A Global Middle East: Mobility, Materiality and Culture in the Modern Age, 1880-1940

392 Pages·2015·7.96 MB·English

by  Liat Kozma, Cyrus Schayech, Avner Wishnitzer

M A
Liat Kozma is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Islamic o The start of the twentieth century ushered in a period
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and Middle Eastern Studies at The Hebrew University of il G of unprecedented change in the Middle East. These
i
Jerusalem. She is the author of Policing Egyptian Women: ‘[T]his fine volume show[s] that the early wave of globalization ty A GLoBAL transformations, brought about by the emergence of the
, L
Sex, Law and Medicine in Khedival Egypt (2011). between the 1870s and the 1940s affected the people in the M modern state system and an increasing interaction with a
a o
Middle East in profound ways. The basic questions such as where te more globalized economy, irrevocably altered the political
Cyrus Schayegh is Associate Professor at Princeton r
people lived and moved, what they thought, what they liked and ia B and social structures of the Middle East. As a result of these
University, where he teaches Middle East history. He is the l
consumed and how they communicated were all shaped and it MIDDLE EAST changes, there was an intensification in the movement of
author of Who is Knowledgeable is Strong: Science, Class y a A people, commodities and ideas across the globe: commercial
and the Formation of Modern Iranian Society, 1900–1950 reshaped by the forces of globalization during these decades… nd L activity, urban space, intellectual life, leisure culture,
(2009), and holds a PhD from Columbia University. we learn that it was not only in the realm of politics but also in C
culture and society that this period was formative of the modern u M immigration patterns and education – nothing was left
l
Avner Wishnitzer is Senior Lecturer in the Department of tu untouched. Even as the Middle East was responding to
Middle East; and that far from being external or marginal to r Mobility, Materiality and Culture
Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. global processes, the region was centrally involved in them.’ e i I increased economic interactions with the rest of the world
HSoec iiest yth ine tahuet hLoart eo Of tRtoeamdainng E Cmlopcirkes (, fAorlltah cToumrcian:g T).ime and PJarockfessosno rS Rcheoşaotl oKfa Isnatbearn, Sattaionnleayl SDt.u Gdoielus,b U Cnhiaveirr saintyd oDf iWreacsthoirn ogft tohne n the DD in the Modern Age, 1880-1940 bsoyc rieasl tirnusctittuurtiinogn slo, tchael erecgoinoonm’s ieensg aangde mcuelntut wrailt,h p tohlietsiec atlr,e anndds
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‘A Global Middle East offers the first examination of how people, e This period has been seen as one in which the modern state
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objects and ideas as diverse as bees and Islamic theology, and n A system and its oftentimes artificial boundaries emerged in

hailing from various Middle Eastern locales, were caught up in g E the Middle East. But this book highlights how, despite this,
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the flux of the first wave of globalization while at once putting , 18 A it was also one of tremendous interconnection. Approaching 22
8 the first period of modern globalization by investigating the 2
it in motion. It… make[s] a compelling case about how the regional 0
- S movement of people, objects and ideas into, around and out
is anchored in the global and vice versa, never losing sight of how 19
4 T of the Middle East, the authors demonstrate how the Middle
these scales are themselves moving targets. Focusing on movement 0
East in this period was not simply subject or reactive to the
rather than state, on becoming rather than being, this important
West, but rather an active participant in the transnational
volume gives a sensitive and multi-angled account of the
flows that transformed both the region and the world.
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dynamics of what its editors see as “globalization from below”.’ d
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Dr On Barak, Senior Lecturer, Department of Middle Eastern ed A Global Middle East offers an examination of a variety of
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and African History, Tel Aviv University and A y Liat ifnemteilnleicsttu malo avnemd emnotsr ea nmda tIesrlaiaml iesxt cihdaenogloegs,i essu acsh wase lln aassc ethnet
vn K movement of sex workers across the Mediterranean and
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W m Jewish migration into Palestine. This book emphasises these
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ish , C new dynamics by examining the multi-directional nature
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it ru of movement across borders, as well as this movement’s
zer s S intensity, volume and speed. By focusing on the theme of
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a mobility as the defining feature of ‘modern globalization’ in
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g the Middle East, it provides an essential examination of the
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Edited by Liat Kozma, Cyrus Schayegh and Avner Wishnitzer formative years of the region.
Jacket image: Train cabin in 1930s Palestine.
Image courtesy of the Aleksansrowicz family.
Jacket design: www.paulsmithdesign.com
90 8 141 33 141 8 90
Liat Kozma is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Islamic and
Middle Eastern Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is
the author of Policing Egyptian Women: Sex, Law and Medicine in Khedival
Egypt (2011).
Cyrus Schayegh is Associate Professor at Princeton University. He is
the author of Who is Knowledgeable is Strong: Science, Class and the Formation
of Modern Iranian Society, 1900–1950 (2009), and Transnationalization:
A History of the Modern Middle East (forthcoming).
Avner Wishnitzer is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Middle
Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. He is the author
of Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire
(forthcoming).
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LLiiaattKKoozzmmaa__0011__pprreelliimmss..iinndddd iiii 1111//1133//22001144 55::0099::5555 PPMM
A GLOBAL
MIDDLE EAST
Mobility, Materiality and Culture
in the Modern Age, 1880–1940
Edited by
Liat Kozma, Cyrus Schayegh
and Avner Wishnitzer
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Published in 2015 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
Distributed in the United States and Canada
Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright Editorial selection and Introduction © 2015 Liat Kozma,
Cyrus Schayegh and Avner Wishnitzer
Copyright Individual Chapters © 2015 Ami Ayalon, Avishai Ben-Dror,
Yaron Ben-Naeh, Francesca Biancani, Elife Biçer-Deveci, Johann Buessow,
Evelin Dierauff, Will Hanley, Valeska Huber, Uri Kupferschmidt, Joachim Langner,
Tamar Novick, Haggai Ram and Cyrus Schayegh
The right of Cyrus Schayegh, Avner Wishnitzer and Liat Kozma to be identified
as editors of this work has been asserted by the editors in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof,
may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book.
Any omissions will be rectified in future editions.
Library of Middle East History 50
ISBN 978 1 78076 942 4
ePDF ISBN 978 0 85772 511 0
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress catalog card: available
Typeset by Newgen Publishers, Chennai
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations viii
Acknowledgements x
List of Contributors xi
Introduction 1
Liat Kozma, Cyrus Schayegh and Avner Wishnitzer
Global networks, local networking
1. On scales and spaces: Reading
Gottlieb Schumacher’s The Jaulân (1888) 19
Cyrus Schayegh
2. The Emir and the sea: The rise and fall of ‘Abdull(cid:2)hi
Muhammad b. ‘Al(cid:3) Abdaššak(cid:4)r, Harär’s last emir
(1885–1887) 55
Avishai Ben-Dror
People on the move
3. Education and mobility: Universities in Cairo between
competition and standardisation 1900–1950 81
Valeska Huber
4. International migration and sex work in early
twentieth-century Cairo 109
Francesca Biancani
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vi A GLOBAL MIDDLE EAST
5. Jews on the move during the late Ottoman period:
Trends and some problems 134
Yaron Ben-Naeh
A short piece
6. Global migration into late Ottoman Jaffa as reflected in
the Arab-Palestinian newspaper Filast(cid:2)n (1911–1913) 165
Evelin Dierauff
Objects and related practices on the move
7. Papers for going, papers for staying: Identification and
subject formation in the Eastern Mediterranean 177
Will Hanley
8. Travelling substances and their human carriers: Hashish-
trafficking in Mandatory Palestine 201
Haggai Ram
9. On the diffusion of ‘small’ western technologies and
consumer goods in the Middle East during the era
of the first modern globalization 229
Uri M. Kupferschmidt
A short piece
10. Bees on camels: Technologies of movement in late
Ottoman Palestine 263
Tamar Novick
Ideas on the move
11. Re-imagining Islam in the period of the first
modern globalization: Muhammad ‘Abduh and
his Theology of Unity 273
Johann Buessow
12. New practices: Arab printing, publishing and
mass reading 321
Ami Ayalon
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CONTENTS vii
Short pieces
13. The movement of feminist ideas: The case of
Kadınlar Dünyası 347
Elife Biçer-Deveci
14. Religion in motion and the essence of Islam:
Manifestations of the global in Muhammad
‘Abduh’s response to Farah Ant(cid:4)n 356
Joachim Langner
Index 365
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1.1 The Jawl(cid:2)n, including other places referred to
in Schumacher’s The Jaulân and/or in this chapter 21
1.2 Bil(cid:2)d al-Sh(cid:2)m, the region of which the Jawl(cid:2)n forms
a part, including places mentioned in Schumacher’s
The Jaulân and/or in this chapter 22
1.3 Gottlieb Schumacher’s world 23
2.1 A map of Ethiopia 56
5.1 Jewish communities in Anatolia, 1881–1914:
Demography and spatial distribution 135
6.1 ʿ(cid:5)s(cid:2) al-ʿ(cid:5)s(cid:2), director and co-editor of Filast(cid:2)n 167
6.2 Menashe Meirovitch alias Ab(cid:4) Ibr(cid:2)h(cid:3)m 170
6.3 Advertisements in Filast(cid:2)n for the
Danish beer label Tuborg 171
6.4 Advertisement in Filast(cid:2)n for Swiss milk powder
by Nestlé 172
7.1 Back of French passport, issued in Jerusalem in 1873 182
7.2 Residence certificate for the year 1894 of
‘Ali Muhammad bin ‘Ali 187
10.1 Bees on camels on their way to Jaffa in 1890 Palestine 265
10.2 The cover of Philip J. Baldensperger’s The Immovable East:
Studies of the People and Customs of Palestine (1913) 266
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix
11.1 The dramatic structure of Ris(cid:3)lat al-Tawh(cid:2)d 285
13.1 Kadınlar Dünyası, N° 124, Saturday, 21 December
1913/ 3 January 1914 350
13.2 Kadınlar Dünyası, the French supplement of N° 123,
Saturday, 21 December 1913/ 3 January 1914 351
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