Ottoman Cosmopolitanism: The Case of Jerusalem

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OTTOMAN COSMOPOLITANISM & THE CASE OF JERUSALEM Talisker Donahue MA History Dissertation (Supervisor: Dr Roberto Mazza) 04/09/2013 Student Number 229928 SOAS 2013/ 2014 Abstract Building on the growing interest in Ottoman Cosmopolitanism this dissertation investigates the scholarship of the term and applies cosmopolitan theory to the case study of Jerusalem in the late Ottoman period. This establishes what kinds of cosmopolitanism are relevant to the study of the late Ottoman Empire and what contexts they arise in. Word Count: 10,969

Transcript of Ottoman Cosmopolitanism: The Case of Jerusalem

OTTOMAN COSMOPOLITANISM

& THE CASE OF JERUSALEM

Talisker Donahue MA History Dissertation

(Supervisor: Dr Roberto Mazza)

04/09/2013

Student Number 229928 SOAS 2013/ 2014

Abstract Building on the growing interest in Ottoman Cosmopolitanism this dissertation

investigates the scholarship of the term and applies cosmopolitan theory to the case study of Jerusalem in the late Ottoman period. This establishes what kinds of

cosmopolitanism are relevant to the study of the late Ottoman Empire and what contexts they arise in.

Word Count: 10,969

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Contents

1. Declaration & Acknowledgements. p.2

2. Introduction. p.3

3. Was Ottoman Imperialism & Colonialism Cosmopolitan? p.8

4. From Patriotism to Post-colonialism: Jerusalem’s Ottoman

Cosmopolitanism. p.12

4.1 Tanzimat/pre-1908. (p.13)

4.2 Reception of the 1908 Revolution and Cosmopolitan Patriotism. (p.18)

4.3 Gradual Disillusionment and the Emergence of Postcolonial

Cosmopolitanism. (p.26)

5. Conclusion. p.34

6. Appendix. p.37

7. Bibliography. p.38

8. Cover References. p.44

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Declaration

This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

MA in ‘History: Near and Middle East’ of the School of Oriental and African Studies

(University of London).

Declaration by candidate:

‘I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the School of

Oriental and African Studies concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all material presented

for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part by any

other person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or

unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present

for examination. I give permission for a copy of my dissertation to be held for reference, at

the School’s discretion.’

Signed…………………………… (student)

Date………………………..

Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank Dr William Gallois, now of the University of Exeter, and Dr

Susan Deacy, of Roehampton University, who both inspired me to continue studying history

and who sponsored my application for the AHRC scholarship that facilitated this degree

course.

On that note I would like to thank the AHRC for supporting the continued academic growth

and success of individuals like myself and the UK academic community as a whole. Thanks

too to SOAS, the History department, Admissions and the Scholarships team, for offering me

the chance to come to this unique institution and giving me an opportunity and a year that,

without their support, would have been the stuff of fantasy.

Finally, thank you to my girlfriend Catherine and my family for their proofreading services,

editorial notes (still in red, even on MS Word), Amazon wish-list fulfillment and always

being there.

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Ottoman Cosmopolitanism and the Case of Jerusalem

Introduction

‘Ottoman cosmopolitanism’ is at the forefront of current debates surrounding the history of

the modern Middle East, so much so that a recent AHRC1 research programme has

endeavoured to fashion an inter-disciplinary discourse to demonstrate inter/trans-cultural

engagements within the empire, that have legacies in modern culture and society,2 in order to

explore “what has happened to Ottoman cosmopolitanism” today3.

Through this approach, and those of previous works, there appears to be a trend towards

generalising the ‘modern’ Ottoman period as cosmopolitan in that it was pre-national and,

comparatively speaking, allegiance was familial, urban, global and economic.4 While

Zubaida accepts the modernity of cosmopolitanism5, a critical analysis of the limits of term,

in addition to the structures and contexts which contribute to its flourishing, i.e. the

relationship of state to individual coupled with sociocultural encounters with ‘others’, is

required. There is also a danger that we generalise ‘Ottomanism’ and the Ottoman millet

system as inherently cosmopolitan while ignoring the simultaneous narrative of state

centralisation and competing national ‘awakenings’. Historians should endeavour to maintain

a view that cosmopolitanism is a complex philosophy of ethics6 on a personal and political

scale which only exists in specific contexts. It is a state of “being in the world”7 of certain

1 Arts and Humanities Research Council. www.ahrc.ac.uk 2 http://ottomancosmopolitanism.wordpress.com/our-research/ (accessed 28/06/14) 3 Ibid. 4 The research programme Ibid believes strongly that the Ottoman Empire prioritised trade and travel with culture and traditions which were familial. 5 Zubaida, S. Beyond Islam: A New Understanding of the Middle East. p.133. I.B. Tauris. London, UK. (2011) 6 There is not the space here to go into the history of cosmopolitanism but, Nussbaum, M. ‘Kant and Cosmopolitanism.’ p.31. In: Brown, G.W. & Held, D. The Cosmopolitan Reader. Polity Press. Cambridge, UK. (2010) is a good place to start and covers the philosophy from Diogenes the Cynic, through Kant, to the present day. For a nuanced alternative which takes into account the Arabic contribution between the classical world and the Enlightenment see: Gallois, W. ‘Andalusi Cosmopolitanism in World History.’ In: Ihsanoglu, E (Ed.). Cultural Contacts in Building a Universal Civilisation. IRCICA. Istanbul, Turkey. (2005) 7 Waldron, J. ‘What is Cosmopolitan?’ p.1. The Journal of Political Philosophy. Vol.8. no.2. (2000)

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individuals within certain political, social, cultural environments and, importantly, with

access to certain resources. In fact “actually existing cosmopolitanism [as observed in Middle

Eastern history] is all about wealth and secularism”8.

This invariably entails an urban milieu which fosters encounters with the ‘other’ and it is here

that cosmopolitanism has been examined in most detail; Alexandria (Ilbert)9, Aleppo

(Watenpaugh)10 Salonica (Baer)11 are some prime examples. What this dissertation intends

to show, through a discussion of Ottoman cosmopolitanism as a research topic in-and-of itself

and through a case study of Jerusalem, is that Ottoman cosmopolitanism required

modernisation in order to flourish. In addition, however, this process culminated in the rapid

dissolution of the cosmopolitan milieu, meaning that we can only discuss the notion as

“actually existing” within a brief window; namely the period 1908-1913 in which political

mobility was encouraged by state conditions and civic development, coupled with the cultural

mobility which was largely a product of the Ottoman ancien régime. We will also see that

cosmopolitanism existed in specific philosophical forms and, perhaps, continues in the

modern civic urbanism of Jerusalem.

As can be seen from the above examples, Jerusalem has been a notable absence from the list

of Ottoman cities discussed in the cosmopolitanism discourse. A possible reason for this is

the city’s condition as a hotbed of sectarianism and nationalist claim-making12 but it is,

8 Hanley, W. ‘Grieving Cosmopolitanism in Middle East Studies.’ p.1358. History Compass. Vol. 6. Issue. 5. (2008) 9 Ilbert, R & Yannakakis, I (Eds.) Alexandria 1860-1960: The Brief Life of a Cosmopolitan Community. Harpocrates. Alexandria, Egypt. (1997) Also see: Halim, H. Alexandrian Cosmopolitanism: An Archive. Fordham University Press. New York, USA. (2013) 10Watenpaugh, K,D. ‘Cleansing the Cosmopolitan City: Historicism, Journalism and the Arab Nation in the Post-Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean.’ Social History. Vol.30. no.1 (2005) 11 Baer, M. ‘Globalization, Cosmopolitanism and the Donme in Ottoman Salonica and Turkish Istanbul.” Journal of World History. Vol.18. no.2. (2007) 12 Mazza, R. ‘Missing Voices in Rediscovering Late Ottoman and Early British Jerusalem.’ p.61-62. Jerusalem Quarterly. No.53. (2013)

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nonetheless, a useful case-study as it allows us to appraise the broader notion of Ottoman

cosmopolitanism in an urban environment where inter-communal strife has predominated at

the expense of pluralism, liberalism, even cosmopolitanism.

To a large extent I have taken as a departure point Will Hanley’s critique of Ottoman

cosmopolitan scholarship.13 This, in turn, led me to consider the case of Jerusalem which, on

the one hand can be seen as a microcosm of the Ottoman experience, or a specific

environment in which the phenomenon ‘Ottoman cosmopolitanism’ had a unique, local,

manifestation through the city’s multi-confessional population, international importance and

administrative centrality to the Ottoman state in Greater Syria. Through these largely macro-

political frameworks the actors on the stage of Jerusalem’s streets, bazaars and coffee houses

were modernised by both colonial powers (including the Ottoman state) and themselves as

active agents who engaged with new political-international discourses. This occurred within

shared spaces and across social-ethnic-religious lines to formulate a cosmopolitan modernity

which was an alternative to the sectarianism of religion and nationalism that, to this day,

dominates the region’s discourses.

The recent publication edited by Freitag and Lafi14 has contributed further to this burgeoning

field and they establish many of the parameters which are of interest here; i.e. how did the

cosmopolitanism of the Ottomans, which they define narrowly as the coexistence of multiple

communities, relate to the urban governance of the state and its players. Johann Bussow’s

meticulous essay15 in this volume does much to show how the governance of Jersualem

altered in the Tanzimat through to the Young Turk period, in that the municipality and its

13 Hanley, W. ‘Grieving Cosmopolitanism.’ 14 Freitag, U & Lafi, N (Eds.) Urban Governance under the Ottomans: Between Cosmopolitanism and Violence. Routledge. London, UK. (2014) 15 Bussow, J. ‘Ottoman Reform and Urban Government in the District of Jerusalem, 1867-1917’ in: Freitag, U & Lafi, N (Eds.) Urban Governance under the Ottomans: Between Cosmopolitanism and Violence. Routledge. London, UK. (2014)

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governing bodies became the primary vehicle for public engagement. What is missing from

this discourse, contributed to by Zubaida, Bussow et al. is an examination of Ottoman

cosmopolitanism with regard to salient theories on the subject which have proliferated in the

fields of political-science and philosophy.16 An appreciation of this material will lead to an

understanding of the use and limits of the description ‘cosmopolitan’ while formulating the

necessary parameters for the discussion of cosmopolitanism which avoids nostalgia, grief and

socio-cultural limitations.

There is a need, then, to establish a relationship between the life-experiences of Ottoman

subjects and the state while, if we are to describe their contexts and life-ways as

cosmopolitan, relating them to critical, philosophical analyses of the subject, i.e. how can one

be an Ottoman Patriot, or a proto-Arab nationalist and a cosmopolitan? Kwame Anthony

Appiah17 offers a possible solution; patriotism for the state and its institutions rather than a

‘national’ imagined community which he sets against the ideas of Nussbaum.18 Meanwhile,

Julian Go19 has provided a framework through which cosmopolitanism can emerge in the

context of colonialism and decolonisation that greatly informs our understanding of the

experience of Jerusalemites in the context of Ottoman modernity.

In order to ascertain the relationship between political-colonial forces and the experience of

Jerusalemites it is necessary to juxtapose colonial-modernisation and political transformation

with culture on the ground through new sources such as memoires. Here the focus will be for

the most part on the diary of the oud player Wasif Jawhariyyeh,20 however other diary

16 Hanley, W. ‘Grieving Cosmpolitanism.’ p.1347. 17 Appiah, K.A. ‘Cosmopolitan Patriots.’ Critical Inquiry. Vol.23. no.3. (1997) 18 Nussbaum, M. ‘Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism’. Boston Review. 1994. http://bostonreview.net/BR19.5/nussbaum.php (Accessed 17/04/2012). 19 Go, J. ‘Fanon’s Postcolonial Cosmopolitanism.’ European Journal of Social Theory. 1-18 (2012) 20 Tamari, S & Nassar, I. Storyteller of Jerusalem: The Life and Times of Wasif Jawhariyyeh. Olive Branch Press. Northampton, USA. (2013).

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records such as that of Khalil al-Sakakini and the soldier Ihsan Hasahn al-Salih Turjman21

reflect Ottoman colonialism and the individual experience of a changing cosmopolitanism.

These “missing voices” 22 enable the historian to envision an urban milieu where cultural

barriers were surprisingly malleable and conducive to a cosmopolitan culture. Evidence

gleaned solely from memoirs is not sufficient to effectively analyse social history23

necessitating placement of these cosmopolitan images within the political context that

enabled their creation; namely Ottoman reform and colonialism which can be seen through

British consular records and specialist work by scholars such as Bussow, Abu-Manneh24 and

Kushner25. These sources are similar to those used by scholars such as Zubaida; the social-

historical accounts of the literate, the mobile, the politically active and, largely, the urban

who, in many ways, embody the general vision of a cosmopolitan.26 However this way of life

was made possible only by an encroaching modernity which, for a brief moment, enabled a

certain strata to experience a cosmopolitan existence, before it was, politically, overtaken by

sectarian division.

21 (Turjman, S) Tamari, S (Trans.). Year of the Locust: A Soldier’s Diary and the Erasure of Palestine’s Ottoman Past. University of California Press. Berkley, USA. (2011) 22 Mazza, R. ‘Missing Voices.’ 23 Hanley. ‘Grieving Cosmopolitanism.’ p.1352 24 Especially: Abu-Manneh. ‘Jerusalem in the Tanzimat Period: The New Ottoman Administration and the Notables.’ Die Welt des Islams. New Series. Bd. 30. Nr. ¼. (1990) 25 Especially: Kushner, D. ‘The District of Jerusalem in the Eyes of Three Ottoman Governors at the End of the Hamidian Period.’ p.94. Middle Eastern Studies. Vol.35. no.2. (1999) 26 For example: Calhoun, C. ‘The Class Consciousness of Frequent Travellers: Towards a Critique of Actually Existing Cosmopolitanism.’ In: Archibugi, D (Ed.). Debating Cosmopolitics. Verso. London, UK. (2003)

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Was Ottoman Imperialism and Colonialism Cosmopolitan?

The general nostalgia we have discussed above, which is based on modern conflicts, have led

to attempts to see the Ottoman system as not only cosmopolitan but a viable alternative to the

current state of affairs in the region.27 Alongside the notion of cosmopolitanism thriving in

the Ottoman Empire as a specific there is also the consideration that empires as pre-national,

or simply non-national, political structures offer one of the few tenable systems for

challenging the power of ethnic-nationalism and sectarian division, however unpalatable the

idea may be in modern thought. 28

Previous scholarship29 has tended to focus on European mercantile empires, yet these new

European cosmopolitans are imbued with the sole agency in the process and the

Ottoman/Islamic context and actors are often disregarded (or overlooked). Ottoman

imperialism, in fact, seems “a more appropriate comparative framework for a historian

tracking cosmopolitanism.”30 Landry uses Said as a departure point for a discussion on

whether the millet system, especially regarding Jews,31 can be construed as “Ottoman

cosmopolitanism, a toleration or incorporation of difference that appears comparatively

humane in the light of hindsight.”32 This discussion deals largely with pre-modern

examples,33 and the idea that cosmopolitanism requires modern networks, technology and

27 Said, E. ‘My Right of Return.’ p.455. In: Viswanthan, G (Ed.) Power, Politics and Culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said. Bloomsbury. London, UK. (2005) 28 Popper, K. The Open Society and its Enemies. V.1. (The Spell of Plato). Routledge. London, UK. (1947). See also: Hacohen, M. ‘The Limits of the National Paradigm in the Study of Political Thought: The Case of Karl Popper and Central European Cosmopolitanism.” p.277. In: Castiglione, D & Hampsher-Monk, I (Eds.) The History of Political Thought in National Context. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, UK. (2001) 29 For example: Games, A. The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560-1660. Oxford University Press. Oxford, UK. (2008) 30 Landry, D. ‘Said before Said.’ p.65. In: Elmarsafy, Z, Bernard, A & Attwell, D. Debating Orientalism. Palgrave-Macmillan. Basingstoke, UK. (2013) 31 Ibid. p.66. 32 Ibid. p.58. 33For example, the famous Jerusalem soup kitchen endowed by the wife of Suleyman I in the 16th century: Singer, A. Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem. University of New York Press. Albany, USA. (2002)

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communication or, alternatively, a state led ideology34 that the Ottoman’s were at this stage

unable to promulgate, is not considered. In essence, Landry assumes the Islamic state

presided over by the Ottomans fomented cosmopolitanism when, in fact, the centre-periphery

relationship was not governable to the extent that cosmopolitanism was a state-led ideology

nor were local conditions themselves inherently cosmopolitan due to the state’s framework of

rule. The millet system did not promote the type of inter-communal relationships and patterns

of mutual affiliation which generally constitute the cosmopolitan. Rather, as Zubaida has

argued, it was not until the 19th/20th centuries and the combination of capitalism and the

Ottoman’s encounter with the West that communities became permeable.35

We have seen that there is a tendency to discuss the Ottoman state as being cosmopolitan in-

and-of itself by virtue of it’s, ostensibly, pluralistic system of governance and

institutionalised charity. While Landry, Singer and Isin36 have considered state led

cosmopolitan activities we can also interpret the relatively decentralised administration and

the ‘politics of the notables’ which, far from absorbing (or crushing) local identities and

structures sought to preserve or even revive regional customs,37 as fomenting the hybrid, pre-

national communities which would become cosmopolitan in the final years of the empire.

Colonialism is a key element to this process and facilitated both modernisation and the

cosmopolitan milieu that emerged in the wake of modernities interaction with the pre-

national community structures of the Ottoman ancien régime.

While colonialism is inextricably bound up with questions surrounding power, racism and

subjugation38 cosmopolitan milieus in colonial or imperial contexts are observable. Empires

34 Landry posits the need for a “powerful state apparatus.” Landry, D. ‘Said before Said.’ p.58. 35 Zubaida, S. Beyond Islam. p.133. 36 Isin, E.F. ‘Beneficence and Difference: Ottoman Awqaf and “Other” Subjects.’ In: Mayaram, S. The Other Global City. Routledge. New York, USA. (2009) 37 Hourani, A. The Emergence of the Middle East. p.44. University of California Press. Berkley, USA. (1981) 38 Sartre, J. Colonialism and Neocolonialism. p.21. Taylor & Francis e-Library. (2005) http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1aWEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PP22&dq=colonialism+violence+subjugation&hl=en

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facilitated inter-ethnic or inter-communal relations and communications in ways which could

not otherwise be achieved. Trade outposts and factories enabled colonialists to encounter the

‘other’ while ideas, technologies and culture were translated and disseminated throughout

domains and among those subjects who were educated or within the colonial-system.39 The

Mediterranean region’s port cities have been described as a locus of cosmopolitan activity

and ideology, with “third spaces”40 and non-national intermediaries, protégés,41 contributing

to cosmopolitanism. The Ottomans shared many of these characteristics and used many of

these same imperial tools in a fashion that has been termed “borrowed colonialism”42 which

we will see become more prevalent as centralisation gathered pace under the CUP. But what

sort of cosmopolitanism can emerge from a phenomena where racism is innate?43 The case

study of Jerusalem will show that cosmopolitanism was not a pre-national socio-political

phenomena but emerged through the Ottoman project of colonial modernisation and went

through its own transformation, from patriotism to post-colonialism, within an increasingly

mobile, hybrid community. These instances will be related to both broad political ideologies

and “lived cosmopolitan structures and identifications”44 which are, arguably, products of late

Ottoman modernisation and were developed within colonial conditions. Rather than discuss

&sa=X&ei=2JioU6bdFOrO0AX99IHYBQ&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=colonialism%20violence%20subjugation&f=false (accessed 23/06/14) 39 This idea has been discussed in relation to British India and the experience of the province of Sindh in the 19th century by Falzon who identified colonial “hotbeds of cosmopolitanism.” Falzon, M. ‘Ethnic Groups Unbound: A Case Study of the Social Organisation of Cosmopolitanism.’ p.40. In: Nowicka, M & Rovisco, M. Cosmopolitanism in Practice. Ashgate. Abingdon, UK. (2009) 40 Haller, D. ‘The Cosmopolitan Mediterranean: Myth and Reality.” p.37-38. Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie. Bd. 129. H.1. (2004). 41 Haller, D. ‘The Cosmopolitan Mediterranean: Myth and Reality.” p.37 42 Deringil, S. “They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery”: The Late Ottoman Empire and the Post-Colonial Debate.’ Comparative Studies in Society and History. Vol.45. no.2. (2003). Also, for the differences between British and Ottoman colonialism in Jerusalem see: Jacobson, A. From Empire to Empire: Jerusalem Between Ottoman and British Rule. Esp.p.13-15. Syracuse University Press. Syracuse, USA. (2011) 43 Sartre, J. Colonialism and Neocolonialism. It is also important to note the relationship between colonial racism, empire and the development of nation-state modernity (and ethnic nationalism) itself in imperial domains which Timothy Mitchell has observed. Mitchell, T. ‘The Stage of Modernity.’ p.10-16. In: Mitchell, T (Ed.) Questions of Modernity. University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis, USA. (2000) 44 Haller, D. ‘The Cosmopolitan Mediterranean’ p.30

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polyglot individuals or hybrid, mercantile, urban communities as innately cosmopolitan the

example of late Ottoman Jerusalem will show that philosophical specificity is vital for our

understanding of instances of Ottoman cosmopolitanism and its relationship to the complex

web of colonialism, patriotism and nascent nationalism.

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From Patriotism to Post-colonialism: Jerusalem’s Ottoman Cosmopolitanism

The traditional view of Jerusalem is that of, essentially, a sectarian, divided and conservative

city.45 So strong is this image of Jerusalem that Halper has asserted that, even with the

transformations brought about by modernity, the urban reality of the city reflected “corporate

segmentation”46 while apparently civic institutions (newspapers, schools etc.) operated

“within the communal lines that already existed.”47 In fact, even towards the end of Ottoman

rule mere hints at a plural urban culture belied a reality that was as polarised as it had been a

century earlier.48 It is the aim of this case study to show, using consular and administrative

sources, coupled with memoires, that Jerusalem’s late Ottoman history is one of

cosmopolitanism rather than sectarianism. We will see that Ottoman colonialism and

modernity fashioned structures which enabled connections between multiple groups forming

a larger cosmopolitan community.49 This larger community and the inter-cultural engagement

that Ottoman modernity facilitated can and should be interpreted in terms of Ottoman

cosmopolitanism and, by using critical theory, we can establish just what kind of

cosmopolitanism this was. Beginning with the Tanzimat period,50 the case study will

investigate the processes which produced in Jerusalem a cosmopolitan urban experience

45 Uri Ram Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and the Bifurcation of Israel. p.23. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society. Vol.19. no.1/2. (The New Sociological Imagination II) (2005) 46 Halper, J. ‘On the Way. The Transition of Jerusalem from a Ritual to a Colonial City (1800-1917).’ Urban Anthropology. Vol.13. no.1. (1984) 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. p.26-27. 49 Nassar, I. ‘Jerusalem in the Late Ottoman Period: Historical Writing and the Native Voice.’ p. 217. In: Mayer, T & Mourad, S.A (Eds). Jerusalem: Idea and Reality. Routledge. Abingdon, UK. (2008). 50 It would, of course, be possible to start this discussion with Muhammed Ali’s rule. The decision to establish Ottoman continuity is one of practicality in relation to the overarching topic of Ottoman cosmopolitanism. This is worthy of further examination and I will only mention that the Egyptian conquest of Acre was greeted by a similar local, multicultural enthusiasm as was the Young Turk Revolution in Jaffa and Jerusalem. See: Kramer, G. A History of Palestine. p.64. Princeton University Press. Woodstock, UK. (2011). Importantly, the notion of the state as a facilitator of cosmopolitan possibility, i.e. democracy and mobility only became a reality with the C.U.P and later modernisation, as we will see.

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before the outbreak of WW1 and the growth of ethnic nationalisms; we will see how

cosmopolitanism is connected to modernity, colonialism and, in fact, nascent nationalism.

Tanzimat/pre-1908

The Tanzimat period of Jerusalem and its districts saw a great deal of state-led change which

can broadly be categorised under the headings colonial activity and political development. To

a large extent the reforms were interpreted locally and implemented pragmatically. However,

as this programme of modernity gained speed, bringing ideas and the structures needed to

distribute them, local interpretations began to give way to local nationalisms that sought

dislocation from what came to be identified as the oppressive Turk.51 The Tanzimat era then

holds distinct interest as a time where the mechanisms that later disaffection would use were

introduced while simultaneously giving birth to a socio-cultural environment that would

celebrate both its patriotism and cosmopolitanism.

The Ottoman provincial code of 1864 and, later, 1871,52 restructured the various forms of

governance which overlapped following the three invasions (The Mamluks, Bonaparte,

Mehmet Ali) of the 18th and 19th centuries. Bussow highlights the main difference between

the pre-Tanzimat patchwork of co-existing systems and the post-Tanzimat administration as

being “an unprecedented degree of standardisation and a high level of stability.”53 Coupled

with this was the autonomy of the mahalla/neighbourhood which can be characterised as

corporatist, relying on collective responsibility and various overlapping institutions that

provided public services.54

51 Doumani, B. Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900. P.21.University of California Press. London, UK. (1995) 52 Vaughn-Findley, C. ‘The Evolution of Provincial Administration.’ p.8-15. In: Kushner, D. Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period: Political, Social and Economic Transformation. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press. Jerusalem, Is. (1986) 53 Bussow, J. ’Ottoman Reform.’ p.100. 54 Ibid. p.99-100.

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Colonialism

From the 1860s standardisation and centralisation gained pace and Jerusalem became an

important centre for the reforming state. It had risen in prominence and was one of the first

cities to be included in the 1864 Provincial Code. It became a provincial capital and was a

colonial beachhead in the peripheral regions, buttressing the Ottoman reforms alongside other

cities such as Damascus, Salonica and Baghdad.55 Protests did occur and were successful

even at this early stage.56 These can be seen as prefiguring later developments57 and the

discontent characteristic of post-colonial cosmopolitanism. The Tanzimat reformers wanted

“prosperous, orderly, healthy and clean cities...not local autonomies”58 but localism survived

and, importantly, became politicised within the new framework of governance. While the

districts and sub-districts were governed by functionaries who were often seen as creatures of

the Ottoman state the municipalities were led by local community notables who symbolically

connected the state to the citizenry.59

The provincial city also became a symbol of Ottoman colonialism and its civilising mission.

Bussow uses Beersheba as an example where the state aimed to create an outpost of

civilisation in the desert where civil buildings would bring Ottomanism to the periphery. He

describes this as a civilising mission60 that reflects what the Jerusalemites thought about the

Turks who, despite the fact that they were hardly noticed in the city were none-the-less

considered colonialist.61 According to the Ottoman Governor Ekrem Bey (1906-1908),

Beersheba was beginning to fulfil one of its important state purposes, to settle the nomadic

55Ibid. p.101. 56 Ibid. p.101. 57 Ben-Bassat, Y. Petitioning the Sultan: Protests and Justice in Late Ottoman Palestine. I.B Tauris. New York, USA. (2013) 58 Bussow, J. ‘Ottoman Reform.’ p.102. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. p.102-103. 61 Tamari, S & Nassar, I. Storyteller of Jerusalem. p.46

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Bedouin population within the developing modern urbanisation. According to Kushner,

Ekrem Bey believed the settlement of Bedouins was “a most beneficial operation [and] would

strengthen the loyalty of the tribes to the sultan-caliph.”62 We can understand from this that

the Ottoman state was using that “borrowed” form of colonialism to further its goal of

centralisation and administrative modernisation. This policy of bringing the periphery into the

centre would re-emerge under the CUP administration, proving to the populous that

colonialism and struggles for power would continue.

Political Development

According to the municipal law of 187763 voting was restricted as was the right to stand for

election.64 The citizenship requirements also disenfranchised, to a large extent, the Jewish

population and those Christian inhabitants who were associated with or under the protection

of Western powers.65 The local population was not, therefore, represented equally; in 1870

among the seven councillors there was only one Christian and one Jew. The last Ottoman

council included two Jews representing possibly 40% or more of the total population. 66

Engagement between the municipality and the populous was, therefore, severely limited

politically; around 5% of the male population participated in the 1898 election.67 This

problem did draw local criticism, noticeably from Mehmed Tevfik in 1900, who believed the

restrictions could upset the whole political system and called for the tax threshold to be

62 Kushner, D. ‘The District of Jerusalem.’ p.94. 63 Wilayet Municipal Law. Ch.3. 18. Translations of the Ottoman Constitutional Laws, the Wilayet Administrative Law, the Municipal Law and various other laws. [Baghdad: Ministry of Justice, 1922]. http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/13789826?n=60&imagesize=1200&jp2Res=.25&printThumbnails=no (accessed 18/06/14) 64 Bussow, J. ‘Ottoman Reform.’ p.111. 65Wilayet Municipal Law. Ch.3. 19:4 & 19:11-12 66 Kark, R & Oren-Nordheim, M. Jerusalem and its Environs: Quarters, Neighbourhoods, Villages, 1800-1948. p.28. Hebrew University Magnes Press. Jerusalem, Israel. (2001) and Bussow, J. ‘The District of Jerusalem.’ p.112. 67 Bussow, J. ‘Ottoman Reform.’ p.123.

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lowered68 and was also appreciative of the need to maintain peace between the confessional

groups on the social-cultural level.69

While concerns such as this, including conflicting interests within confessional groups (in

particular the Orthodox community70), continued into the Young Turk period we will see that

there was a tangible public mood that promoted concepts such as liberty and equality.

Journalism reflected international discourses and affected public perception of the

administration as writers compared their situation to American, European and even Chinese

models. 71 Councillor David Yellin followed this example and travelled to Europe himself to

gain experience of different governance methods.72 The municipal government, while elected

by a distinct social strata, did not seem to be biased in favour of specific interest groups,

offering medical care regardless of religion.73 This milieu of both trans-confessional state

relations and shared urban spaces is what comes to the fore in the Jawhariyyeh diaries.

Wasif Jawhariyyeh lived in the area of Jerusalem now known as the Muslim quarter74 and his

father’s close relationship with the neihbours allowed the family to participate in the

hallowed festival of Ramadan with Wasif himself accompanying the hymns on his tanboor,75

made for him by a Moroccan friend.76 Easter and the Jewish Purim were similarly celebrated

by a diverse and fluid community. When the Jews visited the graves of Shimon the Muslims

and Christians would gather with them in a crowd that filled the valley while singing

68 Ibid. 69 Kushner, D. ‘The District of Jerusalem.’ p.90. 70 Der matossian, B. ‘The Young Turk Revolution: Its Impact on Religious Politics in Jerusalem (1908-1912).’ Jerusalem Quarterly. Vol.10. no.1. (Winter 2010) 71 Bussow, J. ‘Ottoman Reform.’ p.128. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. p.129. 74 For an approximate location of the Jawhariyyeh house and the surrounding district see Appendix A. 75 Tamari, S & Nassar, I. Storyteller of Jerusalem. p.58-60. 76 Ibid. p.29.

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Andalusian songs.77 According to Tamari, “this was not the tolerant co-habitation of

protected dhimmi minorities, but the positive engagement in the affairs of neighbours whose

religion was coincidental to their wider urban heritage.”78 It is just this positive engagement

that facilitated cosmopolitanism and which became politicised and institutionalised through

civic identity and Ottoman patriotism after 1908.

While Abu-Manneh focused on the centralisation policies of the Tanzimat which he says

aimed to break the local power of ayan leaving “no intermediaries between governmental

institutions and the people,”79 Bussow suggests a stronger Ottoman appreciation for

pragmatic local solutions in keeping with the milieu described by Jawhariyyeh. This entailed

a two-pronged approach to governance which promoted standardisation while utilising local

frameworks resulting in what he describes as ‘cooperative governance.’80 The Tanzimat

Municipal system, then, supported and transformed the Ottoman programme of modernity

that, apparently, led to “the decline of local power with no effective substitute for it.”81 The

substitute was, in fact, the maintenance of local in positions of power but within the

municipal administration. They were politically and socially engaged with the public in ways

that the Ottoman governors were not. They also became representatives of the public mood,

including the patriotism that shook the region in the wake of the Young Turk revolution

which succeeded in temporarily uniting communities of various confessions and ethnicities82.

After the Young Turk revolution the shared events and spaces, such as the new town square

77 An interesting reference that adds to the flavour of cosmopolitanism. Umayyad al-Andalus is often idealised as a culture or epoch characterised by diversity, tolerance and intellectual freedom. Menocal, M.R. Ornament of the World. Back Bay Books. New York, USA. (2002) 78 Tamari, S. Jerusalem’s Ottoman Modernity: The Life and Times of Wasif Jawhariyyeh. p.12. Jerusalem Quarterly. Issue 9. (2000). http://www.jerusalemquarterly.org/ViewArticle.aspx?id=218 (Accessed 18/03/2014) 79 Abu-Manneh, B. ‘Jerusalem in the Tanzimat Period.’ p.10. 80 Bussow, J. ‘The District of Jerusalem.’ p.121. 81 Abu-Manneh, B. ‘Jerusalem in the Tanzimat Period.’ p.43. 82 Campos, M. Ottoman Brothers: Muslims Christians and Jews in Early Twentieth Century Palestine. Stanford University Press. Stanford, USA. (2011).

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in front of the Jaffa Gate, became sites of liberal and Ottomanist soapboxing which were

often supported or led by municipal players independent of the governor or Turkish colonial

elite.83 These municipal politicians, unlike the state supported governors, were dependent on

voluntary support from the populous and so, through the old system of patronisation and

negotiation, allowed for a degree of popular participation. Those groups which had remained

disenfranchised during the Ottoman modernisation period became politicised through their

municipal representatives and, as the language of reform and constitutionalism was learned,

would become strong advocates for patriotic allegiance to the new system which promised

much in the name of equality.

Reception of the 1908 revolution and cosmopolitan patriotism

We have seen how Ottoman colonialism and Imperialism developed Palestine/Jerusalem and

how colonialism, with its creation of trans-cultural networks, foments cosmopolitanism. It is

also worth noting however that, alongside the millet system of governance was, as Zubaida

astutely observed, the peculiarity of Ottoman cultural-religious plurality and relative localism

contrasted with the Empires of Northern Europe, which began from a logic of nationhood

before expanding according to a capitalist and ethnic framework.84. This resulted in a “world

[where] one could definitively have more than one collective identity [with] no inherent

contradiction between them.”85 The constitutional revolution, led by the Young Turks, in

1908 came with the heady expectation that millet would become a personal identity marker

while, socially and politically, there would be equality under Ottoman citizenship.

The 1908 revolution, which, beginning with exiled elite, liberal, Ottomanists in Europe and a

military contingent in the Balkans, compelled the Sultan Abdulhamid II to restore the

83 Bussow, J. ‘The District of Jerusalem.’p. 130. 84 Zubaida, S. The Peculiarity of the Ottomans. Ottoman Cosmopolitan Network - Workshop 2 (25/06/2014) http://ottomancosmopolitanism.wordpress.com/podcasts/ (accessed 27/02/14) 85 Campos, M. Ottoman Brothers. p.69.

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constitution which he had abandoned in 1877. Abdulhamid’s policy of imperial solidarity had

focussed, for the main, on promoting himself as Caliph and integrating the Empires

inhabitants along Islamic lines.86 The constitutionalists were, on the other hand, believers,

ostensibly,87 in the western concept of citizenship based on equality as opposed to the millet

system of confessional separation which had been promoted by the first wave of ‘Young

Ottomans’ coming out of the Tanzimat. 88 The revolution and the “radical upheaval in the

dynamics of power”89 that resulted was greeted with a heady mix of expectation, hope and

patriotism by Jerusalemites who believed that equal citizenship would not only enfranchise

the public, who were becoming both more mobile and culturally informed, but would also

unite the Empire as an effective entity in the modern world.90

News of the revolution reached the masses in Jerusalem gradually. On August 6th 1908, the

British consul Edward Blech reported that news of the re-establishment of the Ottoman

constitution had filtered down to his remote province.91 Initially, the message was relayed

officially to the urban notables, chief officials, ulama and religious dignitaries and Blech

observed a reticence on the part of these notables to appreciate the situation. This, coupled

with his belief that the Ottoman governor, Ekrem Bey, was not to be trusted with

implementing the reforms that the constitution would demand, made him largely

unenthusiastic about the prospects for the movement. There was however, even at this early

stage of the constitution’s promulgation, a notion that Jerusalemites themselves had the

86 For example: Berkes, N. The Development of Secularism in Turkey. p.255. Routledge. London, UK. (2013) 87 For the disparity between the Young Turk’s utopian idealism and their pragmatic politics see: Hanioglu, S.M. Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks 1902-1908. Oxford University Press. Oxford, UK. (2001) 88 Mardin, S. The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas. Syracuse University Press. New York, USA. (2000) 89 Der Matossian, B. ‘Administrating the Non-Muslims and the ‘Question of Jerusalem’ After the Young Turk Revolution.’ p.21. Ben-Bassat, Y & Ginio, E. Late Ottoman Palestine: The Period of Young Turk Rule. I.B Tauris. London, UK. (2011) 90 Abu-Manneh, B. ‘Arab-Ottomanists’ Reactions to the Young Turk Revolution.’ p.145 In: Ben-Bassat, Y & Ginio, E. Late Ottoman Palestine: The Period of Young Turk Rule. I.B Tauris. London, UK. (2011 91 TNA FCO 195/2287. ‘From Jerusalem.’ no.39. Blech to Lowther. 06/08/1908.

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necessary agency and appetite to support humanist citizenship which, from the start,

transcended confessional boundaries. Blech himself was visited by delegations of both

Muslims and Christians who assured him that they were not fanatics and desired equality

among citizens.92 These delegates were an exception to official rule of relative disinterest and

Ekrem Bey, for his part, seemed positive at the news from Istanbul but was apparently doing

little that had a practical manifestation to his citizens. 93

The story was slightly different in the wider district however. Two days previously, August

4th, there were widespread demonstrations in Jaffa which translated its Tanzimat international

and outward looking nature94 into popular, joyous enthusiasm when the constitution’s re-

establishment was announced. Muslims, Christians and Jews gathered in a large group and

marched to the Military Department where patriotic speeches were delivered and the Sultan

praised for granting liberty to his people. The main road of the town was illuminated as night

fell and, in true cosmopolitan spirit individual difference was in evidence but celebrated as

part of the town’s urban identity; each millet flew its flag and, as eleven-o’clock came, the

crowds went their separate ways “without the least quarrel or dispute.”95

Four days later this same spirit spread to Jerusalem itself when Ekrem Bey declared the

constitution publically in the barrack square. Just as in Jaffa, members of the various

confessions gathered peacefully with many wearing ribbons embellished with that slogan of

citizenship and populism “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.”96 In new shared spaces like

public garden, more speeches extolling the virtue of the revolution and the constitution were

made while various bodies were created to supervise the implementation of the reforms.97

92 Ibid. 93 Ibid. 94 Bussow, J. ’Ottoman Reform.’ p.112. 95 TNA FCO 195/2287. ‘From Jerusalem.’ no.46. Falanga to Blech. 05/08/1908. 96 TNA FCO 195/2287. ‘From Jerusalem.’ No. 41. Blech to Lowther. 10/09/1908. 97 Ibid.

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In one of these public spaces, the municipal garden, the young Wasif Jawhariyyeh watched

on and was as much taken with the adolescent imagining of the crowds as a battlefield as he

was with the band entertaining the citizens. He saw the whole city adorned with flags,

flowers and tree branches while, like Jaffa, streets and houses were illuminated by thousands

of candles. The Damascus Gate, located to the North-West of the city98 leading onto the road

which would, in the Mandate years, separate the Christian and Muslim Quarters, was singled

out for special decoration and celebration with the residents building triumphal arches. There

they sang patriotic songs, danced together and drank the rosewater-lemonade that had been

laid out for all to share, and was remembered by Jawhariyyeh as a “unique” moment. 99

This notion of citizenship has a fundamentally cosmopolitan character which developed out

of a combination of the imperial context and a modernity which opened Jerusalemites up to

discourses amounting to an epistemology of politics and ethics. This meant, in practice, that

the relatively uneducated populous had to come to terms with the language of the revolution

including new concepts such as ‘constitution’ and ‘liberty’ which needed contextual

interpretation. 100 Meanwhile, those literate classes who had been educated under the

Tanzimat reforms were well aware of the trajectory that the revolution had set the Empire on

and sought new avenues for expression and new sources of information and learning.101 This

amounted to a “dramatic outburst of creative energy”102 and both the press and the education

system underwent a massive transformation and regeneration to meet the needs of new

citizens. Indeed, the approximately thirty-nine new publications103 that emerged between

98 See Appendix A, just West of the Jawhariyyeh house. 99 Tamari, S & Nassar, I. Storyteller of Jerusalem. p.69-71. 100 Campos, M. Ottoman Brothers. p.34. 101 Ibid. p.137. 102 Bussow, J. ‘Mental Maps: The Mediterranean Worlds of Two Palestinian Newspapers in the Late Ottoman Period.’ p.103. In: Toksoz, M & Kolluoglu, B (Eds.) Cities of the Mediterranean: From the Ottomans to the Present Day. I.B.Tauris. London, UK. (2010) 103 Ibid.

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1908 and 1914 can be seen as serving the dual function of connecting the individual to the

state, for instance by publicising new laws and, also, fomenting horizontal citizenship ties

between Jerusalemites by articulating the precepts and political philosophy of Ottomanism.104

It is imperative to see here the difference between Ottomanism and later nationalisms which

crystallised after the fall of the Empire; Ottomanism sought to create citizens of the millets

within the imperial system.105 At this early stage, or, literally, reconstituted stage,

Ottomanism as it was received and interpreted in Jerusalem entailed, first and foremost,

equality and liberty shared between all the confessional groups. It politicised an urban milieu

which, as we have seen was already characterised by multiculturalism, hybridity and pre-

national social contracts, and created broader frames of reference for citizenship which

transcended the older local, familial, affiliation groups. This was characterised, already in the

1870s, by al-Bustani who described Ottoman kinship as a “brotherhood of Turk, Arab, Druze,

Jew, Mitwali, Maronite, Orthodox, Protestant, Armenian, Assyrian and Copt as brothers in

the homeland.”106 It is, of course, necessary to see Ottomanism as a precursor to the various

forms of nationalism, especially Arab107, but in its context of empire and in the setting of

Jerusalem as a hybrid urban community it took on the tone of cosmopolitan patriotism.

Kwame Anthony Appiah gives us a formulation of cosmopolitanism that is able to embrace

these patriotic moods and discourses. For Appiah, states matter morally for humans because

they regulate our lives through mechanisms, such as monopolies on violence,108 that require

104 Campos, M. Ottoman Brothers. p. 138-140. 105 Gocek, F. ‘The Decline of the Ottoman Empire and the Emergence of Greek, Armenian, Turkish and Arab Nationalisms.’ p.31. In: Gocek, F (Ed.) Social Constructions of Nationalism in the Middle East. State University of New York press. Albany, USA. (2002) 106 al-Bustani, B. al-Jinan. Vol.1. no.14. (1870). Quoted in: Ibid. p.67. (n.36) 107 Dawn, C.E. ‘From Ottomanism to Arabism: The Origin of an Ideology.’ The Review of Politics. Vol.23. no.3.(1961). See also: Khalidi, R. ‘Ottomanism and Arabism in Syria Before 1914: A Reassessment.’ In: Khalidi, R. (Ed.) The Origins of Arab Nationalism. Columbia University Press. New York, USA. (1991) for an appraisal of Dawn’s theory. 108 Weber, M. ‘Politics as a Vocation.’ p.33. In: Weber, M & Owen, S.D (Ed.). The Vocation Lectures. Hackett Publishing. Indiana, USA. (2004)

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justification. The moral relevance of the state and its institutions means the cosmopolitan

cannot discount its importance in the same way that one may discard the nation as

arbitrary.109 The state provides the frameworks that shape our social lives and, importantly,

governs the economics and material conditions that enable an expansive horizon and a world-

culture of interconnectedness and exploration.110 The state, in other words, actualises the

pluralism which the cosmopolitan celebrates and provides the means for the citizen to engage

with the other.

Just as the Jerusalemites celebrated the re-establishment of the constitution and began the

process of internalising and articulating the new concept of citizenship within a state of many

nations, Appiah believes that the terms of patriotism used by the Ottoman people, liberty,

brotherhood and homeland actually engender a cosmopolitan solidarity. Cosmopolitans can

be patriots, loving a homeland and the state with loyalty to humankind not depriving us of the

“capacity to care for lives nearer by.”111 In essence, what Appiah calls for is a commitment to

a set of institutions that are the foundation of common life which embraces difference, rather

than a commitment to an imagined community or common culture. This set of institutions

also enable the dual process of self-creation by providing a set of identities such as gender,

religion, profession and teaching the language that allows one to think about and shape new

identities.112 Fundamental here is the education system which is often linked to the

development of nationalism.113 However, within this unique Ottoman context where the state

consisted of multiple nation-millets and created a milieu of integrative cosmopolitan

patriotism, the evolving educational scene in Jerusalem came to reflect both the need to learn

109 Nussbaum, M. ‘Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism.’ 110 Appiah, K.A. ‘Cosmopolitan Patriots.’ p.623-625. 111 Ibid. p.622. 112 Ibid. p.625. 113 Gellner, E. Nations and Nationalism (2nd ed.). Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Oxford, UK. (2006)

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the language of the revolution and expand the horizons of pupils beyond their communal

borders.

This is expressed to a great degree in Jerusalem’s educational programme pioneered by

Khalil al-Sakakini whose Dusturiyyeh school epitomised the humanist education necessary

for cosmopolitan coexistence. Sakakini himself is an interesting case study and encapsulates

the transformation wrought in this period from patriotic, Ottoman cosmopolitanism to an

identity crisis manifesting in a struggle between postcolonial cosmopolitanism and nascent

nationalism. As things stood after the 1908 revolution however, Sakakini occupied a position

of cosmopolitan modernity and had ambitions to cultivate Jerusalemite citizenship, self-

creation and, in fact, world citizenship. He opened the Dusturiyyeh school in 1909114 and

envisioned it as an institution which would teach the youth of the three religions in the city

equally while promoting Ottomanism, liberalism and reform. It would also, importantly,

focus far more than earlier schools, on developing the individuality of the pupil. 115 One of

these pupils at the Dusturiyyeh school was Wasif Jawhariyyeh and his diaries provide a

snapshot of not only Sakakini’s methods but their stark difference from other systems,

especially the missionary school Wasif attended previously.

In 1909 Wasif and his brother Tawfiq were students at the Schneller school run by German

Lutherans. He recounts the terror of Mr Beshara who was widely known for his violent

temper and propensity for corporal punishment. After one such incident in which the brothers

were both beaten Wasif’s father, Jiryis, who was a lawyer and a prominent member of the

Greek Orthodox community, transferred them into the care of al-Sakakini and his new

school. Wasif notes that this experience was characteristic of the “despotic education at the

114 See Appendix A. 115 Campos, M. Ottoman Brothers. p.84-85.

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time.”116 This was all to change under al-Sakakini who embraced the opportunities that the

revolution proffered to the free and ambitious citizens. His classes were unorthodox and he

captivated his youthful audiences with anecdotes while leaving aside formalities, such as

textbooks. He was also the first to ban the sort of corporal punishment that Wasif had

suffered and, while he would sometimes scold, he was held in a high esteem by the

students.117

Not only were sport and Arabic at the centre of the school but Christian students were

encouraged and helped to read the Qur’an. This openness to culture enabled students to create

their own selves in new ways that were not focussed on confessions or sectarian identities.

Wasif, for instance, embraced the reading of the Qur’an and its poetic Arabic not for religious

or grammatical reasons but because it enabled him to develop his musical gift and taught him

the aesthetics of pronunciation through the holy verses.118 Al-Sakakini himself was a

paradigm of the virtues he taught, often reading aloud from his own journal and cultivating a

familial spirit which challenged the hierarchical systems of other schools and encouraged

personal, informal association between the teachers and students.119

We can see in the early years of the Dusturiyyeh school an institutional implementation of al-

Sakakini’s personal cosmopolitan philosophy which was imbued with a new sense of

direction from the constitutional revolution. While al-Sakakini has been seen as an original

voice for Arab nationalism,120 in this period he was motivated more by collective justice and

116 Tamari, S & Nassar, I. Storyteller of Jerusalem. p.69-71. 117 Ibid. p.75. 118 Ibid. p.74-77. 119 Campos, M. Ottoman Brothers. p.85. 120 For example in: Kedourie, E. ‘Religion and Politics; The Diaries of Khalil Sakakini.’ p.79. St Antony’s Papers. Vol.4. (1958)

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“the higher obligations of humanism” 121 which would become threatened by the war and the

nascent competition between nationalisms.

Gradual disillusionment and the emergence of postcolonial cosmopolitanism

Jacobson122 has compared the diaries of al-Sakakini with those of a young Ottoman soldier,

identified as Ihsan Hasahn al-Salih Turjman,123 and, when we place these sources within the

cosmopolitan discussion we can begin to understand the limits of Ottoman cosmopolitanism

and the processes that led to its transformation. We saw in the period before 1908 that

Ottoman rule was characterised by borrowed colonialism which sought to centralise and

modernise the provinces. One example was the policy of attempting to settle the Bedouin

population in new towns, while the cities such as Jerusalem and Jaffa witnessed a dualistic

programme of top-down administration and practical municipal localism. As CUP rule

continued in the ensuing years it became clear that localism would fade to be replaced by

Turkification124 while colonial practices, such as the Bedouin policy, would continue. All this

contributed to a milieu in which those Jerusalemites who had learned the language of the

constitution and contributed to the cosmopolitan patriotism of 1908 required new ideological

vehicles to pursue their politics. This entailed a gradual crisis of identity among Jerusalemites

as individuals and as an urban group. The cosmopolitan patriotism which had characterised

the immediate aftermath of the CUP led administration transformed into an uneasy post-

colonial cosmopolitanism which saw people such as al-Sakakini and Turjman struggle to

reconcile their humanist pluralism with Turkish rule that had promised so much but which

121 Jacobson, A. ‘Negotiating Ottomanism in Times of War: Jerusalem during WW1 through the Eyes of a Local Muslim Resident.’ p.81. International Journal of Middle East Studies. Vol.40. no.1. (2008) 122 Ibid. 123 (Turjman, S) Tamari, S (Trans.). Year of the Locust: A Soldier’s Diary and the Erasure of Palestine’s Ottoman Past. University of California Press. Berkley, USA. (2011) 124 Gocek, F. ‘The Decline of the Ottoman Empire.’ p.42.

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now was seen as both maintaining the old colonial policies in addition to promoting the

primacy of the ‘Turk’.

Julian Go provides us with a framework through which we can analyse this cosmopolitanism,

from its colonial context of mobility, economics and interchange of ideas, to a post-colonial

voice of the oppressed who, steeped in the philosophical traditions of the colonisers are,

nonetheless, deracinated from the practical systems ostensibly governed by these

philosophies; i.e. the rights of man, democracy and equality. Go uses as his example the life

and writings of Frantz Fanon and, while his postcolonial cosmopolitanism arises in a

European context, the processes are transferable to the situation in Jerusalem when we

consider Ottoman colonialism and the public realisation that universals such as humanism

would not manifest themselves in practical governance after the Young Turk honeymoon had

waned. According to Go, Fanon associated himself with the ideals of liberty and assimilation

promulgated by France but this was “shattered by the realities of empire.”125 Indeed,

colonialism, with the cosmopolitan features we have already described, inscribed notions of

universality and humanism on to the colonised’s cognitive landscape, then put its attainment

out of reach.126 This complex web of intellectual and physical subjugation can only be

escaped through liberation, independence from the colonial power and is to be achieved

through, crucially, the vehicle of nationalism. This is a troublesome juxtaposition of ideas for

sociologists and philosophers but Go is explicit and so is Fanon, that nationalism is a tool

towards a global humanism.127 For Fanon, nationalism is not that promulgation of race and

superiority which is imbibed with the political philosophy of the West128 and the bourgeoisie

who only offer nationalism as food for the masses will be caught in mishap. What Fanon says

125 Go, J. ‘Fanon’s Postcolonial Cosmopolitanism.’ p.4. 126 Ibid. p.5. 127 Ibid. p.12. 128 Fanon, F (Trans. Farrington, C.). The Wretched of the Earth. p.163. Grove Press. New York, USA. (1963)

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should be cultivated is a humanist nationalism whose first task is to give dignity and power to

the people before turning their eyes and minds towards “human things” while including men

and women “on a vast scale of fruitful and enlightened work.”129 This, for Go, is localism as

a platform for the global; an awareness of universal humanism “refracted through the prism

of a particular location.”130

With this in mind we can begin to understand the ideological processes which men like al-

Sakakini experienced when their humanist cosmopolitanism, given life by the Ottoman

Empire, was left out in the cold by that same state as centralisation and colonialism continued

apace, attempting to erode localism erase cultural hybridity. It is not, therefore, logically

inconsistent to see nascent nationalism as simultaneously evolving out of and aiming towards

cosmopolitanism.131 Cosmopolitanism can also, therefore, be found in discontent, in strikes,

in demonstrations against colonial masters who provide language and institutions but retain

privilege for the minority.132

Continued Colonialism

The project of the Young Turks to abolish all property-related restrictions never came to

fruition and, Bussow argues, Jerusalemites maintained their pre-Tanzimat reliance on

factional, familial and patronal networking. 133 Protest was, therefore, an outlet for the

politically silenced voice of the populous; the sultan-sponsored aqueduct was frequently

sabotaged by rural peasants while, in both the villages and the city itself, taxes were often

129 Ibid. p.204-205. 130 Go, J. ‘Postcolonial Cosmopolitanism.’ p.12. 131 See, for example, Kok-Chor Tan’s reconciliation of liberal nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Tan, K. Justice Without Borders: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and Patriotism. Ch.4. University of Cambridge Press. Cambridge, UK. (2004) 132 This, again, deserved further investigation but Khuri-Makdisi, for instance, has pointed scholars in the direction of an analysis of cosmopolitanism (especially in the ‘Ottoman world’) that takes into account working-class solidarity that transcends ethnicity and economic cooperation, demonstration and radicalism. Khuri-Makdisi, I. The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism: 1860-1914. p.161-163. University of California Press. London, UK. (2010) 133 Bussow, J. ‘The District of Jerusalem.’ P.124.

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boycotted or partially avoided.134 Following the Young Turk revolution in 1908 these

boycotts developed further and strikes became a prominent means of expression. Strikes,

alongside an inability to effectively communicate with the state in Istanbul, led to local

redistribution of revenue which, in effect, made the popular movements successful.135

Meanwhile, the lack of support and direction from the centre 136 resulted in a discrepancy

between the power of the administrative state, the municipality and the local population who,

under colonial conditions, were becoming more mobile and politically active. The popular

press fuelled the brewing general dissatisfaction with Filastin urging people not to vote with

their eyes shut. The old system of restrictions continued with the paper proclaiming that

politicians only depend on a minority of electors to win an election.137 Support for the CUP

had waned to such an extent that in the 1912 election only one candidate was a unionist, the

other two being members of the opposition Entente Liberale party.138

It was not only the general public who saw that the promised change was not evidenced in

practical rights immediately, the minor officials of the city saw, once their early enthusiasm

for the constitution had subsided, that their pay was not changed to reflect the need for

honesty and democracy. Consul Blech reported that as this was realised the officials soon

reverted to their former practices of subsidising wages with illicit earnings.139 Nor did public

security improve and, in another despatch, Blech captured the fundamental dichotomy

between the colonial state and the cosmopolitan public imbued with a new sense of

liberalism. While Jersualem had a population of around 80,000140 there were only fifteen

134 Ibid. p.124. and Kushner, D. ‘Jerusalem in the Eyes of Three Ottoman Governors.’ p.95. 135 Ibid. p.125. 136 Kusnher, D. ‘Jerusalem in the Eyes of Three Ottoman Governors.’ p.99. 137 Filastin. Issue 128. 17 April 1912. In: Yazbak, M. ‘Elections in Late Ottoman Palestine: Early Exercises in Political representation.’ p.41. Ben-Bassat, Y & Ginio, E. Late Ottoman Palestine. 138 Campos, M. ‘Making Citizens, Contesting Citizenship’ p.22-23. 139 FCO 195/2321. no.59. Blech to Lowther. 12/07/1909. 140 TNA FCO 195/2321. no.15. Blech to Lowther. 04/03/1909. Ben-Arieh has the population of 1910 at 70,000: Ben-Arieh, Y. ‘The Growth of Jerusalem in the 19th Century.’ p.262. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Vol.65. no.2. (1975)

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visible policeman who, during peaceful periods, were perfectly capable of maintaining order,

yet, with the implementation of the constitution the authorities were no longer able to support

the judiciary with their former systems of paternalism, petition and, apparently, oppression.

Neither did they have any means to effectively enforce law141 within the wide and various

interpretations of the constitution and ‘liberty.’142 This even spread into Jaffa where we saw

the earliest and some of the most vociferous support for the revolution. As early as July 1909

Blech wrote, following the case of a murder in the town, that the League of Muslims

organisation had grown and that Palestinian natives appeared to have very little enthusiasm

for the new regime despite the efforts of the local CUP to spread its message.143

Just as Jerusalem’s public continued in their state of relative disenfranchisement the Ottoman

state, under the CUP, continued the Tanzimat policy of borrowed colonialism aimed

especially at centralisation and the erasure of provincial autonomy. The case of the Bedouins,

discussed by Bussow and Kushner as emblematic of Ottoman colonial activity resurfaced in

the CUP years and came to a head with the Kerak revolt in 1910. The Turks had been trying

to disseminate the message of constitutionalism in the wider province but this was coupled

with the continued attempt to settle the tribal factions and compel them to disarm and serve

with the Ottoman army. A revolt ensued which was described by the acting Consul James

Morgan as “purely anti-Turkish” and that Christians were spared from harm.144 This event

can be seen as representative of broad dissatisfaction with Ottoman power and the desire to

maintain local autonomy.145 This would continue until 1913 when the problem of the tithe,

land ownership and conscription reared its head again. This time, however, the Beersheba

141 Ibid. 142 Campos, M. Ottoman Brothers. p.57. 143 TNA FCO 195/2321. no.61. Blech to Lowther. 20/07/1909. 144 TNA FCO 195/2351. No.69. Morgan to Lowther. 16/12/1910. 145 Tell, T. ‘Guns, Gold and Grain: War and Food Supply in the Making of Transjordan.’ p.39. In: Heydemann, S. (ed.) War, Institutions and Social Change in the Middle East. University of California Press. London, UK (2000)

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Bedouins protested peacefully, having presumably learnt the lessons of 1910, and it was clear

that the Ottoman authorities in Jerusalem would continue to mistreat the nomads who now

desired fundamental regime change.146 The state also began to tighten its grip on the

education system of the region in an attempt to eradicate the influence of foreign powers

within the community147 while also beginning a process of compelling foreign nationals to

become directly accountable to Ottoman law.148

This picture of rapidly disintegrating loyalty and increasing colonial subjugation does not

convey the entire picture however. Before the Great War Wasif Jawhariyyeh’s brother Khalil

joined the Gendarmerie in Beirut, not through compulsion but because his father still had

such a strong love and loyalty for his Ottoman country.149 None-the-less it seems clear that

feeling towards the Ottoman regime had drastically changed as the constitutional dream had

failed to live up to the expectations of Jerusalem’s community. In 1913 McGregor wrote to

Lowther, with portentous clarity, that the people of Jerusalem were dissatisfied with Ottoman

rule and sectarian interests were beginning to crystallise in opposition to the cosmopolitan

patriotism which pervaded the early years of the CUP administration. While the Young Turk

revolution had been greeted with a multicultural celebration and populist soapboxing in

Jerusalem’s streets the coup d’etat launched by the CUP in 1913 was, “received without

enthusiasm.”150 That the Ottoman lands were ripe for annexation, fuelled by the unpopularity

of the porte and general disquiet in the region led McGregor to conclude that, should Turkey

cease to rule, whichever Power was in control of Egypt and the Suez Canal “would be

compelled… to extend its authority to Palestine.”151 The war itself when coupled with this

146 TNA FCO 195/2452. no.20. McGregor to Lowther. 14/03/1913. 147 TNA FCO 195/2351. no.44. Morgan to Lowther. 25/08/1910. 148 TNA FCO 195/2351. No.39. Moran to Lowther. 04/07/1910. 149 Tamari, S & Nassar, I. Storyteller of Jerusalem. p.84. 150 TNA FCO 195/2452. no.8. McGregor to Lowther. 29/01/1913. 151 Ibid.

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increasing sense of Ottoman oppression and ineptitude led Jerusalemites to reconsider their

position in the imperial system.

The humanism we have seen evidenced in al-Sakakini continued throughout the war but, with

the realisation that the Turks claimed false victories and were not serving the cosmopolitan

ideal he believed in, transformed into insecurity, ambiguity and postcolonial

cosmopolitanism. This was reflected by the soldier Turjman who wrote, “will I go to protect

my country? I am not an Ottoman, only in name, but a citizen of the world.”152 The

cosmopolitan citizenship cultivated by modernisation, reform and a hybrid urban culture in

Jerusalem began to manifest itself not as patriotism but as deracination from the state and a

notion that local nationalism would, as Fanon believed, lead the way towards universal

liberation. That nationalism did not, at this stage, hold the same ethnic values as would later

come to dominate the ideology is present in al-Sakakini’s diary. In 1915, when he believed

his Dusturiyyeh school, famous, as we have seen, for its liberalism and pluralism, would be

shut down and himself deported because the authorities believed that his Ottoman patriotism

had transformed into Arab separatism, al-Sakakini wrote,

“…I am not Christian and not Buddhist, not Muslim and not Jewish. Just as I am not Arab,

or British, not German and not Turkish. I am just one among humankind…”153

Jacobson sees here an identity crisis which was “provoked by the arrival of Cemal Pasha.”154

The war years and the authoritarianism of Cemal Pasha, which included the shutting down of

the newspapers that captured the public mood after 1908, fostered a sense of dislocation

among Jerusalemites from the wider social solidarity of the Empire. Jacobson shows a

152 Yamiyat Muhammed ‘Adil al-Salih min Ahl al-Quds, 1915-16. (10 Aug. 1915) From: Jacobson, A. ‘Negotiating Ottomanism in Times of War’ p.69. 153 Al-Sakakini, K & Mussalman, A (Trans.) Yawmiyat Khalil al-Sakakini. Vol.2. p.95-160. From: Jacobson, A. ‘Negotiating Ottomanism in Times of War.’ p.81. 154 Jacobson, A. ‘Negotiating Ottomanism’. p.69.

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transition in the diaries from pre-war Ottomanism to Arabism which takes on the mantle of

community identity and ethical framework.155 Bawalsa, meanwhile, attempted to explain

Sakakini’s “bewildering sense of national and social identity”156 by applying psychological

theories that account for his alienation. For Bawalsa, Sakakini “existed in a precarious reality

that implicated him in a state of dissonance and changeability apparent throughout his

cathartic diary.”157 This precarious reality was the flux brought about in the city during the

transfer of power from the Ottoman administration and urban elites, to Britain as a colonial

ruler. Yet I would argue that al-Sakakini’s changeability was due, in part, to his attempts to

reconcile his cosmopolitanism to the political situation he found himself in.

Through her comparison of Turjman and al-Sakakini Jacobson concludes that, before the war,

affiliation within the Ottoman collective “allowed for a multi-layered, blurry and flexible foci

of identity to exist side by side.”158 The cosmopolitanism that comes from empire and

modernity was beginning to crumble however. Even by 1912 we can observe an

administration fundamentally different from that of 1908; territorially vulnerable it was

attempting to deal with political shortcomings, the weight of expectation and was caught in a

losing battle between “confessional demands, imperial universalism, and suppressing

rebellions.”159 The horrors and trauma of the great-war resulted in both the end of Ottoman

solidarity as a socio-cultural reality and the crystallisation of alternative identities and

loyalties, such as ‘Palestinian’.160

155 Ibid. p.78-79 156 Bawalsa, N. ‘Sakakini Defrocked.’ p.7. Jerusalem Quarterly. no.42. (Summer 2010) 157 Ibid. p.22. 158 Ibid. p.83 159 Campos, M. ‘Making Citizens, Contesting Citizenship.’ p.22. 160 Khalidi, R. Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness. Columbia University Press. Chichester, UK. (1997)

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Conclusion

Cosmopolitanism can, however, exist alongside nationalism. It can coexist with colonialism

and it can coexist with liberal patriotism; it was the unique circumstances of the Ottoman

Empire in Jerusalem, at this crucial historical juncture, that caused these contexts to exist

simultaneously and resulted in a series of competing claims for social solidarity, morality and

governance.

The function that Ottoman Cosmopolitanism plays in scholarship is that it provides a vision

of a trans/inter-cultural existence which is, in our ‘post-modernity’, a potential outcome of

transnational structures such as the EU, IMF even the Arab League. The situation cannot be

removed from its context however and, especially in the case of Jerusalem, urban hybridity

should not be aggrandised and envisaged as a utopian cosmopolitanism. In Hanley’s terms,

the prevailing discourse contributed to by Zubaida, Wattenpaugh, Baer and others “amplifies

the experience of a tiny group of elites and broadcasts it across the whole of a heterogeneous

social past.”161 Historians should be appreciative of the philosophical and sociological

importance of this term and discussions of Ottoman Cosmopolitanism, in the context of the

late Ottoman Empire, should be seen through the prism of alternative modernities.162 Simply

put, the cosmopolitanism observed in urban centres such as Jerusalem, Aleppo, Alexandria

etc. was not a perennial Ottoman norm displaced by emerging nationalisms, but was

fashioned out of modernity, colonialism and individual experience, and, in political terms,

161 Hanley, W. ‘Grieving Cosmopolitanism.’ p.7. 162 Very often, a cosmopolitan alternative modernity is seen in future terms, i.e. in a post-national globalised world. What have aimed to show is that a cosmopolitan modernity actually emerged alongside national modernity and was eventually superseded by the latter due to the unique nature of the Ottoman Empire in this transformative era or, arguably, via the impact of WW1 itself. For a ‘cosmopolitan alternative modernity’ see: Beck, U. Power in the Global Age: A New Global Political Economy. p.xv-xvii. Polity Press. Cambridge, UK. (2005) Likewise Timothy Mitchell has asserted the need to relocate modernity outside of Western oriented notions of time and space: Mitchell, T. ‘The Stage of Modernity.’

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ultimately fell short in the race against the strong post-war nationalist discourse.163 Ottoman

cosmopolitanism was facilitated by and contributed to modernity and, rather than be

considered a lost utopia or a nostalgic comparison to the present, it should be analysed with

reference to relevant cosmopolitan theories. Appiah can help us appreciate cosmopolitanism

within pre-national Ottoman patriotism while Go elucidates the relationship between

colonialism and the cosmopolitanism of the oppressed, which uses national identity and

freedom as a vehicle to achieve universal suffrage. The case study of Jerusalem has shown

how these theories manifest themselves in actually existing cosmopolitanisms which are

related to shared political structures and a hybrid urban culture, that developed out of

Ottoman imperialism, colonialism, reform and the local culture of Jerusalemites.

Accordingly, the cosmopolitanisms identified, patriotic and postcolonial, cannot be

generalised as ‘Ottoman cosmopolitanism’ but are dependent on the specific context of 1908-

1913. In this way the grief and nostalgia identified by Hanley has been avoided while

maintaining an appreciation of the Ottoman system and the local voices.

For Zubaida, Middle East cosmopolitanism, its discourses of universalism, humanism and

trans-ethnic considerations are now to be found in the international Western urban centres,

such as London and Paris164 and it is this which feeds the notion of nostalgia that

characterises the Middle East as a lost-cause. I would suggest, however, that

cosmopolitanism can continue, depoliticised, and can be found at the cultural level of urban

life, interpreted and experienced by individuals who display the humanism that, for a brief

period after 1908, was thought to have a political foundation. Cosmopolitanism would

continue after the empire’s demise in the Vagabond lifestyle of al-Sakakini in the Mandate

163 For theories on the relationship between war and nationalism see: Hall, J.A & Milasevic, S (Eds.). War and Nationalism. p.4-6. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, UK. (2013). 164 Zubaida, S. ‘Middle Eastern Experiences of Cosmopolitanism.’ p.41. In: Vertovec, S & Cohen, R (eds.) Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context and Practice. Oxford University Press. Oxford, UK. (2002)

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years165 and the exuberant hedonism of Wasif Jawhariyyeh in the café culture and oudas in

Jerusalem.166Ali Qleibo, meanwhile, has examined the emergence of Jerusalem’s

cosmopolitan character167 in relation to missionary activity and education in the Mandate

period.168 Actually existing’ cosmopolitanism is though, as we have seen, a lived experience

of certain individuals and its character is dependent on the socio-political structures in which

the cosmopolitan finds him/herself. If we can see in Jawhariyyeh’s shared religious festivals

Ottoman cosmopolitanism and in al-Sakakini’s school patriotic humanism we can surely see

in the recent anecdote of a Jerusalemite the continuation, not the nostalgic history, of civic,

cultural cosmopolitanism. In 2008, when discussing Jerusalem being voted Arab capital of

culture, Huda Imam described the city as the “world capital of humanity and spirituality.”169

As she took around fifty children on a tour of the city one Muslim child asked whether he

could pray at the church of the Holy Sepulchre. “You can pray anywhere you want… Since

my childhood, I have always loved to light a candle, recite the fatiha, and make a wish when

I visit this church. As a Jerusalemite, I consider it part of my culture” she replied.170

165 Tamari, S. ‘The Vagabond Café and Jerusalem’s Prince of Idleness.’ Jerusalem Quarterly. no.19. (Autumn 2003) 166 Tamari, S. ‘Wasif Jawhariyyeh, Popular Music and Early Modernity in Jerusalem.’ p.36. In: Stein, R.L & Swedenburg, T. Palestine, Israel and the Politics of Popular Culture. p.27-50. Duke University Press. Durham, USA. (2005) 167 In this instance read Westernisation 168 Qleibo, A. Cosmopolitan Jerusalem: Missionary Presence and the Modernisation of Palestine. This Week in Palestine. Issue 123. 2008. http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=2507&ed=155&edid=155 (accessed 23/06/14) 169 Imam, H. ‘Jerusalem: A World of Culture.’ This Week in Palestine. Issue 123. 2008. http://thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=2510&ed=155&edid=155 (Accessed 09/07/14) 170 Ibid.

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Appendix a.

Map of late Ottoman Jerusalem showing the Old City and its environs. The

approximate location of Wasif Jawhariyehh’s family home is marked in Red.

The Musrara (Morasha) region where al-Sakakini’s Dusturiyyeh school was

located is marked in blue.

Baedeker, K. Palestine and Syria. Handbook for Travellers. 5the edition.

(1912). From:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Jerusalem_1912.html

(accessed 01/09/14)

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Covering Page Picture References

The pictures were chosen to reflect the environs of Wasif Jawhariyyeh’s Ottoman

childhood and their modern equivalents. Jawhariyyeh’s house was located in the Saadiyeh

area in what is now the Muslim Quarter. He describes it as being close to the shrine of

Sheikh Rihan on a hill overlooking the city; without visiting Jerusalem I compared the

1912 map of Jerusalem (appendix A) with google maps and took the screenshot looking

up the hill of Sheikh Rihan street. The view from the Via Dolorosa is from close to the

Sisters of Zion of the Order of France Convent which Jawhariyyeh also uses to describe

the route to his home.

The views of modern Jerusalem were taken from the street-view function on

www.google.com/maps

The historic photographs were taken from: www.jerusalem-library.org (accessed

01/09/14) which provides an indispensable library of images and texts pertaining to

Jerusalem, ancient and modern. Clockwise from the top right the relevant

books/collections are:

A view of el-Wad Street. Wilson, C.W & McDonald, J. Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem. p.

22b. (1876) www.Jerusalem-library.org (accessed 01/09/14)

An Arab Café near the Jaffa Gate. Breen, A.E. A Diary of My Life in the Holy Land. p.11.

John P Smith Printing. Rochester, USA. (1906) www.jerusalem-library.org (accessed

01/09/14)

A market near the Gate of Herod. Grober, K. Palestine and Syria: The Country, the

People and the Landscape. p.53. (1926) www.jerusalem-library.org (accessed 01.09/14)

A view of Damascus Gate. Wilson, C.W & McDonald, J. Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem.

p. 32a. (1876) www.Jerusalem-library.org (accessed 01/09/14)