existed until Syria›s secession in 1961. A photograph of Shawky Shenouda and Mounira as newly weds (at the age of19)
-1970-1962 Egypt intervened in the Yemen Civil War. This intervention brought Egypt into conflict with Saudi Arabia. -1967 War with Israel. In the Six-Day War, Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, and siezed control of the Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip and Egypt›s Sinai Peninsula.
III.FAMILY TREE
IV.SHAWKY SHENOUDA a) Land related documents This Contract is a collateral foreclosure for loan repayment default. Even though the date on the left shows that the lad was sold in 1926 the stamp on the right indicates that the date of registering the contract was in 1928. The paper work and registration process obviously took 2 years. Stamps: - The stamp on the right with the clock shows what time of the day the contract was registered in the government. This was supposed to disable the initial owner to sell it to two different people on the same day and fool both buyers. It simply allows the government official to be able to know who of the two buyers bought it first, so that they may claim sole ownership over the land. shows who came first. - The dark circle stamps at the bottom are signatures. Because Egypt had and still has a very high illiteracy rate, anyone who coulnd›t read or write had a stamp for a signature, to be able to sign contracts without having to write. Nasser explains how this is still the case till now. He also explains that when his mother-in-law, Betha Badir, Samia Iskander›s mother had aged, they had to customize a stamp for her because she was too old to sign, and they still needed her to verify important documents.
Nowadays we register all contracts and submit them at the public notary (shahr a›akary), however back then they used to go to the mixed court to register any official doucment. The image on the left shows the signature of the government official, verifying the contract in french, because all government officials back then were french. Registering the contract was, and still is, vital. In the case of any disputes regarding the land, the landowner should have the contract as a piece of evidence (called hogga). If this contract is lost, the landowner would go to the mixed court (now the public notary) tell the government official the document number, and make a copy of the original that they keep at the mixed court. Any copy that is made has to be stamped and signed by the government official. The document number is to be found in the table on the right margin of the left image. In this case the contract number was 14789.
The following documents all belong to the same contract between Shawky Shenouda and a man called Sayed Mahmoud el A›asrawy on a piece of land in El-Haram area. The table on the left shows the land measurements. Land is measured in acres (faddan- )ف. An acre consists of 24 airat ( )طand the airat consists of 24 sahm ()س. After the landowner and the buyer submit the contract to the mixed court, a government official is sent to measure the land to make sure that the price that was paid fits with the right measurement. This process is called «kashf tahdid». The land stated in this specific case is 15.2 airat, however the soil only occupies 14.6 airat because part of the land is a public road. The lower image is a receipt of contract›s registration in the mixed court. It shows how much they had to pay for it to get stamped, signed by the government official and to keep the original contract in the mixed court. Additionally theres›s a percentage that gets paid according to the price of the land that was sold. It is called «rosoom nesbeya». This slip was sometimes substituted by the stamped table in the previous document, they both have the same function.
This is a scan of the primary contract between Shawky Shenouda and Sayed Mahmoud el A›asrawy. Shawky›s signature is at the bottom in arabic and french.
Landowners used to have a notebook, to keep track of all the land›s expenses. The following is an example of Shawky›s log keeping for Hafz farm during the year 1944-1943 (the year he passed away).
The first page of Shawky›s log book in 1943 shows that he built a small police station on his land for security. He rented it out to the government, however the price was symbolic, in order to maintain his ownership of the land and to avoid the situation where the government would take over his piece of land.
b) Property related documents
Property contracts differ from Land related contracts, because it is mainly used for apartments and buildings. Back then, before the invention of a washing machine each apartment in a building had a laundry or washing room on the roof of the building. Shawky used to rent out these rooms as residence for less priviledged people. In this contract the room was rented out for 60 piasters (which is 600 mills). The contract is an everlasting rental, which means that the family that rented out this room from Shawky in the year 1948 still rent it to this very day wit the same amount of money. Documents were written in french and arabic, due to the french ocupation.
V.SHAWKY›S DEATH
The stamps at the corner served as the taxes that were paid in order to validate the official documents. In this document the stamp is worth 5 mills, the previous one was woth 10 mills. This is another proerty contract written using a Kobia pencil. Before the invention of ink pens this was the only pencil that couldn›t be erased and was used in official documents. The contract was between Shawky and a domestic worker called Sayed Mansy as stated in the contract.
This document is dated in 1944, the Year Shawky passed away, and states at the top that Mounire, Shawky›s wife is responsible for all the minors of her family. This document is regarding the land they inherited in Haram, Giza governerate. The government official who signs it is in charge of checking on Mounira›s land dealings at the end of the year. This includes any expenses, rentals, where the money went.. etc. The agricultural year starts at the beginning of november and ends by the end of october, the next year.
This document was presented by Mounira to take permission from the court to sell 66 acres from the land in Dahreya, that the minors have inherited from her husband Shawky. A minor in Egypt is anyone younger than 21 years. She wanted to sell the land to buy another land in Belbeis, El Sharkeye governerate. She thought that the new land would bring more profit than the several small scattered pieces of land that they owned.
The following document is a declaration, announcing that Madlene Shawky Shenouda, Nasser›s elder sister, is not a minor anymore.
VI.NASSER SHENOUDA This is Nasser Shenouda›s National ID. Before getting married men and women used to have a personal National ID. After marriage men gets a Family National ID instead of his personal ID. This is due to the fact that he›s responsible for the entire family. However after marriage the woman remains with her personal National ID, only changing ger mertial status from single to married. Nowadays (in 2017) Both men and women keep their personal National ID and change their marital statues from single to married. Additionally the wife›s ID, now has her husbands name registered on it as well. Men are allowed to have four wives so their IDs do not include their spouses names.
The Family NAtional ID includes a page for the Husband›s job. Whenever Nasser would get promoted or change his job, it had to be written in his ID (Fig. on the right) The Family ID also included information about the family such as their permanent residence home address. In Nasser›s case The address
Every Family National ID had 4 pages for the four wives that the egyptian man is entitled to marry. My Grandfather Nasser Shawky Shenouda only married one woman, my grandmother Samia Rashed Iskander. The page on the left is from Nasser›s Family National ID, showing the information about the «first wife».
Every Family National ID also has 12 pages for the 12 sons and daughters a man can have from his different wives. Additional pages may be added if one has more than twelve children.
My Grandfathe only has 3 sons; Nader Nasser Shawky Shneouda (the youngest), Sameh Nasser Shawky Shenouda (both to be found in the left) and my father Ashraf Nasser Shawky Shenouda, the eldest (image above).