"Palestine" and other territorial concepts in the 17th century

International Journal of Middle East Studies

Volumn 30, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 563-572

  Gerber, Haim ^a  

^a HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0039702772     PISSN: 00207438     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0020743800052569     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. See Abou-El-Haj's criticism of Iraqi and other qutrī (regional) historians, who are said to have distorted the reality that under the Ottomans no Iraq or Syria in the social sense really existed: R. A. Abou-El-Haj, "The Social Uses of the Past: Recent Arab Historiography of Ottoman Rule," International Journal of Middle East Studies 14 (1982): 185-201.
2. Martin Kramer, "Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity," Daedalus 122 (1993): 179.
3. ⊂ al-Bariyya, 2 vols. (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Uthmaniyye, A.H. 1311).
4. ⊂Abbas, "Hair al-Dīn al-Ramlī's Fatāwā: A New Light on the Life on Palestine in the Eleventh/Seventeenth Century," in Die islamische Welt zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit, ed. U Haarman and P. Bachman (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1979), 1-19; Haim Gerber, "Rigidity Versus Openness in Late-Classical Islamic Law: The Case of the Seventeenth-Century Palestinian Muftī Khayr al-Dīn al-Ramlī," Islamic Law and Society 5 (1998).
5. ⊂Abbas, "Hair al-Dīn al-Ramlī's Fatāwā: A New Light on the Life on Palestine in the Eleventh/Seventeenth Century," in Die islamische Welt zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit, ed. U Haarman and P. Bachman (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1979), 1-19; Haim Gerber, "Rigidity Versus Openness in Late-Classical Islamic Law: The Case of the Seventeenth-Century Palestinian Muftī Khayr al-Dīn al-Ramlī," Islamic Law and Society 5 (1998).
6. ⊂Abbas, "Hair al-Dīn al-Ramlī's Fatāwā: A New Light on the Life on Palestine in the Eleventh/Seventeenth Century," in Die islamische Welt zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit, ed. U Haarman and P. Bachman (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1979), 1-19; Haim Gerber, "Rigidity Versus Openness in Late-Classical Islamic Law: The Case of the Seventeenth-Century Palestinian Muftī Khayr al-Dīn al-Ramlī," Islamic Law and Society 5 (1998).
7. ⊂Abbas, "Hair al-Dīn al-Ramlī's Fatāwā: A New Light on the Life on Palestine in the Eleventh/Seventeenth Century," in Die islamische Welt zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit, ed. U Haarman and P. Bachman (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1979), 1-19; Haim Gerber, "Rigidity Versus Openness in Late-Classical Islamic Law: The Case of the Seventeenth-Century Palestinian Muftī Khayr al-Dīn al-Ramlī," Islamic Law and Society 5 (1998).
8. ⊃, or fatwa-giving, in Islam shows that before the Ottoman period muftis were usually private individuals, unconnected with the government and working at the request of private individuals. This situation changed radically under the Ottomans, when muftis became employees of the government. In not being engaged by the government, Khayr al-Dīn was an exception in his time. The best short account that helps place the career of al-Ramlī in its Islamic context is M. K. Masud, B. Messick, and D. S. Powers, "Muftīs, Fatwās, and Islamic Legal Interpretation," in Islamic Legal Interpretation: Muftīs and their Fatwās, ed. M. K. Massud, B. Messick, and D. S. Powers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 3-32.
9. Al-Ramlī, II:184-85.
10. ⊂a. He also mentions that both highly placed ulama and men of state flocked to his native town to study with him and accept an ijāza (authorization document) bearing his name. Even if Muhibbī exaggerates, the important point for this study is the social reputation of the mufti rather than any objective "fact." See al-Muhibbī, Khulāsat al-āthār, II: 134 ff.
11. ⊂Ābidīn can, for example, be realized from K. N. Ahmed, The Muslim Law of Divorce (Islamabad: The Islamic Research Institute, 1972).
12. ⊂Amira, A.H. 1300), 2:76-77.
13. Al-Ramlī, II:178.
14. Ibid., I:76.
15. Ibid., II:185-86.
16. Ibid., 209.
17. Ibid., 153.
18. Ibid., 22-23, 188.
19. Ibid., I:180.
20. Ibid., II:74.
21. Ibid., 38-39, 117.
22. Ibid., 158-59.
23. Ibid., I:234.
24. Ibid., II:103-4.
25. The way he handled these topics will be analyzed in another study.
26. ⊂Abbāsid Caliph al-Muqtadir," Journal of the Economic History of the Orient 35 (1992): 344 ff.
27. ⊂Abbāsid Caliph al-Muqtadir," Journal of the Economic History of the Orient 35 (1992): 344 ff.
28. Y. Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918-1929 (London: Frank Cass, 1974), 4 ff.
29. Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1995), 261, n. 1: "It is doubtful whether the name Palestine was commonly used by the native population to refer to a specific territory or nation before the late nineteenth century."
30. ⊃evi, An Ottoman Century: The District of Jerusalem in the 1600s (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 11.
31. ⊃evi, An Ottoman Century.
32. ⊃evi, An Ottoman Century.
33. Porath, Emergence, 5.
34. Elad, "Two Identical Inscriptions," 335.
35. ⊂Akka mathalan fī dhālika al-yawm yabirru fī yamīnihi am lā.
36. Al-Ramlī, I:191.
37. ⊃l-judad kamā fī istilāh ahl Filastīn.
38. Ibid., 233: Fī rajul Misrī nazala bi-qarya min qurā Filastīn.
39. MS British Library, OR 7255, f. 19b. Text: Mesele: cami diar-i Arab arz-i mukaddesedenmidir yoksa hudud-u muayyeni varmídír ve arz mukaddesenin sair araziden farki varmídír? Elcevab: Mullakā diyār-i Şamiyya arz-i mukaddesedir derler Beyt-i Makdis ve Halab ve sair nevahi-i Dimask andandir baziler hemen Arihadir derler baziler[i] Dimask ve Filastindir derler. Ebü Süud. An interesting territorial term that surfaces in this fatwa is diyar-i Arab as a clear reference to all the lands inhabited by the "Arabs" of the "Middle East," where the reference to Arabs is clearly not to bedouins but to the modern sense of the term.
40. ⊂Uqūd al-Durriyya, I:12.
41. Al-Ramlī, I:178.
42. Bakri Alladin. "Deux Fatwa-s du Şayh Abd al-Ġani al-Nabulusi (1143/1731)," Bulletin d'Études Orientales 39 (1987): 30.
43. Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaasi, 1935), IX:243, 245, 450, 463, 521.
44. Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi, IX:450. The noteworthy point here is the term arz to denote land in a quasi-political sense. It is interesting that the same Evliya Çelebi reproduces an Ayyubid inscription from Jerusalem, dated 619/1213-14, which situates the building in arz Filastīn, thereby avoiding the formal jund and opting for the more popular "land." See Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Tshelebi's Travels in Palestine (1648-50), trans. (from the original Topkapi Saray MS) St. H. Stephan (Jerusalem: Ariel Publishing House, 1980), 67. (The work was originally published in six installments in the Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine, 1935-42).
45. Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi, IX:450. The noteworthy point here is the term arz to denote land in a quasi-political sense. It is interesting that the same Evliya Çelebi reproduces an Ayyubid inscription from Jerusalem, dated 619/1213-14, which situates the building in arz Filastīn, thereby avoiding the formal jund and opting for the more popular "land." See Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Tshelebi's Travels in Palestine (1648-50), trans. (from the original Topkapi Saray MS) St. H. Stephan (Jerusalem: Ariel Publishing House, 1980), 67. (The work was originally published in six installments in the Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine, 1935-42).
46. Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi, IX:450. The noteworthy point here is the term arz to denote land in a quasi-political sense. It is interesting that the same Evliya Çelebi reproduces an Ayyubid inscription from Jerusalem, dated 619/1213-14, which situates the building in arz Filastīn, thereby avoiding the formal jund and opting for the more popular "land." See Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Tshelebi's Travels in Palestine (1648-50), trans. (from the original Topkapi Saray MS) St. H. Stephan (Jerusalem: Ariel Publishing House, 1980), 67. (The work was originally published in six installments in the Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine, 1935-42).
47. ⊂Anabsi, in a master's degree thesis (Tel Aviv, 1992). The treatises were originally used in J. Sadan, "Le tombeau de Moïse à Jericho et à Damas," Revue des Etudes Islamiques 99 (1981): 60-99.
48. Ibid., 111 ff.
49. Surprisingly, when talking about "country," Bernard Lewis talks only about the term watan, while in the context of Palestinian nationalism bilād seems to have occupied a more central place. See Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 166-73. There is also no mention of bilād in any pre-modern Islamic or Middle Eastern context by Ami Ayalon, Language and Change in the Arab Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 18. (Bilād was used only to relate in various ways to European political entities.)
50. Surprisingly, when talking about "country," Bernard Lewis talks only about the term watan, while in the context of Palestinian nationalism bilād seems to have occupied a more central place. See Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 166-73. There is also no mention of bilād in any pre-modern Islamic or Middle Eastern context by Ami Ayalon, Language and Change in the Arab Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 18. (Bilād was used only to relate in various ways to European political entities.)
51. Cf. Lewis, Islam and the West, 167.
52. Al-Ramlī, II:184-85.
53. Ibid., I:21.
54. Ibid., 107-8.
55. Ibid., 3.
56. Ibid., II:233.
57. Ibid., I:48-49.
58. ⊃l-awqāf al-rūmiyya. See ibid., 179-80.
59. For example, al-Muhibbī, Khulāsat al-āthār, II:41.
60. Ibid., 156. On the same page, we find also al-bilād al-Rūmiyya. See also ibid., 174, 274; ibid., IV:394-95.
61. Ibid., 156. On the same page, we find also al-bilād al-Rūmiyya. See also ibid., 174, 274; ibid., IV:394-95.
62. Ibid., 156. On the same page, we find also al-bilād al-Rūmiyya. See also ibid., 174, 274; ibid., IV:394-95.
63. Al-Ramlī, II:35. On the social division between Qays and Yaman in Palestine in this period, see M. Hoexter, "The Role of the Qays and Yaman Factions in Local Political Divisions: Jabal Nablus Compared with Judean Hills in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century," Asian and African Studies 9 (1973): 251-304.
64. Al-Ramlī, II:35. On the social division between Qays and Yaman in Palestine in this period, see M. Hoexter, "The Role of the Qays and Yaman Factions in Local Political Divisions: Jabal Nablus Compared with Judean Hills in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century," Asian and African Studies 9 (1973): 251-304.
65. Al-Ramlī, I:96; ibid., II:154.
66. Examples: ibid., II:118; ibid., I:38.
67. Ibid., I:7.
68. Heyd, Ottoman Documents on Palestine, 39, 50, 92.
69. Al-Ramlī, I:87.
70. E. Sivan, Arab Political Myths (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1997), chap. 3.
71. As is made clear, for example, by Cohen, Palestine in the 18th Century, passim.
72. See further Gerber, "Khayr al-Dīn al-Ramlī," passim.