Making Big Money in 1600: The Life and Times of Isma’il Abu Taqiyya, Egyptian Merchant PDF
Preview Making Big Money in 1600: The Life and Times of Isma’il Abu Taqiyya, Egyptian Merchant
Making Big Money in 1600 Middle East Studies Beyond Dominant Paradigms Peter Gran, Series Editor Making Big Money in 1600 The Life and Times of Isma'il Abu Taqiyya, Egyptian Merchant N eIIy Hanna Syracuse University Press Copyright © 1998 by Syracuse University Press Syracuse, New York 13244-5160 All Rights Reserved First Edition 98 99 00 01 02 03 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cover illustration and maps photographed by Emad Allam. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Fublication Data Hanna, Nelly. Making big money in 1600 : the life and times of IsrnaMl Abu Taqiyya, Egyptian merchant / Nelly Hanna. — 1st cd. p. cm. — (Middle East studies beyond dominant paradigms) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-8156-2749-1 (cloth : alk. paper).—ISBN 0-8156-2763-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Abu Taqiyya, Isma'il, d. 1625? 2. Merchants—Egypt—Biography. 3. Family—Egypt—History. 4. Egypt—Commerce—History. I. Title. II. Series. HC830.A539H36 1998 380. r 092 [B]—DC21 97-5469 Manufactured in the United States of America Contents Maps / vii Foreword / \x Acknowledgments / xiii Introduction; Sources and Method / xv I. Perspectives on the Period / i 1. Merchants and Merchant Families / 15 3. The Structures of Trade / 43 4. Shifting Patterns in Trade / 70 5. Social Structures / 100 6. Shaping the Urban Geography / 119 7. Family Life in the Abu Taqiyya HousehoId / 138 8. Conclusion / 165 Appendix / 177 N otes / 179 Glossary / 191 Bibliography / 197 Index / 105 Maps I. The Eastern Mediterranean / 3 1. Abu Taqiyya''s network of trade routes / 13 3. The northern section of Cairo / 49 4. Cairo / 134 VII Nelly Hanna is an associate professor of Arabic studies at the American University in Cairo. She is the author of An Urban History of Bulaq in the Mamluk and Ottoman Periods the editor of The State and Its Servants: Administration in ^gypt from Ottoman Times to the Present. Foreword Peter Gran In this work by Professor Nelly Hanna, seventeenth-century Cairo turns out to be a sophisticated trade and production center, its leading lights well aware of the wider world. As would be the case in Europe (and indeed in any classic European novel), Cairo’s men and women were bound to, and torn apart from, each other by property. This picture does not conform to the one we have come to expect: a backwater province in a bygone era. The Ottoman presence in this century turns out to be quite limited. Nor is an image presented that we might apprehend from the Egypt of the Bible with its Oriental despot or Pharaoh. Through Hanna’s study, we discover that, although a land system is present, the economy is mercantile, artisanal, and tribal as well. Contrary to our expectations, the urban middle strata are very powerful. Cairo is culturally diverse and in our terms, multinational. Although the specialist will appreciate this work for the new informa tion it provides—and the information is quite new—the general reader will find much that is fascinating in this book as well. The world presented here eludes a sophisticated application of the dominant paradigm, such as is found in world systems research. Defying established assumptions concerning early modern history about Egypt’s undeveloped society, Hanna overwhelms us with a moder nity we don’t expect to find. In so doing, she uses Cairo to challenge and test these assumptions and, consequently, the paradigm which historians often call the “Rise of the West.” For this reason, Hanna’s book should be widely read. IX X Foreword In proposing the series “Beyond Dominant Paradigms,” I was thinking about how our age is blessed or cursed by a recognition that its way of conceiving its own past is inadequate and must give way to something more comprehensive. What that comprehensive “something” is is not yet apparent. What interests me is how should Middle East studies attempt to contribute to this new, more comprehensive picture of world culture. The paradigm followed by most contemporary historians studying the past five hundred years can still be described as the “Rise of the West” paradigm, a phrase taken from the well-known book by William McNeill. These scholars perceived northwest Europe to have been responsible for changing the world and moving it forward. This paradigm and its support ers emphasize the role of Europe firom the Italian Renaissance onward, incorporating into the process the German Reformation and the economic development occurring first in Holland, then in France, and finally in England. What much of the new generation of historians (Nelly Hanna among them) is reacting to is a sense of dissatisfaction with the “Rise of the West” paradigm. Even if a particular study highlights something else altogether, it is made to conform to the contours of the history of north west Europe. To its critics then, this paradigm has enjoyed a rather illegitimate prestige that has allowed it to ride roughshod over areas where its flawed premises help obscure reality. One such area is the Mediterranean. For some years, the theory of sudden stagnation, i.e., the Baroque period, invented to explain the collapse of a mighty Spain, has troubled scholars. For some years, Italian historians have complained about the Italian Re naissance as well. Italian history and culture do not benefit from being periodized this way. More recendy, questions have been rdsed about 1798 and the “Coming of the West” to Egypt and to the Middle East. Egyptian history is not so stagnant that it needs to be stirred up by a Napoleon. Indeed, as one progresses further and further away from the privileged terrain of northwest Europe, the defects of the paradigm become clearer and clearer. If sugar, slaves, and other commodities in the Atlantic bring a higher revenue than textiles and spices in the Mediterranean, does the Mediterra nean really become a backwater, irrelevant to the conceptualization of the modern world? Does bigger mean more modern? Does what is more modern displace what is more traditional? Have we abandoned vassalage, tax-farming, mercantilism, etc., or do these conditions live on under dif ferent names?
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