Quest for Understanding: Arabic and Islamic Studies in Memory of Malcolm H. Kerr 0815660839, 9780815660835

Table of contents :
Contents
Note on Transliteration
Preface
Foreword
Malcolm Kerr's Intellectual Achievement by Samir M. Seikaly
Malcolm H. Kerr A Bbiliography
Part One — Lebanon:
Past and Present
Lebanon in Ancient Texts
Mount Lebanon under the Mamluks
The Feudal System of Mount Lebanon as Depicted by Nasif al-Yaziji
Sulayman al-Bustani (1856-1925)
The Materialism of Shibli Shumayyil
Ras-Beirut Adrift: An Endangered Liberal Community
Part Two — The Politics of the Modern Middle East
External Intervention in Lebanon: The Historical Dynamics
Nasser and the June 1967 War: Plan or Improvisation?
The American Strategy in the Camp David Negotiations
Kerr’s Egyptian Scenarios: A Re-Appraisal
Part Three — Islamic Legacy
Varieties of Religious Experience in the Quran
Sovereignty and Stratification in Islam
An Astrological History Based on the Career of Genghis Khan
Lunar Crescent Visibility Predictions in Medieval Islamic Ephemerides
Early Lead-Glazed Wares in Egypt: An Imported Wrinkle
Historical Evidence and the Archaeology of Early Islam
William Henry Waddington: Orientalist and Diplomat (1826- 1894)
Index

Citation preview

QUEST FOR UNDERSTANDING ARABIC AND ISLAMIC STUDIES IN MEMORY OF MALCOLM H. KERR

EDITORS S. SEIKALY, R. BAALBAKI, P. DODD

American University of Beirut

Published by the American University of Beirut © 1991 All Rights Reserved Printed in Beirut, Lebanon

CONTENTS Note on Transliteration

xi

Preface

xiii

Foreword by Peter Dodd

xv

Malcolm Kerr's Intellectual Achievement by Samir M. Seikaly

xix

Malcolm H. Kerr: A Bibliography

xxxv

P art One — Lebanon: Past and Present Lamia Rustum Shehadeh Lebanon in Ancient Texts

3

Kamal Salibi Mount Lebanon under the Mamluks

15

Abdulrahim Abu Husayn The Feudal System of Mount Lebanon as Depicted by Nasif al-Yaziji

33

Albert Hourani Sulayman al-Bustani (1856-1925 )

43

Majid Fakhry The Materialism of Shibli Shumayyil

59

Samir Khalaf Ras-Beirut Adrift: An Endangered Liberal Community

vii

71

P art Two — The Politics of the Modern Middle East Rashid Khalidi External Intervention in Lebanon: The Historical Dynamics

99

L. Carl Brown Nasser and the June 1967 War: Plan or Improvisation?

119

William B. Quandt The American Strategy in the Camp David Negotiations

139

Mohamed Sid Ahm ed Kerr’s Egyptian Scenarios: A Re-Appraisal

173

P art Three — Islamic Legacy Frederick M. Denny Varieties of Religious Experience in the Quran

185

Fuad L Khuri Sovereignty and Stratification in Islam

203

Edward S. Kennedy An Astrological History Based on the Career of Genghis Khan 223 David A . King Lunar Crescent Visibility Predictions in Medieval Islamic Ephemerides 233 George T. Scanlon Early Lead-Glazed Wares in Egypt: An Imported Wrinkle

v iii

253

Law rence L C onrad

Historical Evidence and the Archaeology of Early Islam

263

H enry I. M acA dam

William Henry Waddington: Orientalist and Diplomat (18261894) 283

321

ix

NOTE ON TRASLITERATION

Apart from cayn and hamza, diacritical marks have not been in­ cluded except in a few cases where omission could have resulted in confusion or misunderstanding. As a rule, Arabic names and placenames have been reproduced in their known European form.

PREFACE This volume commemorating Malcolm Kerr’s intellectual legacy and educational career was the outcome of a slow and difficult birth. Books, after all, do not ordinarily come into being in a state of merci­ less civil war, when life as it is normally lived comes to a standstill and when human will and intellect are submerged by forces over which they exercise no control. But the courage and determination which made Malcolm the man he was, also animated the people who were involved in producing a work honoring his achievement and paying tribute to his sacrifice. That the book is made is testimony to this truth for it incorporates its own additional sacrifice. Zahi Khuri, director of University Publications, Malcolm’s student and friend, was abducted in September, 1985, soon after he and some others at the University had conceived the idea of a memorial volume. He has not as yet been released. Suha Tamim Tuqan, who took up the work where Zahi was compelled to leave it and who assisted in establishing a bibliography of Malcolm’s writings fell victim to cross-fire on April 26, 1986. In its final form, this volume is the product of a collaborative en­ terprise undertaken by men and women of different nationalities living in three separate continents at least. Most of them have chosen to conduct their labor in silence. The editors, however, wish to acknow­ ledge some by name. Gratitude is due, first of all, to Hassib Sabbagh and to the Diana Tamari Sabbagh Foundation. By their act of generos­ ity they made the publication of this volume possible. Thanks are also due to John Munro who introduced stylistic elegance to the manuscript as a whole and to Jean Sutherland for her enthusiasm and commitment even in times of great personal hardship. Makhluf Haddadin, Adnan Iskandar, Radwan Mawlawi and Helga Seeden were generous in their support, advice and assistance. The content of all the studies included in this volume, and opin­ ions expressed therein, belong to their authors. Contributions have been kept, as much as possible, in their original and integral form. Minor changes have, of course, been introduced but great care was taken not to trespass upon either the spirit or the letter of any text. All of us pay homage to the man who inspired the work. S. M. S. Beirut, 1990 x iii

FOREW ORD This volume of essays in Middle Eastern studies is a tribute to Malcolm Kerr — scholar, university president, and friend. The essays are dedicated to a man whose devotion to scholarship was matched by his affection for Lebanon and for all the countries of the Arab world. The themes that dominate the essays also dominate the bibliogra­ phy of Malcolm’s own scholarly work: the politics of the Middle East, the history of Lebanon, and the history and philosophy of Islam. His is a work that is well-known and highly respected. Both his master’s thesis on Lebanon in the nineteenth century and his doctoral disserta­ tion on Muhammad cAbdu and Rashid Rida were published and re­ ceived wide attention, as did The Arab Cold War which subsequently went through three editions, was revised and brought up-to-date. Turning his attention to questions of political and socio-economic de­ velopment, he edited volumes in these fields. Throughout his career, he wrote essays on other topics, especially on the relations between the Arab countries, Israel and the United States. On that-most difficult and intricate of topics, he wrote clearly and thoughtfully, refusing to bow to pressure from any quarter. Malcolm’s excellent knowledge of Arabic enabled him to speak directly and easily with people at all levels of society. He was able to present lectures in Arabic, and to speak to radio and television audi­ ences. Thanks to his parents’ involvement with the Armenian people, he had a deep compassion and sympathy for their interests and con­ cerns. He was quick to feel injustice and to attempt to right a wrong. It is fitting that this volume should be published by the American University of Beirut. In 1931, Malcolm began his life on its campus, where his father, Stanley Kerr, and his mother, Elsa, were both mem­ bers of the faculty. Later, he began his graduate study at the Universi­ ty, receiving his master’s degree in history in 1954. He held his first university teaching post there from 1958 to 1961. In later years, he returned often to the University, becoming a member of its Board of Trustees in 1977. He served as the University's president from July 1, 1982 until his tragic death from an assassin’s bullet on January 18, 1984. Malcolm Kerr's attachment to Cairo and the American University in Cairo led to exciting and productive years in Egypt, teaching and xv

carrying out research. He served on the faculty of the American Uni­ versity in Cairo, as distinguished professor, and as director of the Uni­ versity of California Study Center in Cairo. The major part of his academic career was spent at the University of California at Los Angeles. There between 1962 and 1982 he was Professor of Political Science, with terms of service as Chairman of the Department of Political Science, Dean of the Division of Social Scien­ ces, and Director of the Von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies. One of his major undertakings was a joint research project between American and Arab scholars, during the course of which noted scholars carried out research at the Von Grunebaum Center. This undertaking resulted in a volume of papers, edited by Malcolm, entitled Rich and Poor States in the Middle East. Lebanon, Egypt, California — these were the geographical bases for a scholarly and professional life that had as one of its major goals the improvement of relations between the United States and the Arab 'W orld. A man who sought such a goal did not choose the easy way. Every success had to be won against a host of difficulties. Successes, like the joint research venture mentioned above, were a tribute to Malcolm’s vision, courage, and perseverance. And with Malcolm there was always his family. Anyone who spent time with them — with Mal­ colm, his wife, Ann, and their four children — Susan, John, Stephen and Andrew — came away a wiser and happier person. Their love for each other, their vitality and intelligence, their enthusiasm for the ideals that motivated Malcolm — these qualities were evident to all. The family was generous to visitors, in the best traditions of hospital­ ity, and a welcome was always to be found there in all three countries where they made their home together. It is perhaps the greatest indication of Malcolm’s integrity and his devotion to these principles that he accepted the Presidency of the University at a time when his personal security was constantly at risk. He faced the danger courageously, acting as he always had, accessible to all, energetic, open, and enterprising. David Dodge, in a tribute paid to Malcolm at his memorial service in Princeton, said: «Malcolm Kerr loved the American University of Beirut. He was steeped in its tradition. He believed in its traditional goals and believed that these goals are relevant to present-day Lebanon and the Middle East. He xvi

believed that there is no better American presence in the Middle East than the University.» Malcolm Kerr died in the service of the University where he was bom and that University continues, stronger for his presence and his sacrifice. In recognition of his life and achievements, and in tribute to his memory, this book is presented by his friends and colleagues.

Peter Dodd Islamabad, 1990

x v ii

MALCOLM KERR’S INTELLECTUAL ACHIEVEMENT: AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY Samir M. Seikaly American University o f Beirut

I A full and systematic appraisal of Malcolm Kerr’s intellectual legacy is, at present, hardly feasible. For over two decades, from the time he translated and introduced Lebanon in the Last Years o f Feudalism as a graduate student at the AUB until his academic career came to an end, Malcolm Kerr was actively involved in writing about those sub­ jects that filled center-stage in his intellectual preoccupations. Besides his books and monographs that are fairly accessible, he produced an array of shorter studies spread over a variety of specialized publica­ tions, some of which have ceased appearing altogether while others are not readily available — at least not in Beirut. A complete, let alone definitive, assessment of his intellectual accomplishments must await, therefore, the collection of that output in a multi-volume work. Other­ wise, it will never be possible to study his thought as a unified entity, to trace the evolution and transformation of his ideas in time or to establish, on a comparative basis, what in that thought was essential and abiding and what was merely transient. Until such a project is achieved, any statement about his intellectual legacy must be tentative and necessarily incomplete. It is for this reason, primarily, that what is presented here is in the form of a survey which cannot do full justice to a man whose scholarship has influenced generations. To use Kerr’s own formulation when he spoke about Gustave von Grunebaum, what is intended here is merely to «throw some light on no more than a few corners of his range of scholarly achievements.»

n As a thinker, Malcolm Kerr encountered the Middle East as past, in the form of Islam, and as present. Because he shied away from the autobiographical, Kerr did not dwell upon the path that led him to Islam as a subject of abiding interest occupying a prominent position in his intellectual universe. There are, however, some indications that his x ix

particular understanding of Islam» as a religion whose principles re­ quired reconciliation with modernity as a pre-condition for Muslim progress, was somewhat derivative and was decisively influenced by a group of Orientalists who served as teachers and mentors. In an un­ usually candid Presidential Address to the Middle East Studies Asso­ ciation, which has the ring of the confessional, he openly acknow­ ledged his personal and professional indebtedness to Philip Hitti, Nabih Amin Fans, Majid Khadduri, H.A.R. Gibb and Albert Hourani. Perhaps it is not insignificant that all of them are Christian, or, at least, not Muslim. But while it may be true that his teachers set for him what can be termed the Muslim problématique, his treatment of it and his final verdict are quite original and bear the imprint of a disci­ plined, fertile but complex mind. By contrast with The Arab Cold War, a concise, vivid and daring analysis of the gyrations of Arab politics in the 1960s, Islamic Reform did not gain the wide acclaim, or circulation, of which it was in many ways more deserving. Perhaps, in the end, the book was victimized by its distinction, establishing methodological and interpretive standards which were more conveniently overlooked than followed. There is much in Islamic Reform that is striking. Its scholarship, for someone at the outset of his academic career, is, by any objective measure, impressive. It is based on a comprehensive knowledge of the Arabic sources, belonging not only to the founders of the modem Isla­ mic reform movement but to their great classical and medieval prede­ cessors as well. Largely by means of that intimate knowledge, he was moved somewhat nearer to that state of mental transposition which Louis Massignon deemed imperative if Orientalists were to compre­ hend the Islamic system of life from the inside. In line with the Orientalists who preceded him and the many whom he later influenced, Kerr understood Islamic reform as a move­ ment which, in essence, represented an earnest endeavor to reinterpret Islamic constitutional and legal doctrines in order to demonstrate their compatibility with the demands of a contemporary existence. But for him, such an external characterization of the movement was the begin­ ning and not the conclusion of the investigation. Put somewhat dif­ ferently, it is to say that the methodology which he employed in Isla­ mic Reform was the reverse of the descriptive and typified the analytic­ al approach in its most abstract, elaborate and refined form. xx

The terms of the methodology as well as the subject's parameters required that he embark upon a systematic examination, at the formal level, of the classical Islamic theories of the Caliphate and jurispru­ dence in order to discern what they really signified at the time of for­ mulation and what it was in them that later Muslim reformers attemp­ ted to reformulate. By an ingenious line of reasoning and argumenta­ tion that traditional Muslim jurists would have grudgingly admired, he was led to a number of conclusions that, most likely, would not have compelled the consent of the same body of legists, if not for logical reasons then at least on ideological grounds. In the first place, Kerr argued, classical Muslim constitutional theory, as embodied in the concept of the Caliphate, was essentially and, given its theological underpinnings, almost inevitably idealist. In­ stead of providing a positive allocation of procedural sovereignty and authority, it was overwhelmingly restricted to a static re-affirmation of the «divine nature of ultimate sovereignty.» This, Kerr inferred, not only disqualified it from serving as a practical constitutional instrument at the time of elaboration, it also rendered it deficient as a future mod­ el for modern political reform. The idealist defect inherent in ortho­ dox constitutional theory was intensified, he further maintained, by the fact that in its final version, it constituted merely a retrospective juri­ dical justification of early Muslim Sunni government as practiced by the Umayyads and then by their Abbasid successors. It was «a hyper­ bolical, almost allegorical rationalization» of the past. Given its nature, therefore, it could not, however rejuvenated, serve as a blueprint for subsequent political procedure or organization. Examining classical Muslim jurisprudence as it had developed from a positivist perspective, Kerr maintained that it too incorporated an idealist component which, inevitably, conduced to a kind of divide, on the legal plane, between the normative and the existential. His claim rested on the fact that from the period of crystallization into four great schools of Muslim jurisprudence the orthodox view prevailed that legal norms, embodied in the Shari(a, were non-cognitive in char­ acter, deriving ultimately from religious revelation. The Quran and the Sunna, accordingly, were the exclusive sources for a comprehensive criterion of good and evil, on which individual and social rules of be­ havior ought to be based. The practical elaboration of the Shari'a into individual rulings, which were theoretically inferrable from the primary xxi

revealed sources, entailed the creation of the special method of analo­ gical reasoning or qiyas. Analogical reasoning, as the concept itself connotes, was fundamentally rational, involving the systematic em­ ployment of human thought. But it was a circumscribed rational activ­ ity, hedged on all sides by procedural rules and epistemological hurdles which were intended, in the first place, to protect the sacred revelatory base not only from deliberate attempts at manipulation but also from reason’s involuntary tendency to distort. Although regarding qiyas as representing a non-textual source of legal judgement, Kerr nevertheless viewed it as a juridical tool which, in effect, reinforced, rather than attenuated, the idealist drift of Islamic jurisprudence. This conclusion, in the context of the entire argument, is neither contradictory nor unjustified. Much more unexpected was his treatment of, as he put it, the child of qiyas, namely istislah, a doctrine which was to prove pivotal in the thought of modem Muslim reformers among whom, of course, Muhammad ‘Abdu and Rashid Rida stand out. As defined by Kerr, istislah is a juridical method for the determination of human interest and the consequent legal judgement calculated to promote a type of welfare which is not textually derived from and is not explicitly rooted in the revealed sources of law. Carried to its logical extreme and liberated from contrary legal considerations, istislah, Kerr judged, had the potential of evolving into a straightforward doctrine of utilitarianism in which circumstantial methods of reasoning would prevail. In fact, Kerr demonstrated, istis­ lah, which was the object of some doctrinal controversy, was never permitted by orthodox jurists to constitute other than a subsidiary method of interpretation. As such, it could never become a substantive source of law in its own right. The validity of its conclusions, there­ fore, derived from the fact that they contradicted neither the explicit, nor the implicit, provisions of the revealed law and were intended, in the first place to implement, as Ghazali put it, the understood intent of Quran, Sunna and ijnuf. The domestication, as it were, of istislah, its pre-emption by the dominant schools of jurisprudence was, as Kerr saw it, an occurrence of great importance. It represented, first of all, a triumph for legal orthodoxy: istislah, besieged by methodological regulations and legal prescriptions, could not become the doorway for innovations in those x x ii

areas of the law which related to social transactions — i.e. mifamalat. Secondly, it denoted a reconfirmation of the idealist spirit which en­ tailed the perpetuation of the division, on the legal plane, between the ideal and what was utilitarian in nature. Any new methodology, even if it were, like istislah, meant to promote general welfare, must be first purified in order to insure that it would not distort the true substance of revealed values. Perhaps most significant, from Kerr’s perspective, was the fact that the liberal intent of istislah was effectively subverted, and it reverted back to what it originally was, namely the child of qiyas, inert and subject to the same theoretical constraints as well as the same technical restrictions. In the end, the containment of istislah was to pose for the proponents of modern reform a real dilemma: istis­ lah which they identified as the dynamic, liberal and humanist element in Islamic jurisprudence was historically something quite different. In tracing the fortunes of Muslim reform it was, perhaps, unavoid­ able for Kerr to begin his account by an extended reference to Muhammad ‘Abdu’s pioneering role. But in Kerr’s expert investigation it is not the master, ‘Abdu, but the disciple, Rashid Rida who assumed a clear position of pre-eminence. On the pages of Islande Reform, Rida is transformed almost into a figure of tragic proportions: a devout Muslim radical who devoted his entire working life to the cause of Muslim regeneration, who believed that he had identified the instru­ ment for change but who ultimately renounced his reforming program because it threatened to undermine the entire foundations of the faith and the system of life which he originally intended to restore. His fai­ lure, Kerr noted, symbolized in some ways «the political failure of the whole Islamic modernist movement.» It is neither necessary nor, in the context of the present remarks, possible to follow Kerr in his close analysis of Rida’s new, or recast, political, social and legal teachings, especially in view of Kerr’s conten­ tion that these rested on dubious intellectual foundations. It would be, probably, more apropos to consider what Rida made of the doctrine of istislah precisely because it was here, Kerr affirmed, that the originality as well as the ambiguities and equivocations inherent in Rida’s reform­ ing thought become most apparent. Istislah, Kerr suggested, fulfilled for Rida a dual function. At one level, following its emancipation from rigidity and formal accretions, it testified to the dynamic and flexible nature of Islamic jurisprudence. x x iii

Its testimony derived, according to Rida, from the fact that it con­ doned, indeed ordained, the full employment of rational value judge­ ment in the material sphere of human existence. Kerr here carefully noted that Rida’s revival of the doctrine entailed the introduction of a surreptitious alteration whereby the doctrine as reinterpreted had little real resemblance to its original meaning. Istislah was, perhaps, impli­ citly latitudinarian but it had not been assigned, Kerr conclusively de­ monstrated, other than a humble status in the scale of legal determina­ tion. It represented no more than «a residual subdivision of analogical reasoning.» Rida’s reversal, which amounted to a distortion of the spirit and even the content of the doctrine, was at one level inevitable and probably unconscious, inasmuch as he, Kerr maintained, «attempted to apply inherited teachings to objectives radically different from those for which they were originally evolved.» But Kerr offered another psycho-ideological explanation as well. In the face of insiduous West­ ern insistence on the insufficiency and inflexibility of Muslim jurispru­ dence, and by extension the Sharia itself, the modern reformer was driven to affirm dogmatically its comprehensiveness and fundamentally liberal character, even if the facts did not actually corroborate the claim. The real importance of istislah, however, was not exclusively sym­ bolic. For Rida, its ultimate significance derived from the fact that it could perform a necessary pragmatic function as an adaptive legal mechanism for the determination of reasonable benefits that were neither prescribed, prohibited nor pre-figured in the Quran and Sunna. But for istislah to become the principal methodology responsive to practical social needs, Rida was compelled to re-order the relationship between it and the recognized textual sources of law. As a consequence of this act of reversal, considerations of utility (maslaha) emerged as the new cornerstone of Islamic jurisprudence, and istislah opened the door to a pragmatic process of positive legislation that was limited «only by the liberally interpreted meaning of Quran and Sunna.» Islamic Reform analyzed in typical detail Rida’s painful meanderings as he struggled to demonstrate the juridical validity of his re­ formulation of istislah. At times, somewhat defensively, he maintained that having mainly laid down guiding moral principles, the Shari'a it­ self actually ordained the application of human judgement for the de­ XXIV

termination of what was beneficial for man. At other times, basing his argument on the alleged parallel competence of reason and revelation, he declared that the precepts of the Shari(a tended towards the same conclusions in rules of behavior as did the precepts of «sophisticated prudence or enlightened self-interest.» In a way, Kerr noted, Rida’s justifications were sober and even sincere but, as it turned out, somewhat irrelevant. The real problem with istislah, Rida came to realize, centered not on the manner, or legality, of its derivation but in the uses to which it was eventually put. Rida, and his school, could conceivably control its operation, main­ taining it as a practical method for the achievement of social regenera­ tion and material progress in a society integrated around the moral inspiration of Islam. In other hands, however, it was transformed into an instrument both facilitating and justifying the introduction of secu­ lar legislation with no more than verbal concern for the sanctity of revealed law. The possibility now dawned for the development of a systematic body of law based on moral and legal judgement indepen­ dent of revelation — to paraphrase the title of one of Kerr’s many articles. It is one of Kerr’s important conclusions that the paradox lying at the heart of the Islamic reform movement, namely that the quest for regeneration could undermine the entire foundations of Islam, which caused Rida to abandon his mission and to retreat to a condition of sterile conservatism against which he had fought for so long. The failure of Rida’s reforming program, Kerr believed, was symptomatic of the failure of an entire generation. The great moral purpose that had sustained the movement for reform at the turn of the century was gradually dissipated and the vacuum created became occu­ pied by other movements that have fastened their concerns on entirely different questions. Much of what Kerr said about the movement for Muslim reform was written in the shadow of its ultimate failure. But his own writings on the subject, as distinguished from the fate of the movement, whether in Islamic Reform or in the articles devoted to Rashid Rida in the Muslim World, have stood the test of time. Today, in the 1990s, his writings, which, at times, resemble a kind of mental dissection of the movement, are as vivid, as relevant and as instructive as when they first made their appearance. xxv

UI The division of Kerr’s encounter with the Middle East as past, in the form of Islam, and as present, is more than a convenient conceptual device artificially constructed in order to facilitate the survey of his intellectual achievement. In fact, it related to a real shift in his thought induced by or, at least, reflecting a modification in his field of spe­ cialization, away from the humanities (History) and into the social sci­ ences (Political Studies). The formal announcement of this metamor­ phosis, as it were, was the appearance of The Arab Cold War, a soph­ isticated interpretation of the aspirations and self-inflicted frustrations, trials and tribulations of some newly-independent Arab states as they wrestled their way into, and out of, some form of Arab unity. That book established him as a leading scholar of the politics of the contem­ porary Middle East. In 1981, just a few years before his career was brought to an end, Kerr produced a remarkable short study discussing the birth of a new Arab order. In it, among other things, he castigated Arab leaders for having squandered a spectacular opportunity to tackle their massive development requirements by unearthing new patterns of wastefulness and by establishing new forms of old political rivalries. On the basis of a retrospective examination of his writings, and for the purposes of this survey, it would be useful, perhaps, to re­ group his writings around the notion that he in fact wrote about the birth, and premature death, of two new Arab orders. The second coin­ cided with the incredible rise of oil prices during the 1970s and was, therefore, economic. The first, which can be regarded as having begun in 1958 and which came to an end half a decade later, was the child, as it were, of ideas. It represented an attempt on the part of the radical Arab states, Egypt under Nasser, Syria and revolutionary Iraq to con­ struct a new political Arab order on the foundations of Arab national­ ism, Arab socialism and Arab unity. Kerr understood nationalism as a subjective doctrine of selfidentification and solidarity, and maintained that it had entered Middle Eastern society in the 19th and early 20th centuries in order to fill the moral vacuum created by the failure of the Islamic reform movement. He also held the view that since nationalism was not an inherent or a permanent phenomenon in history, it was conceivable that it would in the end leave Middle Eastern society, yielding to another, more xxvi

relevant and constructive idea. Its exogenous and ultimately tran­ sient character, however, did not lead Kerr to understimate its social and psychological significance or the powerful political pull that it ex­ ercised during the 1960s. Building upon the reality of geographical continuity and the common factors of language, culture, religion and shared experience of foreign domination, the Arabs, as a people, as leaders, and as elites, naturally aspired to some form of political unity. But the cardinal point which The Arab Cold War sought to drive home was that unification between Egypt and Syria when it came in 1958 was only minimally affected by Arab nationalism as an ideological force. It was, on the contrary, the outcome of internal tactical consid­ erations, rivalry for regional hegemony and, possibly, the desire for personal aggrandizement on the part of Nasser. It was Kerr’s conten­ tion as well that the same political considerations that created the UAR also dissolved it and, moreover, foreclosed upon its recreation in 1963 with Iraq under the BaHh added to it. The fame of Kerr’s book derived in large measure from its hardboiled analysis, consistent realism and refusal to be mystified by vacuous sloganizing or ideological posturing. In view of this fact, it was somewhat surprising that the first edition should be subtitled A Study o f Ideology in Politics. The book, after all, is mostly about politics independent of ideology or, at least, about politics with ideology as a fig-leaf. It is this oversight which seems to have been corrected when the subtitle was dropped from later editions. Whatever the case may be, the breakdown of the UAR is, from our perspective, significant because it represented the first and, as it proved, last attempt to construct a new Arab order on radical political and social foundations. The lessons which Kerr himself drew from this abortive experiment in Arab unity were, in some ways, somewhat in­ consistent. On the one hand, he continued to regard Arab nationalism as a vital political force, deriving much of its vigor and political resili­ ence from the fact that it avoided an open confrontation with religion and successfully evolved as a modem expression of traditional Muslim sentiments as these related to dignity, unity and historic destiny. By a kind of mutual transference, Arab nationalism and Islam came to be seen not as opposed but as complementary, each in some special sense «a vital part of the other.» XXVII

At the same time as he was stressing the importance of Arab nationalism on the psychological and ideological plane, Kerr neverthe­ less expressed the rather incongruous opinion that the vision of Arab unity or, as he called it, Pan-Arabism, was a malignant political ideal systematically de-stabilizing Arab governments and disrupting normal relations between them. In practical terms, the widespread assumption that the Arabs constituted one nation that was destined to unite, im­ posed upon every Arab leader the need to bend his words and visible actions towards a non-existent state of affairs. Additionally, it meant that the affairs of each Arab state became the legitimate concern of every other with the result that all of them lost all semblance of domestic autonomy and the liberty to determine foreign policy in accordance with the higher national interests of the state. Thus it was that the idea of unity became, to use Kerr's own words, «a paralyzing myth... constantly demanding unrealism and inviting frustrations.» It would appear as if the historical record tends to justify Kerr’s contention that the idea of Arab unity ought to be consigned to the realm of myth. Today, Arab unity is not any nearer than it was in 1961 when the UAR decomposed into its pre-existent parts. But the view that the idea of Arab unity is itself the principal cause for instability and political frustration in the region seems less convincing. In fact, a good case could be made by arguing the exact opposite; namely that the morbid state of Arab politics is perpetuated because Arab unity remains so elusive on account of both internal difficulties and massive external obstruction. Indeed, it could further be maintained that Arab unity represents the sole viable antidote to what Kerr, somewhat mechanistically, regarded as the inherent tendency on the part of the Arab states to polarize into antagonistic camps, with each axis waging its quixotic cold war for regional hegemony and in the process drag­ ging all the rest to real disaster. Although Kerr did not significantly modify his conviction concern­ ing the political futility of the goal of Arab unity, his opinions about the matter seemed to be shifting over the years. For example, his essay on the new Arab order was explicitly built upon the notion of some form of Arab solidarity which, admittedly, would have a depoliticized focus, but which would nevertheless necessitate ever closer forms of social and economic relations. It would be merely redundant to recapitulate in detail Kerr’s views XXVIII

on what has here been described as the second attempt at the construc­ tion of a new Arab order. Perhaps it will be sufficient to emphasize what he saw as paradoxical in it and what was the challenge to which it had to respond. The paradox derived from the fact that the new order, which would involve revolutionary social and economic structural changes in the region, was being created by what he described as the most isolated, backward and underpopulated Arab states. The irony in the situation, of course, arose from the fact that these states were to become engines for revolutionary transformation not by choice or by proxy but wholly by accident as a result of owning some of the largest oil deposits in the world. The challenge on which, Kerr felt, the fate of the region depended revolved around the vision and determination of the oil-rich states to transform the Arab World into a dynamic order of economic reciproc­ ity. In such an expanding system they would, as partners, make avail­ able to the oil-poor countries financial assistance for development in return for receiving from them what they needed in terms, for exam­ ple, of manpower, technical expertise, industry and education. Because he was never an optimist when it came to the perform­ ance of Arab governments, Kerr expressed doubt about the mater­ ialization of a qualitatively superior new Arab order. He singled out, in particular, two instances which he regarded as hallmarks of immi­ nent failure. The first was represented by what he described as the scandalous expenditure by the oil-rich Arab states of many billions of dollars on useless construction projects, aided and abetted, in the process, by the giant industrial firms of the U.S., Europe, Japan and Korea. The second hallmark of failure was the more scandalous joint Arab sponsorship of an unceasing orgy of killing and destruction in Lebanon. It was as if, he noted, the Arab states, in a perverted form of joint venture, had designated Lebanon «as a kind of preserve in which to unleash all their demons of madness...». Since he wrote these poignant lines, developments in the region have not fully confirmed Kerr’s analysis. Lebanon, partly as a result of sheer exhaustion and partly on account of a Pan-Arab rescue opera­ tion, is gradually moving in the direction of peace. But an integrated Arab economic system is as distant now as it was when first proposed. The price of oil has levelled-off, Gulf financial assistance is more sym­ bolic than real and it seems destined to create a class of political clients x x ix

rather than to serve as a means for the economic regeneration of the Arab World as a whole. Perhaps, after all, Kerr was right when he observed that the 1970s (as well as the 1980s) «... are likely to go down in history as the decade(s) in which the Arabs missed the boat.» IV No survey, however tentative, can possibly end without some refer­ ence, at least, to Kerr’s treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It ought to be noted at the outset, however, that in contrast with the two cases of the movement for Muslim reform and the politics of the modern Middle East, Kerr did not write a detailed or comprehensive account of the origin and evolution of the Palestinian problem. This omission is unfortunate but it should not be interpreted as an exercise in evasion or to mean that he did not think deeply and write forcefully and per­ ceptively about it, albeit in a somewhat intermittent fashion. This apparent disregard is explained in large measure by the fact that he always viewed the problem from the wider perspective of a regional conflictual situation which involved the major world powers at one time or another and in one form or another. As a result, much of what he wrote about Palestine was not stated in isolation but in the context of his more inclusive concerns with the politics of the region as a whole. Thus it was that reference was made to Palestine in all three editions of The Arab Cold War. But there it was discussed not as a subject in itself, as the specific struggle between Palestinian Arabs and immigrant Jews over the fate of Palestine, rather it was viewed as a complicating emotionally-charged issue which was habitually exploited by the various Arab states for the augmentation of one regional role or another, or used, alternatively, as a kind of club with which to batter each other. In the light, therefore, of such a perspective, it was perhaps inevit­ able that Kerr did not deal in any extended manner with the historical roots of the problem. Of course, he dated the origin of the problem back to the Balfour Declaration, identified the period of incubation as that of the British Mandate, and fixed the moment of explosion at 1948 when the imperial authority scuttled its responsibilities and left the antagonists to fight a war which mutated with the passage of time yet never fully came to an end. xxx

But what really interested Kerr, given the fact of the problem's existence, was to explain the reasons for its intractability and to ex­ plore the paths that could lead to some kind of settlement. Before, however, we follow Kerr in his analysis, it is necessary to note that in most of what he wrote about the issue he attempted to attain a state of real neutrality which, in practical terms, meant that he criticized both parties equally without favoring either of them overtly. At one level, Kerr observed, the permanence of the conflict de­ rived from the fact that it seemed to incorporate within itself an ele­ ment of insolubility represented by the affirmation, on the part of two distinct nationalisms, of mutually exclusive claims to a common terri­ tory. But in line with the realism which informed all his writings, he was not bemused by the psychological and, as it were, metaphysical difficulties that were caused by this dilemma. Instead, he endeavored consistently to identify the political aspects of the problem that gener­ ated intractibility. For Kerr, one of the main reasons for the prolongation of the con­ flict was the refusal of the Palestinian Arabs to submit to the fact of their dispossession and their inability to reverse it. In other words, like the neighboring Arab states that took turns at supporting and suppres­ sing them, the Palestinian Arabs could not wage successful war in de­ fence of their claims nor would they concede to peace at any price, that is, to lise his terminology, to adjust «... the substance of their claims to political realities.» The terms of Kerr's analysis suggested the existence of general and specific reasons for the weakness of the Arab position. A t one level, as underdeveloped societies, the Arabs lacked the economic, so­ cial, educational and technological bases necessary to train and mobi­ lize large armies or to wage war in which were deployed the most ad­ vanced weapons systems and the latest military strategies. In addition to Arab military ineffectiveness, there were particular political weaknesses as well. The first derived from the Arab inability to determine strategic fundamentals regarding long-term objectives. The result, as Kerr saw it, was the oscillation of the Arab states be­ tween the emotional, but unrealistic, goal of the restoration of the whole of Palestine to Arab sovereignty and the seemingly unattainable objective of military containment. The corollary to the lack of strategy was, of course, absence of a coherent and practical program outlining XXXI

Arab political and security desiderata on the basis of which to negoti­ ate or to exercise some leverage over those Great Powers upon whose good will Israel depended. In the final analysis, however, the most important single factor to which Arab weakness could be attributed, Kerr insisted, was the fact of their internal divisions or, as he so dramatically put it, their own varie­ ty of the cold war. The decision to go to war or to opt for peace, the ability to formulate realistic political demands which Israel and its pro­ tectors could recognize and react to, required, Kerr asserted, greater collective responsibility and greater consensus than actually existed among the Arabs. In the absence of an Arab strategy on Palestine, therefore, and largely to conceal the fact, Palestine was dragged into the deadly game of Arab politics and ultimately became its first casual­ ty, as the calamity of 1967 testified. Kerr’s analysis, as it is here reproduced in outline, was manifestly critical of Arab governments. But it was no less critical of Israeli gov­ ernments, about whom he had much less to say. The former he re­ garded as victims of their weaknesses. The latter, he said, were victims of their strength, relying on foreign aid and daring initiative to annex the conquered Arab city of Jerusalem and to begin the process of absorbing the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. In their moment of victory, Kerr noted, the Israelis made no magnanimous gestures to convince the other side of their pacific intentions, nor did they use it as a device simply to secure the legitimization of the status quo ante. Instead, they merely utilized their victory to maximize their country’s military preponderance there­ by confronting the Arabs with what was tantamount to an impossible choice: either to continue the struggle on highly unfavorable terms or to accept a full peace with Israel on terms it would dictate. Commenting on the resulting stalemate to which both parties had been driven, or had actually driven themselves, Kerr confessed that he could see no light at the end of the tunnel. It is significant that neither the upsurge of Palestinian nationalism under PLO leadership, nor the 1973 October War, nor the Camp David Accords gave him much ground to modify his pessimistic foreceast. The intransigence which he believed had led both parties to a con­ dition of deadlock both perplexed and exasperated Kerr. As a result he occasionally indulged in untypical escapism, expressing the some­ x x x ii

what forlorn hope that the Arabs would transcend their debilitating pre-occupation with Palestine and concentrate instead on the more re­ warding business of selling oil to the West. But, as a matter of fact, Kerr fully recognized that more realistic measures were needed if a solution were to be found. Looking at the conflict after the dust of the October War had set­ tled, Kerr expressed his convinction that the parties directly involved were either unwilling or unable to settle it on their own, for reasons which he analyzed in great depth and to which allusion had already been made in this survey. In view of this truth, it was necessary, if the cycle of violence were to be broken, that peace be imposed from out­ side «by those with the will and resources to do so.» In making his suggestion, Kerr did not nurse any illusions about its acceptability. An imposed peace would evoke, on the part of the Arab states, a grave sense of failure and dishonor. This, Kerr estimated, was a psychologi­ cal price which the Arab states could afford — on condition that Israel made territorial concessions. The PLO, Kerr noted, would constitute on obstacle to an imposed peace. But, he believed, its maximalist post­ ure, and therefore its opposition to an imposed treaty, would be wa­ tered down were a credible bargain offered them, «such as the chance to establish and govern an independent state of their own inside Pales­ tine but outside Israel.» The real opposition to an imposed peace, Kerr affirmed, would naturally emanate from Israel; it was disinclined to exchange territory for recognition, but it could, moreover, marshall many arguments jus­ tifying its opposition, ranging from the psychological and the military to the geo-political. In view of this fact, it became Kerr’s conviction that Israel would be drawn into the peace process only if it were press­ ured to do so by the U.S., in particular since Israel had come to de­ pend overwhelmingly «on American money, arms and diplomacy.» The areas of pressure were those in which Israeli dependence on the U.S. was greatest. But their exercise was predicated on a shift in American strategic thinking which successive American governments had failed to undertake or had initiated, at best, half-heartedly. Over the years, from the time he wrote The Middle East Conflict in the aftermath of the June 1967 War until early 1981 when he pub­ lished one of his last articles outlining what Reagan’s priorities in the region ought to be, Kerr conducted a tireless, but vain, crusade to x x x iii

re-educate American governments about their Middle Eastern strategies and political priorities. He wanted them to understand that their vital political and economic interests could not be secured, in the long-term, by banking on Israel at the expense of legitimate Arab con­ cerns and interests; that the Middle East was too fragile and too im­ portant to be used as a playground in the Cold War game for regional hegemony between Washington and Moscow; and that the status quo, which had arisen at the expense of the Palestinians in the first place, should not be regarded complacently as a kind of peace but that it should be seen for what it really was, namely the calm that preceded the inevitable storm. Of course Kerr did not deny that under Carter the U.S. appeared to be involved in re-appraising some of its fundamental premises re­ garding the Palestinian issue and the conflict in the region. But as it turned out, this re-examination, whose concrete expression were the Camp David Accords, amounted to very little indeed. For Kerr, the Camp David strategy was, perhaps unintentionally, a continuation of Kissinger’s diplomacy which intended merely to separate Egypt from the Arab front. Apart from neutralizing Egypt by the signature of a separate treaty, the Camp David Accords achieved next to nothing. The core issue of Palestinian nationalism and Israeli expansion were left unresolved; the consequences, Kerr predicted, would be dire. Today as the Middle East enters an explosive new phase of its history, Malcolm Kerr’s scholarship is sorely missed. The scope of its vision, the wisdom that informed it and its basic humanity would have served as a corrective to the equivocation, ambiguity and sheer hypoc­ risy that characterizes much that is written about the Middle East and Palestine.

x x x iv

MALCOLM H. KERR A BIBLIOGRAPHY* BOOKS AND MONOGRAPHS Egypt under Nasser. New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1963. The Arab Cold War, 1959-1965: A Study o f Ideology in Politics. Lon­ don: Oxford University Press, 196S; The Arab Cold War, 19591967, 2nd Edition. London: Oxford University Press, 1967; The Arab Cold War: Gamal A bd al-Nasir and his Rivals, 3rd Edition. London: Oxford University Press, 1971. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories o f Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. The Middle East Conflict. New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1968. Regional Arab Politics and the Conflict with Israel. Santa Monica, Cal: Rand Corporation, 1969. The United Arab Republic: The Domestic and Economic Background o f Foreign Policy. Santa Monica, Cal: Rand Corporation, 1969. American Policy Toward Egypt, 1955-1971: A Record o f Failures. Los Angeles, Cal: Arms Control and Foreign Policy Seminar, 1973. Toward Peace in the Middle East: Report o f a Study Group. Washing­ ton, D.C: Brookings Institution, 1975. America’s Middle East Policies: Kissinger, Carter and the Future. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1980.

* The first draft of this bibliography was prepared by Dr. Nadim Munla and the late Mrs. Suha Tamim Tuqan.

XXXV

EDITED BOOKS AND JOINT AUTHORSHIPS Lebanon in the Last Years o f Feudalism, 1840-1868. Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1959. The Economics and Politics o f the Middle East (Abraham S. Becker, Bent Hansen and Malcolm H. Kerr). New York, American Else­ vier, 1975. The Elusive Peace in the Middle East. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975. Inter-Arab Conflict Contingencies and the Gap Between the Arab Rich and Poor (Malcolm H. Kerr, Nathan Leites and Charles Wolf, Jr.). Santa Monica, Cal: Rand Corporation, 1978. Islamic Studies: A Tradition and Its Problems. Malibu, Cal: Undena Publications for the Von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, Levi Della Vida Award Series No. 7, 1980. Rich and Poor States in the Middle East: Egypt and the New Arab Order (Malcolm H. Kerr and Yassin al-Sayyid). Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 1982.

BOOK CHAPTERS AND ARTICLES "Who Speak for the Arabs?" Middle East Forum, 31 (May, 1956), 1517. "American Attitudes toward 34 (April, 1959), 27-29.

Nasserism."

Middle East Forum,

"The 1960 Lebanese Parliamentary Elections." Middle Eastern Affairs, 11 (1960), 266-75. "Rashid Rida and Islamic Legal Reform: An Ideological Analysis. Part I: Methodology." Muslim World, 50(1960), 99-108; "Part II: Application." Muslim World, 50 (1960), 170-81. "Lebanese Views on the 1958 Crisis.” Middle East Journal, 15 (1961), 211-17.

XXXVI

''Quelques expréssions récentes de l’idéologie nationaliste arabe.* A lA fkar (Geneva), (June, 1961), 56-61. Israel, the Arabs, 15 (Winter, 1961), 9-17.

and

the

Blueprint

Illusion.*

Issues,

T h e Un-Egyptian Activities Committee.* SA IS Review, 6 (Spring, 1962). T h e Emergence of a Socialist Ideology in Egypt.* Middle East Jour­ nal, 16 (1962), 127-44. "Arab Radical Notions of Democracy.* St. Antony's Papers, no. 16, Middle Eastern Affairs, no. 3,1963, 9-40. "Islam and Arab Socialism.* The Muslim World, 56 (1966), 276-81. 'Coming to Terms with Nasser: Attempts and Failures.* International Affairs, 43 (1967), 65-84. "Egyptian Foreign Policy and the Revolution,* in P.J. Vatikiotis, ed., Egypt Since the Revolution. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968. "Persistence of Regional Quarrels." Proceedings o f the Academy o f Political Science, 29 (1969), 228-41. "Moral and Legal Judgment Independent of Revelation." Philosophy East and West, 18 (1968), 277-83. Reprinted in Proceedings o f the 27th International Congress o f Orientalists 1967 (1971), 176-78. "Notes on the Background of Arab Socialist Thought." Journal o f Con­ temporary History, 3 (1968), 145-59. Tunisian Education: Seeds of Revolution?" Middle East Forum, 47 (Autumn-Winter, 1971), 83-91. T h e Changing Political Status of Jerusalem," in I. Abu-Lughod, ed., The Transformation o f Palestine: Essays on the Origin and Develop­ ment o f the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Evanston, 111.: Northwestern Uni­ versity Press, 1971. "Socialism révolutionnaire et tradition islamique.” Renaissance du monde arabe. Colloque Interarabe de Louvain, 1972, 427-34. "Regional Arab Politics and Conflict with Israel," in P. Y. Hammond xxxvii

and S. Alexander, eds., Political Dynamics in the Middie East. New York: American Elsevier, 1972. 'The United Arab Republic: The Domestic, Political, and Economic Background of Foreign Policy,* in P. Y. Hammond and S. Alexander, eds., Political Dynamics in the Middle East. New York: American Elsevier, 1972. T h e Arabs and Israelis: Perceptual Dimensions to their Dilemma,* in W. A. Beling, ed., The Middle East: Quest fo r an American Policy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1973. T h e Convenient Marriage of Egypt and Libya.* New Middle East, no. 48 (Sept. 1972), 4-7. "Hafiz Asad and the Changing Patterns of Syrian Politics.* Internation­ al Journal, 28 (1972-1973), 689-706. "Nixon’s Second Term: Policy Prospects in the Middle East.* Journal o f Palestine Studies, 2 (1973), 14-29. T h e West and the Middle East: the Light and the Shadow.* (Presiden­ tial Address, Middle East Studies Association, November 1972). Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, 7 (February, 1973), 1-8. "La crisi della società medio-orientale e l’ombra della luna,* in L. Magrini, ed., La coscienza delTaltro. Firenze, 1974. T h e Respective Positions of the Arabs and Israel on a Peace Settlement,* in S. M. Finger, ed., The New World Balance and Peace in the Middle East: Reality or Mirage? Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 1975. T h e Changing Role of Arab Nationalism." Journal o f the Middle East, 4 (1977), 1-10. "Reagan’s Priorities.* Middle East International, no. 144 (February 27, 1981), 5-6. "Egypt’s Two Foreign Policies.* Middle East International, 155 (July 31,1981), 8-9.

no.

"Rich and Poor in the New Arab Order." Journal o f Arab Affairs 1 (1981), 1-26. Reprinted in T. Farah, ed., Political Behavior in the Arab States. Boulder, Cal: Westview Press, 1983. xxxviii

"Arab Nationalism: Is It Obsolete?” Middle East Insight, 2 (MarchApril, 1982), 20-22.

BOOK REVIEWS Political Thought in Medieval Islam, by E.I.J. Rosenthal. Middle East Journal, 12 (1958), 474-75. Crisis in Lebanon, by F. I. Qubain. Muslim World, 52 (1962), 257; Middle East Journal, 16 (1962), 96-97. Ottoman Egypt in the Eighteenth Century: The Nizamname-i-Misir o f Cezzar Ahm ad Pasha, by S. J. Shaw. Middle Eastern Affairs, 14 (1963), 202. The Politics o f Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa, by M. Halpem. American Sociological Review, 29 (1964), 601. Nationalism and Revolution in Egypt: The Role o f the Muslim Brother­ hood, by C. P. Harris. American Political Science Review, 59 (1965), 748-49. Population and Society in the Arab East, by G. Baer. Economic De­ velopment and Cultural Change, 14 (1965), 117-20. American Interests and Policies in the Middle East, 1900-1939, by J. A. De Nuovo. Muslim World, 56 (1966), 137-38. The Lebanese Crisis, 1958: A Documentary Record, edited by M.S. Agwani. Muslim World, 56 (1966), 203-4. Islam and International Relations, edited by J. Proctor. Middle Eastern Studies, 3 (1966), 103-5. The Middle East Today, by D. Peretz. Middle East Forum, 42 (Winter, 1966), 80-81. The United States and the Arab World, by W. Polk. Journal o f the American Oriental Society, 86 (1966), 53-54. Three Reformers: A Study in Modern Arab Political Thought, by K.S. al-Husry. Middle East Journal, 21 (1967), 120. xxxix

Afghani and Abduh: an Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modem Islam, by E. Kedourie. Middle East Journal, 21 (1967), 118-19. Algeria: A Revolution that Failed, by A. Humbaraci. Annals o f the American Academy o f Political and Social Sciences, 371 (May, 1967), 242. The League o f Arab States, by R. MacDonald. Political Science Quarterly, 82 (1967), 134-35. Diplomatic Terms: English-Arabic, by M. al-Hamui. Muslim World, 57 (1967), 239-40. Education and Science in the Arab World, by F. Qubain, Bulletin o f Atomic Scientists, 24 (1968), 30. The Road to Jerusalem, by W. Laqueur. American Political Science Review, 62 (1968), 1403-4. Political Parties in Lebanon, by M. Suleiman. Middle East Journal, 22 (1968), 502-3. Suez: The Twice-Fought War, by K. Love. The Middle East, 10 (April, 1970), 43-44. Political and Social Change in Modem Egypt, edited by P. Holt. M id­ dle Eastern Studies, 6 (1970), 231-34. Arab Socialism: A Documentary Survey, edited by S. Hanna and G. Gardner. Middle East Journal, 25 (1971), 98-99. Arm y Officers in Arab Politics and Society, by E. Béeri. International Journal o f Middle East Studies, 3 (1972), 229-33. Middle East Politics: The Military Dimension, by J.C. Hurewitz. International Journal o f Middle East Studies, 3 (1972), 229-33. Conflict in the Middle East, by P. J. Vatikiotis. Middle Eastern Studies, 8 (1972), 431-32. Myth o f Guerilla-Revolutionary Theory and Malpractice, by J.B. Bell. Middle East Journal, 26 (1972), 334-35. Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani: A Political Biography, N.R. Keddie. Middle East Journal, 27 (1973), 402-4. xl

by

Egypt wider Nasser: A Study in Political Dynamics, by R.H. Dekmejian. American Political Science Review, 67 (1973), 1049-50. Politics in North Africa: Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, by C. H. Moore. American Political Science Review, 70 (1976), 1353-54. Decade o f Decisions: American Policy Toward the Arab-lsraeli Con­ flict, 1967-1976, by W. B. Quandt. American Political Science Re­ view, 73 (1979), 352. Pluralism and Party Transformation in Lebanon: Al-Kata'ib 1936-1970, by J. P. Entelis. International Journal o f Middle East Studies, 12 (1980), 268-69. Orientalism, by E. Said. International Journal o f Middle East Studies, 12 (1980), 544-47. Conflict and Violence in Lebanon: Confrontation in the Middle East, by W. Khalidi. Middle East Journal, 35 (1981), 240-41. Lebanon: The Fragmented Nation, by D. C. Gordon. Middle East Journal, 35 (1981), 240-41.

ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES "Arab League," Encyclopedia Americana, 1967 edition. "Middle East, Modern History." Colliers Encyclopedia, 1987. "Hashim al-Atassi," Encyclopedia Americana, 1974 edition. "Muhammad Abduh," Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edition.

x li

PART ONE

LEBANON: PAST AND PRESENT

LEBANON IN ANCIENT TEXTS Lamia Rustum Shehadeh American University o f Beirut

The aim of this paper is to trace the origin of the name Lebanon, its first appearance in historical records, and the political connotation it might have had during the period extending from the beginning of the third millennium B.C. to the end of the Byzantine period. The name Lebanon is derived from the Semitic root Ibn, white, in reference to the whiteness of the mountains’ snow-covered peaks. The earliest reference to it comes from the Fourth Dynasty (2723-2563 B.C.) in Egypt and in the Epic of Gilgamesh probably originating in oral form in the middle of the third millennium B.C. but not actually written down until the Old Babylonian period in the early part of the second millennium B.C. The name Lebanon appears in the Epic as la-ab-na-na. Although the stem Labnan is to be found in almost all cuneiform texts, there are exceptions, such as lablan in the Akkadian and Hittite texts from tyattuSa where the first n has shifted to /, due to the contact with the labial b. In H um an texts we also find two parallel forms loblah# < *lablan + fri and lafjla#fi. Other forms such as liblä — and niblân — are to be found in Middle Babylonian texts from Asia Minor and North Syria. It is probably from the later form libnan (*a > i due to dissimilation), which we find only once in a NeoBabylonian literary text, that we must derive the later Syriac lebnân and Arabic libnan / lubnân In Egyptian texts, the name is usually represented as l-mm-n, except in the story of Wen-Amon where it occurs as la-bi-ra-na, which is probably derived from *lablan-.2 In Ugaritic it is mentioned as Ibnn,3 in Hebrew it is uniformly repre­ sented as labandn and in Greek and Latin it is Libanos / Libanus, which is probably derived from a related Phoenician root. The name Lebanon is to be understood to refer mainly to a clearly defined mountain range with natural borders on all four sides. In the north it is separated from the Bargylus mountains (Nusayriyyah of modern Syria) by the Eleutherus River (modern Nahr al-Kabir) while

,l

3

4

Lamia Rustum Shehadeh

in the south it is bounded by the Magoras River (modem alQasimiyyah) giving it a length of 170 km. Its width varies between S3 km. near Tripoli in the north and 9 km. at its southern extremity. To the west it is bounded by a narrow strip of land and the Mediterra­ nean and to the east by the Biqa( Valley.4 It rises to Alpine heights southeast of Tripoli, where Qumat al-Sawda attains a height of about 3,340 meters above sea level. The rocks of Mount Lebanon comprise mainly an upper and a lower limestone series with an intermediate sandstone series. On the surface of the lower limestone strata are to be found in abundance lumps of iron ore which have not only contributed to making this area violet/mauve in color and bare of trees, but have also led to the development of the iron smelting industry, an activity that has con­ tinued almost until the present. It is the limestone of the upper strata, however, that has, through the ages, dominated the Lebanese scene. Its greyish color has given the landscape its tone, while its erosion has yielded soil for agriculture and its stones have provided building mate­ rial. The upper strata form the summits and vary in thickness from a few hundred to a few thousand feet. During all of antiquity, Mount Lebanon enjoyed great fame for the richness of its forests, though few of them remain today; those that are still extant are mostly to be found on land 1,500 meters above sea level. It would, therefore, be extremely difficult to ascertain the densi­ ty of the trees in antiquity were it not for specific references to them in existing ancient texts. There are six varieties of ancient trees still extant: the first is the cedar of which only a few remain. Cedar forests are best exemplified by the cedars found on the western slopes of Jabal al-Baruk and Jabal Jaje at heights ranging between 1,500 and 1,800 meters. The most celebrated stand, however, is the one located near the watershed of Qadisha. It is known as the Cedars of Basharri or more simply the Cedars. The Basharri cedars are the only ones large enough to give us an idea of the splendor of the cedars of bygone days. They grow at an altitude of about 1,900 meters. The second variety is the fir, which is even more strictly localized than the cedars. Its southernmost locale is the forest of Ihdin at an altitude of 1,500 meters, similar to that of the cedars, becoming predominant at 1,600 meters. The third variety is the cypress, whose remaining trees are very scant and localized in northern

Lebanon in Ancient Texts

5

Lebanon at an altitude ranging between 800 and 1,700 meters. The fourth is the juniper (Juniperus exclesa), which ranges in altitude be­ tween a low of 1,050-1,100 meters and a high of 2,600-2,700 meters. Found in the north and south, it is, however, most predominant in the environs of Afqa, starting at an altitude of 1,250 meters and going up to about 2,000 meters. On the eastern slopes of Mount Lebanon it climbs as high as 2,600 meters. The fifth variety is the oak, which is found all the way from sea level to a height of around 1,800 meters. It is also found along the eastern slopes of Lebanon, especially along those of Jabal Niha. The last variety is the pine, which is normally found in the lower areas and never higher than 1,500-1,800 meters. From the texts, it appears that Mount Lebanon in antiquity was fully forested to its highest peaks. Its forests were very thick, even impenetrable, making it an extremely difficult, though not impossible, terrain for human habitation. The varieties of trees growing in antiqui­ ty are not clearly identified in the texts. Egyptian texts mention the fir or cypress tree; those of the Assyro-Babylonians mention cedar and jumper or cypress as do those of the'Israelites. The forests of Lebanon served as the great reserve of wood not only for the conquering Assy­ rians, Babylonians and Egyptians but also for the inhabitants of the Phoenician cities of Byblos, Sidon and Tyre. The fact that Sidon and Tyre took part in this spoliation encourages us to believe that cedar, cypress and juniper must have extended as far as the southern extrem­ ity of Lebanon.3 In tombs from the Pre-Dynastic and Early Dynastic periods of Egypt, we find objects made of cypress, cedar, pine, fir and juniper.6 In the Fourth Dynasty (c. 2,723-2,563 B.C.) during the reign of Cheops, references are made to Lebanon and its wood. Also, the Palermo Stone, from the same period, mentions that Snefru received forty ships loaded with cedar/fir wood from Lebanon.7 Again, Khnumhotep I, monarch of Amenemhet I, from the Twelfth Dynasty (c. 1,990 B.C.) records a sea-expedition with twenty ships of cedar.8 And in the fifteenth century B.C. there is an inscription from the reign of Tuthmosis III, where it is mentioned that Tuthmosis had cut fir trees from Lebanon.9 Finally, wood is also mentioned in the account of Wen-Amon from the Twentieth Dynasty (c. 1,100 B.C.), who came to Byblos to fetch wood for the building of a boat for the god Amon-Re.10

6

Lamia Rustum Shehadeh

The Mesopotamian texts are also full of references to the timber of Lebanon. Many Assyro-Babylonian as well as Persian kings turned to the Amanus and Lebanon for wood. Although the earliest reference to Lebanon and its cedar forests comes from the Epic of Gilgamesh,11 the references from the expeditions start with the reign of Tîglath Pileser I (c. 1,114-1,076 B.C.) who cut erinu12 (cedar) and taskarmnu.13 Ashurnasirpal (c. 883-859 B.C.), Shalmaneser II (c. 859-825 B.C.), Shalmaneser III (c. 781-772 B.C.), Tiglath Pileser III (c. 744-727 B.C.), Esarhaddon (c. 680-669 B.C.), Ashurbanipal (c. 668-633 B.C.), Nebuchednezzar (c. 605-562 B.C.) and Darius (c. 521-486 B.C.) all mention having cut different kinds of wood from Lebanon for their building activities. In some cases it is even men­ tioned that wood was paid as tribute by the Phoenician citystates.14 Different kinds of wood are mentioned, such as erlnu (Gl§ e-ri-ni) «cedar», Surmenu (GI§. Sur MINI), dapranu (GlS dap-ra-ni) and buraSu (GlS. BURASU. ME$) but the only one identifiable with certainty is the cedar.13 In the Ugaritic texts, wood from Lebanon is mentioned twice: as the wood used for the building of Baal's palace in the Baal-Anat Cycle and as one of the raw materials used by the god ktr-w-ljss for the construction of a bow for A qbt.16 The Old Testament also mentions Lebanon as a place from where wood is imported, specifically for the building of the Temple and Palace in Jerusalem, where in First Kings 5:15-32 Solomon sends a message to Hiram I, King of Tyre, asking for timber and workers. In return, he gives,the Tyrians wheat and oil and twenty cities in the land of Galilee which Hiram does not particularly like, conferring on them the designa­ tion «Land of Kabul» (IK. 5: 16-25, 27f.; 7: 2-12; 9: 10-13). A hall in the palace of Solomon is given the name «forest house of Lebanon» because of its wooden columns (IK. 7: 2; 10: 17, 21). After the des­ truction of the Temple it was rebuilt with wood from Lebanon, as is evidenced in Ezra 5: 7, where Cyrus I is mentioned bringing ’erezwood (cedar) from Lebanon by sea to the port of Joppa. Among the trees mentioned in the Bible are ’erez and berÖS. The former refers to the cedar tree, which is most beautifully described and in the greatest detail by Ezekiel in Chapter 31. The Bible speaks often in praise of it as the symbol of power, strength, pride, justice and wisdom.17 The beröS tree is rendered in English either as cypress or

Lebanon in Ancient Texts

7

fir but E. de Vaumas identifies it with juniperus exclesa, which is very common in Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon,18 and we find it mentioned in the same context with the cedar.19 The forests of Lebanon are also mentioned in texts from the Graeco-Roman period. Thus, during the siege of Tyre, Quintus Curtius in his History o f Alexander (4.2.18; 10.1.19) notes that wood was brought from Mount Lebanon for the making of rafts and towers and the building of ships. The principal literary text that testifies to an extensive Lebanese forest under the Roman Empire comes from Tacitus’ Histories (5.6-7). It is fully supported by the inscriptions of Hadrian (A.D. 115-138) which marked the forest boundary, acting as a forceful inducement for forest control and conservation during that period. Trees that were especially protected were the cedar, juniper, fir and oak.20 The most detailed ancient account of the actual extent of the Lebanese forest, however, comes from an eye-witness description by the historian Hieronymous of Cardia in 315 B.C. as recounted to us by Diodorus Siculus (19.58.1-5). Describing the cutting and transportation of wood to the three shipyards set up by Antigonus in Tripoli, Byblos and Sidon, he says: «This mountain extends along behind Tripolis and the territory of Byblos as far as the territory of Sidon, and is full of cedar and cypress trees remarkable for beauty and size.» These passages indicate that despite all the deforestation that took place in earlier periods, Lebanon was still rich in cedar and cyp­ ress forests extending from one end of the mountain range to the other. In addition to timber as a natural resource in Lebanon, we also have references to its iron smelting and mine industries. Thus while the two contracts from Erech that have come down to us from the fifth and sixth years of Nabonidus (550-549 B.C.) indicate the amount of money paid for 129 kg. of iron brought from Lebanon,21 the Ugaritic texts from the middle of the second millen­ ium B.C. mention the wine of Lebanon, and Hosea (14:8) describes the fame of Lebanese wine and says: They will come back to live in my shade; They will grow com that flourishes, They will cultivate vines as renowned as the wine of Lebanon.

8

Lamia Rustum Shehadeh

As far as we know, Lebanon was sparsely populated. Yet there are references from different areas and different periods in his­ tory, which indicate the population to have been mobile and changing. They are described as nomads, Hittites, Itureans and Arabs. Thus in an Egyptian account of the fortresses in geographic Syria, the fortress of Mn-hpr-Rc is mentioned as having been inhabited by nomads.22 In Judges 3:3 we also find mentioned the nations that Yahweh spared in order to test the Israelites who had never known war in Canaan: «the five chiefs of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians and the Hittites who lived in the range of Lebanon, from the uplands of BaalHermon to the Pass of Hamath.» Nebuchednezzar (605-562 B.C.), on an inscription in Wadi Brisa,23 mentions the inhabitants of the Leba­ non whom he had saved from their oppressors: «At that time, the Lebanon, the [Cedar] Mountain, the luxurious forest of M arduk..., my näbü Marduk [had desired] as a fitting adornment for the palace of the ruler of heaven and earth, (this Lebanon) over which a foreign enemy was ruling and robbing (it of) its riches — its people were scat­ tered, had fled to a far (away region). (Trusting) in the power of my lords Nebo and Marduk, I organized [my army] for [an expedition] to the Lebanon. I made that country happy by eradicating its enemy everywhere. All its scattered inhabitants I led back to their settle­ ments... I made the inhabitants of the Lebanon live in safety together and let nobody disturb them.» And, Strabo, in his Geography (16.2.16) mentions that «all the mountainous parts are held by Itureans and Arabians, all of whom are robbers, but the people in the plains are farmers; and when the latter are harassed by the robbers at differ­ ent times they require different kinds of help. These robbers use strongholds as bases of operation; those, for example, who hold Libanus possess high up on the mountain, Sinna and Borrama and other for­ tresses like them... .» In many passages of the Old Testament as well as in Greek and Roman literature, characteristics of Lebanon are often mentioned as literary motifs: its trees, its heights, its snow, its wealth of water and its luxuriant vegetation. These, it seems, have always fascinated the neighboring peoples. Thus we find in Song of Songs 4: 8-5:1: Come from Lebanon, my promised bride, Come from Lebanon, come on your way.

Lebanon in Ancient Texts

and the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon. ••••

Fountain that makes the gardens fertile, well of living water, streams flowing down from Lebanon. And in Psalms 104:16-18: The trees of Yahweh get rain enough, those cedars of Lebanon he planted; here the little birds build their nest and, on the highest branches, the stork has its home. In Ezekiel 31:1-18 we find the following: To what shall I compare you in your greatness? Surely, to a cedar of Lebanon with noble branches, thick-set needles and lofty trunk Its top pierces the clouds The waters have made it grow, the deep has made it tall, pouring its rivers round the place where it is planted, sending its streams to all other trees. This is why its trunk grew taller than all other trees; its branches increased in number, its boughs stretched wide, because the plentiful waters reached it. All the birds of heaven used to nest in its branches; under its boughs all wild animals used to drop their young; in its shade every kind of people sat. It was beautiful in its size, in the span of its boughs; its roots went deep into plentiful waters. No cedar equalled it in the Garden of God, no cypress had branches such as these; no plane tree could match its boughs, no tree in the garden of God could rival its beauty. I had made it lovely with branching green. It was the envy of every tree in Eden, in the garden of God. In Hosea 14:6-7: He shall bloom like the lily, and thrust out roots like the poplar, his shoots will spread far; he will have the beauty of the olive and the fragrance of Lebanon.

9

10

Lamia Rustum Shehadeh

If we turn from the Biblical texts« we find that Nonnos in his Dionysiaca says: Near the beam, the nymph of Athos wailed about her Thracian glen, the forest of Macedon roared on the Pierian ridge; the foundations of the east were shaken, there was crashing in the fragrant valleys of Assyrian Libanos (II. 398-402). And in the passage where Dionysius attempts to seduce Beroe, after whom Berytus is supposed to have been named, he says: I am a farmer of your Libanos: if you wish I will water your land, I will increase your grain (XLII. 282-312). Ausonius also refers to Lebanon’s beauty and fertility in the same vein: ... The smell of flowers fills the air like that pride of Mt. Libanos, the spice (incense) (Technopaegnion, XI. 5). Finally, Lucius Annaeus Floras, describing the march of Pompey in Syria says: Furthermore, turning his army southwards, he passed through the Lebanon in Syria and through Damascus and bore the Ro­ man standards through the famous scented groves and woods of frankincense and balm (Epitome, I. XL. 29-31).24 In addition to its being used as a literary motif for the splendor of its trees, its luxuriant vegetation and its wealth of water, Lebanon was also noted for its wild animals. Thus, we have Assur-bel-kala of Assyria from the eleventh century B.C.25 describing how he hunted wild cows and bulls «at the foot of the Lebanon,» while Jehoash in Second Kings 14:9 says «the wild animals of Lebanon trampled the thistle as they passed.» The most remarkable finding, however, is that Lebanon was re­ garded as the possession or dwelling place of the gods. We find in the Epic of Gilgamesh that the gods live in the midst of the forests on Mount Lebanon. Tuthmosis III (c. 1457 B.C.) in one of the records of his eighth campaign says: «When my majesty crossed over to the mar­ shes of Asia, I had many ships of cedar (r* us, see editions of the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass., 1920-1970). 25. Budge, Annals, p. 139. 5. 26. G.A. and M.B. Reisner, «Inscribed Monuments from Gebel Baikal,» Zeitschrift fü r Ä gyptische Sprache und Altertum skunde, 69 (1933), p. 29. 27. Brown, The Lebanon, p. 199. 28. E. Weidner, Politische D okum ente aus Kleinasien, I*II (Leipzig, 1923), 3. IV. 36; 4 Rs. 3; J. Friedrich, «Staatsvertrftge des Hatti-Reiches in hetitischer Sprache,» M it­ teilungen der Vorderasiatische-Aegyptischen Gesellschaft, 1:31 (Leipzig, 1926), IV .ll; Keilschrift Texte aus Boghazköi, I-VI (Leipzig, 1916-21), VI... (Berlin, 1954 and following years), 12.31.5'. 29. Keilschriftsurkunden aus B oghazköi, I-XXXII, Staatliche Museen, Vorderasiatische Abteilung (Berlin, 1921-1942), 27.14.7'. 30. Brown, The Lebanon, p. 180. 31. J.B. Bury, «The Notitia Dignitatum,» Journal o f Roman Studies, 10 (1920), p. 153; Also «The Provincial List of Verona,» Journal o f Rom an S tu d io , 13 (1923), pp. 127-151. See also Procopius, H istory o f the Wars, 7 vols. (Cambridge, 1971), B.V.i.2; II.xi.10; S.H.xii.6; II.xix.33-34, 39; II.viii.2; xvi.17; I.xiii.5.

MOUNT LEBANON UNDER THE MAMLUKS Kamal Salibi American University o f Beirut

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a troubled period in the his­ tory of Syria, or Bilad al-Sham. It was the time of the Crusades and counter-Crusades in the lands of the Near East, when Frankish states were established in different Syrian regions, only to find themselves in a state of unending war with the Islamic states that survived there. From small beginnings in the early twelfth century, the Islamic resist­ ance to the Franks developed in rapid strides. The career of Saladin (1174-1194) marked a turning point, after which Frankish rule only survived in a narrow strip of Syrian coast, comprising the rem­ nants of the Principality of Antioch, the county of Tripoli and the Kingdom of Acre. In 1250, however, the last ruler of the Ayyubid line of Saladin died in Egypt, and power was seized there by a coalition of army officers called the Mamluks (literally, «owned people» because they were originally recruited by the Ayyubid sultans as Turkish mili­ tary slaves). In 1258, the Mongols, who had already established them­ selves in Persia as an llkhanate (or vassal state) of the far-flung Mon­ gol Empire, invaded Iraq, sacked Baghdad, and put an end to the historic caliphate of the Abbasid dynasty there. In the following year they proceeded to overrun Syria, where they occupied Damascus and began their advance toward Egypt. From Cairo, the Mamluks moved with energy to meet them in northern Palestine, where they routed their forces on September 3,1260 at the battle of cAyn Jalut, putting them to flight. Forthwith, the Mamluks proceeded to occupy the rem­ nants of Saladin's empire in Syria. Having established themselves firm­ ly in Damascus and Aleppo, they found themselves face to face with the Franks. The wars between the Mamluks and the Franks began under the great Sultan Baybars (1260-1277), who put an end to the Principality of Antioch in 1268. His successor Qalawun (1279-1290) destroyed the County of Tripoli in 1289. Qalawun's son and successor, al-Ashraf Kha15

16

Kamal Salibi

lil (1290-1293) ended Frankish rule in Syria altogether by conquering Acre in 1291. Now, Syria was completely under the Mamluks of Egypt, and the attention of the Mamluk sultans was focused on its reorganization. The Syrian territory, for the two centuries to follow, was to be administered normally in six provinces, each called a mamlaka, or kingdom, headed by a viceroy (na’ib al-Saltana) appointed from Cairo. The largest and most important of the six provinces was Damascus, followed in order by Aleppo, Tripoli, Hama, Homs, and Karak (the Karak of the Transjordanian highlands east of the Dead Sea). In each of these provinces, the viceroy headed a bureaucratic administration (military, civil and judicial) closely modelled on that of Cairo. For most of the fourteenth century, Syria enjoyed a general stability which it had not known since the days of the Umayyads, or perhaps since Roman times. This new stability in Syria under the early Mamluks was due to a number of factors. First, there was the stature of the Mamluks and the general respect they commanded as the heroes of Islam who had fought and finally destroyed the two enemies of Islam in Syria: the Franks and the Mongols. Second, there was the high efficiency of the Mamluk military machine and the Mamluk bureaucracy, both func­ tioning under the careful watch of a succession of able sultans. Third, there was the economic prosperity enjoyed by Syria as well as Egypt at the time in connection with the flourishing spice trade, mainly with Venice. Fourth, there was the growing importance of the Syrian cities, not only as centers of efficient civil and military administration, but also as centers of great commercial wealth, which gave them domi­ nance over the rural and tribal countryside as at no time before. Even more important as a factor of stability was that the establishment of the Mamluk state in Syria marked the triumph of Sunnite over other forms of Islam there. Under the earlier Islamic regimes. Islamic Sunn­ ism, or orthodoxy, had always been overshadowed by different forms of sectarian Islam — mainly Shicism, in its Imami, Ismacili, Nusayri, Qarmati and Druze branches and offshoots. The dominance of Sunnite Islam in Syria began in the 1070s. with the arrival of the Seljuks. but its triumph only became complete with the establishment of the Mam­ luk rule, which was actually accompanied by several attempts to sup­ press by military action Shicism in Mount Lebanon and perhaps also elsewhere.

Mount Lebanon Under the Mamluks

17

Apart from marking a triumph of Sunnite Islam over the different Islamic sects in Syria, the coming of the Mamluks also spelt an end of overt or covert Christian opposition to the political hegemony of Islam in the country. Before the coming of the Franks, Christian restiveness, even open rebellion against established Islamic rule was more common than is usually supposed. At that time, the Melchites throughout Syria and the Armenians in the north, could always count on help from Byzantium. This was especially true in the tenth and eleventh centuries, when the Byzantines were in occupation of Antioch and vir­ tually of the whole valley of the Orontes. Other Christians — Jacobite or Maronite — were more hostile toward Byzantium than toward Islam; in fact, there is no reason to believe that they viewed Islam then with any hostility. Under the Franks, Maronite and Armenian Christians did cooperate with Frankish rule; some Melchites, cut off from Byzantium, may have done the same. Once the Franks were ex­ pelled from Syria, these Christians could no longer count on Frankish support. Meanwhile. Byzantium had lost control over Anatolia, where Turkish Islamic states — among them the Ottoman — had begun to proliferate from the ruins of the Seljuk kingdom of Konya after 1300. These developments left the Christians of Syria in political isolation as at no time before, making it ever easier for the Mamluks to establish an unquestionably Islamic — and Sunnite— dominance everywhere.

TH E M AM LU K A D M IN ISTR A TIO N IN M O U NT LE B A N O N Before the coming of the Mamluks, some parts of Syria (Antioch, Tripoli, coastal Palestine) were under Frankish rule, while the inland areas were organized as the Ayyubid kingdoms or principalities of Aleppo. Hama, Damascus, Hawran and Transjordan. To administer the country, the Mamluks reorganized it, normally, in six provinces, as already indicated. The largest province, that of Damascus, was in turn administered in four divisions, each under a deputy-viceroy, or na’ib. One of these four divisions was the one called al-Safaqa al-Shimaliyya, whose na’ib was established in Baalbek. This so-called «Northern Divi­ sion» comprised four administrative regions, including most of presentday Lebanese territory. Those were the niyabas (major regions) of Baalbek and the Biqac, the first under the na’ib of Baalbek, the second

18

Kamal Salibi

under a subsidiary na’ib resident at Karak Nuh, near present-day Zahieh; then the wilayas (minor regions) of Beirut and Sidon, each under a wali, or mutawalli. The niyabas of Baalbek and the Biqac covered the whole Coelesyrian territory, from the approaches of Homs in the north to the turn of the Litani river in the south. The wilaya of Beirut controlled the mountain territory from, roughly, the Dog River to the Damur River; that of Sidon the mountain territory from there to the Litani river. While the mountain hinterland of Sidon was called the Shuf, that of Beirut comprised the three districts of the Gharb, the Matn and Kisrawan. North of Kisrawan, Mount Lebanon proper (Jabal Lubnan) formed part of the provinces of Tripoli, which included th e cAlawite country to the north, roughly as far as the present Turkish frontier. South of the Litani, the country of Jabal cAmil (also called Bilad Bisharah) formed the northern half of the province of Safad. Thus, under the Mamluks, the present territory of Lebanon fell within three different Syrian provinces. The history of this territory at the time can only be treated accordingly. With respect to the history of Jabal cAmil, within the territory of Safad, the information available is extremely scanty, and can hardly form the line of a story. In Tripoli, as the capital of a major province, the local Mamluk viceroy had a full administration and army under his command. In Baalbek, the local na’ib headed what was, perhaps, a less effective administration, but he was not short on troops. These included not only regular Mamluk troops sent to him from Damascus, but also local recruits of two types. First there were the volunteer mujahidun, or holy warriors, who lived from w aqf endowments estab­ lished for such fighters by the Ayyubids of Syria and their predeces­ sors. Second, and more important, were the local recruits of the socalled halqa — a corps of free-born cavalry which enjoyed roughly the same status as the regular Mamluk cavalry before passing out of exist­ ence by the late fourteenth century. Like the Mamluk officers, the halqa officers were compensated not by direct salaries, but by what was called iq u f — the right to collect directly or by way of the army office (Dtwan al-Jaysh), the tax revenues of districts specially assigned for the purpose. In the terminology of the time, the halqa officers, like other Mamluk officers, were called amirs. These amirs, in the regular Mamluk army, were of three ranks:

Mount Lebanon Under the Mamluks

19

the amirs of 100, or great amirs, were the colonels; the amirs of 40, were the captains; and the amirs of 10, were the lieutenants. The num­ bers here indicate the minimum knights each amir was expected to maintain from his iqtac, according to his rank. An officer of the rank of amir of 40, or amir of 100, had the privilege of a tablakhana, or military band. For this reason, an amir of 40 was called amir tablakhana. In the halqa, the highest-ranking officers were rarely amirs of 40; sometimes they were amirs of less than 10, such as amirs of 5. As a concession to their local dignity, however, they were permitted some irregularities, including the right to have a tablakhana, even if they were below the grade of amir o f 40. In addition to the mujahidun and the halqa forces, the Mamluks resorted to the use of Turkoman tribal settlers, or rather military col­ onists, to keep special watch over some strategic territories. Until 1382, the Mamluk sultans and their leading amirs were themselves of Turkoman, or Turkish tribal stock, which may explain why they had recourse to Turkomans for such purposes. In Mount Lebanon, one place of such Turkoman settlement was at the Dog River, where there was an important mountain defile to be controlled. Another place was the slopes of Jabal cAkkar, which overlooked the strategic passage from inland Syria to the coast north of Tripoli.

SE C TA RIA N G EO G RAPH Y IN A B O U T 1300 When the Mamluk regime in Syria was first established, the population of the territory of present-day Lebanon was predominantly Muslim. In the absence of records, one cannot speak about this matter with precision, only with conjecture. Christian communities were cer­ tainly found in the coastal cities: Tripoli, Beirut, Tyre, perhaps also Sidon. On the other hand, there is no reference to a Christian pre­ sence in the hinterland of Beirut and Sidon at the time. Kisrawan was overwhelmingly Shicite, with a minority of Druzes, and perhaps also some Christians. South of Kisrawan was Druze country, with clusters of Sunnite and Shicite villages here and there. The Biqac was overwhel­ mingly Sunnite; the Baalbek region was Shicite, with a Sunnite admix­ ture, and perhaps some Christians here and there. Wadi al-Taym, the valley of the upper Jordan east of the Biqac, was Druze country, with a

20

Kamal Salibi

strong admixture of Sunnites and possibly some Christians. Jabal cAmil was Shicite country; perhaps, again, some Christians could also be found there. The predominantly Christian country began north of Kisrawan — in fact, north of Nahr Ibrahim, the Adonis river — ex­ tending from there to the hinterland of Tripoli. Beyond Jubbat Bsharri, however, the Christian presence was not strong. In Jabal alDinniyya, and further north in Jabal cAkkar, the population was pre­ dominantly Islamic — certainly during the Mamluk period — Sunnite, perhaps with a limited Nusayri (or cAlawite) presence.

M UQADDAM S, SH AYK H S A N D A M IR S Throughout the territory under consideration, three types of lead­ ership appear to. have existed, which were distinguished from one another by title. To begin with, there were the district chiefs of villages, called the muqaddams, who appear to have been rural notables, deriv­ ing their authority from some kind of government recognition. These appear to have been instrumental in collecting taxes from their respec­ tive areas, where they were also in charge of the maintenance of order and the arbitration of disputes. Among these muqaddams, those of the Maronite district of Jubbat Bsharri are, historically, the best known. There are others, however, who are known: among them the Subh and Hanash, who were the Sunnite muqaddams of the Biqac; the Shihabs, who were the Sunnite muqaddams of Wadi al-Taym; the Maans, who were the Druze muqaddams of the Shuf, among others; the Sawwafs and Abul-Lamacs, who were among the Druze muqaddams of the Matn; the Harfushes, who were Shicite muqaddams in Baalbek. There were also the Sunnite muqaddams of Bshinnata, in Jabal al-Dinniyya, and a host of less important Maronite muqaddams in the village of Batroun and Jubayl, and no doubt other, minor village muqaddams elsewhere. The shaykhs, unlike the muqaddams, appear to have been chiefs of a more tribal type. While a muqaddam was an individual holding a title of office, a shaykh was a member of a family or house of shaykhs which stood, traditionally, at the head of a clan. In cases where a given clan dominated a village or district, the head of its shaykhly family appeared to be the head of this village or district, but in a different way from the muqaddam, contrary to appearances. While the position

Mount Lebanon Under the Mamluks

21

of the muqaddam, in one way or another, was an appointment, that of the shaykh was not, although a shaykh could be made a muqaddam, as happened in Jubbat Bsharri in one attested case. In most cases, however, the muqaddamate tended to become the preserve of certain families, which assumed the title as families for several generations — a fact which blurs the fundamental difference between the nature and character of muqaddam and shaykhly power. From the available histories of this period, which were written by Maronites and Druzes, we learn more about the muqaddams and the shaykhs. The people who wrote these histories were more concerned with the political and administrative impact of the Mamluk state on their respective communities, where the muqaddams feature, than with the grass roots organization of community, where the shaykhs were in the forefront. Nevertheless, some information about the shaykhly class can be gathered from here and there. From histories of the Ottoman period, we learn of the existence of old established Shfîte shaykhly families in Jabal cAmil: the Munkirs, the Saabs and the Bisharas. There were also Shfite shaykhly families, such as the Mustarahs, in Jubbat al-Munaytira, between Kisrawan and the Jubayl district; also there were families of Maronite shaykhs in the neighbouring cAqura district, some leading the local Qays Maronites, others those of the Yemen faction. Actually, it is only among the cAqura Maronites that this division between Qays (North Arab) and Yemen (South Arab) factions, in Mount Lebanon, is attested for the Mamluk period. There were also Maronite shaykhly families in Jubbat Bsharri, such as those of Ihdin. In the Druze histories, the names of some individual Druze shaykhs, mainly of the Shuf, are mentioned; also the names of some Druze clans, such as the Tawariq, who no doubt had their shaykhs. The amirs, whether they were muqaddams or shaykhs by origin, were families of local notables — in all cases Muslim (Sunnite, Shiite or Druze) — who, in the early Mamluk period, became involved in the Mamluk military system and served as officers in the halqa corps, for which they were assigned iqtef holdings. Strictly, the title of amir went to the individual halqa officer, along with the iq tef which was assigned to him by a special manshur, or decree from the central army office of the province. Locally, however, the title came to be applied to all members of families whose men served in the halqa on a regular basis. Moreover, these families continued to call themselves and be

22

Kamal Salibi

called amirs long after the halqa was disbanded. Among the families of amirs, we know most about the Druze Buhturs of the Gharb, in the hinterland of Beirut, who began to serve as officers or amirs under the rulers of Damascus in the twelfth century, long before the coming of the Mamluks. The Subh muqaddams of the Biqac, and the chiefs of the Turkomans of Kisrawan, also served in the halqa as amirs; so did many others, about whom we are less informed. By their military service, more so by their holding of iq u f, the amirs be­ queathed to their families a wealth and social prominence which, in many cases, was maintained down the generations, making of these families a special class.

THE M ARO N ITES A N D THE M A RO N ITE CHURCH During the Mamluk period, the Maronites were not only the largest and most important Christian community in the present Lebanese territory; they were also the only ones whose history is known, first because it is documented and second because they bothered to write it down. Originally, the Maronites inhabited the whole of the Orontes valley, including Jabal Lubnan (Mount Lebanon proper) which, so to speak, is the west bank of the upper Orontes. According to their own historians, the Maronites had first broken with the Byzantine communion, establishing themselves as a separate church, in the late seventh century (after 680), when Syria was already under Arab rule. At the time, again according to their own tradition, they were persecuted by the Byzantines, when the political frontier between Byzantium and Islam was not yet firmly set. According to the Muslim historians, the Maronite church, under its own patriarch (titu­ lar of Antioch), was founded a century earlier, under the Byzantine emperor Maurice (582-602). Whatever the case, the break of the Maronite church was certainly with Byzantium, which remained, as a church and as a state, strongly hostile to the Maronites. One thing is certain: when the Byzantines began their reoccupation of the Orontes valley in 969, the Maronites were still there, as the Muslim historians attest. By the time this occupation was over in the 1070s, hardly any Maronites were left outside northern Lebanon, except for the urban Maronite community of Aleppo, which the Byzantines failed to occupy.

Mount Lebanon Under the Mamluks

23

The Maronites remained an isolated Syrian Christian community until the coming of the Franks. During the twelfth century, the Maro­ nite patriarchs began, for the first time, to have relations with Rome. Meanwhile, a number of Maronite chiefs — apparently the village muqaddams, with their followers— were entering the military services of the Counts of Tripoli, or the Genoese Embriaci, who were the lords of Jubayl. They appear to have served as auxiliaries much as other Syrian local chiefs, Muslim and Christian, did at the time, usually as merce­ naries of the so-called «Turcoples» forces. By about 1180, the Maro­ nite church had agreed, in principle, to enter into communion with Rome, despite strong popular opposition. In 1215, for the first time, a Maronite patriarch — Jeremiah of cAmshit — was invited to attend a Roman church council — the Lateran Council, summoned by Pope Innocent III. Maronite opposition to the union with Rome continued throughout the thirteenth century, leading to the election of two rival Maronite patriarchs in 1282. In the following year, one of the two partriarchs — ironically, the one who opposed the Franks and the un­ ion with Rome — was killed when Mamluk forces raided his strong­ hold in al-Hadath, in the Bsharri district. By 1291, however, the Franks were completely out of Syria, leaving the Maronites on their own. Feeling insecure, most Maronites then favored the actualization of union with Rome, partly out of nostalgia for Frankish times, partly hoping that the union could provide them with some protection. To the good fortune of the Maronites, the Mamluk sultans were on excellent terms with one Roman Catholic power, which was the Republic of Venice. Between the thirteenth century and the early six­ teenth, Venice controlled the trade between Europe and the East, mainly of eastern spices; Mamluk Egypt was her chief partner in this spice trade, which used the Syrian seaports — mainly Beirut and Tripoli — as important stops. It was probably in concession to Venice that the Mamluks permitted Roman Catholic missionaries — to begin with, the Franciscan Frati Minori, or Lesser Brothers — to establish their Jerusalem mission of Terra Santa (the Holy Land), with a branch and a church in Beirut. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, these Franciscan brothers provided the only link between the Maronite church and the Roman papacy. By the early decades of the fifteenth century, the Byzantine empire, hemmed in by Ottoman Turks on all sides, appealed to Rome

24

Kamal Salibi

for Western Christian help, in return for promises to end the Byzan­ tine schism with the Roman See, which had begun in 1054. To consid­ er the end of the schism, Pope Eugene IV summoned an ecumenical council to meet in Florence in 1439, the Maronite patriarch to attend. Unable to go himself, the patriarch sent the Franciscan superior of Beirut to represent him. As it happened, the Council of Florence, which had adjourned to Ferrara, and which continued to meet until 1444, did not succeed in persuading the Byzantine church to end the schism. Until then, the Roman papacy had recognized the patriarch of the Syrian Melchites, who followed Byzantium, as patriarch of Anti­ och. Despairing of ending the schism, the Popes of Rome, following the Council of Florence, began to address the Maronite patriarchs, for the first time, as titular Patriarchs of Antioch. In 1450, the Franciscan brother Fra Gryphon of Flanders, was appointed as official adviser to the Maronite patriarch, continuing to hold this position until 1475, laying the foundations for a closer Maronite conformity with Roman church traditions and rites. In 1470, Fra Gryphon arranged for three young Maronites to go to Italy to study — among them a Fra Gab­ riele, whose original name was Jibra’il ibn al-Qilaci. Upon his return from Italy in 1493, this Ibn al-Qilaci became, himself, the Roman Catholic adviser to the Maronite patriarch. By tradition, the Maronite patriarch was elected by a college of 40 bishops. These bishops, however, had no fixed parishes or func­ tions; most probably, they were no more than the tribal or regional representatives of the more important Maronite clans or districts at the ecclesiastical level. The patriarch himself behaved more as the chief of a loose tribal confederation than as the head of a church. From 1230 until the 1440s, the patriarch did not have a fixed residence; supported by some Maronite clans, but freqently opposed by others, he estab­ lished himself wherever he felt secure enough of his backing. In 1365, a naval raid conducted against Alexandria by the Lusignan kings of Cyprus triggered off a wave of Christian persecutions in Egypt and Syria, which did not entirely spare the Maronites. Taking advantage of these persecutions, some Maronites who opposed the patriarch, then Gabriel of Hajula, brought charges of adultery and fornication against him before the Mamluk authorities in Tripoli, where he was put to death at the stake in 1367. The Maronite church remembers him as a martyr.

Mount Lebanon Under the Mamluks

25

B SH A R R I A N D QANNU BIN Considering their complicity with the Franks in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it was only natural that the Maronites should have been viewed with some suspicion under the early Mamluks. Whatever tolerance the Maronites received must have been due to the Mamluk friendship with Venice. After 1291, however, many Maronites had fol­ lowed the Franks from Mount Lebanon to Cyprus, where the ruling Lusignans, until 1425, openly sided with Genoa against both Venice and the Mamluks. The Genoese, at the time, were using Cyprus to compromise the position of Venice in the Eastern Mediterranean, where their galleons attacked the Egyptian and Syrian seaports used by the Venetian ships. Certainly, the Mamluks could not have viewed the connection between the Maronites and Cyprus with much enthusiasm; nor did they show much favour to the Melchites, whom the Muslims had always regarded as the natural agents of Byzantium. To the Mam­ luks, the only Christians who could be trusted were the Monophysites — the Copts in Egypt and the Jacobites in Syria — because both the Byzantines and the Latins regarded these Monophysites as pernicious heretics. Enjoying Mamluk favour, the Jacobites flourished in Syria as at no time before or since, and many of them came to live among the Maronites in northern Lebanon. Meanwhile, in 1382, the rule of the Turkish Mamluk dynasty in Cairo came to an end, and the regime of the Circassian Mamluks be­ gan. In Bsharri, a certain Yacqub ibn Ayyub was quick to curry favor with the new regime, which helped him to become established as muqaddam and kashif (fiscal officer) over the whole of Jubbat Bsharri. Thus was established the Muqaddamate of Bsharri, which continued in the line ofYacqubibn Ayyub until 1547, and in a related but rival line until 1621. When the first Circassian sultan of Cairo, Barquq (13821399), was overthrown by the supporters of the former Turkish regime in 1389, and fled prison to muster his forces in Syria in preparation for his return to power, the muqaddam of Bsharri and his followers were among his staunch supporters; there is even a legend that Barquq sought refuge for a time in Jubbat Bsharri, in the Maronite monastery of Qannubin. After returning to power, Barquq is said to have en­ dowed Qannubin and the other monasteries of Jubbat Bsharri in grati­ tude. Under his rule, and that of his successors, Jubbat Bsharri was certainly a privileged district.

26

Kamal Salibi

The Muqaddamate of Bsharri was already firmly established in 1439, when the Maronite patriarch sent a Franciscan monk as his representative to the Council of Florence. This action aroused the suspicion of the Mamluk authorities in Tripoli, and certainly of Muslim opinion there. The patriarch at the time was residing in Mayfuq, in the Batrun district; a Muslim force arrived from Tripoli to attack and plunder the patriarch’s residence there. Thereupon the patriarch, John of Jaj, accepted the invitation of the muqaddam of Bsharri and went there, establishing his residence in Qannubin. To emphasize the new symbiosis between the Maronite church and the Muqaddamate of Bsharri, the Maronite partriarchs began to appoint the muqaddams as hypodeacons (shidyaq) of the church, thus giving them an ecclesiastical title, albeit a modest one. Because of the prosperity and security enjoyed by Jubbat Bsharri under the muqaddams, many well-to-do Jacobites from different parts of Syria came to settle there. As these Jacobites began to buy up the precious land of the district, they aroused the hostility of the local Maronite peasants and tribesmen, particularly those of Ihdin. The Jacobites also established monasteries and churches in and around Bsharri and Ihdin, attracting a number of Maronites to join their sect. This aroused the hostility of the leading Maronite clerics, including the patriarchs, who found their authority undermined by the newcomers and also of the Franciscan missionaries, who were trying hard to con­ solidate the Roman orthodoxy of the Maronite church. The muqad­ dams, on the other hand, tended to favour the Jacobites, whose pre­ sence in Jubbat Bsharri contributed to their enrichment. It was by a Maronite popular revolt in Ihdin, in 1488, that the growing Jacobite influence in the district was finally broken. Arriving in Jubbat Bsharri as the adviser to the Maronite patriarch in 1493, Jibra’il ibn al-Qila°i worked hard to combat and eradicate what remained of this influence among the Maronites there and also elsewhere.

THE M ISSIO N OF IB N A L -Q IL A CI The figure of Ibn al-Qilaci dominates the history of the Maronites in the last decades of the Mamluk period. First as adviser to the Maro­ nite patriarch, then as bishop of Cyprus, where he died (in Nicosia) in

Mount Lebanon Under the Mamluks

27

1516, this Maronite Franciscan, as a missionary to his own people, chose the medium of zajal (Arabic vernacular verse) to teach the Maronites the elements of Roman orthodoxy. In his major work, which he called «A Hymn on Mount Lebanon» (Madiha cala Jabal Lubnan), he depicted the Maronites as a people chosen by God and placed in the fortress of Mount Lebanon to defend Eastern Christen­ dom against the onslaught of Islam, and Christian orthodoxy against the pernicious threats of Melchite schism (the «poison» of the Melchites) and Jacobite heresy. In this tiny Maronite epic, Ibn al-Qilaci gave a fanciful history of his community in Mount Lebanon, emphasiz­ ing the peoplehood of the Maronites alongside what he depicted as their perpetual orthodoxy as a church. To the modern taste, his work reeks of ethnic and sectarian bigotry, apart from being historically confused, and of hardly any literary merit. The fact remains, however, that his influence over his community was of the first importance, and continued to be the prime base of their self-image down the genera­ tions. By a strange coincidence, he died in the same year, 1516, that the Ottoman conquest put an end to Mamluk rule in Syria.

THE BUHTURS OF TH E G H ARB Of all the local dynasties that were established in different parts of present-day Lebanon during the Mamluk period, the Druze Buhturs of the Gharb are the only ones whose history is well known — thanks to the work of two Druze historians: Salih ibn Yahya (d. 1435), who was himself a Buhturid amir; and Ahmad ibn Sibat (d. 1523), who was a clerk in the service of the family. In the work of Salih ibn Yahya, the archives once kept by the Buhturs — rare pieces of authentic Mamluk and pre-Mamluk official correspondence and state documents — are preserved. The Druzes first emerged as a religious community in Syria in the early decades of the eleventh century, when a group of Ismaili Shicites preached their recognition of the Fatimid caliph of Cairo, al-Hakim (996-1021), as the living manifestation of the unity of God. Failing to make much headway in Cairo, the founders of the Druze cult (so-called after one founder who was subsequently declared anathema by the others) preached its precepts among the Ismacili and Qarmati tribesmen

28

Kamal Salibi

of Syria, where they won many converts. Their correspondence with different Syrian tribal chiefs survives, and one of their letters was addressed to the ancestor of the Buhturs of the Gharb, who was already established as an amir in the military service of the Fatimid state there. Among the areas where the Druze preaching was success­ ful were the Main, Gharb and Shuf districts, in the southern Lebanon. Other areas where Druzism came to be established included Wadi alTaym, today part of Lebanon, where the Druzes were successful in rooting out other forms of Ismacilism by the early decades of the twelfth century. At about that same time, the Burid atabegs of Damas­ cus took the Buhturs of the Gharb into their service (definitely by 1147) to help consolidate their mountain front against the Brisebarres, who were the lords of Beirut, on behalf of the Frankish kings of Jeru­ salem. From Jerusalem, the Frankish kings came to control the whole of Jabal cAmil in the hinterland of Tyre, and the Druze Shuf in the hinterland of Sidon. For nearly two centuries, the Shuf actually formed the bulk of the territory of the Seigneurie of Sidon, whose lords were the Greniers. Further north, the Brisebarres managed to hold only Beirut and a narrow strip of coast as their seigneurie. From their Gharb hinterland, the Buhturs led the local Druzes in continuous raids against them, so successfully that the Brisebarres finally returned Beirut to the Jerusalem crown G 166). In the 1170’s, a successful Frank­ ish foray into the lower Gharb put the Buhturs into eclipse for some years. In 1187, however, the forces of the kingdom of Jerusalem were routed by Saladin at the battle of Hittin, Beirut was recaptured for a while by the Muslims (1187-1197), and the Buhturs of the Beirut hinterland were able to make a fresh start. When the Mamluks appeared on the scene, putting an end to Frankish rule in Syria in 1291, the Buhturs were among the many chieftains who entered their service as amirs of the halqa, under the deputy viceroy of Baalbek. Their duties included the military watch over Beirut, whose thriving port, along with Sidon, stood under con­ stant threat of attack by the Franks of Cyprus, the Genoese and va­ rious Christian pirates, notably the Catalans. During the second period of the Frankish occupation of Beirut (1197-1290), the Buhturs had be­ haved suspiciously, maintaining friendly contacts with the Ibelins, who were the new Frankish lords of Beirut, while being officially in the service of the Ayyubids. Their suspicious behaviour was most notable

Mount Lebanon Under the Mamluks

29

after 1250, when they kept contact with the Ibelins in Beirut, a period dur­ ing which they sat the fence between the Ayyubids of Damascus and the Mamluks in Cairo. A punitive raid was waged against them by the Damascenes in 1259, when the Mongols arrived in Damascus. The Buhturs divided their ranks between them and the Mamluks, fighting on both sides at the battle of cAyn Jalut. Shortly after the Mamluks had won that battle, the Mamluk Sultan Baybars (1260-1277) took the leading Buhtur amirs as prisoners to Egypt; he was not prepared to release them until the last Franks had left Syria. After his death, they were released, but the next sultan, Qalawun (1279-1290), confiscated their iqtaf and kept them under close watch. It was only after 1291 that they were finally admitted to the Mamluk military service as halqa officers. At this point, they were able to prove their worth again. The man who now emerged as the unrivalled Buhtur amir of Beirut and the Gharb was Nasir al-Din al-Husayn (d. 1350). In 1291, this Husayn was assigned a small command in the halqa corps. By various means, he managed to develop his initially modest military commission into one of tablakhana rank, establishing his residence in Beirut, close to the port. Meanwhile, his mountain residence in the village of Abey was developed into a palatial mansion. In 1305, when the Mamluks conducted a cadastral survey of the iqtaf land of Egypt and Syria, with a view to centralizing the iqtaf system, the Buhturs and other halqa amirs in Syria were assigned iqtaf away from their home base, which reduced their local power. Husayn successfully pleaded with the Mamluk authorities in Egypt to rescind their decision where the Buhturs were concerned, so that the Buhtur iqtaf in the Gharb was restored to them. From the revenues of this iqtaf, also from the export of the soap that was made from their olive groves in the lower Gharb, and from the control they had over the port of Beirut, the Buhturs in general, and Husayn and his descendants in particular, amassed considerable wealth. Apart from anything else, Husayn was interested in promoting his image not merely as a halqa officer, but as a provincial prince. In Beirut, as in Abey, he presided over a lavish court, entertaining scho­ lars and poets from different parts who came to enjoy his munificence and sing his praises, albeit in third-rate verse. Of all the figures of Mount Lebanon and its neighborhood between the twelfth century and the sixteenth, he is the only one whose biography features in the

30

Kamal Salibi

Standard Arabic biographical literature (the so-called tabaqat or wafayat) of the period. Under the Circassian Mamluks, more than one of his desendants held office as mutawalli (district governor) of Beirut, and sometimes of Sidon and Beirut together. TH E M AM LU KS A N D K ISRAW AN The Maronites, on the whole, fared well under the Mamluks; the Druzes fared even better; but not so the Shiites. The Mamluks, in fact, had hardly completed the expulsion of the Franks from Syria, when they turned their full force against the Shiites of Kisrawan (today Kisrawan and the northern Matn). These Shiites not only held religious views which the Sunnite Mamluk state did not favor; it was also felt that they could not be trusted politically. They were widely held, by the Sunnites, to have cooperated with the Franks against them. After the battle of cAyn Jalut in 1260, they had given free refuge to fleeing Mongols; and, from Persia and Iraq, the Mongols still posed a threat to the Mamluk hold over Syria. In 1291, a first Mamluk expedition to subdue Kisrawan ended in failure. A second followed in 1300, with little more success. In 1304, a special mission was sent to the area to prevail upon the local Shiites to abandon their special views and accept Sunnite orthodoxy and also to agree to cooperation with the established state. No results, however, were achieved. A holy war was thereupon preached throughout Syria against Kisrawan, mainly by Ibn Taymiyya of Damascus, the leading Sunnite jurist of his day. In the summer of 1305, there was a massive assault on the region from more than one direction. The Shiites there were utterly routed, and for a time dis­ persed; their vineyards and orchards were destroyed and their villages plundered and burned. In January 1306, Turkoman tribesmen were invited to settle in the Kisrawan, to keep watch over the area, and also to guard the strategic defile of the Dog River. This destruction of the Kisrawan was followed by a political eclipse of the Shiites in Mount Lebanon and its surroundings, which continued for the duration of the Mamluk period. Everywhere, Shiites took cover. In Beirut, the local Shiites began to behave as Sunnites. Gradually, the Kisrawan Shiites began to return to their villages and rebuild them; as a local tribal force, however, they had been badly broken. Moreover, they had been pushed away from the coastal hills

Mount Lebanon Under the Mamluks

31

to the rugged mountain heights of their district, by the presence of the Turkomans near the coast. As for the Turkomans, their chiefs, apparently of the house of Köroghlu (their name is rendered in Arabic as Ibn al-Acma, or «son of the blind man», which is what the Turkish name Köroghlu means) were incorporated, along with the Buhturs in the halqa of Baalbek. They, and also the Buhturs, were divided into relays, which assumed the reponsibility of guarding the Beirut seaport and its approaches. In 1389-1390, when the Circassian Barquq was striving to regain his throne, the Köroghlu, prompted by their Turkish ethnicity, took the side of the Turkish Mamluks against him. The Druze Buhturs, with better judgement, kept the side of Barquq, even to the extent of clashing with the Köroghlu over the issue. With the second accession of Barquq in 1390, the Turkomans of Kisrawan faded out of the picture, reappearing again only after the coming of the Ottomans. The last that is heard of them, during the Mamluk period, was a punitive expedition organized against them by Barquq, in which one of the Köroghlu brothers, who were then their leaders, was killed.

THE D RU ZE RELIG IO U S R E V IV A L OF TH E FIFTEENTH CENTU RY While the fifteenth century in the northern Lebanon was witnes­ sing the beginnings of the reorganization of the Maronites as a church under the watchful eye of Fra Gryphon, then Ibn al-Qilaci, develop­ ments of a similar nature were taking place among the Druzes in southern Lebanon. In their earlier history as a sect, the Druzes, for all appearances, did not depart much from the accepted norm. Whatever special views they held were kept by a select class of initiates; publicly, Druzes preferred to pass for Sunnite Muslims, judging by the tone of the work of Salih ibn Yahya, where he never describes himself as any­ thing other than a practicing, orthodox Muslim. In the course of the fifteenth century, some Druze chiefs had mosques built in their vil­ lages, for which Druzes have no use; one of these mosques (that of Dayr al-Qamar) still stands, virtually unused. It was in that same fifteenth century, however, that an energetic revival of Druzism was undertaken by a member of the Buhtur family cAbdallah al-Tanukhi (d. 1479), so called after the Arab tribe of Tanukh,

32

Kamal Salibi

from which the Buhturs claimed descent. Al-Sayyid 'A bdallah, as he is generally called, first undertook the study of Sunnite jurispru­ dence in Damascus; then he returned to the Gharb, where he concen­ trated on the study of the special Druze scriptures. His reputation for learning rapidly spread throughout the Gharb and the Shuf, no doubt enhanced by the social prominence he enjoyed as a Buhturid amir. As a vehicle for his religious revival, he instituted a majlis, or council, which was regularly attended by his many disciples. Their legal cases and moral questions were brought before him; his rulings on some of these questions, which are preserved in the history of Ibn Sibat (the son of one of his disciples), reflect highly unconventional interpreta­ tions of accepted Islamic law. In every case, al-Sayyid 'Abdallah found a convincing way to rule in favour of the poor against the rich; the meek, even when they were apparently in the wrong, against the powerful. No man to favour the use of force, al-Sayyid 'Abdallah punished wrong-doers by forbidding them admission to his prestigious majlis. By and large, he may be considered the father of institutional­ ized Druzism, as it is still practiced today. His numerous disciples con­ tinued his work, acting as religious leaders of the Druze community after him. More than this cannot be said about the history of Mount Leba­ non and the adjacent regions under the Mamluks. By and large, it is a provincial history, of marginal importance: a history of tribes, villages and districts, and of obscure mountain chieftains who ran their affairs. What was especially significant in it was the development of two cohe­ rent communities with a continuity of religious, social and political traditions: the Maronites and the Druzes. These two communities were to play the leading roles in the history of Mount Lebanon during the four centuries that followed.

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM OF MOUNT LEBANON AS DEPICTED BY NASIF AL-YAZIJI Abdul-Rahim Abu Husayn American University o f Beirut

I In the history of the Middle East in the nineteenth century, Nasif alYaziji (1800-1871) is best known as a leading figure in the revival of the Arabic language and its literature.1 Among his lesser known works, however, is an essay published under the title «Historical Trea­ tise on the Conditions of Lebanon in its Feudal Age.»2 In this essay, Yaziji begins by describing the system of the m uqaufat (fiscal districts) in Mount Lebanon; the nature of the relations between the holders of these m uqaufat and the ruling Shihab amirs; and the details of the protocol involved in these relations. Next follows an account of the traditional political divisions and feuds which had prevailed among the people of Mount Lebanon until Yaziji’s time. The essay ends with observations and anecdotes regarding the religion, customs and man­ ners of the Druzes. The last sentence states that the essay was com­ pleted by its author in the year 1833. Considering the extent to which modern scholarship has depended on this essay in treating the subject of the political and social organization of Mount Lebanon under the Shihab amirs, a survey of its salient features and some critical observa­ tions are in order. As Yaziji saw it, the system of the m uqaufat was the most im­ portant feature of the Shihab regime in Mount Lebanon. He spoke of it as follows: The holders of these m uqatifat have full jurisdiction over their res­ pective inhabitants. They collect the taxes, remitting fixed amounts to the governor (al-hakim, i.e. the ruling Shihab am ir), and keeping the rest, which he allots to them for their expenses. Should any of their subjects have a complaint against another, he would bring the case before them. Should they fail to do him justice, he would take the case to the governor... The m uqaufa holders have the right to pass sentences of imprisonment or corporal punishment. Cases de­ serving capital punishment or the amputation of hands must go be­

33

34

Abdul-Rahim Abu Husayn

fore the governor-general (al-hakim a lla n t, i.e. again the Shihab am ir). The holding of a m uqaufa is assigned to one individual of each family (of m uqaufa holders), this individual being the one appointed by the governor as his agent, rarely in association with another member of his family.3

The muqatafat of Mount Lebanon and the families that held them, as enumerated by Yaziji, may be tabulated as follows: A . The muqatafat of Jabal al-Shuf (Qafidat al-bilad) 1. The Shuf proper: a ) al-Shuf and Suwayjani, held by the Junblats b ) al-Shuf al-Haythi} no holders mentioned 2 . al-Manasif, held by the Abu Nakads 3 . al-Shahhar, held also by the Abu Nakads 4 . al-Gharb: a ) The Upper Gharb (al-Gharb al-afla), held by the Talhuqs b ) The Lower Gharb (al-Gharb al-adna), held by the Raslans (Arslans) 5 . al-Jurd, held by the cAbd al-Maliks 6 . al-°Urqub: a ) The Upper cUrqub (al-cUrqub al-afla), held by the cIds b ) The Lower cUrqub (al-c(Jrqub al-adna), held by the cImads 7 . al-Matn, held by the Abu al-Lamacs4 B . The subsidiary muqatcfat: (al-Aqalim) 1. Iqlim Jizzin, held by the Junblats 2 . Iqlim al-Tuffah, held by the Junblats 3 . Iqlim al-Khamub (al-Kharrab), held by the Junblats 4 . Jabal al-Rihan; no holders mentioned 5 . The Biqac, held by the Haymurs 6 . Kisrawan and al-Futuh, held by the Khazins, Hubayshes and Dahdahs (the distribution of m uqaufa holdings here is not men­ tioned) 7 . Bilad Jubayl, held by the Hamadehs 8 . Bilad al-Batrun; no holders mentioned 9 . Jubbat al-Munaytirah and Jubbat Bsharri; no holders mentioned 10. al-Kurah, held by the cAzars 11. al-Zawiya, held by the Zahirs5 The m uqaufa holders were classified by Yaziji in three ranks: the amirs (the Shihabs, the Abu al-Lamacs and the Raslans); the mu-

The Feudal System o f Mount Lebanon

35

qaddams (the Muzhirs); and the shaykhs (as the Junblats, cIds, cImads, Abu Nakads, Talhuqs and cAbd al-Maliks among the Druzes).6 Yaziji offers no explanation for these differences in rank, simply presenting them as a hierarchial arrangement inherent to the system. Of the prerogatives of the m uqaufa holders as a social class, he says: It has been the established custom regarding these clans (tawa’if), that no individual among them may be executed, imprisoned or beaten by order of the governor. Should one among them commit an offense (dhanb), he can be punished by the confiscation of his wealth, the destruction of his houses, or by banishment from the country..., except in rare cases when they happen to be weak and the governor powerful.7

A careful study of available sources from earlier periods indicates that amirs, muqqadams and shaykhs in Mount Lebanon did not repre­ sent a social hierarchy within the Lebanese system, but rather different types of leadership. The amir category, it appears, historically derived from the muqaddam category which, by Yaziji’s time, had come to occupy an intermediary position between those of the amirs and the shaykhs. A muqaddam, it seems, came to be called an amir in early Otto­ man times when the Ottoman state entrusted him with the administration of a sanjak, as happened in the case of Fakhr al-Din Macn (d. 1635), or at times a nahiya, as in the case of the Harfushes of Baalbek. When a muqaddam thus became an amir, his descendants after him retained the title unofficially, regardless of whether or not they succeeded him to the appointment which earned him this title.8 The Shihabs them­ selves were muqaddams in Wadi al-Taym, in the Anti-Lebanon, before they somehow came to be called amirs.9 There was one notable case where a family of muqaddams received the title amir not from the Ottoman state, but from a ruling Shihab amir (Haydar Shihab, 17061732). It involved the Abu al-Lamacs who, as Yaziji himself notes, were given the title amir in 1711 to reward them for the leading role they played in crushing the enemies of the Shihabs at the battle of cAyn D ara.10 Hence, despite the frequent use of the term amir by local historians to apply to individuals and families who need not have had an official claim to the title, one need only distinguish between two categories of indigenous leadership in Mount Lebanon: that of the muqaddams, and that of the shaykhs. Judging by evidence from available sources and documents, it may

36

Abdul-Rahim Abu Husayn

be safely stated that leaderships of the m uqaddam type were those which enjoyed a localized following, controlling what was usually a small area (a village, a cluster of villages, or a district). This applies to the Macns, the amirs of Mount Lebanon par excellence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; also to the Abu al-Lamacs, who until 1711 were the muqaddams of a small area in the Matn. In the Matn, the A bu al-Lamacs used to be the peers of other m uqaddams such as the Sawwafs of Shbaniyyah (extinct after 1711) and the Muzhirs of Ham mana (the only family which retained the title after 1711). It is evident from sources and documents that leaderships of this muqaddam type were officially assigned small fiscal units at times and charged with the col­ lection of local taxes.11 Judging by the examples we have of shaykhs among the Druzes, as well as of shaykhs among other communities, notably the Shicites and the North Lebanon Maronites, it appears that the shaykh type of leadership in Mount Lebanon was one of a tribal or quasi-tribal na­ ture. As such, the shaykhs of the Druze community (not to mention others) had factional followings involving Druzes from different dis­ tricts. They do not appear to have necessarily held official commissions or administrative functions within the Shihab system.12 As tribal leaders, however, they played active and at times decisive roles in the politics of the Mountain. In fact, the leadership of a shaykh over his respective faction, and within his community, was far more secure and durable than that of the governing amir, whose position was subject to annual renewal by the Ottoman state (actually, by the Pasha of Sidon).13 The amir's ability to make his rule effective rested largely on his ability to secure the cooperation of the more powerful Druze shaykhs, once he had managed to secure the good will of the state. By contrast, the power of a shaykh depended on the spontaneous tribal or quasi-tribal loyalty of his followers, which he could take for granted, and over which neither the amir nor the Ottoman state had any con­ trol. Among the shaykhs, Druzes and non-Druzes, not all were of the same order. Yaziji himself noted the existence of «another category (tabaqa) of shaykhs.» He did not fully explain the difference between the shaykhs of this other tabaqa and those of the regular one. A case he cited, however, indicates that the second and lower category of shaykhs involved families who did not traditionally hold this title, but

The Feuded System o f Mount Lebanon

37

who had been granted it by the Shihab amirs in return for services rendered: In the year 1247 (A.D. 1830), while Bashir Shihab was besieg­ ing the fortress of Sanur, As'ad, Ibn Husayn Hamadeh, whose father was the head of the am ir’s police (shurtah), got killed defend­ ing the amir. Participating in the siege were also his cousins Hysayn Quwaydir and Wakid. The am ir gave them the title of shaykh and assigned to them their own village in the Shuf {Le., Ba'apUn) to the exclusion of the rest of the Banu Hamadeh.14

The extensive section of the essay which Yaziji devotes to the religion, customs and manner of the Druzes and their shaykhs, reflects not only his own concern as a Christian (a Greek Catholic) with a community which was not his own, but also the concern of his em­ ployer, the Shihab amir, with this same community. Charged by the Ottoman state with the duty of collecting the taxes of the parts of Mount Lebanon entrusted to their care, the Shihab amirs distributed the fiscal districts or m uqaufat of Jabal al-Shuf among the more powerful Druze shaykhs, no doubt as a measure to appease them and bring them as much as possible under control. These shaykhs, howev­ er, retained their independent power among their Druze followers. By indicating willingness to cooperate with the amir, they endorsed his appointment by the state and made his rule possible. In many cases, these shaykhs actually initiated the appointment or reappointment of some amirs. By revolts or intrigues, they could also bring an amir down, or at least seriously embarrass him. This explains the harsh ac­ tion taken by Bashir II against the Druze but not against the Maronite shaykhs before 1832. Unlike the Druze shaykhs, who were essentially the traditionally accepted leaders of a tribally organized community, the Maronite shaykhs enumerated by Yaziji were feudal-type lords, whose lead­ ership in their respective m uqaufat was that of lords to tenants. The oldest of the Maronite shaykh families were the Hubayshes, who gained influence with the cAssafs, the Turkoman muqaddams (appointed amirs) of Kisrawan in the sixteenth century. Then came the Khazins, to whom the management of Kisrawan was entrusted in the early seventeenth century by Fakhr al-Din Macn. While the Hubayshes rose to power and acquired land in Kisrawan as the stewards and assis­ tants of the 'Assafs, the Khazins did the same, with even more success, under the Macns. Over the years, and largely because they enjoyed the

38

Abdul-Rahim Abu Husayn

political support of the amirs in power, these two families were able to claim for themselves large tracts of land, reducing the peasants in their respective muqaUfat to the status of tenants and share-croppers. O ther features of European feudalism in medieval and early modern times were, reportedly, also in evidence, in the relationship between the shaykh-\otàs and peasants in Kisrawan. It is said, for example, that a peasant there could not marry without the shaykh’s permission, and that he was bound in service to his shaykh, so that he could not leave his land at will. Forced labor, and other practices of the kind, are also spoken of.ls There were, of course, shaykhs among the Maronites of North Lebanon (such as the Karams of Ihdin and the Hashims of CAqura), who commanded tribal followings similar to those of the Druze shaykhs of the traditional type, but who did not hold muqaUfat. Of these Maronite shaykhs Yaziji makes no mention at all.

II In 1832, the whole of Syria was occupied by the forces of Muhammad Ali of Egypt and Muhammad Ali’s son, Ibrahim, took charge of the country. This brought Bashir II, who was the chief Syrian ally of Muhammad Ali, to the height of his power. As a result, he was able to complete the process of subduing the various feudal and tribal chiefs in Mount Lebanon and to rule as virtual despot. Writing his essay at the time, Yaziji, who was employed in Bashir’s secretarial service,16 naturally reproduced a somewhat idealized representation of the Lebanese political system which, simultaneously, magnified the prerogatives of the amir as feudal suzerain and exaggerated the obliga­ tions owed by the shaykhs as vassal tenants. In Yaziji’s own somewhat inflated terms, Bashir was the country’s greatest ruler and its shaykhs were «... dependent on him and regarded him with awe and exaltation.»17 Accepting the testimony of Yaziji at face value, some modern scholars have been led to depict the Shihab regime in Mount Lebanon in terms of the feudalism of medieval Europe.18 The Shihab system, in its origins though not necessarily in its external manifestations, was actually based on the distinctively Ottoman institution of iltizam which entailed the farming out, by the State, of sanjaqs, nahiyas or smaller areas for administrative and fiscal purposes. By concentrating on the

The Feudal System o f Mount Lebanon

39

peculiar case of the Khazin and Hubaysh shaykhs in Kisrawan rather than on the more representative case of the Druze shaykhs such as the cImads and the Junblats in the Shuf, they have, in effect, emphasized the external feudal features of the regime at the expense of its fun­ damental connection to the Ottoman iltizam system as well as its social tribal character.19 Yaziji himself was not actually unaware of the country’s tribal character, describing Mount Lebanon in his essay as «... the greatest of tribal lands.» But it is clear from the same essay that he not only did not fully appreciate the essential link between the Shihab regime and its tribal base, but that he also deliberately downplayed many of its tribal features. Thus by going into elaborate details in describing the protocol which governed the relations between the ruling amir and the m uqaufa holders,20 Yaziji effectively emphasized the hierarchical and artificial aspects of the Shihab regime at the expense of its normal tribal ones. In view of this fact, it is not at all surprising that Yaziji’s refer­ ences to tribal factionalism which had historically cut across religious divisions in Mount Lebanon are somewhat uninformed and frequently confused. In dealing with that subject he says the following: The inhabitants of this land were divided in earlier times into two factions (singular hizb): Qays and Yaman. These two factions were greatly hostile towards one another and fought all the time... This continued to be the case until the coming to power of Haydar Shi­ hab, who was a Qaysi. A battle was fought in cAyn Dara, in the cUrqub, where Amir Haydar led the Banu Qays to defeat the Yamanis, killing a large number of them, so that most of them were eradicated. Those who survived kept their partisan loyalty secret. This was the end of this easabiyyah (tribalism). The people of the country became united in one faction (hizb) until a conflict arose between the Banu Junblat and the Banu al-cImad. The people took sides with one or the other, which caused the emergence of two new factions: those who followed the Banu Junblat, called the Junblatis, and the Yazbakis, being those who followed the Banu al-'Imad and who were called after the name of their ancestor Yazbak. This con­ tinues to be the case to this day...21

Not only Yaziji, but other Lebanese writers of the nineteenth cen­ tury dwell on the question of an old Qays-Yaman division in Lebanon which was ultimately superseded by the Yazbaki-Junblati division. Actually, the Qays-Yaman division had traditionally prevailed all over

40

Abdul-Rahim Abu Husayrt

Syria, including some cities such as Damascus. In Mount Lebanon, the Maronites of the cAqura region, north of Kisrawan, are one commun­ ity well known to have been once divided into Qays and Yaman fac­ tions. There is no indication, however, that this Qays-Yaman factional­ ism was at any time politically significant, as a determinant of corpor­ ate action, within the Druze community.22 The Druze historians Salih Ibn Yahya (d. after 1430) and Ibn Sibat (d. 1523) make no men­ tion of it whatsoever, nor does Ahmad al-Khalidi (d. 1624) in his de­ tailed account of the career of Fakhr al-Din M a ^ .23 In fact, it is only by the nineteenth century that this phenomenon starts being men­ tioned as the predecessor of the Yazbaki-Junblati factionalism. The battle of cAyn Dara, which Yaziji and a number of Lebanese histo­ rians who were his contemporaries describe as the final encounter be­ tween the Qaysis and Yamanis in the country, was in fact the outcome of an attempt by the descendants of cAlam al-Din Sulayman, a Macnid chief of the sixteenth century, to reclaim what they regarded to be their right: namely the chieftainship of the Shuf, which had long been held as the preserve of another branch of the Macnid family and their Shihab descendants in the female line. The Shihabs, by 1711, had already appropriated to themselves the Macnid political legacy in Mount Lebanon. It was possibly with the intention of obliterating all memory of the reality regarding the claims of the cAlam al-Dins against the Shihabs that Yaziji and others presented the conflict culmi­ nating in the battle of cAyn Dara as one between Qaysis and Yamanis.24 Actually, the Druzes of the Shuf, by 1711, were already divided into Yazbakis and Junblatis. This division certainly did not come some time after the battle of cAyn Dara, as Yaziji asserts. Rather, it goes back to the early seventeenth century, in the days of Fakhr al-Din Macn, when one Druze shaykh, called Yazbak Ibn cAbd al-cAfif, sup­ ported the Macnid amir, and another, called Shaykh Junblat, opposed him. Each of the two shaykhs — certainly Junblat — headed a follow­ ing who were his partisans.25 Significantly, the Yazbaki and Junblati factions among the Druzes, from the very beginning, were headed by shaykhs rather than by amirs or muqaddams. The same is true for the Qays-Yaman division among the Maronites of the cAqura region. The purpose of this study is not to subject Yaziji’s risala to sys­ tematic or comprehensive criticism. It merely intends to draw attention

The Feudal System o f Mount Lebanon

41

to the fact that as a principal historical source the risala must be han­ dled with extreme caution, owing to its selectivity, purported objectivity and dubious authenticity.

42

Abdul-Rahim Abu Husayn

NOTES 1. For the literary career of Naaif al-Yaziji, see Kamal Yaziji, Ruwwad al-nahda aladabiyya f i Lubnan al-Hadith (Beirut, 1962), pp. 82-90; see also George Antonious, The A rab Awakening, 3rded. (New York, 1965), pp. 46-47; Albert Hourani, A rabic Thought in the L iberal A ge, 1789-1939 (London, 1962), p. 95. 2. Nasif al-Yaziji, Risala Tarikhiyyah f i ahwal Lubnan f i rahdihi al-iq u fi (Harisa, 1936). 3. Ibid., pp. 8-9. 4. Ibid., p. 5. 5. Ibid., p. 10. 6. Ibid., pp. 6-7. 7. Ibid., p. 7. 8. For the different types of local-rural leaderships in Mount Lebanon, see A. AbuHusayn, Provincial Leaderships in Syria, 1575-1650 (Beirut, 1985), pp. 71-73, 81, 130. 9. Ibid., p. 16. 10. N. Yaziji, Risalah, p. 20. 11. Abu-Husayn, Provincial Leaderships, p. 72. 12. Ibid., pp. 73-74. 13. K. Salibi, «The Lebanese Emirate.» Al-Abhaih, 20 (1967), p. 13. 14. N. Yaziji, Risalah, pp. 9-10. 15. S. Khalaf, Persistence and Change in 19th Century Lebanon: a Sociological E ssay (Beirut, 1929), pp. 24-25; I. Hank, «The Iqtac system in Lebanon: a Comparative Political View,» M iddle East Journal, 19 (1965), pp. 406, 420-421. 16. K. Yaziji, Ruwwad, p. 83. 17. N. Yaziji, Risalah, p. 20. 18. See Harik, «The Iqtac,» pp. 420-421; Khalaf, Persistence and Change, pp. 20-22. 19. Ibid. 20. N. Yaziji, Risalah, pp. 7-9,10-11,14-15. 21. Ibid., p. 19. 22. Abu-Husayn, Provincial Leaderships, pp. 74-76. 23. Salih Ibn Yahya, Tarikh Bayrut, ed. by F. Hours and K. Salibi (Beirut, 1969); Hamza Ibn Sibat, Sidq al-akhbar (also known as Tarikh Ibn Sibat), American Uni­ versity of Beirut MS. No. 956.9; Ahmad al-Khalidi, Tarikh al-am ir Fakhr al-D in al-M tfni, ed. by A. Rustum and F. Bustani (Beirut, 1936). 24. See Salibi, «The Secret of the House of Macn,» International Journal o f M iddle East Studies, 4 (1973), pp. 272-287. 25. See Abu-Husayn, Provincial Leaderships, pp. 73-74.

SULAYMAN AL-BUSTANI (1856-1925) A lbert H ourani University o f O xford

In a famous study of contemporary Arabic literature, published in 1928, H .A .R . Gibb remarked that the social and literary flowering of Lebanon in the last decades of the nineteenth century «still awaits a historian.»1 In the half century or so since he wrote, something has been done to fill the gap, but certain important figures have still not received their due, and there are unanswered questions about the ori­ gins and nature of the phenomenon. One matter which has aroused controversy is that of the extent to which it sprang from forces inside the Lebanese and Syrian community, or was the product of the work of schools founded by Western missionaries, in particular French Jesuits and American Protestants. In his Arab Awakening, George Antonius laid emphasis upon the role of the Americans: «the intellec­ tual effervescence which marked the first stirrings of the Arab revival owes most to their labours.»2 A.L. Tibawi, however, believed that to say this was to exaggerate: the influence of the missionaries upon the cultural movement was more limited than Antonius stated, and in so far as it existed it was a by-product of activities directed at other ends.3 His arguments were cogent and valid up to a point, but we should not ignore the influence which a small group of serious and well-educated men must have had in the society of a small town open­ ing to the outside world, such as was Beirut in the later nineteenth century. This influence was not confined to the graduates of the Amer­ ican schools but spread beyond them, to those who worked or had contact with the schools, consulates and trading houses of Beirut. To write about someone who was so touched may therefore be an appropriate tribute to Malcolm Kerr, and to the University with which he was so closely linked. It is generally agreed that one of the central figures of the Lebanese Nahda, the renaissance of culture, was Butrus al-Bustani (1819-83), teacher, journalist and encyclopedist. Much has been writ­ 43

44

Albert Hourani

ten about him, and deservedly so, and in what is written some refer­ ence is usually made to those members of his family whom he inspired and who worked with him. One of them deserves more than a passing mention. Already in 1928 Gibb could say of Sulayman al-Bustani that he was «the outstanding representative of the Christian Syrian com­ munity in the last decades of the century, with all its eager, many-sided activities and restless wanderings.»4 The Maronite Christian family of Bustani had its origin in the dis­ trict of Bsharri in northern Lebanon. Some members of it are said to have moved to the small town of Dayr al-Qamar in the Shuf district during the sixteenth century, and from there they spread to other towns and villages of the southern half of Lebanon.5 It was in the village of Bkashtin in the Shuf that Sulayman was bom in 1856, one of four brothers,all of whom made their mark on the life of Lebanon and the Lebanese diaspora. He received his first instruction in Arabic from his uncle cAbdallah, formerly Maronite archbishop of Tyre and Sidon, and then at the age of seven was sent to die National School (al-Madrasa al-Wataniyya) newly founded by his kinsman Butrus in Beirat a few years earlier.6 He remained there for eight years, from 1863 to 1871; this period was decisive for the formation of his mind. The curriculum of the school included English and French as well as Arabic and Turkish, and he later recorded the influence upon him of the English poetry he read, and in particular a kind of poetry scarcely familiar to Arab readers — narrative and epic; he memorized part of Milton’s Paradise Lost and Scott’s Lady o f the Lake.1 He must have been affected, too, by the political and social ideas of Butrus: the idea of a Syrian community in which Muslims and Christians lived in amity within a reformed Ottoman Empire, and that of an Arabic culture open to the new world. Echoes of such ideas were to appear in his own writings a generation later. After leaving school, Sulayman worked for a few years in Beirut, teaching and writing for the various periodicals which Butrus founded, and working as dragoman at the consulate of the United States. In 1876 he went to Iraq, first to Basra and then to Baghdad. He worked for a time in a trading company which exported dates, and seems also to have held posts in the local Ottoman government. He may now have become aware of the reforms in the administration and economy of the province started by Midhat Pasha when he was governor a few years

Sulayman al-Bustani

45

earlier; this too was an influence which was to last, and to be reflected in later writings of his. During this period he married the daughter of a local Chaldaean Catholic, but according to his biographers the mar­ riage was not successful.8 It was perhaps his work in the date-trade, mingled with a certain intellectual curiosity, which led him in these years to undertake some journeys, unusual for a man of his time and place, in the Arabian Peninsula. He is said to have visited Najd, Hadramawt and Yemen, and his observations of the life of the Arabian nomads were recorded later, in a series of articles in al-M uqtataf in 1887-88.9 His description of Beduin society shows a curiosity unusual in men of the towns and mountain villages of the Mediterranean littoral but perhaps may be explained by the interest in classical Arabic poetry, which was typical of the Nahda. By 1885 he was back in Beirut, helping to write and edit the first Arabic encyclopedia, D a’irat al-nufarif, begun by Butrus al-Bustani and continued after his death in 1883 by his son Salim, and then, after Salim died in 1884, by two other sons, Nasib and Najib, with help from Sulayman.10 Some more years of wandering followed— in India, Iran and Iraq once m o re— and then seven years (1891-98) spent mainly in Istanbul; during this period he was appointed Ottoman com­ missioner at the great exhibition, the World’s Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893. The ten years from 1898 to 1908 he seems to have spent mainly in Cairo. Little information is available about his work and life during this period, but his main preoccupation was revealed when, in 1904, the Hilal Press, founded in Cairo by another Lebanese man of letters, Jurji Zaydan, published his translation of the Iliad, the fruit of many years of work, begun, as he tells us, in 1887, and pursued in the midst of travel and work, «in the mountains, on the decks of ships, and in railway carriages.»11 This was the first translation of the Iliad, and indeed of any of the poetry of the ancient Greeks, into Arabic. The later classical tradition which the Arabs inherited was one in which the literature of ancient Greece was not so familiar. The works of Greek philosophy, which were translated during the Abbasid period, carried occasional refer­ ences to Homer and other poets, and their names were therefore known, but a statement of al-Jahiz expresses what may have been the

46

Albert Hourani

common attitude towards the translation of poetry, as being both un­ necessary and impossible: Only the Arabs and people who speak Arabic have a correct under­ standing of poetry. Poems do not lend themselves to translation and ought not to be translated. When they are translated, their structure is rent; the meter is no longer correct; poetic beauty disappears and nothing worthy of admiration remains in the poems.12

One of the main characteristics of the Nahda was a widening of awareness. As early as 1859, Butrus al-Bustani, in a lecture on Arabic literature and culture, had pointed out as a matter of interest that the strength and independence of the Arabic poetic tradition had pre­ vented it from acquiring or borrowing anything from Homer, Virgil or others of the ancients; in the present age, the Arabic language could only be raised from its low state if, among much else, there were trans­ lations from foreign languages.13 The fourth volume of his encyclo­ pedia, published in 1880, contains a fairly long and well-informed article about Homer, presumably drawn from American or European works of reference; it gives the generally accepted version of the life of Homer, summarizes the stories of the Iliad and Odyssey, and shows knowledge of the discussions about authorship, method of composition and transmission, and historical authenticity, which were current in the classical scholarship of modern Europe.14 It may have been this arti­ cle which gave strength to the interest in narrative poetry which had been aroused in Sulayman by his early reading of Paradise Lost, giving direction to the desire to revive the Arabic language and its culture which he had acquired in the school of Butrus al-Bustani. The translation is a book of a kind which had never appeared in Arabic before: a handsome, well-produced volume of 1,260 pages, with an introduction, a running commentary, indexes, and illustrations in the text. The introduction of 200 pages is perhaps the part which will have the greatest interest for the modern reader. Its aim is to intro­ duce Homer and the Iliad to a reading public which was scarcely aware of them. The traditional version of the poet’s life is given, in a form which perhaps would not have been acceptable to most Homeric scho­ lars of the late 19th century. For the most part Bustani follows the biography attributed to Herodotus; he expresses some doubts about it, but thinks it more worthy of credence than later versions. He does, however, show a general knowledge of the Homeric scholarship of the

Sulayman al-Bustani

47

century, of the «Homeric question» as it had been posed by scholars from the time of the Prolegomena of F.A. Wolf (1759-1824). Was the poem the work of a single man called Homer? Was it written by him, or composed, memorized and transmitted orally? How far could its narrative be regarded as preserving genuine historical events? Bustani’s response to such questions on the whole is conservative. He be­ lieves that the Iliad is the work of a single poet; the unity between its different parts and the consistency in the characterization of the main personalities seem to him to prove this. He finds no difficulty in the theory that it was recited, and gives examples from his own Arabian tra­ vels of tribal poets memorizing long poems (he was writing, of course, long before the work of Milman Parry and Albert Lord threw new light on the ways in which oral narrative poetry was composed and transmitted).15 He does not think it necessary to accept that the narrative is historically authentic.16 Of more lasting interest is Bustani’s discussion of the problems of translating the poem. He begins by asking why it had not been trans­ lated earlier. Homer was known by name to Arab writers of the clas­ sical period; he refers to Ibn Abi Usaybica, al-Biruni and Ibn Khaldun, who had some knowledge of Greek poets by way of Plato and Aristo­ tle. If he was not translated, there were, Bustani suggests, three reasons. Those who translated works of Greek philosophy and science in the Abbasid period were for the most part not Arabs, and did not know Arabic well enough to translate poetry, and Arabic poets did not know Greek. Incentives and patronage were lacking: die Abbasid Caliphs, who patronized the translators, wanted works of medicine and philosophy, not literature, and most of the later dynasties were not great patrons of learning and culture. Equally important, however, was a reason of another kind: the strangeness of the Homeric world, and in particular Homer's description of the life of the gods. This had posed a problem for Christians, but for Muslims the problem was even gra­ ver: the multiplicity of the Homeric gods and their modes of behavior could not be reconciled with the tenets of their faith.17 Times had changed, however, and Bustani believed that there was now a pressing need to give Homer to the Arabic reader. Homer was a very great poet, and had had a deep influence on the whole of Euro­ pean poetry. Poets had ransacked his work freely and openly; Bustani gives examples from Virgil, Tasso, Milton and Voltaire (all quoted in

48

Albert Hourani

their original languages).18 To translate him would help that revival and expansion of the Arabic language in order to make it adequate to all the needs of modern life, one of the main purposes of the Nahda. It was for this reason that he decided to translate the Iliad. He tells us that he began by trying to translate it from English and French, but soon came up against the inconsistencies of the various renderings. He had to go back to the original; his first teacher of ancient Greek was a French Jesuit in Cairo, and later, when he lived in Istanbul, he received help from Greeks living there.19 Acquiring a sufficient knowledge of Greek was only the first of his problems, however. More fundamental were the problems posed by the differences between the European and Arabic poetic traditions. There were no epic or lengthy narrative poems in classical Arabic (although they existed in the ver­ nacular tradition), and the conventions of Arabic literature made it difficult to write narrative poetry. The norm was the qasida or ode, with a single meter and a single rhyme running through it from begin­ ning to end; blank verse was unknown. Each verse tended to be a separate unit of meaning; the poem as a whole might have a structural unity, but it was difficult to carry on a narrative from one verse to another.20 Bustani’s solution of this problem was not without ingen­ uity. He divided the Iliad into shorter units — an episode or a speech— preserved the unity of meter and rhyme within each unit, and chose for each of them the meter and form which seemed appropriate to it. The strangeness of the Homeric world to readers of Arabic also created difficulties. The names of Homer’s protagonists sounded strange in Arabic; Bustani was not always successful in devising forms which would not seem too discordant. The physical world of Hom er's heroes, and still more of his gods, was alien; how to convey to the reader that gods ate and drank, and how could nectar and ambrosia be translated? Manners, customs, and moral ideals would not be easily recognizable. It was for this reason that the translation could not be published by itself. The commentary, which runs from page to page, gives parallels to Homer’s images and descriptions drawn from Arabic poetry; Bustani says that he read the works of two hundred poets for this purpose. The introduction was no less necessary. Part of it con­ tains a history and description of Arabic poetry in its various phases. The conclusion is drawn that if Homer’s poetry is to be understood it

Sulayman al-Bustani

49

should be seen as the Greek equivalent of the poetry of the Jahitiyya, the world which Homer described as being analogous to that of Arabia before the coming of Islam.21 There was also another range of problems, those which confront all translators of poetry. Should the translation be literal, or should it try to re-create the poem in another language and poetic tradition? Bustani had thought about this and come to clear conclusions. His transla­ tion should take away nothing and add nothing (although he did in fact eliminate some repetition of epithets); and it should render the poem into real Arabic, so that «when the reader reads it, he is reading A ra­ bic and not a foreign language.»22 Like all methods of translating poetry, this one has its dangers, and those who have written about Bustani’s Iliad believe that he did not completely avoid them. In her important work on modem Arabic poetry, Salma Jayyusi says that Bustani was «too much under the influ­ ence of the Arabic poetic spirit,» and was therefore unable fully to absorb and express the spirit of the original.23 In a careful and sym­ pathetic analysis of the translation of Book Six, Andras Hamori comes to a similar conclusion. The translation, he tells us, is a minor of the Arabic tradition opening up to foreign works, although not yet relinquishing its own conventions... Bustani used the received idiom in places where it flawed certain aspects of the Homeric nanative... He failed his Homer in precision and eco­ nomy; he could not hold on to the power that issues from austerity or the exact coupling of situation and emotion... It is an example of unpreparedness: not of linguistic or philological unpreparedness, where homework could be done and scholars consulted, but of a more fundamental kind for which he cannot be reproached and which he could not remedy.24

This is perhaps not very different from what Bentley told Pope: «it is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer.»23 Pope was a great poet, and no one has said that of Busta­ ni, but he might have argued that he was trying to do what Pope had done: his purpose, like Pope’s, was that of «inventing an idiom that could mediate effectively between disparate worlds.»26 This express­ ion is that of the latest biographer of Pope, who goes on to suggest that «every historical period... reformulates the great poetry of the past partly by its own conceptions of that greatness and that past as well as by its own views of what constitutes poetry and the art of

50

Albert Hourani

translation.»27 Bustani could at least have claimed that he had given his readers a Homer they could understand and appreciate, a poet who wrote in a language they considered appropriate to a great theme. A reader of our time might find the language stilted and artifical, but at least he might give Bustani credit — as Salma Jayyusi does — for hav­ ing initiated that «opening up to foreign works» which has enabled Arabic poets of today to draw images and symbols from the myths and legends of the whole world.28 The publication of Bustani’s Iliad was received with much ap­ plause. A dinner was given for him in June 1904 at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo. This seems to have been a unique occasion, bringing together the most important writers of the day living in Egypt: the poets Ahmad Shawqi, Hafiz Ibrahim and Khalil Mutran, the scholar Ibrahim al-Yaziji, the journalists Faris Nimr, Ya'qub Sarruf, Jurji Zaydan and Jibra’il Taqla, and two future Prime Ministers, Sa'd Zaghlul and Abd al-Khaliq Tharwat. Muhammed Abduh could not be present but sent a message. His support of something which opened the minds of Arab readers to the culture of Europe is not difficult to understand, but it is more surprising to find that Rashid Rida, the editor of al-Manar and stem custodian of the inherited values of the religion of Islam, is re­ ported to have been present and to have made a speech.29 Long arti­ cles appeared in leading Arabic periodicals, al-M uqtataf in Cairo and al-Mashriq in Beirut,30 and some European orientalists expressed their appreciation. In a long and thoughtful review, the Laudian Pro­ fessor of Arabic at Oxford, D.S. Margoliouth, pointed out the difficul­ ties which Bustani had faced, and praised him for his thorough com­ mand of the Arabic language and the excellence of his versification, although he found the translation sometimes too free.31 The German Arabist Martin Hartmann called the translation a masterly work which deserves the highest praise, and a monu­ ment of unwearying application combined with high intelligence, re­ markable knowledge and distinguished poetic craftsmanship.32

Four years later, in 1908, Bustani’s life was suddenly transformed by a public event, the Ottoman revolution which ended the autocratic rule of Sultan Abdulhamid II and restored the constitution. Bustani’s experiences during his years of residence in Istanbul had made him an opponent of that autocracy, and he must have had contacts with the constitutionalist opposition in Istanbul and Cairo. Almost immedi­

Sulayman al-Bustani

SI

ately after the Revolution he published a book which shows his sympathy with the ideas of the Committee of Union and Progress. In a letter a few years later, he told his correspondent that the book was written in three weeks and printed in about a month, so as to be ready for distribution to members of the Chamber, which was about to be elected: The optimism which prevails in it was not only judged indispensable for the encouragement of a new constitutional regime struggling for the regeneration of a quasi-condemned empire, but this was and still is the sincere conviction of the author, provided that the right ways of administering the country were followed.33

The book therefore has something of the nature of an extended political pamphlet. clbra wa Dhikra (A Lesson and a Memory, or the Ottoman State before the Constitution and after it) contains both a criticism of the past and a plan of action for the future.34 The critique of the absolute rule of Abdulhamid gains strength from the way in which it is expressed. The mistakes and excesses are not seen in the perspective of an ima­ ginary utopia, or of an unreal contrast with western Europe: they are contrasted with the achievements of the reign of Sultan Abdulaziz (1861-76), when the Ottoman Empire had seemed to be on the right path of reform, and a young, high-minded, and well-educated Lebanese Christian could hope to serve his people by serving the state. The example which Bustani holds up is that of Midhat Pasha, who had been Grand Vizir briefly in 1876-77 before being killed by Abdulhamid’s officials in prison in al-Ta’if; the book is dedicated to his mem­ ory. Beyond the age of Abdulaziz, the book looks back to the age of Ottoman greatness as Bustani imagines it: an age of religious tolerance and of local autonomy in the mountain districts. The criticism covers the whole range of human and social life. All Ottomans, including the highest officials of the government, have gone in fear, been spied upon and denounced by secret agents. There has been no freedom of association or publication; all books have had to be submitted to censorship by the Council of Education. Official schools have been subject to severe control; foreign schools have been a little freer, but their defect is that they have created «a division in our minds.»33 What is perhaps most harmful is the spirit of fanaticism (ufassub) which has been rampant, and has been encouraged for poli-

52

Albert Hourani

tical and personal profit. Bustani has in mind the Armenian massacres, which he had himself witnessed in Istanbul in the 1890’s, and also the civil war and massacres of 1860 in the Lebanon of his childhood: be­ fore 1841, he points out, there had been political factions in Lebanon, but from 1841 onwards political divisions had become religious ones.36 If we look for the causes of all this, he suggests, we should find it first of all in the tyranny, caprice and uncertainty of unrestrained abso­ lute rule. He does not mention Sultan Abdulhamid by name. The Sul­ tan was still on the throne, and, in the first moment of euphoria after the revolution, it was possible to believe that a Sultan shorn of his powers would cooperate with the new constitutional government: the explicit criticism is therefore not of him but of his entourage, the cour­ tiers of the Mabayn. There was, in Bustani’s view, a more fundamental cause for the ills from which the Empire suffered, and that was the absence of unity between the different groups of which it was composed. No attempt had been made by the Ottoman Sultans to draw Muslims and nonMuslims, Turks and non-Turks, into a single community, and there had been two omissions of particular importance: non-Muslims had not been conscripted into the Army to serve alongside Muslims, and know­ ledge of the Turkish language had not been spread.37 As a conse­ quence, there had been no sense of unity to check and balance the sense of solidarity of more limited groups, whether religious or ethnic (jinsi); in the absence of an over-riding sense of unity, particular loyalties, reinforced by ignorance and prejudice, had led naturally to fanaticism and all its consequences. Bustani is dealing, in fact, with the basic problem which had faced those who tried to change the nature of the Ottoman state in the 19th century. If the Empire was to survive in the modern world, it could no longer be a group of disparate communities held together by armed force and obedience to a ruling family; it needed a unity of conscious­ ness, which would create an active moral link between rulers and ruled. It might have been expected that Bustani, with his care for the revival of the Arabic language, would have been touched by the ideas of the Arab decentralizers or separatists, but there is no sign of this; he may have believed that an Arab or Syrian state would face the same kind of problem as the Empire, but be less able to resolve it because it would have less freedom of action.

Sulayman al-Bustani

S3

His remedy is that of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) during its first period of power, before the internal tensions of its ideology moved it in the direction of Turkish nationalism. The basic principle is that there is an Ottoman nation: «Thank God, we have not ceased to be a living people.»38 Among the different groups which compose the nation, there is a need for «solidarity and cooperation» and for mutual toleration. Bustani asserts that Christians and Jews have had more liberty in the Ottoman Empire than in Europe.39 There is a certain exaggeration in this, but it is not diffi­ cult to understand what he means: he is thinking of the virtual auto­ nomy of Christian villages in the mountains and the wide powers of the religious communities. A t the same time, he does not believe, how­ ever, that the Empire should become something different from what it has always been: die Muslim element is the strongest pillar of the O tto­ man ununa, and the Turks have always been its defenders and the possessors of power in it. How could unity and cooperation be achieved? Some chapters of the book deal with the political system, in a way which does not show great originality: the Chamber of Deputies should not obstruct the government in carrying out reforms, the members of the Chamber should not act simply as representatives of local interests.40 O f grea­ ter interest are the chapters on economic development, in which the lessons learnt during his years in Iraq can be seen.41 The Empire needs modern industry, and this demands better communications, an Ottoman merchant navy, and above all public confidence; Ottoman citizens do not have the confidence to invest in Ottoman companies. Agriculture must be extended, and this will need better security, schemes of irrigation, and better communications, and above all grea­ ter care for the welfare of the cultivators. Here Bustani strikes an unusual note, and a reader may become aware that the author is not a member of the Ottoman urban élite, and his own roots lie in the coun­ tryside. The Ottoman lands are full of potential cultivators, but they need help if they are to become producers. There are immigrants from elsewhere: the refugees from the lost provinces of the Empire, Bos­ nians, Cretans, Circassians, need help in settlement; another group of immigrants, those in Palestine, have their own organisations and facili­ ties, and do not need help. (There is no sign in the book of concern about the implications of Zionist immigration, although a few years

54

Albert Hourani

later Bustani is said to have opposed the sale of certain lands in Pales­ tine to Jewish interests). In the vast areas of Iraq the Beduin should be persuaded to become farmers. Some of them are already used to cul­ tivation, and all they need is a good system of tax-collection and elementary education. Others have never farmed, and to settle on the land they will need special inducements: training and exemption from taxation for an initial period. When elections took place for the first Ottoman parliament after the revolution, Bustani was chosen as one of the two deputies for Beirut; he stood as one of the candidates of the CUP, and al-HUal states that his election was unanimous, and praises him for his truthful­ ness, lack of exaggeration and freedom from envy.42 For the next few years he stood near the center of Ottoman politics, not possessing the kind of support which would give him real political weight, but by all accounts greatly respected. In his annual report for 1908, the British Ambassador calls him «a man of considerable learning and breadth of view... His rendering of the Odyssey [sic] is reported to be excep­ tionally good.»43 He was an active member of the Chamber, becoming its vice-president as well as chairman of several committees: he was a member of the mission to the courts of Europe, which announced the succession of Sultan Mehmed V in 1909. He was later appointed as a member of the Senate, and at the end of 1913, after the CUP coup d ’état, became Minister for Commerce, Agriculture, Forests and Mines in the government headed by Said Halim Pasha but in fact dominated by the triumvirate of Enver, Talaat and Jemal. In this Ministry, Bustani did not belong to the inner ring which made the great decisions, but he appears to have taken an active in­ terest in the affairs of his department and to have initiated several measures of reform. He was concerned about the financial position of the Empire, and discussed with the Ambassador of the United States, Henry Morgenthau, the possibility of an American loan. Morgenthau called him one of the most popularly respected members of the Ministry.44 As a Minister, he was involved in the agonizing discussions about the Ottoman attitude towards the European war, which broke out in August 1914. There were three main groups among the ministers: those who believed that the Empire should enter the war on the side of Germany; those who were prepared to go some way towards helping

Sulayman al-Bustani

55

Germany but were not willing to enter the war, at least until the situa­ tion became clearer; and those who supported a policy of strict neu­ trality, on the ground that the Empire could not survive another con­ flict, after the Balkan and Italian wars. Bustani belonged to the third group, along with the Grand Vizir and the Minister of Finance, Djavid. The decision was not made by the full ministry, however, but by the small inner group, and in particular by Enver. When the deci­ sion came, and the Empire entered the war, Bustani resigned, together with some of those who shared the same views. There is little more to tell of his life. He spent the years of war in Switzerland. He may have been involved in abortive schemes for the Ottoman Empire to make a separate peace; he was ill and spent some time in hospital: his eyesight was beginning to fail. When the war ended he went to Egypt, and a little later to the United States at the invitation of Lebanese emigrants there. He was received with honor by the Lebanese literati of New York — Nacima, Jibran, Abu Madi — but his health continued to decline, and he died in America in 1925. His body was brought back to Beirut and buried in Lebanon, where he had not spent much time since his youth, but for which he had the longing typical of the emigrant and wanderer.45 His death and burial were the occasion for numerous obituary articles which dis­ close, beneath the conventional words of praise, the lineaments of his personality: a modest, unwordly, deeply cultivated man.46 He would probably have wished to be remembered for his translation of the Iliad, and the tribute which might have pleased him most is that which Andras Hamori paid him half a century later: the translation, he said, «remains a monument to an adventurous mind, and to a literary man whom it would have been a pleasure to know.»47

56

Albert Hourani

NOTES 1. H.A.R. Gibb, «Studies in Contemporary Arabic Literature,» in Gibb, Studies on the Civilization o f Islam (London, 1962), p. 305. 2. G. Antonius, The A rab Awakening (London, 1938), p. 43. 3. A.L. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria 1800-1901 (Oxford, 1966). 4. Gibb, «Studies,» p. 250. 5. For Bustard's ancestry and life, see Fuad Afram al-Bustani, «Sulayman al-Bustani,» al-M ashriq, 23 (1925), pp. 778-791, 824-843, 908-926; Mikha’i! Sawaya, Sulayman al-Bustani wa-lliyadhat Humirus (Beirut, n. d.); Josef Hashim, Sulayman al-Bustani wa’l-Iliyadha (Beirut, 1960); J. Abdel-Nour, «al-Bustani,» E f , Supp. III-IV, pp. 161-162; Brockelman, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, Supp, i n (Leiden, 1942), pp. 348-352. 6 . A.L. Tibawi, «The American Missionaries in Beirut and Butrus al-Bustani,» in A. Hourani, ed., St. A ntony’s Papers 16: M iddle Eastern Studies, 3 (London, 1963), pp. 171-172. 7. Hashim, Sulayman al-Bustani, p. 14. 8. Sawaya, Sulayman ai-Bustani, p. 18. 9. «AI-Badu,» al-M uqtataf, 12 (1887-88), pp. 141-147; 202-207,270-274. 10. D a’irat al-M tfarif, 11 vols. (Beirut/Cairo, 1876-1900). 11. S. al-Bustani, lliyadhat Humirus (Cairo, 1904), p. 72. 12. Quoted in F. Rosenthal, The Classical Heritage in Islam (London, 1965), p. 18. For Arab knowledge and use of Greek poetic theory, see W. Heinrichs, Arabische Dichtung und griechische Poetik (Beirut, 1969). 13. B. al-Bustani, Khutba f i A dab al-cA rab (Beirut, 1859), p. 15 ff. 14. D a’irat al-M tfarif, voi. 4 (Beirut, 1880), pp. 691-693. 15. A.B. Lord, The Singer o f Tales (New York, 1971). 16. S. al-Bustani, lliyadhat Humirus, p. 9 ff. 17. Ibid., p. 63 ff. 18. Ibid., p. 181 ff. 19. Ibid., pp. 70-72. 20. See M.M. Badawi, review of M. Zwettler, «The Oral Tradition of Classical Arabic Poetry,» Journal o f Sem itic Studies, 25 (1980), pp. 285-86, and J. Maisami, «Arabic and Persian Concepts of Poetic Form,» Proceedings o f the International C om para­ tive Literature Association, 10th Congress (New York, 1982), pp. 146-149. 21. Ibid., p. 167 ff. 22. Ibid., pp. 75-76. 23. S.K. Jayyusi, Trends and M ovements in M odem A rabic Poetry, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1977), vol. 1, p. 66. 24. A. Hamori, «Reality and Convention in Book Six of Bustard's Iliad,» Journal o f Sem itic Studies, 23 (1978), pp. 95-101. 25. M. Mack, Alexander Pope: a L ife (New Haven, 1985), p. 348. 26. Ib id ., p. 269. 27. Ibid., p. 348. 28. Jayyusi, Trends, vol. 2, p. 721. 29. Al-M uqtataf, 29 (1904), pp. 610-618; Hashim, Sulayman al-Bustani, p. 143.

Sulayman al-Bustan i

57

30. Al-M uqtataf, 29 (1904), pp. 497-510; al-M ashriq, 7 (1904), pp. 780-781, 865-871, 911-919,1118-1126,1138-1143. 31. Journal o f the R oyal A siatic Society (1905), pp. 417-423. 32. M. Hartmann, D er Islamische Orient: vol. 3 Unpolitische Briefe aus der Türkei (Leipzig, 1910), p. 236. 33. Letter to T.W. Arnold, 10 June 1913.1 must thank Dr. B. Abu Manneh for drawing my attention to this letter, and also for a number of helpful criticisms and sugges­ tions. 34. clbra wa Dhikra, aw al-D awla a l eUthmaniyya qabl al-D ustur wa befdahu (Cairo, 1904). Reprint, Beirut, 1978. References are to the original edition. 35. Ibid., p. 38. 36. ibid., p. 90 ff. 37. Ibid., p. 98. 38. Ibid., p. 197. 39. Ibid., p. 20. 40. Ibid., p. 193. 41. Ibid., p. 138 ff. 42. Al-H ilal, 17 (1908-09), p. 177 ff. 43. G.P. Gooch and H.W.V. Temperley, eds. British Docum ents on the Origins o f the War 1898-1914, Vol. 5 (1928), p. 279. 44. H. Morgenthau, Am bassador Morgenduut’s Story (London, 1918), pp. 36,121. 45. Hashim, Sulayman al-Bustani, p. 161. 46. Al-M uqtataf, 67(1925), pp. 241-247; F.A. Bustani, «Sulayman al-Bustani,» P829 ff. 47. Hamori, «Reality and Convention...,» p. 101.

THE MATERIALISM OF SHIBLISHUMAYYIL

M ajid Fakhiy American University o f Beirut

One of the most brilliant intellectuals to graduate from the Medical School of the Syrian Protestant College (now the American Uni­ versity of Beirut) was Shibli Shumayyil, a Lebanese from Kfar Shima to the southeast of B eirut.1 Shumayyil was born in 1850, studied medicine at the Syrian Protestant College and later in Paris. A t the age of twenty-five, he moved to Cairo, where he practiced medicine and contributed extensively to the scientific and literary publications circu­ lating in Egypt at the tim e. In 1884, he published his most im portant treatise, Buchner’s Commentary on Darwin’s Theory (Shark Buchner cala madhhab Darwin). In 1885 he published a second work The Phi­ losophy o f Evolution (Falsafat al-nushu’ wa-l-irtiqa’) incorporating the original Buchner’s Commentary as well as his responses to the critics of his Darwinian and materialistic views. He died in Cairo in 1917. E VO LU TIO N A RY M A TE RIA LISM In the two above-mentioned works and his many articles, pub­ lished in Egyptian and other Arabic periodicals, Shumayyil engaged in almost all the m ajor debates of the time: science and religion, secular­ ism and theocracy, socialism and capitalism, Islam and modernism. However, the core of his philosophical, scientific and sociological thought is the thoroughgoing materialism which he believed with Lud­ wig Büchner and others to be the logical consequence of Darwinian evolution and of the scientific revolution unleashed in the seventeenth century by Isaac Newton. A careful reading of his works, written in a highly polemical and sometimes colorful style, shows that despite his vehement attacks on traditional metaphysics and theology, the evolutionary materialism he advocated as an alternative to antiquated metaphysical systems is 59

60

Majid Fakhry

itself another metaphysical system couched in the more fashionable scientific idiom of the time. This materialism which I have called evolutionary will form the substance of the present study.2 In the First Preface to the Büchner Commentary, Shumayyil lists the fundamental principles of his materialism, which he intended as he says to encompass the whole range of natural entities, anim ate and inanimate, with respect to their origins, development and inter­ relations. He sums up these principles as follows: 1 ) The indissoluble bond of affinity holding together all the observable entities of the universe, from the lowest m aterial objects to the higher organisms and, finally, man; 2 ) The unity of all the active powers in nature stemming from the same source and manifesting themselves in ascending order in the simplest natural entities as well as the most complex; 3 ) The uniformity of the natural laws governing the differ­ ent stages of material progression in accordance with «the law o f natural economy», which stipulates that everything natural is of, in and for nature; 4) Strict adherence to the methods of «experimental and perceptual» science, aimed at discovering the truth and conducing to the practical welfare of mankind; 5 ) The interpenetration of the twin principles of «natural selection» in the sphere of living organisms and that of «polarity and cooperation» in the sphere of social relations. This interpenetration will inevitably conduce to the welfare of the whole human race, and give rise to «the expectation that man will be capable of achieving total victory over nature, so long as this universal man understands the great advantage accruing therefrom .»3 THE E V ILS OF CU RRENT RELIG IO U S A N D M O R A L ED U CATIO N Before launching his program of a genuinely scientific education culminating in the espousal of a materialistic philosophy, Shumayyil casts a searching and critical glance over the educational programs cur­ rent in his day. These programs, with their double religious and m oral orientation, have not only been a bar to human progress, especially in the East, but have inhibited the liberation of the human mind from the

Shibli Shumayyil

61

shackles of superstition and prejudice. The chief fault of these pro­ grams, he says, is that they simply implant in the learner’s mind wornout and inherited principles and beliefs accepted uncritically, thereby stifling the spirit of independent judgem ent in him, «so that the natural man disappears entirely and nothing remains except the man produced contrary to nature.»4 The author admits that the current educational systems do not ignore altogether the real sciences, which are contrary to religious teaching; nevertheless they do go to great lengths to reconcile these sciences with religious principles, thus plunging the student into great mental confusion. In his analysis of this confusion and the misery attendant upon it, Shumayyil singles out two root causes: (1) religious education, «which dissociates man from this (natural) world in such a way that he ceases to attach any value to it,» and accordingly is forced to turn his gaze away from it towards the supernatural world; and (2) moral education, which leads man to conceive of himself as some­ thing higher than he actually is, portraying him as «it imagines him to be rather than as he is in fact.»5 But as soon as these two fictitious representations of man, the religious and the m oral, clash with the practical life, from which he cannot possibly be separated, he is torn asunder by the conflicts and tensions this clash is bound to generate: Were man’s religion built instead on his true relation to nature, and his moral attitudes on the laws of natural association, he would be in all his actions at one with himself and in harmony with its teachings*

G osely linked to this attack on traditional educational program s, of course, is Shumayyil’s profound distrust of religion, which he believes is at the root of man’s moral and social decline. His strictures against religious belief are legion. In the first place, as he contends, religious teachings are based on fabrications and illusions, which are very far removed from scientific or natural truths. In the second, religion has always supported or sanctioned 'theocratic' and despotic systems of government, thereby aiding rulers to subjugate and terrorize subjects, reducing them to submission, and ending up by stripping them of their natural rights. In the third place, it is characteristic of despotic systems of government, re-enforced by the sanction of theocratic law s, to be naturally opposed to change or evolution. Accor­ dingly, whenever the call for change or reform is sounded, in accord­

62

Majid Fakhry

ance with the dictates of the universal law of progress and the changing needs of society, the only recourse left to its members is violence o r revolution, analogous to natural cataclysms which often occur in accordance with the law of intense concentration of physical forces.7 Progress, then, is pre-empted by religious belief, especially when allied to political despotism. Loath to relinquish their privileges, the political and ecclesiastical authorities have always fanned the fires of animosity and strife; thus, if we «look at history we will find its pages covered with lines of blood which, were they to be joined together, would constitute whole rivers.»8 To return now to the evils of the current educational systems, it is to be noted that, according to Shumayyil, their methods are not only unnatural but are bolstered up by false religious and m oral claims or attitudes; they are essentially speculative, rationalistic or philosophical, dogmatic and dialectical.9 No wonder they are unable to infuse the spirit of scientific enquiry, which demands constant appeal to experi­ ence and observation, open-mindedness and critical acumen. Shu­ mayyil does not deny that educational methods have started to change somewhat, as illustrated by the fact that the natural sciences are begin­ ning to supercede the traditional and philosophical sciences in many schools, but the latter are by no means extinct, least of all in Eastern countries.10 Accordingly, little progress has been possible in these countries and disputes about fictitious and abstract m atters have con­ tinued to exercise the finest intellects. Thus, the linguistic sciences have been reduced to mere wrangling; poetry to obscurity; «jurispru­ dence to mere trivialities in which reason sinks to the level o f futility.»11 Instead of serving as a guide to justice and as a ram part against injustice, law has become an exercise in squabbling. Shu­ mayyil next directs his criticism against the literary and linguistic arts, which are, according to him, a source of great intellectual dissipation, a waste of social resources and a symptom of decadence. Their hold on the minds of the masses is almost magical and the esteem in which literary masters are held is a source of amazement. A look at the torrent of contemporary literary books reveals their lasting im pact, even at a time when philosophical and religious works have started to be questioned. It is enough to consider their subject-m atter, which consists of fantastic tales about extraordinary animals and preternatu­ ral creatures, such as jinnies, devils and ogres. As for their style, it is

Shibli ShumayyU

63

characterized by excessive elegance and literary subtlety, which can only have a nefarious influence on the m ind.12

TH E IN TE LLE C TU A L A N D SO C IA L A D V A N T A G E S OF A SCIENTIFIC ED U C ATIO N The positive aspects of Shumayyil’s educational program turn on the need to adopt and foster a truly scientific education, of which the natural sciences form the core. For these sciences, as he expresses it, «are the root of all genuine sciences, and once they are adopted and their methods faithfully applied, man would be assured of progress in the fields of language, philosophy and morality.» For then, m an’s «con­ ception of his language would become sound, and his reasoning methods would be rectified, his philosophy strengthened and made coherent. Even his moral traits would be raised to higher levels, inso­ far as they would be made to conform to practical usage, and his laws would be improved as they would begin to correspond to the law of natural association.»13 In a more concrete fashion, the adoption of the new science would insure that the whole legal and political system which was unchanged for centuries would be gradually reformed. The slow progress achieved in recent years should not dampen enthusiasm; eradication of the evils of the past cannot be achieved as long as despotic governments continue to perpetuate the old systems of education. Both at the national and international levels, the progress of sci­ ence, according to Shumayyil, promises miraculous and undream t-of exploits for the whole of humanity; wars would cease, an era of universal peace would succeed the aeons of strife and bloodshed; humanity would form a single brotherhood and the world would become a single homeland (watan).14 These utopian goals which, since the middle of the nineteenth cen­ tury had become part of what the British historian, Christopher Daw­ son, once called the religion of progress, are advocated by Shumayyil with almost religious fervor. They are according to him the inevitable consequence of man’s adoption of the natural sciences, which by un­ covering the secrets of physical nature, will enable mankind to uncover the secrets of natural association, without which m an’s

64

Majid Fakhry

social lot cannot possibly improve. It is not, as he hastens to add, th at human nature would be purged of all its evil proclivities, but rather that the knowledge of the laws of natural association will lead men to base their (social and legal) systems on these laws. Thereupon they would come to understand fully the law of mutual cooperation, which stipulates that advantages should be distributed according to m erit, offsetting thereby the evils of the law of polarity which leads to strife.15 In addition, men would be guarded against the evils of dissipating social resources, and would be led to recognize the validity of the natural law of social economy. For, in his view, society can be com­ pared to a living organism, in which every organ works both for its good and that of the whole, safeguarding thereby the well-being of the whole organism which in turn will safeguard its ow n.16 An analysis of Shumayyil’s sociological theories, which reflect the influence of Auguste Cömte and Emile Durkheim, lies somewhat out­ side the scope of the present paper. They are in fact an extension of his more fundamental conception of the universe, as a single m aterial system, governed by the universal laws of evolution and transform ation, to which the present study is primarily devoted. The discovery and application of the scientific methodology he recom­ mends, as the chief goal of the new education, will enable the searcher to understand these universal laws, which do not apply to the physical universe only, but to social and political institutions, as well as to the human mind itself. Thus, its liberation from the worn-out beliefs and prejudices inculcated by the traditional sciences, frequently called by him metaphysical and described as chimerical, may also be regarded as an instance of the laws of evolution and transform ation. W hatever its scope, the materialism of Shumayyil, which was in­ spired by Charles Darwin’s biological theories, goes well beyond them . In fact, despite his admiration for Darwin, he is explicity critical of this great scientist who had stopped short of generalizing his biological re­ sults, either out of deference to current beliefs, or because he w anted to avoid collision with the advocates of special creation.17 How ever, his caution proved to be of no avail; notwithstanding, he came under intense fire from these quarters. As it was, the task of generalizing Darwin’s theories was successfully accomplished by his followers, espe­ cially T.H . Huxley and H erbert Spencer in England, and E rnest Hoeckel and Lüdwig Büchner in Germany.

Shibli Shumayyil

65

TH E U N ITY OF N A TU R A L FORCES The credit for introducing the new 'scientific' m aterialism , which is radically different from the ancient 'm etaphysical' materialism of Democritus and Epicurus, according to Shumayyil, should be assigned to Isaac Newton, rather than to his great successor, Charles Darwin. For it was Newton who discovered the 'unity of natural law s', and from a trivial observation (i.e. the falling of the apple) discovered and formulated in strict scientific terms the universal laws of gravitation, which he then applied to the whole universe. However, Newton him­ self stopped short of recognizing a higher unity, that of the forces of nature, of which gravitation itself is only an example; it was left to the exponents of the 'principle of evolution and transform ation' (i.e. the Darwinians) to accomplish the task begun by Newton, opening the way to the universal materialism of which Shumayyil is such an enthusiastic advocate. The 'unity of natural forces' is for Shumayyil the cornerstone o f the new materialism and rests on self-evident principles which can be grasped by the simplest learner o r thinker; if such a person refuses to proclaim it, it is either because he lacks the courage or has a vested interest in denying it.18 This theory asserts that all biological and physical forces derive from the same m aterial source and are reducible to each other through the universal process of transform ation already referred to. However, this principle does not stop here: even psychological phenomena, including m ental processes, are m anifestations of this uni­ ty; psychology is, in fact, a branch of physiology and the mind itself an activity of the brain.19 A chief m erit of the new materialism and the unity of forces on which it is based, is that it puts to rest the agnosticism and fatalism bom of the traditional dualism of m atter and spirit. According to this dualism, the world is the product of a creative force which is entirely incomprehensible. Thus, whenever a fortuitous or anomalous occur­ rence, such as the existence of vestigial organs in certain mammalia or the occurrence of a natural cataclysm, such as an earthquake, is en­ countered, the believer in dualism gives up the enquiry in total de­ spair, referring such anomalies or cataclysms to the inscrutable designs of the creative will. The advocate of evolution and the unity of natural

66

Majid Fakhry

forces, however, instead of being deterred by such discoveries, will redouble his efforts until he arrives at a scientifically acceptable answer. «He will in fact deny the existence of anything alien to nature, whether as agent or patient, but will regard all occurrences as happen­ ing within nature, from it and through it, each part changing into another and returning to it ceaselessly. For him the only thing that endures is the whole.»20 Another merit which the principle of the unity of natural forces enjoys is that it exorcizes all immaterial forces and independent spirits to whose action have been attributed all sorts of incomprehensible phenomena, such as the pathological symptoms of epilepsy and hyster­ ia, or extra-sensory powers, such as telepathy or clairvoyance. Science can now explain these phenomena without reference to spiritual princi­ ples or forces more obscure than these phenomena themselves. M oreover, it can cure them without recourse to the cruel m ethods of exorcism or torture practiced in the past by ecclesiastics.21 Perhaps, the greatest merit of the new m aterialism , which neither Newton nor Darwin dreamed of, is that it enables us today to explain with the greatest simplicity and elegance the interrelation and inter­ dependence of all the forces of nature, from electricity to magnetism and radiation, each of which is regarded as a different, perhaps m ore complex, manifestation of the same universal force. Thus, says Shumayyil, energy itself may be regarded simply as another m anifestation of m atter, subject to the same laws of transform ation to which life is also subject.22 ETH ER A S THE U LTIM ATE STUFF It is generally accepted by most cosmologists today that energy o r m atter is the ultimate stuff of the universe. It is noteworthy that Shumayyil was writing at a time when the problem of the relation between m atter and energy had not been resolved. Accordingly, he considers a series of theories of which the theory of ether appeared to him to be the most plausible. Thus he agrees, in part, with Gustave Lebon’s view that ether should be posited as the original stuff from which the elementary components of m atter, i.e. atom s, have arisen, and that these atoms are vast repositories of energy.

Shibli ShumayyU

67

However, ShumayyU does not accept the theory of ether without some reservations; he describes it simply as a scientific hypothesis, which in the m anner of many of his contem poraries he believed essential for the transmission of the various forms of energy, including light and electricity. He adds, however, an original refinem ent upon the common theory of ether, describing «the various forms of m atter as nothing but the equilibrium of ether and the different forces known to us as resulting from the loss of this equilibrium.» It is as though, he writes, «ether is equivalent to the dynamic forces, whereas m atter is equivalent to the equilibrium of these forces.» This explains, he says, «how m atter is transform ed at the loss of equilibrium , accompanied by the appearance of the known forces of light, heat, electricity, etc. which are so many transform ations of m atter.»23 The theory of ether, it will be recalled, was introduced in m odern times by René Descartes to explain the transmission of light and heat in empty space. It was adopted in the nineteenth century by a num ber of eminent scientists, such as James MaxweU, Hendrik Lorentz and subsequently by Max Planck, to account for the transmission of energy, especially light and electricity, in empty space. How ever, with Einstein’s discovery of the principles of special relativity, the hypothesis of ether was abandoned and the transmission of light and electro-magnetic forces was explained simply as a function of the curv­ ature of space, or more broadly the properties of the space-time con­ tinuum.

CONCLUSION Despite his protestations to the contrary, the m aterialistic monism which Shumayyil advocates is not without metaphysical overtones, and although he presents it as a scientific theory, many of its propositions are clearly not verifiable in any scientific sense. Particularly effective in his advocacy of the new materialism is the simplicity with which it is alleged to explain all the known physical phenom ena. However, the law of natural econom y, which he often invokes in its support, although a reasonable methodological postulate, cannot be empirically verified either. His fascination with Büchner’s version of materialism is itself an example of his tacit approval of what the philosophers have

68

Majid Fakhry

called the law of parsimony or Ockham 's Razor. As interpreted by Shumayyil, Büchner, starting with Darwin's biological theories, pro­ ceeds to apply in a relentless way the twin principles of evolution and transform ation to living organisms, as well as to mechanical and elec­ tro-magnetic forces. Herein lies the difference between the scientist and the philosopher, as Shumayyil asserts in his responses to his critics. According to Shumayyil, the scientist, unlike the philosopher, does not concern himself with the search for realities and essences; rather, he concerns himself simply with the quantities and qualities of things, as they are revealed in observation and experim ent.24 H e dwells at some length in his concluding rem arks on the sciences of the ancients which, as mentioned earlier, are essentially speculative and dialectical, and on those of the moderns which rest on verification and experimentation. He admits, however, that these sciences are still in their infancy, and their practitioners still resort to philosophical and speculative methods or concepts. However the tim e will com e, he be­ lieves, when dialectial and philosophical disquisitions would lose their value altogether, and their advocates would be regarded as no bet­ ter than children at play or worse as raving maniacs. For then the sciences will have become totally empirical and the mind so thor­ oughly accustomed to their pursuit that it will enjoy nothing better. Whereupon speculation will decrease, action increase and mathema­ tical and mechanical proof supplant rational or logical proof.29

That was obviously Shumayyil’s hope for the future of m a n k in d in general and the nations of the E ast, where religion continues to be the strongest bond and, like the laws and institutions of governm ent it sanctions, a constant source of conflict and fratricidal strife. Science itself continues to be in the Eastern countries an exercise in specula­ tion or dreaming, and consequently an impediment to progress o r the attainm ent of positive practical goals.26

Shibli Shumayyil

69

NOTES 1. The dates of Shummayil have been the subject of controversy. His birthdate must now be fixed at about 1850 and his graduation from the Syrian Protestant College, 1871, as attested by Yacqub Sarrufs obituary notice in al-M uqtataf, 50(1917), pp. 105*112; and by S. Tamim ed.. The D irectory o f Alum ni o f the Am erican University o f Beirut, 1870-1966 (Beirut, 1967), p. 196. See also G. Haroun, Sibli SumayyU, une pensée evolutionaire arabe (Beirut, 1985), pp. 43 and 50. 2. A. Hourani in his masterly A rabic Thought in the L iberal A ge, 1798-1939 (Oxford, 1967), pp. 245-259, has dealt briefly with this materialism in the framework of his exposition of the sociological and political thought of Shumayyil. More recently G. Haroun, Sibli SumayyU, has published a detailed study of Shumayyil’s life and thought but has dealt only briefly with the materialist aspect of his thought. 3. Bûchner’s Commentary on Darwin’s Theory was incorporated in Shumayyil’s The Philosophy o f Evolution (Falsafat al-nushu’ wa-l-irtiqa'). All references in this study are to the new (1983) Beirut edition. 4. Shumayyil, Falsafat, p. 42. 5. Ibid., p. 43. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., p. 52. 8. Ibid., p. 30. 9. Ibid., p. 388. 10. The term Eastern (or rather its Arabic equivalent al-Sharq) is regularly used by Shumayyil to refer to the Arabs and other Near Eastern peoples. Occasionally, it is applied to Far Easterners, of whom the Japanese and Chinese are sometimes men­ tioned. 11. Shumayyil cites as examples of the trivialities an assortment of questions addressed by readers to the well-known journal at-M anar, from all over the Muslim world. The following are queries taken from a single issue: Is it lawful to defer the intern­ ment of the deceased until his death is fully ascertained? Is it lawful for Muslims to wear foreign dress? Is singing lawful? What is the right timing for breaking the fast of Ramadan at sunset? See Shumayyil, Falsafat, p. 397, n. 1. 12. Ibid., p. 394 ft. 13. Ibid., p. 48. 14. Ibid., p . 50. See. p. 70 et passim . 15. The two terms which I have translated as cooperation (takaful) and polarity (takafu ’) recur constantly in Shummayil’s sociology and politics. At the dose of Falsafat, p. 402, n. 1, he defines them as follows: «Since no action in nature occurs without some effect, (these two principles) insure that social ilk are removed like (natural) diseases, and crimes be kept in check by remedying their causes, rather than elimi­ nating their perpetrators.» 16. Ibid., p. 53. 17. Ibid., p. 56. 18. Ibid., p. 67. 19. Ibid., pp. 67-68. 20. Ibid., p. 71.

70

»ns»»

21. . . . . .

Majid Fakhry Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

p. 72. p. 74. p. 75. n. 1. p. 329 ff. pp. 403-404. p. 398 ff.

RAS-BEIRUT ADRIFT: AN ENDANGERED LIBERAL COMMUNITY Samir Khalaf Princeton University

A combination of some unusual historical circumstances and fortuitous urban developments transformed Ras-Beirut (literally the head o r tip of Beirut) into one of the most dominant urban centers in the A rab W orld.1 In the short span of about two decades — roughly between 1950 and 1970 — this once desolate and sparsely-settled garden farm­ ing area evolved into a truly unique cultural experim ent. It was perhaps the closest the A rab World ever reached to a liberal and open community, where pluralistic groups could coexist in relative harmony and peace. By virtue of its mixed ethnic and religious composition and per­ missive political atm osphere, Ras-Beirut became rem arkably innova­ tive and venturesom e, serving as a safe refuge for dispossessed and marginal groups periodically out of favor with the political regimes in the adjacent A rab states. More im portant, perhaps, it evolved as an intellectual sanctuary, a pace-setter for new trends: from serious ideological doctrines and political platforms to the more frivolous man­ ifestations of fads and fashions. Also, because of the presence of the American University of Beirut (AUB) it displayed some of the typical features of a university town. It produced and attracted a relatively young, literate and highly professional and mobile population; unmis­ takably middle class in its occupational composition and urban life styles. As an intellectual sanctuary, it fostered, indeed licensed, experi­ m entation in nearly all domains of public and private life. In a m ore fundamental sense, by acting as a critical gadfly and safety valve, Ras-Beirut was also instrumental in shaping some o f the consequential ideological movements in the entire region. Virtually all the crucial political and socio-cultural changes in the A rab World — those which prom oted hope for national resurgence and those which became sources of disunity and discordance— were initiated and nurtured in Ras-Beirut. Pan Arabism, A rab Nationalism , A rab 71

72

Samir Khalqf

a n d /o r Progressive Socialism, Regional and National Ba'thism , Lebanese Sectarianism, Syrian Nationalism, Communism, resistance and liberation movements (Palestinian and otherwise), and a score of other radical, reactionary and reformist groups — all have found to varying degrees a receptive and enthusiastic audience in the commun­ ity. The central thesis of this essay is that because Ras-Beirut de­ veloped into sudi a «melting pot» of diverse religious, ethnic and ideological groups, it was able to sustain its unique role and stature as the only genuinely «open» community in the entire A rab World • By virtue of such openness it engendered sentiments of trust, m utual re­ spect and deference to pluralistic life styles. A rem arkable spirit of tolerance pervaded all social contacts. This nurtured a deep and sin­ cere sense of caring for others, sustained by respect for differences. Such sentiments were visible in the pluralistic composition of the com­ munity, just as much as in the diversity of outlooks and perspectives. No one tried to oppress, tyrannize, defame or malign the other. Just as the Sunni Muslim and Greek Orthodox, the Druze and Protes­ tant lived together; so did groups drawn from discrepant socio­ economic backgrounds or those who professed divergent ideologies and life styles. There was room for everyone: devout and heathen, pious puritans and graceless hedonists, left-wing radicals and ardent conservatives, foot-loose and self-centered Bohemians, steadfast chauvinists and conventional patriots. They all had a stake in preserv­ ing this amorphous and permeable character of Ras-Beirut. Diversity animated and enriched life in the community. It was a source of vital­ ity, not a cause for paranoia and hostility between groups. D early, no other area in the Arab World could express or accommodate as much diversity in virtually all domains of cultural and social life. More remarkably, it accomplished all this and rem ained, until very recently, a relatively peaceful, wholesome and edifying so­ cial neighborhood. It enjoyed all the redeeming virtues of an open metropolis and an intimate social circle. It was both cosmopolitan and provincial, vibrant and sobering. Alas, this legacy, with all its enriching heritage, is today in the throes of some changes which may deface the character of Ras-Beirut, obstruct its liberalizing role and disfigure its image as a living paragon of peaceful coexistence. In this sense, Ras-Beirut, more so than Leba­

Ras • Beirut Adrift

73

non, stands today at the edge of a historic watershed. The harbingers of these disquieting transformations have become especially prom inent in the past few years. If they are allowed to grow, and the recent esca­ lation of chaos and violence in the area indicates that they have, in­ deed, become much too rampant and perhaps irreversible, then the entire community may perish. Such an eclipse, to say the least, is grievous and lamentable. It is bound to have ominous consequences for both Lebanon and the rest of the Arab World. Lebanon will lose its one and only viable example of successful pluralism. The A rab World will also have to live without its coveted safety valve. Why and how did Ras-Beirut develop those features in the first place? W hat are the forces threatening them , and what, if anything, can still be done to halt the further erosion or demise of Ras-Beirut? To answer such queries requires, first, that we place these transform a­ tions within a broader historical context. We will then proceed to a more detailed discussion of the specific instances of change the area has been subjected to.

H ISTO RIC AL O VERVIEW Much like the social fabric of Lebanese society, Beirut’s eventful history has also been marked by periods of relative harmony and peace, interspersed with episodes of intense communal hostility and sectarian strife. Beirut, in this sense, is a microcosm of Lebanon’s frag­ mented political culture. The same divisive forces, which on occasion threaten the delicate balance of power and erode civility in society, have also reinforced the segmented and parochial character of Beirut. In its early development, Beirut evinced some of the spatial and communal features (e.g. distinct quarters and relatively homogeneous and self-sufficient neighborhoods) so typical of pre-industrial cities. This was inevitable, given its pluralistic composition and the role it played as a refuge for interm ittent waves of political émigrés and minority groups. Beirut is also noted, however, albeit for brief inter­ ludes, for the uniformity in its urban ethos and the distinct identity it evolved as a maritime coastal city with persisting links with the moun­ tain and the hinterland. The spectacular growth of Beirut during the 19th century may well be due to its proclivity to reconcile these two seemingly inconsistent attributes.

74

Samir Khalaf

As a result, Beirut was «open» to new encounters, particularly foreign culture, European trade, and an incessant flow of goods, peo­ ple and borrowed ideologies. But it also sustained groups and com­ munities who retained their non-urban ties and prim ordial networks and sentiments. To A lbert Hourani this is, after all, what dis­ tinguishes the ideology of the city from that of the m ountain, so crucial for understanding the political development of Lebanon since 1920. «The urban idea of Lebanon was neither of a society closed against the outside world, nor of a unitary society in which smaller communities were dissolved, but something between the two: a plural society in which communities, still different on the level of inherited religious loyalties and intimate family ties, coexisted within a common framework.»2 As a result, while in everyday life, the various communities dis­ played some of the expected and visible differences, they also shared a great deal. This was apparent in common social values, patterns of social interaction and popular culture. Leila Fawaz, by amassing evidence from a variety of local and foreign sources, provides vivid and persuasive proof of such homogeneity and coexistence.3 This is clearly true of the first half of the 19th century. Partly be­ cause of Beirut's compact size and predominantly commercial charac­ ter, intermingling and collaboration between the various communities was both inevitable and vital for their mutual coexistence and survival. Inter-communal mixing, at least in the center of the town, was greater than is usually assumed. Merchants of various communities were part­ ners in private business ventures. They collaborated and assisted each other in times of austerity and financial need. More im portant, they perceived themselves as members of an urban merchant comm unity, resisting the hostile elements which threatened their common econo­ mic interests.4 In the old souks and bazaars, artisans and traders worked side, by side. Spatial segregation and location of shops was occupational and not religious in character. Much like the spatial layout of residential quarters, the bazaars were strikingly uniform in their architectural fea­ tures. On the whole, social interaction was characterized by sentim ents of good will, mutual tolerance and personal ties of intimacy, fam iliarity and trust. Such mutual cooperation was not confined to dom estic and commercial relations. It spilled over into other spheres of public life.

Ras-Beirut A drift

75

Christians and Muslims continued to meet together at official functions and served on the same committees, courts and mixed tribunals.3 This almost idyllic interlude in Beirut’s history did not survive for very long. By the 1840’s, as Ottoman power began to decline and European influence became stronger, there was a m arked shift in the relative position of the various communities.6 As a result, religious identification became sharper. Incidents arising from denom inational and sectarian tension increased in number and intensity. In some inst­ ances, denominational antagonisms were, in fact, more acute than the purely sectarian ones.7 The middle decades were not only marked by increasing tension; it was also the period during which Beirut began to witness the first symptoms of rapid urbanization. It is then that Beirut’s population be­ gan to swell and spill beyond its medieval walls. Estim ated at about 6,000 in the 1820’s, Beirut’s population leaped to 120,000 by the end of the century. More unsettling, perhaps, Christians were becoming much more numerous, thus upsetting the demographic sectarian balance which had characterized the earlier decades. For example, while the Muslim-Christian composition of Beirut was roughly equal during the 1830’s and 1840’s, by the 1890’s the proportion of Christians had be­ come two-thirds, compared to nearly one-third for Muslims. Much of this change was, of course, due to the influx of Christians (mostly M aronites) fleeing their persecuted village communities. In the 1840’s, M aronites made up only 10 per cent of Beirut’s population. Shortly after the massacres of 1860, the proportion of M aronites more than doubled, while that of other Christian sects rem ained roughly the sam e.8 Concomitant with these striking demographic changes, perhaps because of them , the spatial structure of Beirut began to assume some of the features associated with confessional segregation. Confessional residential quarters started to appear, in an almost concentric pattern, around the old historic center of the city. On the whole, Christians — initially Greek Orthodox and then M aronites — settled mostly on the eastern flanks around al-Sayfi and Rumayl. Eventually, these de­ velopments expanded further in the Ashrafiyya. Muslims drifted south­ ward in the direction of Zuqaq al-Balat, Bashura, Mazraca and Musaytba. Genetically, these became part of what is popularly labelled as lower and upper Basta. The western suburbs of the city, cAyn al-Muraysa, Hamra and Ras-Beirut, remained fairly open and

76

Samir Khalaf

started to attract, early in their development, a heterogeneous and mixed group of residents. As peace returned to Lebanon after the 1860 civil hostilities, Beirut consolidated its economic, political and cultural supremacy. Disparities, however, between the two dominant religious communities became sharper, particularly as the newly emergent Christian bourgeoisie began to enjoy a greater share of power and privilege. Denominational hostility receded and, once again, sectarian and com­ munal conflict became more visible. At the turn of the century, in feet, Christian-Muslim clashes had become so recurrent that hardly a day went by without an incident involving some violent confrontation be­ tween confessional groups, particularly when individuals ventured into neighborhoods other than their own.9 It is then that the spatial configurations of the new residential quarters began to display even sharper and more explicit confessional undertones. Gradually, Beirut started to lose its unifying character as a city. In other words, no sooner did Beirut assume the proportions of a sizeable urban agglomeration than it was decomposed into separate and distinct communities, each with its own schools, charitable and benevolent societies, hospitals and political and social clubs. Even dai­ ly newspapers and other periodicals and popular publications, which at the turn of the century had already become much too num erous for the size of the population, reflected the distinctive segmental character of each of the three communities.10 There were, no doubt, a few notable instances when Christians and Muslims transcended their communal differences and participated collectively in underground political movements and secret societies. This was particularly true during the period of national struggle against Ottom an repression and centralization of the Young Turks. On the whole, however, the initiative and nature of voluntary associations was communal and local in character. In this sense, Beirutis were never given the chance to experience full urbanity for a period of time sufficient to permit the development and appreciation of civic ties and secular interests. Primordial affini­ ties, particularly those sustained by family, village and communal loyalties, found ample opportunity to reinforce their identities in the newly emerging urban localities. Three such broad communities, almost distinct subcultures of their own, have always com peted to dominate the urban ethos of Beirut.

Ras-Beirut A drift

Tl

Ashrafiyya was exclusively Christian, attracting mostly G reek Orthodox and M aronite families. It grew into a homogeneous residen­ tial quarter with definite Francophile leanings in style of life and cultu­ ral orientation. Educational institutions, cultural and recreational cen­ ters were either inspired or directly sponsored by French missions or other European foundations. The architectural style of some o f the exclusive residential mansions and suburban villas of the upper bourgeoisie was unmistakably European in character. And so was the overwhelming mood and tem per of public life. From its inception, Ashrafiyya evolved as a predominantly middle and upper class district with a clear predisposition for laissez-faire, private enterprise and a conservative political culture, sustained by Lebanese nationalist senti­ ments and feelings of Christian supremacy. Basta, on the other hand, was almost entirely Sunni Muslim and of visibly lower socio-economic status. U pper class Muslim notable families and merchants shared much with their Christian counterparts, but on the whole the tem per of the area with its adjoining neighbor­ hoods was much more populist and plebian in character and decidedly pro-Arab in political orientation. Benevolent and charitable associa­ tions, much like the general nature of voluntary organizations, tended to be reactive and reformist in character. Partly as a reaction to missionary incursions and the relative advancement of Christians in other parts of Lebanon, and partly inspired by Islamic secular reform movements, several of these associations played a vital role in the cultural and political life of the area.11 Both Ashrafiyya and Basta, despite their striking differences, re­ mained relatively homogeneous and, until the early 1970’s, continued to be predominantly residential quarters. Ras-Beirut was different in several obvious but significant respects. Since its early years, it has attracted a variety of social groups with diverse socio-economic, ethnic and religious backgrounds. As a result, it developed into an open and cosmopolitan community without any distinct or unifying character. Though predominantly middle class and Anglo-Saxon in life style, it has rem ained, until very recently, a heterogeneous and mixed com­ munity. It is this mixed and open character of Ras-Beirut which accounts for both its genuine pluralism and the distinctive role it has played in the region. As will be seen, the emergence of Ras-Beirut also coin­

78

Samir Khalqf

cided with some overriding socio-cultural and political changes the Arab world was undergoing at the time. Indeed, the mutual tolerance and coexistence between and among the various groups in Ras-Beirut is all the more rem arkable, given the level of sectarian and communal hostility in other parts of Lebanon and the intensity of ideological rivalry elsewhere in the Arab world. To understand more clearly such forces, it is essential to retrace the development of Ras-Beirut, which spans a period of approximately 120 years. Despite the complexity of factors associated with its growth, the urban history of Ras-Beirut appears to fall into three rather dis­ tinct periods or stages of development. The earliest period was largely associated with the establishment of the Syrian Protestant College (SPC) in 1866 and the settled Protestant community and other indige­ nous groups dependent upon it; the second or middle period, rough­ ly between the early 1950’s and early 1970’s, was marked by large-scale and intensive urbanization, the successive inflow of alien groups and foreign capital, and the increasing commercialization of land own­ ership and land-use patterns. During the latter stages of this period Ras-Beirut began to display some of the early symptoms of politiciza­ tion and rivalry between antagonistic groups. The third period covers the civil war, when Ras-Beirut could no longer resist or control the growing magnitude of violence and disorder, and started to succumb to the forces eroding and defacing its pluralistic and open character. RAS-BEIRU T A S A SU BU RBAN COM M UNITY: 1866-1948 Ironically, and not unlike a few of Lebanon’s other edifying fea­ tures, Ras-Beirut is largely a historical accident, more the result of fortuitous circumstances than deliberate planning. What would have happened had not Daniel Bliss decided to persuade the American Board of Commission for Foreign Missions to transform the «city’s garbage dump» into the site of what has become the most disting­ uished American academic institution in the Middle East? No other single factor has been as persistent and instrumental in shaping the growth of Ras-Beirut than the compelling presence of the American University of Beirut. Both the spatial and socio-cultural attributes of the community are, perhaps unwittingly, an unintended consequence of this historic accident. I say unwittingly, because if one re-examines

Ras-Beirut A drift

79

the recorded accounts of the early missionaries and founding fathers of the Syrian Protestant College, as it was called then, it was not their intention to generate all the secular and liberalizing forces Ras-Beirut came to host.12 W hat is unmistakable is that the founding of AUB in 1866 can be clearly singled out as the first instance of institutional invasion of a garden farming area. An indigenous population (roughly not more than 30 households), mostly Sunni Muslims, G reek Orthodox and Druze land owners and tenants, was already in residence in the sparse­ ly-settled neighborhood. Despite sectarian differences, these groups evinced relatively common life styles, similar folkways and a distinct Ras-Beirut dialect. They emerged as a homogeneous group and de­ veloped a strong sense of loyalty and attachm ent to their neighbor­ hood. Though they had an extended residence in an urban and literate setting, the first few generations of this original population rem ained the least-educated and, at least initially, resisted W estern and secular incursions. W hatever socio-economic mobility or elevation in econo­ mic status they enjoyed was largely a by-product of their land own­ ership and the subsequent appreciation of land values and speculation in real estate. We have here, in other words, the nucleus of a truly urban bourgeoisie. Around the turn of the century, AUB’s presence began to attract another group which slowly contributed to the growth of the indigeneous community. Though no doubt a composite group of varied backgrounds, these initial waves of migrants had much in common: mostly Christian families from rural areas who were drawn into RasBeirut by the cultural facilities and employment opportunities AUB was beginning to generate. Initially, the influx of new families was very slow, roughly about four to five families every year.13 Soon after W orld War I, however, their number increased appreciably. A cursory review of real estate transactions shows that a sizeable portion of these fami­ lies had already become land holders in the 1920’s. Along with some of the prom inent Druze families (e.g. Rawdah and Talhuq), G reek Orthodox (e.g. Bassul, Surati, Tarazi, Rubayz, Bikhcazi) and Sunni Muslims (e.g., Itani, Taqush, Yamut, Zantut, Nsuli, N aja,etc.), prop­ erty was being transferred to a growing number of newcomers. Names like Khawli, Dum it, Maqdissi, Rasi, Barudi, Nassar, Nassif, Q urtas, Jurdaq, Kurani, H ajjar, Khuri and Haddad, to m ention a few,

80

Samir Khalaf

began to appear in the cadastral register. They were all Protestants, or more appropriately converted Protestants, who were attached to the University and the burgeoning activities of its affiliated missions. Although not numerous, they constituted a socially significant group, one which was to mold the character of the area for at least the subsequent fifty years. While the early indigenous groups resisted the W estern and missionary incursions and for some time managed to re­ main untouched by them , the new Protestant community was under­ standably receptive to Calvinistic virtues and modes of conduct. They were not only converted to the faith; they also acquired some of the concomitant puritan and Protestant life styles. The so-called «Protes­ tants of Ras-Beirut,» in fact, became a euphemism to define the identity and social character of this new urban community. And it was a community in almost every sense of the term : an orderly, cohesive, God-fearing group, sparked by the frugal habits of work and accounta­ bility, and a strong sense of neighborhood. They m aintained close family ties and acquired a civic-minded concern in the affairs and wel­ fare of their community. Voluntary associations of all kinds ranging from serious political and cultural societies to more mundane orga­ nizations such as boy scouts, Sunday school meetings and women’s auxiliary gatherings in support of charitable causes began to attract wider participation. Education and exemplary behavior were the keys to social mobil­ ity. Despite their modest socio-economic background, the «Protestants of Ras-Beirut» soon emerged as a highly literate and mobile social group. Members of this generation, both surviving and deceased, took pride in recounting their success stories. Two recent autobiographical accounts by Anis Maqdisi and Anis Frayha, two exemplary prototypes of this earlier generation, provide vivid and colorful anecdotes to substantiate such im pressions.14 Both came from humble village origins, were converted to Protestantism and received their college education at AU B. It is there that they were exposed to the Calvinistic ethics and puritanism of the founding fathers and successive generations of devoted scholars and teachers. To Maqdisi and Frayha, like countless other graduates of the period, being at AUB was a total experience. It embraced not only the acquisition of skills, but opportunities for students to try various life styles, to learn from each other, to have their unexamined belief-

Ras-Beirut A drift

81

systems challenged, and, above all, to have association with men who dem onstrated in their lives the values of liberal education and free inquiry. The exposure left an indelible mark on their personalities and future careers. Both earned their Ph.D ’s in the U.S. and returned to AUB to become resourceful and reputable professors of Arabic: Maqdisi as a literary critic and poet and Frayha as a linguist and folklor­ ist. Both were deeply immersed in the communal life of Ras-Beirut and participated in civic and church activities, but both had an impact which extended beyond the narrow confines of their small community. Their successful careers as scholars also served them well in m ore than just the symbolic rewards of status and self-esteem. Like many of their colleagues, they were able to enjoy some of the comforts of elevated standards of living. Most of them , for example, were able to amass considerable wealth, invest in real estate, build commodious houses in Ras-Beirut and in their mountain villages. G early they were able to bequeath to their children much more than they ever inherited from their parents. The Protestants’ elevation in social status and their swift assimila­ tion into the urban community of Ras-Beirut was clearly apparent in the slow but persistent increase in construction activity. The inter-w ar period (between 1920 and 1940) witnessed an intensification of de­ velopment, particularly along the main streets radiating from AUB. Cheap land values encouraged further construction. Suburban villas with red-tiled roofs, walled gardens and well-tended patios em erged as landmarks to stamp the urban character of the whole community. One rem arkable feature about these developments is that despite the spatial and social transform ations the area was undergoing, for over 80 years Ras-Beirut retained its communal and village character. On the whole, the «Protestants» remained a timid and cautious social group, despite their receptivity to secular and W estern styles of life. The typically middle class morality they were imbued with proved effective in generating an achievement ethic, community consciousness and some of the moral dictates of puritanism. But these were hardly sufficient to create the more venturesome attributes necessary to cope with the increasing scale of urbanization and commercialization the area was to witness during the 1950’s and 1960's. One should not, however, misread the nature or m agnitude o f the

82

Samir Khalaf

other social and cultural changes which were slowly becoming entren­ ched or initiated around Ras-Beirut. Spatially, the area retained its suburban character, but the cultural and ideological changes it hosted and reinforced were vital and far-reaching in their impact. In fact, something akin to a «Silent Revolution» was slowly taking place. This was most apparent in the type of questions and issues the burgeoning intelligentsia was beginning to probe and address publicly at the tim e.ls It was also visible in some of the unobtrusive but fundam ental changes in everyday life. Clearly many of these novel ideas and attitudes originated else­ where. O ther parts of Beirut, no doubt, contributed to this cultural and literary awakening. Those articulated around Ras-Beirut, how­ ever, were comparatively richer in variety and scope. By virtue of its openness and proclivity for experim entation, the area served, in fact, as a testing ground for many of the controversial and polemical issues, provocative ideologies and permissive life styles, which the other more cloistered communities hesitated to adopt. This cultural awakening was no doubt heightened by the critical political transformations overwhelming the region at the tim e. This was, after all, the period of national struggle marked by growing hos­ tility towards Ottom an, French, British, Zionist and other colonial and occupying forces.lt was a time of upheaval and bafflem ent, fraught with the fearsome specters of Ottoman oppression, ravages of fam ine, the cruelties of two World W ars, and the hopes and frustrations of the struggle for independence and self-determination. It was during this period that Arab thinkers were grappling with the nagging question regarding the nature of nationalist sentim ents, political identity and cultural heritage and how to forge autonom ous political states without alienating themselves from Pan-Arabist senti­ ments. The traffic in ideas and personages Beirut witnessed during the inter-war period was prodigious, even stupendous, both in num ber and diversity. Three recent autobiographical accounts — A nbara Salam al-Khalidi, Wadad Qurtas, and Munah al-Sulh — recall nostalgically the incessant stream of A rab and other dignitaries who visited Beirut at the time they were growing up, roughly between the two W orld W ars.16 The diversity of books, periodicals, daily newspapers, opinions and world views they were exposed to , was as

Ras - Beirut A drift

83

Hayyiing in its variety as it was far-reaching in its impact. They were equally impressed by the new cultural activities (e.g ., public lec­ tures and debates, organized sports, concerts, youth clubs), awakened national sentiments (participation in political parties, protest move­ ments and street demonstrations and mass rallies), and subtle changes in mannerisms and social behavior (opportunities for the sexes to mix freely, and the appearance of new styles of conduct, etiquette and so­ cial conventions). Ras-Beirut, in particular, because it was able to accommodate waves of itinerant groups and immigrants, was com para­ tively more receptive to such diversity than the other two communities. This was particularly visible in virtually all the m anifestations of popular cultural expressions, just as much as in the m ore serious academic output of local scholars. To a large extent, all the intel­ ligentsia at the time were asking essentially the same questions: Who are we? Who is to blame for our fragmentation? Who are our friends and enemies? W here do we go from here? etc. The answers they gave, however, depending on their own particular socio-political milieu, were strikingly different. For example, members of the French-educated M aronite intel­ ligentsia living mostly in the Eastern suburbs of Beirut, who were fre­ quent contributors to La Revue Phénicienne, had different perceptions of Lebanon's identity and its future than had the Sunni Muslim intelligenstia. The latter were more inclined to espouse Islamic, ProOttoman and ultimately Pan-Arab and Arab Nationalist causes consis­ tent with their political constituency and readership. Furtherm ore, what readers in the Christian suburbs found appeal­ ing in ai~Bashir, their counterparts in the Muslim quarters sought in Thamarat al-Funun, al-Mufid, al-Nida’, al-Nibras, al-Haqiqa etc....T he journals and periodicals around Ras-Beirut — earlier ones such as Kawkab al-Subh al-Munir, al-Nashra al-Usbufiyya, al-Junayna and eventually al-Abhath and al-Kulliyah — were considerably more open to a diversity of viewpoints and world views, more m oderate in their opinions and more receptive to secular and liberal ideas. Incidentally, this is not too unlike the readership and orientations of the three cur­ rent leading dailies of Beirut: al-cAm al, al-Safir, and al-Nahar. They continue to represent the distinct political sub-cultures which pervade the three broad communities in Beirut. The period between the two wars marks also a significant w ater­

84

Samir Khalaf

shed in the cultural and intellectual history of Ras-Beirut. AUB had just survived the economic and political adversities of the two previous decades, having emerged strengthened by the new opportunities and genuine public support for the type of education it was offering. By the early 1940’s, its graduates were already placed in key positions throughout the region (particularly in Sudan, Egypt, Palestine, Trans­ jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Ethiopia) and were eagerly sought by the new governments bent on new programs of reform and m odernization.17 In response to the burgeoning nationalist sentiments and changing political climate in the region, AUB had been secularized in 1920 and had succeeded in reorganizing and extending its curriculum to meet the growing demand for applied and profession­ al training. Its local faculty and staff had achieved rights and privileges (particularly in regard to rank, prom otion, voting privileges e tc ...) which ended the earlier distinctions between so-called Anglo-Saxon and non-Anglo-Saxon teachers and administrators. It was also in this period that the first generation of W esterntrained local scholars started to return to Lebanon. In virtually every discipline or program within AUB — initially in Arabic, history, educa­ tion, and then gradually in the social, physical and medical sciences — a critical mass of resourceful and spirited scholars was emerging to assume a more prominent role in the intellectual life of the community.18 The small nucleus of local scholars (Yaqub Sarruf, Fans Nimr, Jabr Dumit, and Bulus Khawli) who had accompanied the Uni­ versity since its inception, was joined by another handful (M ansur Jurdak, Jurjus and Anis Maqdisi and Philip H itti) at the turn of the cen­ tury. It was not, however, until the 1920’s and 30’s that the first size­ able group of local sholars returned to AUB after receiving their ad­ vanced training in the U.S. The intellectual and cultural life of the com­ munity, as well as the enhanced stature of the University, has not been the same since. The limited scope of this essay does not perm it an adequate recog­ nition of the collective or individual legacy of this generation of scho­ lars. They clearly merit a fuller tribute and a more probing inquiry. A methodical intellectual history will, one day, reveal the seminal and vital character of their contributions and how deeply they have influ­ enced the subsequent course of teaching and research in the region.19 I can only name a few in passing here: Asad Rustum, Constantine

Ras - Beirut A drift

85

Zurayk, Zeine Zeine and Nabih Fans in History; Jibrail Jabbur, Anis Frayha and Kamal Yazigi in Arabic; Charles Malik in Philosophy; Said Hamadeh and Husni Sawwaf in Business Adm inistration; A lbert Badre and George Hakim in Economics; Habib Kurani, George Shahla and Jibrail Katul in Education; Nikula Shahine in Physics; Aziz Abdul-Karim and Adib Sarkis in Chemistry; Philip A shkar, Henry Badeer, Dikran Berberian, Hrarit Chaglassian, George Fawaz, Sami Haddad, Amin Khairallah, Mustafa Khalidi, Nimeh Nucho, Philip Sahyoun and Hovsep Yenikomashian in Medicine; Charles AbouChaar and Amin Haddad in Pharmacy. Just as successive generations of dedicated American scholars were able to inspire and patronize local talent, so did this resourceful and spirited nucleus of local scholars. Much like their American men­ tors, they too devoted the most productive years of their career to the University, and immersed themselves in the life of the community, many of them not leaving AUB until their retirem ent. Their presence served as a source of inspiration to successive generations of younger scholars. More distinctive perhaps, they had a broad and public conception of their role, a feature which extended and deepened the sphere of their influence and enhanced their public image. Partly because of their ex­ ceptional gifts and the unusual circumstances of the tim e, they did not confine their intellectual concerns within the narrow walls of the cam­ pus. They were sparked by a spirit of public service and a longing to participate in debating and resolving the critical problems and public issues the Arab world was facing at the time. This is quite apparent in both the nature of their scholarly output and the extent of their public involvement. While the earlier genera­ tions excelled in establishing local periodicals and popularizing issues (e.g., al-KuIIiyah, al-Muqtataf), addressing themselves primarily to Arab audiences, this «middle generation» extended and international­ ized the scope of their intellectual and professional interests without ignoring the cultural needs of their local and regional constituency. They launched scientific research projects, published in professional foreign journals and produced what were to become standard refer­ ence works for years to come. A cursory review of their bibliography reveals the impressive range and diversity of their intellectual concerns.20 W hat was particularly rewarding, and surviving members of this

86

Samir Khalaf

generation continue to reflect on those years with considerable nostalgia, was the spirit of open dialogue which pervaded and ani­ mated their lives. Intellectuals, like the rest of the community, rarely remained in solitude. There were intim ate circles and personal net­ works to provide a sense of fellowship, cam araderie and solidarity. These circles brought together individuals with diverse backgrounds, ideological leanings and religious denominations. The search for knowledge and devotion to free inquiry helped them to transcend their parochial differences. So did the opportunities to participate in several of the publications, cultural and scientific organizations and voluntary associations which they helped establish. Incidentally, it was out of such small cliques that some of the most resourceful endeavors, distinguished scholars and public figures emerged. O ne such striking instance is the handful of scholars drawn from a variety of disciplines — Said Hamadeh, Charles M alik, Con­ stantine Zurayk, George Hakim, Charles Issawi, Husni Sawwaf, Halim N ajjar, Anis Frayha and Zeine Zeine — who collaborated together in editing volumes and publishing Siisilat al-Abhath al-ljtimaciyya (Series of Social Studies) in the early 1940’s. Similar such collaborative efforts, often sparked by little more than the enthusiam of like-minded col­ leagues, produced other impressive landmarks in the form of journals (al-Abhath, Middle East Forum, Middle East Economic Papers, Berytus), research centers (Economic Research Institute, Middle East A rea Program, Arab Chronology and Documents), international con­ ventions (The Middle East Medical Assembly) and associations (The Alumni Association, al-cUrwa al-Wuthqa, Civic W elfare League). It was during the inter-war period that participation in such activi­ ties, along with the burgeoning facilities for competitive sports, pub­ lic performances, music, art and theater, began to attract wider appeal. As in other more serious endeavors of research, political activ­ ism, welfare and civic-minded concerns, the seemingly m ore frivo­ lous and playful pursuits which often underlie competitive athletics and expressive artistic events also allowed individuals and groups to transcend their parochial identities and melt into a common cosmopoli­ tan sub-culture. Actually, many of these activities beginning in the late 1940's, even the benign recreational and cultural clubs on the AUB cam pus, be­ came highly politicized. Most prominent among these were al-cUrwa al-

Ras‘ Beirut A drift

87

Wuthqa (The Close Bond) and the Civic W elfare League. The form er was formed in 1918 to promote and encourage the study of A rab cul­ ture. The latter, established in 1933, was likewise part of a rural de­ velopment program with both the apolitical cultural and intellectual expressions that Ras-Beirut was beginning to host. Once again, in other words, there was room for everyone. It was precisely this open and cosmopolitan milieu which en­ hanced Ras-Beirut’s appeal and stature. Liberals from other communi­ ties in Lebanon and elsewhere in the A rab world converged on it in successive waves and in increasingly large numbers. Munah al-Sulh, a prom inent Sunni Muslim liberal and political analyst, singles out this same feature in accounting for his own political socialization. He pays tribute to his teachers at the Islamic Maqasid of Beirut (e.g., Zaki Naqqash, Umar Farrukh, Ibrahim cAbd al-cAl) for sharpening his awareness of the Arab heritage. He also notes with pride the influ­ ence of popular journalists and political activists (e.g., cAbd al-Q adir al-Qabbani, Abd al-Ghani al-'TJraysi, Ahmad Tabbara, Ahm ad Abbas etc...) in intensifying his nationalist sentim ents. But then he goes on to admit it was at AUB, at Faysal’s restaurant, at the A rab Cultural Club and in the private homes of his Protestant friends that he became cognizant of other «voices» and novel modes of conduct.21

IN TE N SIV E U R B AN IZATIO N A N D C O M M ERC IALIZATIO N : 1948-1974 The first evidence of an increasing scale of urbanization as mea­ sured by the intensity of construction activity did not really begin in Beirut until early in the 1950’s. Until then, the city continued to assume its horizontal, even skyline with the traditional suburban villas overwhelming the urban scene. The intensity and pace of urbanization was not evenly spread throughout the city. Ras-Beirut, both spatially and culturally, was considerably more open than the other communi­ ties, enabling it to accommodate the growing demand for urban space. Since no confessional or ethnic group had complete dominance over the area, Ras-Beirut became particularly receptive to successive waves of marginal Anglo-Saxon groups, who could not have had an easy entry into other communities. The sweeping sociocultural, political and commercial transform a-

88

Samir Khalaf

tions the area witnessed during the 1950’s and 1960’s, reinforced and complemented, at least initially, the cosmopolitan and pluralistic char­ acter of Ras-Beirut. To a large extent, this is the point when RasBeirut ceased to be synonymous, culturally and intellectually, with AUB. Beginning in 1948, waves of Palestinian migrants started taking up residence in the area. Political events in both Syria and Egypt, particu­ larly after the Suez crisis of 1956, generated another influx. Arm enian refugees, particularly professionals and semi-professional groups who had settled elsewhere in Lebanon (after the massacres of 1914), also started to converge on Ras-Beirut. Despite their divergent backgrounds and the varying circum­ stances underlying their uprootedness, all these groups had much in common: they were drawn predominantly from highly literate, urban and middle-class families with Anglo-Saxon traditions and a predis­ position for socio-economic mobility. Though they were all displaced groups, they retained little of the attributes of refugee and marginal communities. They evinced, from the very beginning, a noticeable readiness to be assimilated into Ras-Beirut. They were also in­ strumental in accelerating the pace of change by adding to and en­ riching the cultural and economic vitality of the area. The upper and middle-class Palestinians, many of whom managed eventually to ac­ quire Lebanese citizenship, brought with them professional skills; a comparatively high proportion of them were professors and university graduates. A mere listing of a few of the names of those who joined the University during the 1950’s indicates how vital this generation of Palestinians has been in upgrading the quality of professional and intel­ lectual life of the area.22 Not only AUB, but other colleges, schools and cultural centers were going through a period of growth and expansion. The inflow of capital from the Gulf and the concomitant speculation in real estate provided other employment opportunities. In addition to providing a handy reservoir of professional talent, Palestinians (and this is also true of Egyptians and Syrians who left the UAR after episodes of nationalization of private enterprise) ventured into profitable and en­ terprising sectors of the economy. This was particularly visible in bank­ ing, insurance, business services and retail. The Intra Bank, A rabia Insurance Co., and other consulting and contracting firms (such as D ar Al-Handasa and ACE) come to mind. Armenians were equally re-

Ras - Beirut A drift

89

sourceful. They, too, contributed their own ethnic and occupational skills, particularly in professional and semi-professional vocations such as pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, photography, electronics, etc. By the late 1950's, Ras-Beirut was already displaying all the char­ acteristic features of increasing commercialization and rapid growth. Urbanization was so swift, in fact, that in less than two decades the spatial character of Ras-Beirut was almost totally transformed. Mount­ ing pressure for urban space, the invasion of commercial establish­ ments and the sharp rise in land values and speculation in real estate resulted in large-scale construction and corporate financing. The attractive red-tiled villas, which once graced the suburban landscape, soon gave way to a more intensive form of land utilization. Towering structures in reinforced concrete with glittering glass facades and pre­ fabricated aluminum frames began to overwhelm the urban scene. The sense of neighborhood and the homogeneous residential quarters which housed regular and stable families were also threatened by a more impersonal form of residence, such as single men’s apartments, furnished flats and rooming houses to accommodate a growing itinerant population. It was not uncommon, for example, to have the basement of a building utilized as a stereo-club, bar or night­ club, or possibly a garage or warehouse; the ground floor as a movie house, side-walk café, restaurant or display parlor; the first few floors as bank and financial premises, executive and administrative branch offices of foreign companies, marketing research outfits, insurance companies, transportation and airline agencies, single or collective doctor’s clinics, offices of other professionals, side by side with shops, Swedish massage institutes, haute couture and fashion shops; and the upper floor utilised for residential units, penthouse apartments and roof gardens.23 Gradually, Ras-Beirut started to lose its cohesive and wholesome character as a residential neighborhood and became, instead, a temp­ ting ground for sightseers, shoppers, tourists and other transient groups, who sought refuge in its anonymity and permissive outlets for casual and titilating forms of entertainment. In turn, these changes carried with them some of the concomitant by-products of rapid urba­ nization: a higher incidence of personal deviance and social disorga­ nization and a relaxation in sexual norms and standards of public morality.

90

Samir Khalaf

Despite these inevitable transformations, the area remained, until the early 1970’s, the most dominant and arresting urban center in the Arab World. It retained its mixed composition and displayed, because of rampant consumerism, an even greater propensity to experiment with novel forms of cultural expression. The commercialization of popular culture as profitable ventures, reinforced by a permissive poli­ tical climate and free and uncensored media, encouraged further eclec­ ticism and sensationalism. The highbrow exclusive periodicals of the early 1960’s (e.g., Hiwar, Mawaqif, Shcir, al-Adab, al-Adib, al-Fikr) were supplemented by a plethora of new tabloids and glossy maga­ zines. Even daily newspapers broadened their coverage to reach the growing pseudo-intellectual interests of its readership. Many, for ex­ ample, started publishing literary and cultural supplements. Art, theatre, music and dance displayed a variety of genres rang­ ing from serious surrealistic expression to mediocre manifestations of poor taste and low esthetic standards. Traditional folklore, arts and crafts were not spared. They too, were victimized by the ethos of cash and excessive commercialization. Publishing houses, with an eye to quick returns, were also eager to publish almost anything. Book exhibits became celebrated events and book stores continued to sell, despite the inevitable debasement of literary standards, perhaps the richest possible variety of books and periodicals found anywhere in the Arab World. AUB was no longer an exclusive cultural sanctuary. Other centers and outlets emerged to satisfy this aroused appetite for popular cul­ ture, ideas and ideological discourse. Politically-motivated cultural and information centers, sponsored by adjacent Arab regimes and ideolo­ gical groups, established their own programs and publications, or subsi­ dized particular newspapers (e.g., D irasatcArabiyya, Journal o f Pales­ tine Studies, Dirasat Filastiniyya, Shu’un Filastiniyya, al-Hawadith etc.). So did many of the foreign embassies and their affiliated cultu­ ral missions: The Kennedy Center, British Council, Goethe Institute, University Christian Center, Italian, Spanish and Russian cultural cen­ ters, Arab Cultural Club, Islamic Cultural Center, etc. — all contri­ buted to the diversity of «voices» and «scripts.» More important, one was at liberty to listen and incorporate what he heard. As scholars pursued their research and teaching in an atm osphere of intellectual freedom, so did the growing ranks of free-lance writers,

Ras-Beirut A drift

91

editorialists, columnists and opinion makers. Caustic political humor became a popular pastime. Ziyad Rahbani’s gifted sketches and music­ al comedies, portraying the deepening pathologies of Lebanon’s plural­ ism and the futility of sectarian violence, were reminiscent of Omar al-Zicinni’s biting poetic ditties of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Such popular and other pseudo-intellectual «voices» became more audible and appealing. Some, in fact, were beginning to overwhelm those of the more serious and dispassionate scholars. The restless and baffled among the young read the musings of Unsi al-Hajj and Adonis with the same intensity that earlier generations had approached Con­ stantine Zurayk’s essays on Arab Nationalism or René Habachi’s dis­ courses on existential philosophy. It was intellectually fashionable to be engagé. There was an air of chic about it. The avant-garde, of all shades, flaunted their causes célèbres with considerable abandon and self-indulgence. They, too, had their own networks and social circles. Sidewalk cafés, snack bars and restaurants, much like the formal head­ quarters of other explicit groups, became identified with particular kinds of intellectual and ideological clients and sub-cultures. In short, despite the inevitable commercialization and politiciza­ tion of cultural and intellectual expressions, Ras-Beirut remained an exuberant place to be in. Diversity, once again, animated and enriched life in the community. It allowed groups to lead divergent lives yet live side by side.

R AS-B EIR U T DEFORM ATION: 1975-1985 The deformations associated with the outbreak of civil hostilities in 1975 are far too complex and profound in their manifestations and consequences to be adequately discussed here. For over a decade RasBeirut, like the rest of the country, has been subjected to some of the most bizarre and barbaric forms of reckless violence, protracted chaos and decadence. I have chronicled some of these disquieting features elsewhere,24 particularly those which have exacerbated the already enfeebled civility and contributed to the impoverishment and demoralization of public life. I have also identified how segments of the intelligentsia are reacting to and coping with the forces which wreaked havoc in their private lives and usurped their liberalizing

92

Samir Khal90 fighting almost inevitable.

116

Rashid Khalidi

NOTES 1 • A. Hourani, «Lebanon: The Development of a Political Society,» in The Em ­ ergence o f the M odem M iddle East (London, 1981), pp. 124-141. 2. On Egyptian and Russian intervention in the Levant from 1770 to 1775, see P.M. Holt, Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, 1516-1922: A P olitical H istory (London, 1966), pp. 96-99; D. Crecelius, The R oots o f M odem E gypt: A Study o f the Regim es o f cA li Bey al-K abir and Muhammad Bey A bu al-D hahab, 1760-1775 (Minneapolis, 1981), pp. 64-103, 158-68; and K. Salibi, The M odem H istory o f Lebanon (New York, 1965), pp. 14-16. For Fakhr al-Din see Ibid., p. 3. 3. For more on the 1860 crisis, and the background to it, see Ibid; W. R. Polk, The

4.

O pening o f South Lebanon, 1788-1840: A Study o f the Im pact o f the W est on Ote M iddle East (Cambridge, 1963); C. Churchill, The D ruzes and the M aronites under the Turkish Rule from 1840 to I860 (New York, 1973); and D. Chevalier, L a Société du M ont Liban a l’époque de ta Révolution Industrielle en Europe (Paris, 1971). On French influence and the Mandate period, see J. Spagnolo, France and O tto­ man Lebanon, 1861-1914 (London, 1977); W. Shorrock, French Im perialism and the M iddle East: The Failure o f Policy in Syria and Lebanon, 1909-1914 (Madi­ son, 1976); S. H. Longrigg, Syria and Lebanon under French M andate (London, 1958); and A. Hourani, Syria and Lebanon: A P olitical Essay (London, 1946). The economic roots of French Policy can be followed in J. Thobie, Intérêts et im ­ perialism e français dans l ’Em pire Ottom an, 1895-1914 (Paris, 1977).

5. On this conflict, see F. Qubain, Crisis in Lebanon (New York, 1962); R. Murphy, D iplom at Am ong W arriors (Garden City, 1964), pp. 396-406; and W.C. Eveland, Ropes o f Sand: A m erica’s Failure in the M iddle East (New York, 1980), pp. 248306. 6. Works dealing with the post-1975 war include: K. Salibi, Crossroads to C ivil W ar (New York, 1976); W. Khalidi, Conflict and Violence in Lebanon (Cambridge, 1979); M. Deeb, The Lebanese C ivil War (New York, 1980); I. Rabinovich, The War fo r Lebanon, 1970-1984 (Ithaca, 1985); and R. Khalidi, Under Siege: P L O Decisionm aking during the 1982 War (New York, 1986). 7. Syria’s role is discussed in the sources cited above and in A. Dawisha, Syria and the Lebanese C risb (London, 1979). 8. Israel's role is treated in the sources cited in n. 6, and in J. Randal, G oing A ll the Way (New York, 1984); and Z. Schiff and E. Ya’ari, Israel’s Lebanon W ar (New York, 1984). As to motivations for the 1982 invasion, A. Yaniv and R. Lieber argue that «from the perspective of the Begin government, a PLO with a respectable image was a more dangerous opponent than an apparently militant PLO» in «Personal Whim or Strategic Imperative? The Israeli Invasion of Leba­ non,» International Security, 8 (1983), p. 135. 9. U.S. involvement is analyzed in Randal, G oing A ll the Way; G. Ball, E rror and Betrayal in Lebanon (Washington, 1984); and N. Chomsky, Fateful Triangle (Bos­ ton, 1983). Its origins are traced in R. Khalidi, Under Siege. 10. (Oxford, 1965). 11. At least 182 factions, groups and other actors were enumerated in the context of an unpublished study of the conflict in Lebanon by S. Khalaf, a former Professor of

External Intervention in Lebanon

117

Sociology at the American University of Beirut. The country has 17 officially recog­ nized religious sects. 12. See K. Salibi, M aronite Historians o f M edieval Lebanon (New York, 1980) and Salibi's important article. «The Traditional Historiography of the Maronites,» in B. Lewis and P.M. Holt, eds.. Historians o f dte M iddle East (London, 1962), pp. 212*225. See also A. Hourani, «Lebanon: Historians and the Formation of a National Image,» in his The Emergence, pp. 149*169. 13. This traditional interpretation of Lebanese history is faithfully reflected in many Western works: e.g., H. Smith et al., Area H andbook on Lebanon (Washington D.C., 1974), pp. 25-43. 14. In the words of Hourani, «That little should have been written about the Sunnis or the Orthodox in Lebanon is not surprising, since for them Lebanon had never been a significant entity, still less the centre of their cultural life.» See his «Lebanon: Histo­ rians,» pp. 158-159, See also the similar comments of Salibi on the Sunnis and Orthodox, in his M odem H istory o f Lebanon, p. xxv. 15. The recent crisis has inspired the writing of much revisionist history in Beirut, in which the publications of the Lebanese University, the Institute for Arab Develop­ ment, the Arab Research Institute, and the Center for Arab Unity Studies stand out. See, e.g., A. Beydoun, Identité confessioneUe et tem ps social chez les histo­ riens Libanais contemporains (Beirut, 1984); Wajih Kawtharani, Bilad al-Sham (Beirut, 1980); and E. Khuri, ed., al-M asihiyyun al-TArab: dirasat wa m unaqashat (Beirut, 1981). There has also been renewed interest in local history: See for exam­ ple, Safhat min tarikh Jabal cA m il (Beirut, 1979). 16. For more on Iranian influence on Lebanese Shica during an earlier period, see T. Khalidi, «Shaykh Ahmed cAref al-Zayn and al-eIrfan» in M. Buheiry, ed., Intel­ lectual L ife in the A rab East, 1890-1939 (Beirut, 1981), pp. 110-124; for the more recent period, see the extensive writings of R. Augustus Norton. 17. This is discussed in D. Hopwood, The Russian Presence in Syria and Palestine: Church and Politics in the M iddle East (Oxford, 1969). 18. For the 1912 and World War I episodes, interviews with cAnbara Salam al-Khalidi, Beirut. May 1979; August 1982. Related material from these interviews covering pte-World War I Sunni attitudes in Beirut can be found in R. Khalidi, «cAbd al-Ghani al-cUraisi and al-M ufid: The press and Arab Nationalism before 1914,» in Buheiry, ed., Intellectual Life, pp. 38-61. 1 9 . This is the central thesis of Randal’s Going A ll th eW a y.lt is supported by the recent writings of a number of historians of Lebanon including Salibi and Buheiry. See the latter’s «Bulus Nujaym and the Grand Liban Ideal 1908-1919,» in Intellectual Life, pp. 62-83, esp. pp. 78-83, for an idea of the diversity of opinion on this and other issues among Maronite intellectuals at the turn of the century. 20. See I. Harik, Politics and Change in a Traditional Society: Lebanon, 1711-1845 (Princeton, 1968), and Salibi, M odem H istory o f Lebanon. 21. A classic work on one aspect of the demography of Lebanon and the region is A. Hourani, M inorities in the A rab W orld (London, 1947). See also Y. Courbage and P. Fargues, La situation dém ographique au Liban, 2 vols. (Beirut, 1973-74); and J. Chamie, Religion and Population Dynam ics in Lebanon (Ann Arbor, 1977). 22. For the regional background to the 1958 war, see P. Seale, Struggle For Syria, and

118

Rashid Khalidi

the earlier chapters of M. Kerr, The A rab C old War: G am al ‘A b d al-Nasir and his 3rd ed. (New York. 1971). A recent example of its intensity is the speech by Walid Jumblat to the Syrian Ba'th Party Congress in January 1985, where he 0;48, equiva­ lent to e > 12°.16 The condition: A X + ß > 12° is attested in only one other source known to me, namely, an (Iraqi?) zij based on the work of the twelfth-century Iraqi astronom er alFahhad.17 If the predictions for sensitive cases in the table were correct, it was only by chance. It was such astronomers who gave the profession a bad name and who caused the legal scholars, who were responsible for the actual regulation of the calendar, to disregard their pronounce­ ments, a tradition which has persisted up to the present day. THE TABLES IN THE CAIRO M ANU SCRIPT Plates 6-8 show a set of similar tables preserved in MS Cairo D ar

238

David A. King

al-Kutub sincfa 166, 2, fols. 40r-41r.18 The tables are probably of Egyptian provenance, and serve each month of the six-year period 1125-30 Hijra (= 1713-18). The thirteen columns in the tables bear the following titles: asma' al-ahilla: the names of the crescents (= the names of the Muslim months) calamat layali 'l-ghurra: the signa (numbers 1-7 representing the days of the week) corresponding to the evenings of first visibility cadad al-ayyam hisaban: the day of the civil month (according to the standard scheme of alternating 29 and 30 days for the Muslim months with occasional leap years) for which visibility is to be determ ined (1 or 2) muqawwam qamar al-ru’ya: the lunar longitude at the time of the first visibility (given in signs, degrees and minutes) al-card: the lunar latitude (given in degrees and minutes) jihat al-card: the direction of the lunar longitude (sh = shamal = north or j = janub = south of the ecliptic), and whether it is increasing (d = za ’id) or decreasing (t = habit). Thus jt = southerly decreasing, etc. qaws al-nur: the arc of light, i.e. the apparent angular distance be­ tween the sun and the moon, e (given in degrees and minutes) daqa’iq al-nur: the minutes of light, L qaws al-ru’ya irtifafuhu: the altitude corresponding to the arc of visibil­ ity, i.e. the altitude of the moon at first visibility, h (given in degrees) qaws al-makth: the arc of tarrying, i.e. the difference in setting times of the sun and moon over the local horizon, s (given in degrees and minutes) al-manzila: the lunar mansion corresponding to the lunar longitude, together with a number (from 1 to 13) representing the moon’s posi­ tion within the mansion al-sifa: the orientation of the crescent relative to the local horizon (b = muntasib = erect, i.e. roughly perpendicular to the horizon; / = munharif - inclined; y = mustawi = straight, i.e. roughly parallel to the horizon)

U m ar Crescent Visibility

239

hukm al-ru’ya: the verdict concerning visibility: the crescent will be seen clearly (yura zahiran or bayyinan); it will be seen faintly (khafiyan); it will probably be seen (ghaliban); visibility will be difficult (casurat al-ru’ya [text has csr but the subject is feminine ] ); and the crescent will not be seen at all (la yura abadan). There are several obvious copyist’s mistakes {e.g. L and h in IX 1126 and h in X I 1126) and some of the predictions are muddled: when conditions are excellent, it is said that visibility is only probable (e.g. Ill 1125). Also it is not clear how the quantity h was computed. Notice also that the solar longitude at visibility is not given, so that it is not feasible to attem pt to reconstruct the calculations. One could, of course, compute the actual values of the various quantities tabulated using modern tables, but I have considered this beyond the call of duty. If the tables were prepared specifically for Cairo, they might have been computed using solar and lunar ephem erides based on the recension by the fifteenth-century Egyptian astronom er Ibn Abi ’1-Fath al-Sufi of the Zij-i Sultani of Ulugh Beg of Samarqand, which was the most popular zij in Egypt during the Ottoman period.19 On the other hand, they may have been computed using ephem erides generated by the auxiliary tables associated with the fifteenth century Egyptian astronomer Ibn al-M ajdi.20 Since the tables shown in Plates 6-8 display values of the minutes of light (L), the difference in setting times of the two luminaries (s), and the altitude of the crescent (h), it is reasonable to suppose that the conditions used to determine visibility involved these three quantities. There is, as yet, no published material on the various visibility theories used by Mamluk and Ottoman astronomers which are described in their numerous surviving writings, but conditions involving these three quantities e, s and h were indeed recorded by a series of such astronomers.21 However, these conditions predict only whether or not the crescent will be seen, not how it will be seen. Conditions covering different stages of visibility (lifted from the Zij-i Ilkhani com­ piled at the Observatory of Maragha in the m id-thirteenth century) are recorded in the Zij-i Sultani and Egyptian (Arabic) versions thereof, but these involve only the quantities A X and s.22 There seems to be little point in trying to determine the conditions for visibility which might underlie our tables until the contemporary Egyptian m aterials on crescent visibility theory have been properly investigated.

240

David A. King ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is a pleasure to thank the authorities of the Egyptian National Library in Cairo for unlimited access to their enormous holdings of Islamic scientific manuscripts and for permission to use the photographs illustrating this paper. Likewise, I am grateful to the authorities of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence for the facilities afforded to me within the Library and for permission to use the photograph used as Plate 5. My research on lunar crescent visibility theory conducted at New York University was sup­ ported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. This support is gratefully acknowledged. It is also a pleasure to acknowledge my gratitude to my colleagues, Prof. E.S. Kennedy and Dr. Jan Hogendijk, for their comments on a pre­ liminary draft of this paper.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND ABBREVIATIONS al-Biruni, Tafhim: R.R. Wright, trans., The Book o f Instruction in the Elements o f the A rt o f A strology b y ... al-Biruni (London, 1934). Cairo Survey: D.A. King, A Survey o f the Scientific Manuscripts in the Egyptian N ational Library, Publications of the American Research Center in Egypt (Winona Lake, Ind., 1986). E f : The Encyclopedia o f Islam, 4 vols, to date (Leiden, 1960). Goldstein A Pingree: B.R. Goldstein and D. Pingree, «Astrological Almanacs from the Cairo Geniza,» Journal o f Near Eastern Studies, 38 (1979), pp. 153-175 and 231256, and Journal o f the American Oriental Society, 103 (1983), pp. 673-690. Ilyas: M. Ilyas, A M odem Guide to Astronom ical Calculations o f Islam ic Calendar, Times and Qibla (Kuala Lumpur, 1985). Kennedy et al., Studies: E.S. Kennedy, Colleagues and Former Students, Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences, Publications of the American University of Beirut (Beirut, 1983). Kennedy Festschrift: D.A. King and G. Saliba, eds.. From Deferent to Equant: Studies in the H istory o f Science in the Near East in H onor o f E.S. Kennedy, A nnals o f the New York Academ y o f Science, 1986. Kennedy, Zifes: E.S. Kennedy, «A Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables,» Transac­ tions o f the American Philosophical Society, 46:2 (1956). King, IM A: D.A. King, Islamic Mathematical Astronom y (London, 1986).

King, LCV: D.A. King, «Some Early Islamic Tables for Determining Lunar Crescent Visibility,» in Kennedy Festschrift. King, M AY: D.A. King, Mathematical Astronom y in M edieval Yemen: A B iobibliographical Survey, Publications of the American Research Center in Egypt (Malibu, Calif, 1983). Menage: V.L. Menage, «The Beginnings of Ottoman Historiography,» in B. Lewis and P.M. Holt, eds.. Historians o f the M iddle East (London, 1962).

Lunar Crescent Visibility

241

Figue 1: The sun and moon at sunset on the evening of first visibility, which occurs shortly after sunset. The difference in ecliptic longitudes is shown as A Xand the lunar latitude as ß . Most medieval visibility predictions involved the apparent angular separa­ tion of the two luminaries, e, and the difference in setting times of the sun and moon, s, measured on the celestial equator. Some also involved the altitude of the moon at sun­ set, h, or at the moment of visibility. Most medieval theories asserted that only if s, or each of s and e, or each of s, e and h, were greater than certain prescribed minimum values, would the crescent be seen.

242

David A. King

g»

>C*

3

' - v

X

r ^

T > L 3 f t :) A-

v/x-r* .;T7»L «;>ir>r-v M-Jfffi ■**" ,lK-< ’ j

-

’z

J j i r ^

l

-— ^ U û * lv ^ T ^Z ô w & s ' ^

ï s p

s æ

s ^

- V

-

Î 1

^ 7 A ** 'v*.« • j frn )— A ** > té îk /^ -û -û J . _ .,. . . ;« ♦ i n ,^ t 4 A ^ ^ ^

«K X

ï

A

* T ^«*:T^ *J l*

4-

| J _«*? M - .«M_

SK W r ïî E *.VS* . s r & V ä ! * 3

9

—

^

^

«

*

4

3 l 1 > .U i^ ^ v j— ^ ^

jî

V*

Îîfi-W K .^U t3 * n * * J f

v

\ r \

.^* 3 J

•

w

' ^

>

“ ^

\

4

m

a

^ V

.

0 ^ -KJ O - A •> fc :

\ r a , - * i - * n ^ > r ^ •■^-=> 5, ^ Î s

V *. ^ U ," •*

Plate 1: An extract from the fourteenth-century Yemeni ephemeris in MS Cairo Dar al-Kutub m iqat 817, 1, fol. 77v.

Lunar Crescent Visibility

243

Plate 2: An extract from the astrological information recorded opposite the solar, lunar and planetary ephemerides shown in Plate 1. Taken from MS Cairo Dar al-Kutub m iqat 817, 1, fol. 78r.

244

David A. King

Plate 3: The introductory pages of a seventeenth-century Egyptian ephemeris showing orientations of the crescents for each month relative to the horizon of Cairo. Taken from MS Cairo Dar al-Kutub m iqat 141, 3, fols. 21v-22r.

Lunar Crescent Visibility

-*

. ^ y ù À / j / j iV>

•V- *1

hyfys

***

245

il __1

.W > r trfT?

I

j»»)«

»w

VW * ^ ;'

j^ j^ / / '^ -^ •' "W*. f

.. ùÇ, i.W>/ jJt/7/ ^ / / / '- X /" ,

j. i^ïi>Jtir*/i}> Ÿ&)> ^ f / \ ? }. *-*-!< W o -ci# n^V r >0 *fA ^* * £ > > .,: , ^ ' j \ i M h x » ,t j ) ï i j - r & w * Z - ' J # yyiy, »yl'r CJ 9MÎ: l

,J M

€

i

i

o

v^l

»

t

i

J

Plate 4: A Persian ghurrat-name for the years 1086-88 Hijra (= 1675-78). Taken from MS Cairo Talcat m ajam f 298, 7, fol. 55r.

246

David A. King

'i

\/\

r

-v .>,

L

*'r>Jk

>£

-

" .MrLi^O

t>^-w y L/*’

SpS b .10355

*~i — 1

s> ' y > A,ii^ v ; vm^K >.y*^vv j

1■1 Y y * V- •-• •>. I ^ »» V, J> 7 f’S S7 W «— ** *» É îT
*->t d i J_ c** & DtÇ vU.j XTj-» r ' Ejr Î3T r P ' & bjtt E L y J 4 - iaJ»! y*j»« i J r & 3y Jo j- *4*. *7F 0 ^ r J •al^ Uls!r La 1 \'P> L* 1J jj > L e'- Jjj. i J ola^ oJ ry Ù»•Jw. u > EC7 r «J» O * £ )U > W rJ j w t ' E j *j w rl>t ZJT "Cdfjr •A* u> J>7 r *? C i L6 * U i* » ->XJ r 1**^ Irô Û 7 JX^ >*•;F*ë r |yu l*J»> L >•> ±*j\» Y ! ♦ % '0 0 7 >\A»|4j 4t rtV j* 4«^..| j — vÇrZ ^ L y> • t: lli;! Cl U - * -* y* W»>' y OT I Cl 3 i > ,J JÛ W ^ i 0 O •fr> s b #^ ÏJtF " JU_» - j j l r z . Jb- 4^) ^ * 1 t y ^ h 1 r ’A Y* ♦ L u yU -Ab*a JJ V> JL. >K O vCC" jl* r y A» ü i 6 '4 ^ Vy >■* 4y r • t> 1 $

L

A

j

*

'S \ r2 •>l^

OU % ùLê» wJ "X ^ -> I'> ly y ' U tt, ul> lrù'jrv *-*r * _rf c i 1;1 t l l ^ r j fc ' U ’ü i* U4. * >« / * L V r T *— »• «a ô U i-'VY Ô v*jo » U 6*- J^> % Vy 4* *5Ca r y ùU* EF e L U , -ù ÿ /* > t • J î j i & ûvy HUull ^Â J y r fi & P ) ? f i* L>r A - *6» «**U 4~ i V i *-> l»4* Xil

^ J lr *

LUili > o j *

t

P 4i

JU

pt

\M

1 ‘* *> \r< P

i

4

■ •ci

I I 4 * '! s 3 t V iï m 5TE1 X. JUj •> U r le. «ko U/ A 11* 4U>1 r A '6 ' j » • » /l ii 1 r e •—•i ^•Ol r ■jr '>!► L M* « » /l i * K 1» -4 • floLP r * i'-UJL. U , * U # fi ju H i JU >JA r i ; 1 j FS » P •_•

k

■a }—*1 ■ ç > tr J «rkJ?

in u t; la u ; t \i/V

ia u \;

i» jj ■C. AO f i t 4* UV. c . t> W i W iw *-i>* * r 1 f = L AjWÏa 4* lA- 44« k 2-v < A -»ill* t ^ -> jJ 4«^ L -« « L p* • C4* L / a W i L>> O L» là» é AX U JU J) y»^ i '

V 'k v U liV •• .•

-- rJlU-

55

\

i m

r r r r

•er

j j rS *>

w rd t r p' ^ e r r 0 •jU* »

t 4-1»j y JU> > i> r -> jL*« 4*i►O y w i A > i . 1 . j jT y

2

l r ^ I3 3 ïf »Aa JbL y> 1 :£ d î £

249

250

David A. King

NOTES 1. Most modem studies of lunar crescent visibility were conducted by Prof. E.S. Ken* nedy of the American University of Beirat and his students. See, for example, the various monographs reprinted in Kennedy et al., Studies, pp. 140*143 and 131-163, and my contribution to the Kennedy Festschrift (listed as King, LC V and containing an extensive bibliography). 2. A recent work on the subject by a Muslim astronomer, the first of its kind, is listed as Ilyas. 3. See, for example, Kennedy et a l., Studies, p. 159. 4. See Kennedy, Zijes, p. 140 and the article M atal? in E f . 3. Numerous tables based on the condition r 5» 12° are investigated in King, LCV. For Yacqub ibn Tariq’s conditions, see Kennedy e n d ., Studies, p. 129. 6. See King, LCV, Section 7. See, for example. Kennedy et cd., Studies, pp. 71-74 (Thabit ibn Qurra) and my forthcoming study of the theory of Ibn Yunus. 8. See Kennedy. Zijes, for a survey of some 125 zijes and accounts of the contents of some of the most important ones. 9. al-Biruni, Tafhim, Section 321, pp. 186-191. 10. See Goldstein A Pingree. 11. See Cairo Survey, No. E ll, and King, M AY, pp. 33 and 39 on these two ephemerides. 12. See Cairo Survey, Nos. D209 (Egypt), G112 (Iran), and H78 (Turkey), and King, M AY, p. 13 (Yemen). See also Menage, p. 170 on Ottoman almanacs. 13. See R.A.K. Irani, «Arabic Numeral Forms,» repr. in Kennedy et al.. Studies, pp. 710-721. 14. The facing page is numbered 46, but my notes on this manuscript indicate that the ephemeris is contained in fols. 145r-155r. 15. It was in this region that the Shamil Z ij (Kennedy, Zijes, No. 29; see also Nos. 40, 36 and 73) was used. This work, extant in several copies, is currently being investi­ gated by my colleague Dr. Jan Hogendijk. 16. When L « 0;47 (line 8), the prediction is negative; when L * 0;51 (line 1), it'is positive. Notice that in the entry for Shawwal 863 (line 5), L = 0;48, but the word la » «not» in the prediction has been crossed out. 17. See King, LCV, Section 7 (f). On the Zijes of al-Fahhad, see Kennedy, Z ijes, p. 176 (index). 18. See Cairo Survey, No. D226. The other work contained in this manuscript is a trea­ tise on mechanical clocks by the sixteenth-century Istanbul astronomer Taqi 1-Din: see Cairo Survey, No. H12, sub 7.1.6. 19. See Kennedy, Zijes, Nos. 12 and 107, and D.A. King, «The Astronomy of the Mamluks,» repr. in idem, IM A, III, esp. p. 536. 20. See E.S. Kennedy and D.A. King, «Ibn al-Majdi's Tables for Calculating Ephemerides,» repr. in King, IM A, VI. 21. Kushyar ibn Labban (fl. Iran, ca. 1000; see Kennedy, Zijes, Nos. 7 and 9) advo­ cated the following condition in his Zij: e > 10°, s » 8°, and h 9 6°

Lunar Crescent Visibility

251

His conditions are repeated in the twelfth-century Egyptian Mustalah Z ij (Kennedy, No. 47; King, IM A, HI, pp. 535-536). The fourteenth-century Syrian astro­ nomer Ibn al-Shatir (Kennedy, Zijes, No. 11; King, IM A, p. 536) misquoted Kushyar’s conditions as: e » 10°,r » 12°,'and A > 8°, and noted that «another astronomer» had prescribed: * > HP, r > S’, and * > 7 " . Other Mamluk and Ottoman astronomers such as al-Khalili, Ibn al-Majdi and Taqi ’1-Din proposed similar conditions. 22. The conditions are that provided A X > 1(P, then when: HP < s < 12°, 12° < s « 14°, and s > 14°, the crescent will be seen faintly, moderately clearly, and dearly, respectively. Zijes,

EARLY LEAD-GLAZED WARES IN EGYPT: AN IMPORTED WRINKLE George T. Scanlon American University o f Cairo

If the origin of a technique finds the worlds of art history and archaeo­ logy in opposition to one another, its chronological spread is no less a matter of disputation. At times, the application of the technique, or conversely the disinclination to utilize an imported technique, puzzles the scholar: e.g., why having perfected lustre painting as a decorative device did the Egyptians apply it exclusively, at first, to glass vessels and not to pottery; why did Syrians eschew applying the minai technique on their ceramics though fragments of such wares from Persia have been reported from various loci in the Euphrates area? The tentative replies would be that, in the first instance, they had not developed a glaze which could take the lustre without scor­ ching, and in the second they had already begun enamelling glass. Practically all scholars are agreed that while there was an hiatus in the glazing of ceramics in Egypt, there was none in Iraq and Iran from at least the Parthian through the Sasanian periods.1 Thus we must look to imports from that area for the stimulus behind the reappear­ ance of glazing in Egypt. By careful stratigraphical analysis of undis­ turbed fills of the streets, the pits and the rooms of domestic com­ plexes in Fustat, we have concluded that this process commenced about A.D. 700.2 However, except for two samples of undoubted 8th century manu­ facture demonstrating the typical high relief Sasanian design under our alkaline glaze, we have lacked the ceramic evidence to prove the presence of Iraq/Iran lead-glazed vessels which would have helped trigger the renaissance.3 To date, all of the early lead-glazed vessel shards of the 8th century from Fustat have been made of the same clay (whose composition we will discuss later) even when their decoration echoes schema more commonly associated with Susa and Samarra.4 With this evidence in hand, we have proved that Lane was on the right track when he claimed that Egypt was a major producer of 253

254

George T. Scanlon

lead-glazed wares with moulded relief decoration; we would simply move his chronology back by a century. Are we to assume, then, that glazing reappeared in Egypt ex nihilo, or that having seen the alkaline glazed imports, the potters adopted the technique but used lead glazes? Further it must not be forgotten that the white frit body, familiar from the faience vessels of the high Pharaonic and Ptolemaic periods, was no longer utilized in Late Classical and Christian Egypt. The preference of the latter for the riverain clays which fired in hues from a buff-brown to a light reddishbrown was maintained for at least the first two centuries following the conquest of Egypt in A.D. 639-40. It was this body which was glazed without slipping, slipped and glazed, moulded and glazed, stamped and glazed — butin all cases with lead rather than alkaline glazes. During the 1972 season at Fustat, two matching shards of the lid of a lead-glazed vessel were discovered in a context which, while not probably 8th century, could be later than the 9th century.3 They were thickly encrusted with a very hard sediment, so much so that they were not registered. But the break between the shards displayed a body much different from the usual buff-brown clay encountered heretofore and subsequently. It was of a whitish yellowish sandy tinge, very thick­ ly and tightly potted and with no impurities or occlusions visible to the eye (PI. lc on the right). During the 1978 season, these shards were resurrected and the tight sedimental occlusions crumbled under the cleaning brush. Much of the glaze had discoloured, but it was obvious that it was originally of a darkish green cast and transparent. There does not seem to have been any underslipping; the entire surface was glazed. The decoration was limited to the upper circular surface and was in very low relief (Fig. 1 and PI. la). Though not complete, the overall design is ascertain­ able in four registers: (a) rough uneven scalloping, each scallop unit defined by two roundel shapes, the whole separated by a single raised rib from (b) a set of roundels each, as a whole separated again by a single rib from (c) four scallop units, each with distinctive roundel endings, placed at the cardinal points around (d) a circular central ribbing. The curving edge of the lid carried an arcading similar to the scalloping of (a) above but without the

Early Lead-G lazed Wares

255

roundels, which now appear in the spandrels of the arches. This particular type of decoration is familiar in its discrete ele­ ments, but not in the combination as revealed on this lid. Also, the very low relief makes it quite different from any of the early leadglazed moulded wares from either of Lane’s two source points, viz., Egypt and Iraq/Iran.6 In 1974 the author was shown a surface shard from the area of Jabal Says in al-Hasa Province of Saudi Arabia. At that time he was struck by the similarity of the clay to the shards found at Fustat in 1972 (PI. lc on the left). Once again there was the darkish green lead glaze on all surfaces and the absence of any underslipping. It was no doubt part of the slightly inward sloping straight wall of a flat-bottomed bowl, whose original rim diameter was app. 11.5 cm.7 A slight inden­ tation separated the rim of the bowl (orig. rim. diam 12.4 cm.) from the decorated register (Fig. 2 and PI. lb). The latter was again limited to the external surface and was in very low relief. It consisted of an arcade of scalloped arches, each of which ended in circular concave discs. The spandrel between each two arches contained a «doughnut»-like circular motif; below, the arches are separated by what appears to be an ellipsoidal motif. It is quite surprising to find the scalloped arch so early as a pottery motif, as it is more generally associated with architectural decoration and, in a three dimensional expression, with the architecture of Muslim Spain and Africa. One might surmise that the scallop in this wall fragment is simply an elaboration of the outer continuous looping in Fig. 1, except that its horse-shoe finale bespeaks a more conscious patterning. The site (Jabal Says in al-Hasa Province) can be associated with the famous pilgrimage route from Iraq, the Darb al-Zubayda, which allows one to assume a place of manufacture either in Iraq or in Iran.8 It is obvious from PI. lc that the Fustat fragment and that from Jabal Says are made from what appears to be clay from the same source, a clay which is tightly thrown and which shows no porosity or lévigation upon firing. It is quite distinct in colouring and composition from the buff-brown clay used in the earliest lead-glazed vessels made in Egypt. Samples were subjected to analysis by Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology at Oxford, through the courtesy of Miss Helen Hatcher. Relative to the oxides present in the clays she reports the following:

256

George T. Scanlon

CaO 11.72 11 11.72 11 24.19 0.57

A ljt

(a) Jabal Says sample (b) Fustat Kd sample (c) Fustat buff-brown sample

(Pl.lb) (PI. la) (PI. id)

MgO 6 6 0.66

FeA 6.62 6.20 4.08

TiO, 0.73 0.62 1.75

NajO 0.84 1.69 0.78

K fi

1.87 3.01 1.57

MnO 0.127 0.108 0.015

The only significant scientific difference between (a) and (b) is in the amounts of sodium and potassium oxides, which may be accounted for by the moisture content of the locus in which the sample was found and the length of time it lay there an d /o r by the decompositional penetration of the glaze into the clay, as there was no intervening slip­ ping. But the overwhelming differences between these two and the indigenous buff-brown clay relative to aluminium, calcium, man­ ganese, ferrous, titanium and manganese oxides, clearly indicate two different sources for the clays involved. Hence, if we accept the Jabal Says fragment as originating in the Iraq/Iran area, then the lid fragments from Fustat came from the same source. Though the dating is not as conclusive as we would wish, i. e. clearly 8th century, there can be no doubt that imports of leadglazed relief decorated vessels from Lane's «other source» were avail­ able for the Egyptian potter to examine and to imitate its glazing and decoration. On this slender evidence and regretting the impossibility of assigning an early 8th century dating to the Fustat and Jabal Says samples from a common clay source, we posit that the re-appearance of lead glazing in Egypt ca. A. D. 700 could not have happened exnihilo but resulted, generally and particularly, as a response to glazed imported vessels from that area of the Middle East which had never lost the glazing traditions inherited from its earlier millennial societies, i. e. the Iraq and Iran of Sasanian hegemony.9 (Why the Egyptian — and Syrian — craftsmen eschewed imitating the chronologi­ cally simultaneous alkaline-glazed wares based on a white frittish clay remains a problem presently beyond explanation. It is safe to surmise that they found the local buff-brown clay accepted the lead as distinct from the alkaline glaze). There can be little doubt now that this Iraq/Iran clay is the same as that used both in the white wares (particularly those carrying de­ coration in cobalt over glaze) and lustre wares familiar to us from Samarra. Both were exported to Egypt during the 9th century;10 whereas the former was imitated almost immediately (the

Early Lead-G lazed W. t e •

257

«splash-on-white» wares), the application of lustre techniques to pot* tery ensued only in the last half of the 10th century. Thus, it is our belief, based on the scientific analysis of the Iraq/Iran clay vs. the Egyptian buff-brown clay, that most of the lustred samples termed «tulunidische» by Schnyder,11 are actually imports of so-called Samarra lustre ware. Further and most appositely, it is high time that all published examples of early lead-glazed relief decorated wares be analyzed in terms of their clay, irrespective of the motivai pattern each evinces.12

258

Flf. 1

Fig. 2

George T. Scanlon

Early L ead-G lazed Wares

Plate l a

Plate lc

Plate lb

Plate Id

259

260

George T. Scanlon

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND ABBREVIATIONS Barlow. G. Fehervari, Islam ic Pottery: A Comprehensive Study Based on d u Barlow Collection (London, 1973). Benaki. H. Philon, et al.. Early Islam ic Ceramics: Ninth to Late Twelfth Centuries. The Benaki Museum, Athens (London, 1980). ELG. G. T. Scanlon, «Moulded Early Lead-Glazed Wares from Fustat: Imported or Indigenous,» in A. Green, ed., In Q uest o f an Islam ic Humanism: A rabic and Islamic Studies in M emory o f Muhammad al-N owayhi (Cairo, 1984), pp. 65-96. FEPR71-Ü. W. B. Kubiak and G. T. Scanlon, «Fustat Expedition: Preliminary Report 1971. Part II,» Journal o f the American Research Center in E gypt (Hereafter JA R C E ), 17 (1980), pp. 77-96. FEPR72-I. G. T. Scanlon, «Fustat Expedition: Preliminary Report 1972. Parti,» JARCE, 18 (1981), pp. 57-84. FEPR73. G. T. Scanlon, «Fustat Expedition: Preliminary Report 1973-Back to FustatA,» Annales Islamologiques, 17 (1981), pp. 407-36. Keir. E. Grube, Islam ic Pottery o f the Eighth to the Fifteenth Century in d u K eir Collec­ tion (London, 1976). Numismatics. Th. Bianquis, G. T. Scanlon, and A. Watson, «Numismatics and the Dat­ ing of Early Islamic Pottery in Egypt,» in D. K. Kouymjian, ed., N ear Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and H istory: Studies in H onour o f G eorge C. M iles (Beirut, 1974), pp. 163-73.

NOTES 1. The most succinct analysis of such continuity and disjunction can be found in the technical analysis supplied by Mr. Harry Hodges to Barlow, pp. 27-35. The evi­ dence for a comparable continuity for northeastern Syria is less convincing, simply because the large alkaline-glazed vase in the Damascus Museum might ultimately derive from a source further to the southeast: cf. Abu’l Farag al-TJsh, et a l., Cata­ logue du Musée N ationale de Damas (Damascus: 1969), p. 175 and fig. 82. 2. This type of analysis is best exemplified in Numismatics, passim . For a more dis­ crete breakdown: cf. FEPR *72-1, p. 58 ff. 3. These two pieces are illustrated and discussed in Numismatics, figs. 4-a and b, p. 173; and in FEPR 72-1, pi. XFV-b and n. 49. In both publications they are assumed to be lead-glazed, but in the light of their whitish frit body and Hodges’ comments (see n. 1 supra) about alkaline glazing in the Sasanian period, they must now be considered imports of alkaline-glazed ceramics. The clay and decoration are similar to those of the Reitlinger ewer in the Ashmolean Museum (acc. no. 1978:2242). Both of the shards alluded to here are presently in the Ashmolean. 4. All the pertinent registered pieces are surveyed in ELG. The strap-work designs of an «eastern», as distinct from an Egyptian, provenance can be seen in figs. 28 and 29 therein. For another excellent example of imitating a decor but on an indigenous body: cf. FEPR 73, fig. 13 and p. 432. In addition to Barlow, the question of early lead-glazed wares in the Islamic world is surveyed most fully in Keir, pp. 25-35. The more particularly Egyptian aspects of the genre can be gleaned from Benaki, pp. 5-

Early Lead-G lazed Wares

5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

261

24; but only an analysis of the clays will establish finally which of the authors’ group I are indigenous and which are imports. For the locus cf. FEPR72-I. The slightly higher relief can be appreciated in Benaki, Keir, and ELG. However, some of the lamps described in the last-named publication have very low relief decoration (e. g. figs. 10-12 a), but are all made from buff-brown day. An approximation of the original bowl shape, though with different decoration, can be seen in Keir, no. 4; Friedrich Sarre, D ie Keram ik von Samarra (Berlin, 1925), taf. IX,11 and 14: and Miriam Rosen-Ayalon, Ville R oyale de Suse, IV: La P oterie Islamique (Paris, 1974), figs. 386 and 389. The relief decoration on the latter two appears as low as that on our examples and are also under a green glaze, though no mention is made of any underslipping. Rosen-Ayalon, Ville Royale is ambiguous on the problem of whether her group 14 (lead-glazed moulded wares) were made in Susa. Sarre, D ie Keram ik, is equally non-committal. In both sites we have been denied wasters and none has come forth for the moulded wares at Fustat; cf. ELG, p. 70. However, with the sdentific analy­ ses of the clays a general separation can be effected and the pattern of importation and influence more reasonably established. For the materials associated with the Pilgrimage Route: cf. Saad al-Rashid, D arb al-Zubaydah: The Pilgrim R oute from Kufa to Mecca (Riyad, 1980), pp. 253-61, especially FR4 in fig. 19 therein, which has a vegetal motif in low relief. It must not be forgotten that if the short-lived Sasanian presence in Egypt (A. D. 619-630) could have had so marked an effect on Coptic textiles, it cannot be un­ reasonable to imagine a comparable effect on ceramics. We simply lack the archeological evidence to parallel the Persian textiles found at Antinoe. The first dear proof of the presence at Fustat of this Iraq / Iran white ware came in 1971 when two matching shards of a flat-bottomed shallow bowl with flange rim appeared in the impacted fill beneath the paving of a room of a domicile bordering on the Darb al-M afasir (the Funerary Route): cf. FEPR 71-11, p. 82 relative to the fill above the intermediate plaster flowing at H’ (XXI-20/XXII-16). The fill also contained a shard of Samarra lustre-ware: pi. XVIII-a therein. R. Schnyder, «Tulunidische Lusterfayence,» A rs O rientalis, 5 (1963), pp. 49-78. An analysis of the days would help immensely in dedding which of the examples in Benaki, figs. 134-361, derive from Iraq/Iran and which from Egypt. This section of the volume is a particularly pertinent example of too great a dependence on Schnyder’s pioneer work. No waster of his so-called Tulunid lustre has so far been found at Fustat. As has been noted, this would obtain for all of Group I in Benaki, and leads one to speculate that Keir, nos. 2-4, are probably Egyptian. The small pitcher (no. 5) is probably from Iraq/Iran for reasons therein argued, to which we would add the similarity of the finial to that on the handle of a glass vessel found at Samarra; cf. Excavations at Samarra, Part II (Baghdad, 1940), pi. CXIX, upper photo, middle row second from left. The same day analysis could be applied to the three 10th century lustre bowls in Keir, nos. 39-41, to determine the provenance. The correla­ tion is quite obvious on at least one fragment analyzed from the Benaki collection, no. 22 an early lead-glazed relief ware, pp. 303-4 therein. The percentages, partku-

262

George T. Scanlon

larly of aluminum, calcium, iron and manganese oxides, are remarkably like those for our sample of buff-brown day, supra. Hence, though a number of these samples of Type I demonstrate motivai relationship with examples from Iraq/Iran, their days are demonstrably Egyptian.

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE AND THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF EARLY ISLAM Lawrence I. Conrad Wellcome Institute fo r the H istory o f M edicine

I would like to take as a starting point Oleg Grabar’s City in the De­ sert, 1 the recent two-volume work reporting the results of six seasons of excavations at Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi.2 It would belabor the obvious to dwell at length upon the importance of an archaeological investiga­ tion of Qasr al-Hayr. The potential significance of the site was already widely recognized before Grabar’s first expedition in 1964, and the resulting report seeks to interpret the site from a historical and archaeological point of view, taking into account its regional, techni­ cal, and anthropological contexts.3 At the same time, City in the Desert in several ways comprises an interesting methodological perspective on the comparatively young field of medieval Near Eastern archaeology. Grabar and his colleagues found that several kinds of evidence frequently important for archaeological investigation and interpretation— particularly datable in­ scriptions and coins4 — were scarce at Qasr al-Hayr. Investigation of stratigraphy and superimposed series of ordinary pottery types seems to have posed special difficulties, while recovered artifacts of the architectural elements of the site itself failed to provide a body of evi­ dence sufficient for addressing the questions for which Grabar sought answers. It was therefore necessary, particularly in interpreting the early history of Qasr al-Hayr as an establishment developed by the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn eAbd al-Malik (r. 105-25 / 724-43), to make extensive use of the relevant evidence found in medieval literary sources. These materials, of course, pose problems of their own, which Grabar recognizes and considers in this work.5 His approach is cautious, and is in some ways similar to the perspective of Febvre’s Annales school. As Grabar describes it, the written sources can identify «the setting that was assumed almost automatically by the written mirror of the culture,»so that the researcher’s task becomes «a

263

264

Lawrence I. Conrad

matter of seeking in stories and events what seems unquestioned and automatically accepted.» These «make it possible to sketch out the 'mood' of a period, the characteristic developments or occurrences that would have been consistently recorded or mentioned...»6 Such efforts to integrate textual and archaeological evidence into a more illuminating approach to medieval Islamic history can be very fruit­ ful, but at the same time they are fraught with hidden pitfalls.7 Good archaeologists have, of course, been well aware of the importance of evidence in the literary sources, while historians have frequently made use of archaeological materials and conclusions. But at the methodolo­ gical level a great many issues critical to such interdisciplinary studies remain to be addressed. It is toward this end that the following observations are offered concerning specific aspects of the question of the utility and limitations of literary evidence for the interpretation of early medieval Islamic archaeological sites and materials. THE PROBLEM OF LIT E R A R Y THEMES A N D FORMS As Grabar rightly observes, medieval Arabic historical texts tend to obscure our view of continuity and change in the Islamic past, chop­ ping it up into morsels rearranged as discrete events presented in anna­ listic or genealogical form, while literary works, in general, frustrate the researcher by piling up anecdotes and details around individual personalities, leaving the broader context often extremely obscure.8 To this should be added the caveat that literary sources often present the past to us according to a preconceived structure of themes and forms, the topoi and schemata discussed by Curtius, who indicated their importance in the medieval European sources.9 These themes and forms are important in themselves and can reveal much about early Arab/Islamic society; but if their true character is not rec­ ognized, they can raise serious obstacles to historical investigation. This difficulty has become clearer in recent years, and particular aspects of the problem have been elucidated by Caskel for the A y y am al-carab,10 Noth for the historical sources,11 and Stetter for Ha­ dith. 12 The relation of such topoi and schemata to archaeological stu­ dies cannot be considered fully here, but two examples relevant to the interpretation of early Islamic sites should serve to indicate their im­ portance.

Historical Evidence: Early Islam

265

The first of these cases is quite specific and limited, but potentially very deceptive. In describing the construction, rebuilding, and expan* sion of mosques, houses, and residential and administrative com­ pounds (the qasr and dor al-imara), the historical and literary sources often related such developments, in whole or in part, in terms of an arbitrary progression. There were first simple structures of reeds, which were later rebuilt of mud-brick, and eventually expanded and built of fired brick. Also sometimes included are details of progressive­ ly more sophisticated mortar and roofing materials.13 This pattern is often noted and cited as fact by modern historians; if it could be con­ firmed it would be a useful addition to our knowledge of specific monuments, not to mention the urban development of early medieval Islam in general. Unfortunately, there exist considerable grounds for doubting the literal accuracy of these statements. Reeds were used for building, par­ ticularly in large quantities at little cost. They were employed through­ out medieval times for a variety of building purposes, and were suffi­ ciently significant for the caliphate to impose a tax on them .14 Our best authorities, writing long after the events they describe, portray the reed buildings of early Islamic times as primitive, but this is not neces­ sarily the case. Iraqi river reeds, for example, commonly reach lengths of six to eight meters, and the marsh Arabs of southern Iraq still use them today to erect large and elaborate structures. The most ambitious of these, the shaykh’s guest-house, or mudif, is a building the erection of which requires considerable skill in both construction and decoration.15 Mud-brick is also recorded by our sources as the simple building material of a primitive Society, but again such a notion should be ques­ tioned. The papyri and Geniza documents from Egypt make it clear that mud-brick was used because it was easily made from readily avail­ able materials; it was cheap, durable, and easy to work and repair.16 Mud-brick was employed not only in the houses of the com­ mon folk and the public buildings of early Islam, but also in many great medieval monuments. It was an especially attractive choice for isolated sites, such as Qasr al-Hayr,17 and for projects involving con­ struction on a vast scale, as in al-Mansur’s Round City.18 It was par­ ticular to no specific period, and its presence in site stratigraphy does not in itself indicate a «primitive» or «early» period of construction.

266

Lawrence I. Conrad

What then are we to make of the accounts mentioning a reed / mud/fired brick progression, and others like them? In all probability, these reports are simply evoking a common literary topos illustrating a linear view of urban growth and increasing material culture in early Islamic times. It is also related to a more general view of the past among medieval Muslims. By the third/ninth century, the early days of Islam had come to be viewed as a time of spiritual purity and primi­ tive material culture. This pristine faith was considered to have been corrupted in Umayyad times by the wealth and prosperity that accrued to the Arabs as their spectacularly successful conquests transformed the umma from a small Arabian community into a world empire. A t the center of this transformation stood the city, which provided the locus within which the fully Islamic life could be lived, but at the same time offered up the worldly temptations and distractions that diverted the believer’s attention from his responsibilities before God. The ad­ vance of urban life and material culture was therefore closely linked to the general spiritual malaise attributed to these times.19 Hence, the expansion of old Medina in the caliphate of cUthman is taken as a sign that it would be best to move elsewhere.20 Likewise, «excessive building» (tatawul f i l-bunyan) is made one of the portents of the im­ pending Hour of Judgment (al-stfa) in early apocalyptic hadith.21 The direct relation of this view to the topos considered here is demonstrated by the judgment of Ishaq ibn Suwayd (d. 131/749) con­ cerning the development of the umma: Mosques were built of reeds (qasab), then of mud-bricks (rihs), then of sun-dried mud-bricks (libn) with clay mortar (tin), then of fired bricks (ajurr) with gypsum mortar (jiss). The men of reeds were better than those of mud-bricks, and these were better than the men of sun-dried mud-bricks with clay mortar, and these were better than the men of fired bricks with gypsum mortar.22

In reports such as these lies the seed of Ibn Khaldun’s classic for­ mulation of urban culture’s corrupting effects on human character. The topos hence becomes a convenient means for making subtle statements with heavy judgmental overtones. Kister, for example, quotes a report stating that in the reign of Mucawiya, houses of fired brick and gyp­ sum mortar were being built in Mecca for the first time.23 This, as Kister assumes, may be indicative of urban expansion and increased building activity in Mecca at this time; but in light of the foregoing

Historical Evidence: Early Islam

267

remarks, it may also be intended as a judgmental assessment of de* velopments during the reign of the first Umayyad caliph. Many other similar cases exist in the extant literature, and the modern researcher’s problem lies in deciding which way to interpret them. Unfortunately, decisive evidence is often unavailable. A more serious problem arises in the tendency of medieval Islamic historiography to be highly personality-oriented, accounting for the past in terms of the thoughts, words, and deeds of eminent men. This tendency manifests itself in a number of literary devices of special in­ terest to the study of archaeological sites and urban development in general. One appears in the way our sources attribute the erection of buildings and monuments to the direct orders of the caliph or some other important personality. This is very common, and is most pro­ nounced in reports concerning the founding, of al-Kufa in Iraq. From almost 1,000 km away in Medina, cUmar ibn al-Khattab decrees how wide the avenues, streets, and lanes of the new town are to be, and forbids the erection of high buildings. His permission is sought when the Kufans want to rebuild their reed houses in mud-brick.24 These and other details may tell us much about the later popular perception of the caliph cUmar and other figures from early Islamic times, but it is difficult to determine the extent to which these narratives are relating matters of historical fact. Much of their content sharply contradicts what is known of the character of the early caliphate,25 and in any case would be unlikely in a traditional Arab encampment, which is certainly what al-Kufa originally was.26 The pitfalls inherent in such details are illustrated by an account often related in our sources. In this report, Sacd ibn Abi Waqqas builds for himself a compound (qasr) in al-Kufa, and as the structure deprives the Muslims of direct access to their commander, cUmar sends a representative to the town with a reprimand for Sacd and orders to burn the gate and reed fence around the compound.27 Now in the course of this discussion the compound is described in some detail, and Creswell makes use of these details to support an argument concerning the early dar al-imara in al-Kufa.28 But as it stands, all this report really tells us is that in later times, when cUmar had become a didactic example of the ideal ruler, it was considered that the caliph would have objected to the construction of the kind of qasr described in this report. Whether or not this qasr actually existed in 17/638 is another

268

Lawrence /. Conrad

matter entirely, one for which we lack, unfortunately, compelling evi­ dence one way or the other. The potential seriousness of such problems for modern research is demonstrated by the long-standing controversy over the interpretation of the Umayyad «desert palaces» in Syria. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries these sites were commonly regarded as lodges built by Umayyad caliphs and princes to satisfy some atavistic yearning for the desert ways of their forefathers. Voiced by many explorers and scholars of the day, this view was formally articulated in a very influential article published by Henri Lammens in 1910.29 His views have since been criticized by such authorities as Jean Sauvaget30 and Grabar,31 and more recently, further doubts have been raised in Heinz Gaube’s fine study of Khirbat al-Bayda.32 These works all stress the element of continuity from pre-Islamic times, though in dif­ fering degrees and forms and with varying results.33 This drastic shift in emphasis is by now well known, and I raise it here only to address the question of how it was that these elements of continuity were missed for so long. In part, this was due to the fact that Orientalist scholarship was in Lammens* time a newly developing field in which the lack of solid foundations gave free play to the pre­ vailing European biases concerning the Arabs and «the Orient.»34 But it cannot be denied that part of the difficulty also arose from the personality-oriented historiography of medieval Islam itself. This literature views the origins of Islam and the early caliphate in terms of the activities of individuals who were mostly Arabians of tribal descent or their allies, and usually admits the indigenous populations of the Near East onto the stage of events as defeated ene­ mies, payers of the poll-tax (jizya), and so forth. As a result, the Arab advance through the Near East appears as a dislocation of the indige­ nous sedentary cultures of the area by an alien nomadic people, which almost of necessity implies a major discontinuity in social, cultural, and economic terms (witness, e.g., the Pirenne Thesis). All scholars, of course, interpret their information according to various preconceived patterns or structures of thought, but in the study of early Islamic his­ tory this process must take into account the fact that the information in our best sources already represents an interpretive attempt to under­ stand the past in terms of the values and concerns of the present.

Historical Evidence: Early Islam

269

THE QUESTIONS OF PLAG U E A N D A G R IC U LTU R AL EXPAN SIO N The problem of literary topoi discussed above leads us to two in­ teresting and important questions. The first is that of the problematic references in the literary sources to the Syrian «desert palaces» as re­ fuges from the plague (Ufun). This disease, the same that devastated Europe and the Middle East in the infamous Black Death in the four­ teenth century, was a recurrent problem in Byzantine and early Islamic times as well, ravaging Syria about once every seven years between A.D. 542 and 131 / 749.35 Attempts to flee from infected cities and villa­ ges are commonly mentioned, and among the individuals reportedly in­ volved were a number of Umayyad caliphs and princes. Seventy years ago Lammens took the reports quite seriously. Grabar does not raise the issue in City in the Desert, but in other writings he criticizes such accounts as «literary clichés»36 and traces them to «a romantic view of the Umayyads, to which Tabari as well as twentieth century histo­ rians have succumbed, even though for different reasons.»37 So are these reports to be taken seriously, or are they simply devices with little or no basis in fact? And what role, if any, did the desert sites play as refuges from the epidemics known to have occurred in Syria? The most frequently cited case of an Umayyad ruler fleeing from a Syrian plague to an isolated retreat is that of Hisham’s predilection for staying at al-Rusafa whenever plague broke out in Damascus. This report is best known from a version preserved in the annals of alTabari;38 but while it is only in late sources that we find statements that Hisham built (or rather rebuilt) al-Rusafa as a refuge from the plague,39 it is equally true that al-Tabari is not alone in maintaining that he used the place for this purpose whenever necessary.40 This should not surprise us, given Syria’s frequent plagues, as well as other aspects of the Damascene climate which could sometimes make life in the city unpleasant.41 It was common knowledge, or at least commonly believed, among medieval historians that Umayyad caliphs and princes used to flee from the Syrian cities when the plague struck,42 and a number of specific cases are related to us. Mucawiya ibn Abi Sufyan43 and alWalid ibn cAbd al-Malik44 are both said to have fled at times from plague epidemics, although we are not told where they went. In 99/

270

Lawrence /. Conrad

718 the caliph Sulayman ihn cAbd al-Malik fled from a plague to Dabiq in northern Syria;43 when he died shortly thereafter, his suc­ cessor, cUmar ibn cAbd al-cAziz, was advised that he too should flee, as the caliphs before him were accustomed to doing.46 Al-Tabari tells us that in the final years of the Umayyad caliphate, when the last great plagues were occurring, the Umayyads sought refuge in the steppe areas (al-bawadi). The caliph Yazid ibn al-Walid made it a habit of residing there (kana... mutabaddiyan); in the plague of 126/744, the governor of Damascus, cAbd al-Malik ibn Muhammad, fled from the city to the outlying village of Qatana and appointed his son to assume his duties.47 One could argue that literary topoi, however frequently or various­ ly employed, remain topoi nonetheless. But in this case it is impossible to reject these reports as reflective of a romantic or judgmental literary typology, since their basis in fact is confirmed by two contemporary observers. Al-Akhtal (d. ca. 92/710) alluded to the Umayyad habit of fleeing from the plague in a poem he composed for his patron, alWalid ibn cAbd al-Malik.48 And the English pilgrim Willibald, who was in Syria in 106-107 / 725, was unable to petition the caliph— Hisham himself— for letters of safe conduct because the latter «had fled from the infirmity which then prevailed in the land.» Willibald and his compan­ ions waited several weeks for «Murmumni» (obviously a Latin garbling of A m ir al-mu’minin, «Commander of the Faithful» ) to return, but in vain. Ultimately, they had to obtain their letters from the governor of Homs.49 It is therefore clear that members of the Umayyad ruling family and regime did indeed flee from their capital and elsewhere during plague epidemics in Syria. And there is no reason to doubt that when they did so, they made use of any available establishments that offered security from infection. Those in the Syrian badiya would have been well suited for this purpose, as the plague did not penetrate such areas.30 This means only that the Umayyads probably used these places in this way when necessary, but certainly not that they built them for such purposes. The survey of Poidebard conclusively demonstrated the orientation of many of the identifiably Umayyad sites within the net­ work of trade and communication routes of Roman and Byzantine Syria.31 Also, the studies of Sauvaget, Grabar, and Gaube, noted

Historical Evidence: Early Islam

271

above, point to activity and occupation of these sites in pre-lslamic times, and in some cases to considerable investment of labor and capi­ tal in agricultural exploitation of the surrounding areas.52 The sites, therefore, represent a continuation of pre-lslamic occupation and activity, and within this context it is extremely difficult to see how the factor of recurrent plague in Syria could have played any causal role in their erection. With these points in mind, I would like to draw attention to an interesting report relevant to the Syrian desert sites, though perhaps not to Qasr al-Hayr itself. The account is to be found in the unpub­ lished part of al-Baladhuri’s Ansab al-ashraf: J» 4)

«-Jkljll 4l**»t» ijt> J1 ja y y tj :I^IU f J U * . IfU H» j * . vlll LîjüI J J S J b li[ :J*»Vl

..>>dgüU

rJUf^fle

They said: Hisham fled from the plague and came finally to a monk’s cell. The monk brought him into a garden of his, four jiaribs 53 in area, and began to give him the tastiest and ripest fruits. Hisham said, «Would you sell me your garden?,» but the monk re­ mained silent. Hisham repeated his question, but the monk was still silent. «Why do you not speak, O monk? Are you hoping that all the people but you will die?» «Why?,» the monk asked. «So that you may gain your fill,» Hisham said, «when everything in the world is left for you» [i.e., when everyone else has died of the plague). At that the monk laughed and said, «Didn’t you hear, O Abrash?» Abrash [an unidentified third party] said [i.e., to the caliph], «Aside from him, no free man has ever met you» (i.e., others all worry about worldly things, while the monk does not].34

We note immediately the personality-orientation of the report; the location and the specific nature of the surroundings are of little con­ cern to the narrators. The formal anecdotal aspects of the report are obvious: the caliph’s encounter with a subject who eventually gets the better of him, the repeatedly asked and unanswered question, the en­ terprising monarch who senses an opportunity for gain, the pious monk unconcerned with worldly affairs, the possibility that the plague

272

Lawrence L Conrad

will wipe out the entire world. But underlying these elements are others which may be of more immediate historical significance. Hisham’s flight55 takes him to a place secure from the plague and hence almost certainly to an isolated rural location in the badiya. The site is already a Christian monastic establishment, perhaps pre-Islamic in origin, where significant agricultural activity is centered. The caliph desires to continue this, perhaps for his own economic gain, but perhaps also with more leisurely pursuits in mind. Though this report is not decisive evidence for these points, it is, as a whole, significantly more informative than most others of this type, and as such merits the further attention of scholars. The narrative from the Ansab al-ashraf leads to a second impor­ tant question, that of the nature and extent of agricultural exploitation of the Syrian badiya in Umayyad times, seen as a program of «col­ onization» by Sauvaget, and the role within this process of early Isla­ mic constructions in now-unproductive areas. The problem is both complex and controversial, and here, as above, it will be possible to draw attention only to a potentially significant piece of evidence rel­ evant to the issue at hand. The account comes from an enigmatic work entitled A l-Cibar wa-li ctibar, attributed to al-Jahiz (d. 255/868). In this treatise the author calls upon the reader to consider numerous aspects of life and nature that substantiate the theological views of the Mu^azila. At one point the argument turns to the question of Whether the existence of deserts and other unproductive areas indicates that divine creative activity is sometimes without purpose or plan: : J j U i J l j Utf-I oljLUl ( J J t :j^V l