The Modern Middle East and North Africa: A History in Documents

352 Pages·2013·1.47 MB·English

by  Julia Clancy-Smith

Julia Clancy-Smitb
Charles D. Smith
The Modern Middle East
and North Africa
A H I S T O R Y I N D O C U M E N T S
i UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Modern
Middle East and
North Africa
A HISTORY IN DOCUMENTS
Julia Clancy-Smith
Charles D. Smith
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Contents
Note on Transliteration ♦ vii JL
Between Old and New:
What Is a Document ♦ viii
Reforming State and Society,
How to Read a Document ♦ x
c. 1750-1914 ♦ 61
Introduction ♦ 1 Cairo vs. Istanbul: Egyptian and Turkish
Reforms and Their Implications ♦ 65
European Imperialism, Visits across the Mediterranean: MENA and
European Impressions ofEach Other ♦ 74
c. 1750-1914 ♦ 19
Official and Popular Calls for Reform:
Napoleon in Egypt ♦ 22
Tunisia, Iran, Ottoman Turks ♦ 76
Algeria: French Colonization and the
Mutual Incomprehension?: Women,
Algerian Response ♦ 29
Education, and Public Behavior ♦ 84
American-Ottoman Relations in an
Emigration: The Search for Livelihood
Imperial Age ♦ 32
Abroad ♦ 94
Anglo-French Justifications of Imperialism:
Racial Superiority and Commercial 3
World War I and Its Aftermath,
Investments in Egypt and Tunisia ♦ 34
c. 1914-1923 ♦ 97
Zionism: Its Origins and Objectives ♦ 43
Wartime Conditions ♦ 102
Missionary Ventures and Educational
Journalism, Truth, and War Reporting ♦ 105
Experiments: European and Middle
The Armenian Question ♦ 109
Eastern Feminine Interactions ♦ 44
Promises, Promises: Britain, France, and the
World Fairs and Tourism: Imperial
Arab Movement *113
Portraits of the Oriental and the
Promises to Keep: Britain, Palestine, and the
Oriental Response ♦ 48
Zionist Movement ♦ 118
Egypt: British and Egyptian Critiques
Postwar Settlements: The Great Powers and
oflmperialism ♦ 51
the Middle East ♦ 119__
Iran and The European Powers:
Protests and Rebellion ♦ 122
Oil Concessions and Territorial
Partitioning ♦ 54 Egyptian Protests ♦ 127
Al-Afghani and Azoury: Muslim 4
Picture Essay: Portrayals: Women,
and Arab Christian Rejections of
Work, Education, War, and Peace,
Indigenous Accommodation to
Western Inroads ♦ 57 c. 1800-Present ♦ 137
Sayyid Qutb: Jahiliyyah and Islamic
From the Great War to World War II,
Liberation ♦ 233
c. 1923-1950 ♦ 153
America and Iran: The Shah and the Islamic
Reforms and Their Motivations: Turkey Revolution ♦ 235
and Iran ♦ 157
Yearnings for Love and Home ♦ 237
Living in Two Worlds ♦ 161
Egypt: European Influences and the
Unknown Destinies,
Definition of Culture ♦ 164
Going to the Movies ♦ 173 c. 1980-Present ♦ 241
North African Experiences with France and Urban Transformations and Ethnic
the United States ♦ 175 Interactions: Turkey and
Palestine from World War I to 1948 ♦ 181 Germany ♦ 244
The Palestinian Arab Response to the Islam, Women, Clothing, and Identity in
Churchill White Paper ♦ 186 France and MENA ♦ 250
Iraqi Jews in the 1930s and 1940s ♦ 194 Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations
America and Saudi Arabia—The Oil and Protests ♦ 262
Connection ♦ 198 Afghanistan and Iraq before September 11,
2001 ♦ 266
Struggles for Independence and Al-Qaida, 9/11, and the American
New Forms of Political Community, Response: Prisoners, Refugees, and
c. 1950-1980 ♦ 203 Human Rights ♦ 272
TVmisia and Egypt Rebel: Dictatorships and
Immigrations and Displacements ♦ 207
Nationalism and Cold War Tensions: Egypt, Crony Capitalism ♦ 292
Lebanon, Iran ♦ 211
Algeria’s War of Independence: Torture and
Colonial Rule ♦ 216 Glossary ♦ 300
Women, Education, and the Public Timeline ♦ 302
Sphere ♦ 221 Further Reading ♦ 306
Arab-Israeli Conflicts: The 1967 War and Annotated Websites ♦ 309
the Lebanese Civil War ♦ 224 Text Credits ♦ 310
Qaddafi’s Green Book: Path to the Picture Credits ♦ 314
Future? ♦ 228 Index ♦ 315
Note on Transliteration
Ihe modem Middle East and North Africa (MENA) includes the Arab lands of the Arabian Peninsula bordered by
the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and Persian Gulf, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel [Palestine to 1948], and the
countries of Northern Africa bordering the Mediterranean and, in the case of Morocco, the Atlantic Ocean. Consis­
tent transliteration for the history of these regions poses a number of problems because there is no single agreed-on
system among scholars. Proper names, place names, and terms come from a range of languages—classical Arabic, dia­
lectal Arabic, Berber, Ottoman Turkish, modem Turkish, Persian, and, in some cases, French. To complicate matters,
proper names and place names often came into English or other European languages through different kinds of trans­
literation, which was not consistent and frequently deformed the originals. Therefore, transliteration in this volume
is the product of compromise as is true of all published work on MENA. For the most part, a modified version of the
transliteration system in the International Journal of Middle East Studies for Arabic, Turkish, and Persian is employed.
Standard transliteration symbols are used in documents and document captions only when such symbols are used in
the original document in the text. For Arabic, only the ayn (') and hamza (') are used in such cases. Turkish words,
such as bey or dey, which refer to Ottoman political offices or titles, are used instead of the more accurate Arabic trans­
literation, bay. If a term, such as the Arabic word for ‘city,” madina, has entered the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
in another variant form, such as medina, then the OED spelling is employed.
vii
viii THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
What Is a
Document?
To ,the historian, a document is, quite sim­
ply, any sort of historical evidence. It is a
primary source, the raw material of his­
tory. A document may be more than the
expected government paperwork, such
as a treaty or passport. It is also a letter,
diary, will, grocery list, newspaper ar­
ticle, recipe, memoir, oral history, school
yearbook, map, chart, architectural plan,
poster, musical score, play script, novel,
political cartoon, painting, photograph—
even an object.
Using primary sources allows us not just
to read about history, but to read history
itself. It allows us to immerse ourselves
in the look and feel of an era gone by, to
understand its people and their language, Cartoon
whether verbal or visual. And it allows us This political cartoon addresses the issue of church and state. It illustrates the
Supreme Court's role in balancing the demands of the ist Amendment of the
to take an active, hands-on role in (recon­
Constitution and the desires of the religious population.
structing history.
Using primary sources requires us to
use our powers of detection to ferret out
the relevant facts and to draw cpnclusions Illustration
from them; just as Agatha Christie uses the Illustrations from children's
scores in a bridge game to determine the books, such as this alphabet
from the New England Primer,
identity of a murderer, the historian uses
tell us how children were
facts from a variety of sources—some, per­
educated and also what the
haps, seemingly inconsequential—to build
religious and moral values of
a historical case. the time were.
The poet W. H. Auden wrote that his­
tory was the study of questions. Primary
sources force us to ask questions—and
then, by answering them, to construct a
narrative or an argument that makes sense
to us. Moreover, as we draw on the many
sources from “the dust-bin of history," we
can endow that narrative with character,
personality, and texture—all the elements
that make history so endlessly intriguing.
What Is a Document? ix
Treaty
l government document such as this 1805 treaty can reveal not only the details of government policy, but also
formation about the people who signed it. Here, the Indians' names were written in English transliteration by
l.S. officials; the Indians added pictographs to the right of their names.
Map
A1788 British map of India shows the region prior to
British colonization, an indication of the kingdoms and
provinces whose ethnic divisions would resurface later
in India's history.
Object
In this fifteenth-century ewer, both the physical materials
of brass and silver and the iconic depiction offreaven as a
forest display the refinement of the owner, an Egyptian
sultan's wife. Objects, along with manuscripts and printed
materials, provide evidence about the past.
X THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
How to Read as law codes or the proceedings of court cases. Some evidence is pub­
lished, while much may remain in archival form, that is, unpublished.
Nonwritten sources include works of art, photographs, posters, architec­
a Document
ture, city space, clothing, and diverse objects of material culture. In ad­
dition to collecting and interpreting primary sources, historians consult
available secondary sources to learn how other scholars have researched
In the course of our daily lives, we all
"leave crumbs behind"—bits and pieces of and reconstructed a particular historical topic or time period.
evidence regarding what we did or did not Nevertheless, primary sources constitute the raw materials of history
do—and ultimately clues about who we writing. In their quest to understand, narrate, and interpret the past, the
historian faces major problems and questions: who wrote, composed, or
are as individuals and what kind of social
universe we inhabit When we use public made the text or object under scrutiny and for what purposes or audi­
transport, a purchased bus, train, or metro ences? What was excised from a text or image and why? How was the
ticket indicates where we’ve been and/or text or image received or "read" by different audiences? Is the source
where we were heading. An unfortunate "trustworthy," that is, does it approximate some social reality, or was it
encounter with a traffic officer while driv­ produced and used to mislead, for example, for propagandistic purposes?
ing generates a fine and some paperwork And how did a particular primary source, whatever its form, come down
registered with the DMV. Our favorite to us and why was it preserved?
foods and drinks show up on grocery store
Subject
receipts and often on our credit card bills
This photograph of Constantinople (or Istanbul; opposite) in the
as well. And what we throw away at night in late nineteenth century shows the newly rebuilt Galata Bridge, which
the garbage or recycling bins divulges pat­ connected two major urban quarters of the capital of the Ottoman Empire,
terns of consumption. Records of checked- the old imperial core and Islamic center, and newer neighborhoods on the
out books from the university library are other side of the Golden Horn. Together with written documentation, this
revealing; they show the courses in which image can be employed as a primary source for recreating daily life as well
we enrolled, what our professors or in­ as investigating historical changes at the level of the state and society.
structors think is important for a specific
Interpretation
discipline, and whether we prefer fiction
By analyzing the people, buildings, animals, and objects in the foreground,
or nonfiction or both. In the ^aggregate, the historian sees that several modes of transportation existed: foot traffic,
societies, religions, cultures, states, and horse-drawn carriages, and small skiffs as well as larger vessels. In addition,
civilizations leave behind vast reservoirs we notice that bundles of goods are being transported and that a shop lines
of evidence from the past in many and the bridge s left-hand comer, thus this is a place of commerce and trade.
complex forms. As is true for individuals, Clothing might yield clues about peoples identity because Constantinople
documentation for the history of larger was a multireligious, multicultural, and polyglot city where dress betrayed
social bodies or political entities is culled communal belonging. Most of the human bridge traffic appears to be
male and wearing some modified version of European costume together
from a number of primary sources that his­
with the fez as headgear but one individual (in the left hand comer)
torians generally categorize as written or
has a turban, suggesting that he is a Muslim dignitary. But how did this
unwritten. Recorded evidence ranges from
photograph come to be and what meaning was it meant to convey? This
population censuses; tax records; diaries;
question brings in the Ottoman state and modernization. We can see at the
business ledgers; and scientific, religious,
far end of Galata Bridge, a large mosque, the "New Mosque" (Yetti Camii)
or literary works to monumental inscrip­
whose construction began the late sixteenth century, and other religious
tions on built structures. Written evidence
buildings. In proximity to these monumental Islamic structures, numerous
can be personal, such as letters exchanged Ottoman state or bureaucratic offices, connected to the exercise of power,
between family members, or public, such whether local, regional, or imperial, were traditionally found. In the course