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Class, Community, and Arab Historiography in the Early Nineteenth Century—The Dawn of a New Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Extract

The aim of the present essay is to explore some of the relations between the socioeconomic and political transformation which occurred in Syria during the eighteenth century and the development of a new view of the world and the self as it came to be expressed in the writings of several Arab historians at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Of particular interest in this context is the question of whether and when a clear departure from traditional patterns of society and thought can be discerned.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

NOTES

1 For a discussion of the autonomy and local power of the ⊂Azm family see Shamir, S., “As⊂ad Pasha al-⊂Azm and Ottoman Rule in Damascus,” BSOAS, XXVI (1963), 15;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRafeq, A. K., The Province of Damascus 1728–1783 (Beirut, 1966);Google ScholarBarbir, K. K., Ottoman Rule in Damascus 1708–1758 (Princeton, 1980);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Review of Barbir's book by Philipp, T. in Journal of the American Research Center Egypt, forthcoming.Google Scholar

2 See, for example, Gran, P., Islamic Roots of Capitalism (Texas, 1978).Google Scholar

3 Philipp, T., The Syrians in Egypt 1725–1975 (Wiesbaden, forthcoming), Chapter 1.Google Scholar

4 Published in Lebanon in 1935. For information on as-Sabbāgh's background, see his Taʾrīkh Ibrāhīm, m.s. Cod. ar. 901, (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Muenchen); Humbert, , Anthologie Arabe (Paris, 1819), pp. 291–93;Google ScholarShaikhū, L.Mikhāʾīl as-Sabbāgh waʾsratuhu,” al-Mashriq, VIII, 2434, which is mainly based on the above ms.Google Scholar

5 His report on the invasion, Mudhakkirāt Niqūlā at-Turk, was edited and translated by Wiet, G. (Cairo, 1950).Google Scholar For at-Turk's life see al-Bustānī, F. A., Dīwān al-Mu⊂allim Niqūlā at-Turk (Beirut, 1970), preface and passim;Google ScholarMa⊂luf, I. I., “Tawarīkh al-imparātūr nabūliyūn būnābart bil-lugha al⊂arabīya - walāsima taʾrīkh Niqūlā at-Turk al-Lubnānī,” al-Mashriq, XXIX, 281ff:Google ScholarDaghir, Y., Masādir ad-dirāsa al-adabīya (Beirut, 19551972), Ch. II, p. 217.Google Scholar

6 Published 1936, in Lebanon. Most of the information given is taken from this work.Google Scholar

7 Muntakhabāt al-jawāb ⊂ala ʾktirākh al-ahbāb (Beirut, 1955), from which most of the information given derives.Google Scholar

8 Minutoli, Baroness von, Recollections of Egypt (Philadelphia, 1827), pp. 165–73.Google Scholar

9 Mishāqa, Muntakhabāt, pp. 62, 65.Google Scholar One such book was Volney's Les Ruins ou Meditations sur les revolutions des empires. Basilius Fakhr was most likely Greek Orthodox, practically the only one among the Syrian merchants in Damiette. Though not a member of the Greek Catholic community, his relations with its members seem to have been close. His case illustrates the ambivalent character of this merchant group: by occupation and culture, Fakhr fitted very well into this commercial class, by religious and communal organization he was, of course, an outsider. Class and community overlapped and contradicted each other in his person.

10 ⊂Awra Tarīkh Sulaimān Bāshā, p. 482.Google Scholar

11 Zaidan, J., Tarājim mashāhīr ash-sharq fiʾl-qarn at-tāsi' 'ashar (Cairo, 1922), p. 213.Google Scholar

12 Two books on astronomy by Joseph Jerome de Lalande (1732–1802), a book on physics by Rigo al-Plastanelli (?), as well as a book on nature by “Benjamin the Englishman” are mentioned: Mishāqa, Muntakhabāt, p. 62.Google Scholar

13 Ibid.

14 Mishāqa, Muntakhabāt, p. 65.Google Scholar

15 Buraik, M., Taʾrīkh ash-shām 1720–1782 (Harisa, 1930);Google Scholaral-Budairi, A., Hawādith dimishq al-yaumīya 1153–1175 (Cairo, 1959);Google Scholaral-Jabarti, A. R., ⊂Ajāʾib al-athār fi't-tarājim wa'l-akhbār (Cairo, 1880);Google ScholarShihab, H. A., Ta'rīkh Ahmad bāshā al-Jazzār (Lebanon, 1955).Google Scholar

16 as-Sabbāgh, Taʾrīkh Ibrāhīm, p. 32.Google Scholar

17 as-Sabbāgh, Taʾrīkh Zāhir, pp. 48, 63, 72.Google Scholar

18 'Abbūd as-Sabbāgh, ar-Raud az-zāhir fī ta'rīkh ad-dāhir, m.s. Arabe 4610, Bibliotheque Nationate Paris. Shaikhū, L., “al-Adab al-'arabīya fi'l-qarn at-tāsi' 'ashar” (al-Mashriq, X, 469) has no basis for his claim that an ⊂Abbūd came with Mikhāʾīl to Paris. We do know, however, that 'Abbūd ibn Ibrāhīm as-Sabbāgh was killed in the second uprising against the French in Cairo;Google Scholarat-Turk, N., Mudhakkirāt, p. 83.Google ScholarGraf, , in his Geschichte der Christlichen Arabischen Literarur (Rome, 1943, Ch. III, p. 245) suggests that ⊂Abbūd wrote this ms. in Damiette.Google Scholar Graf (ibid.) and Shaikhū (“Mikhāʾīl as-Sabbāgh,” p. 28) suggest that 'Abbūd was a grandson of Ibrāhīm. This claim seems entirety unfounded.

19 Salibi, K. S., Maronite Historians of Mediaeval Lebanon (Beirut, 1959) pp. 17, 18.Google Scholar In the nineteenth century there appear, as Salibi (p. 18) points out, H. A. Shihab and T. ash-Shidyāq, who were also the first more secular historians among the Maronites.

20 as-Sabbāgh, Taʾrīkh Zāhir.Google Scholar

21 al-Bustānī, Dīwān al-Mu⊂allim, p. 23.Google Scholar

22 See note 15.Google Scholar

23 See note 15.Google Scholar

24 Mishāqa, Muntakhabāt, p. 96.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., p. 136.

26 Ibid., p. 29.

27 Lewis, B., The Muslim Discovery of Europe (New York, 1982), p. 170.Google Scholar

28 Haddad, G. M., “The historical work of Niqula el-Turk,” pp. 247–251.Google Scholar

29 Moreh, S., Al-Jabarti's Chronicle of the First Seven Months of the French Occupation of Egypt (Leiden, 1975), p. 64.Google Scholar

30 Mazhar at-taqdīs bi-dhahāb daulat al-faransīs.Google Scholar

31 ⊂Ajāʾib al-athār fī't-tarājim wa'l-akhbār.Google Scholar

32 Rosenthal, F., “Die Arabische Autobiographie,” Studica Arabica, 1 (1937), 40.Google Scholar

33 al-Jabarti, ⊂Ajāʾib al-athār, Ch. 1, pp. 385–408.Google Scholar

34 Mubarak, ʾA., al-Khitat at-taufiqīya al-jadīda (Cairo, 18861889), Ch. IX, pp. 3761.Google Scholar

35 See note 4.Google Scholar

36 Munajjid, Salāh ad-Dīn (ed), Mudhakkirāt Jurjī Zaidān (Beirut, 1966).Google Scholar For a translation of the autobiography see Philipp, T., Gurgī Zaidān. His Life and Thought (Wiesbaden/Beirut. 1979), part II.Google Scholar

37 Two earlier works by Lebanese, which have strong autobiographical traits come to mind: Kayat, A. Y., A Voice from Lebanon (London, 1847)Google Scholar, and Salame, A., Narrative of the Expedition to Algiers (London, 1819). But both were originally written in English.Google Scholar