Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
FUTURE SCHOLARSHIP
Author(s): KARL BARBIR
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Oriente Moderno, Nuova serie, Anno 18 (79), Nr. 1, THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (1999), pp. 253-267
Published by: Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25817604 .
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KARL BARBIR
THE CHANGING FACE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY:
PAST AND FUTURE SCHOLARSHIP
suggests two classic articles: Albert Hourani's
of the Fertile Crescent in theXVIIIth century",
"Eighteenth century Ottoman realities".1 The
and 35 years respectively may appear to be an
eternity in the flow of publication, particularly in contemporary scholar
ship, which is organised now along Stakhanovite lines. Ideas, however,
have a way of taking their time tomake an impact, and nowhere more so
than in the work of students and of readers of these two articles. In re
all too well: what was once simple, forty-some years ago, in theminds of
and Bowen, for instance, is now fragmented and complicated. The
verities about ruling institution and Muslim
institution, about Ottoman
and
the
claim
of
and
Bowen
that they had read
Gibb
decline,
startling
a quaint look.2 As
sources
now
read
that
have
20,000
(has anyone
many?)
we have learned more, in other words, we have in a sense learned less.
This is the price of specialisation. In a recent text on themodern Near
East between 1792 and 1923, Malcolm Yapp wrote: ?A generation or so
ago teaching Ottoman history was a simple task... Since that delightful
Gibb
* Iwould like to
acknowledge the supportof Dr. Thomas Bulger, Dean of Arts at
Siena College, in enablingme toparticipate in theFirst SkilliterLibraryColloquium
on Ottoman
History.
In
its original
state,
this essay
was
informal
in tone and
at
Gibb,
London,
H.A.R.
and Bowen,
1950-1957,
vol.
I, p.
Harold,
Islamic
Society
and
the West,
1.
2 parts,
in I vol.,
254
Karl
Barbir
frommany traditions.
Mr Hourani's article served for a long time as a gateway to the field
for several generations of students. Here may be found many of the di
lemmas with which we must still contend, and a suggested solution which
has stood the test of time, although the author has in factmodified much
of what he said in that early piece.5 More than a decade ago, he made a
startling confession in the introduction to one of his volumes of collected
essays: '[These essays] are products of an attempt both towrite about the
modern history of the region and at the same time to discover how to
write about itand explain tomyself why I have not been more successful
in doing so'.6 This is not, I believe, a case of excessive modesty, but of
"Introduction",
1981, p. xi.
in: Hourani,
A.,
The Emergence
of Modern
keley,
Middle
East,
Ber
The Changing
255
Empire
real doubt and struggle, an object lesson for lesser scholars; and we
would do well to ponder it.Today, there ismuch more variety inmodes
of analysis and interpretation than even ten years ago; and it is almost
certain, given the rapid development of interest in the 18th-centuryOtto
man world,
that fundamental shifts in perspective will have been
achieved by the turn of the century.
In the interim, a re-reading of 'The changing face of the Fertile Cres
Hourani's
speak
Ottoman
Moslem
society...;
and how
far
influence
of Europe.8
Hourani,
S-Ibid,
face...",
"Changing
p. 89-90.
p. 90-91.
1969
lecture
to an audience
of non-specialists,
"The Ottoman
background
256
Karl
Barbir
ence; the second is the dynamic character of that experience in the 18th
century. From here, Mr Hourani goes on to argue that the changed inter
national environment by the 19th century had introduced new elements of
dynamism. Among those elements were the strategic shift in themilitary
balance of power between Europe and the Ottoman empire, the subordi
nation of the Ottoman economy to that of Europe, and the rise to power
11 -
Hourani,
"Changing
face...",
p. 96-97.
Ibid., p. 121. The increased influenceof theWest may be seen in thefact that
after 1792 permanentEuropean embassieswere established inEuropean capitals, an
eventwhose bicentennialwas celebrated in theconveningof theFirst SkilliterCollo
quium.
12
For
an appraisal
of this method
Described
in Itzkowitz,
see Stone,
"Realities...",
Lawrence,
"Prosopography...",
p. 75.
in:
The Changing
Face
of the Ottoman
257
Empire
pire to the permeation, during the 17th and 18th centuries, of the 'Ruling
Institution' by members of the 'Moslem Institution'.14 Situating the Ly
byer thesis from the standpoint of the sociology of knowledge, Itzkowitz
notes something troubling, which still persists among us far too often:
?The fact that the Lybyer thesis quickly became a truth to be repeated in
stead of a springboard to further research is regrettable...?.15 Itzkowitz
explains this phenomenon as the result of both 'comparatively little inter
est inOttoman history' and a lack among historians of the necessary lan
est in the field, have published important studies, and, it is hoped, have
set aside antiquated ideas of superiority, or at least made themselves
aware of their own commitments, biases, and prejudices. Although this
problem is still contentious and difficult, it is at least now out in the open,
for better or forworse.18
U-Ibid.,p.
81.
\5~Ibid.,p.
76.
\6-Ibid.,p.
11.
17 - Ibid., p. 81. This prejudice is one ofmany which are grouped under the rubric
'orientalism'by Edward Said in:Orientalism,New York, 1978, one of themost in
fluential,and controversial,works of recentculturalcriticism,with applicationswell
beyond theOttoman empireor the Islamicworld. Itzkowitzcertainlytriedto convey
the prejudices of orientalismwhen he noted (Itzkowitz, "Realities...", p. 77) that
specialists
ance upon,
in Lybyer's
still persist
is revealed
time, and
and commendation
since,
avoided
consulting
records was
'oriental'
sources:
and remains
?Reli
prominent
facets of contemporary
life. In an
interview
broadcast
258
Karl
Barbir
'
The second point to arise from a re-reading of 18th century Ottoman
realities' is, once again, theway inwhich Itzkowitz conveys the dynamic
nature of Ottoman state and society, or at least that part of itwith which
he was concerned, namely the ruling elite. Demonstrating the phenome
non during the 18th century of efendis-tnrned-pasas, that is,members of
the central bureaucracy advancing to careers in the military-provincial
governor class,19 then to the vizier ate, Itzkowitz goes on to suggest that
perhaps thedevelopment of such a group ofmen isbut thereflection
of an importantstrugglewhich appears to be going on the strug
gle between thebureaucracy and themilitary.This, of course, is ob
scured ifreligious origins ratherthancareer lines are stressed.20
by saying that an important role was played by efendis
turned-pasas in the 19th-century reformmovements. Both of these obser
vations are offered briefly and tentatively, but they anticipate many ques
concludes
He
tions which have since been raised. Itzkowitz, like Hourani in his time,
provides a significant alternative to prevailing ideas. The next generation
of scholars has extended this assumption of dynamism, of a living soci
ety, from the elite to the unprivileged, indeed themajority, of the Otto
man population: townsmen, peasants, nomads, and others.21 The result is
on National Public Radio in theUnited States during the Spring of 1992, James
David
Barber,
of Duke
University,
said
can now
into two
be divided
parts: (1) what Barber calls 'Mcworld', thoseparts of theglobe which participate in
mass
of fast food,
consumption
fashion, music,
entertainment,
faxes,
computers,
etc.
(all ofwhich cross national boundaries); and (2) what Barber calls 'jihad', thoseparts
still governed
stressing ethnic and/or relig
by primordial
relationships
at
war
with
the
international
constantly
emerging
plastic culture as well as
of the world
ious bonds,
Lebanon,
Israel/Palestine,
on
etc.). Specialists
the
wrenched
19
"Realities",
Itzkowitz,
context,
for a contemporary
purpose.
p. 86.
p. 87.
20-Ibid.,
gument
are:
here
'Abd
al-Rahman,
A.,
al-RTf al-Misri fi
'l-qarn al-tamin
'asara,
al
au Caire
au
Qahirah, 1974; Abou-el-Haj, Rifaat, The 1703 Rebellion and theStructureof Otto
man Politics,
Istanbul,
18e siecle, Damascus,
1984; Raymond,
1973-74;
Andre,
Raymond,
et commercants
Artisans
Andre,
Grandes
Daniel,
La
villes
arabes
I'epoque
New
York,
1984;
Panzac,
peste
dans
Vempire
ottoman,
The Origins
of Western
Economic
Dominance
in theMiddle
East:
Mer
cantilism and the Islamic Economy in Aleppo. 1660-1750, New York, 1988; and
Marcus,
Abraham,
The Middle
East
on the Eve
ofModernity,
New
York,
1989.
The Changing
Face
of the Ottoman
259
Empire
the fact that they have recurred should suggest once again how our stud
ies are so unlike the hard sciences: there are relatively few settledmatters;
and, as historians, our own life choices, commitments, and times tend to
help shape what we find significant in the past.22 In other words, each
historian is 'hooked' to a particular field or subject, just as Sir Hamilton
(born in Alexandria, Egypt) was said by Albert Hourani to have
'knitwith his doom'.23 Today, however, these hooks abound in va
riety and context.
In Europe and America, for instance, the hooks are at least three-fold.
Gibb
been
22
strates
furious
debate
demon
in recent pages of the British journal Past and Present
are not confined
to the study of the 18th-century Ottoman
Lawrence
"Notes:
This
poetic
phrase
appears
in Albert
Hourani's
'H.A.R.
Gibb:
the vocation
of an
260
Karl
Barbir
thing, the passage of time has made the 'pastness' of theOttoman empire
past: it is now truly a part of history, and as such itmust be dealt with re
alistically, as a part of the past, rather than denied or condemned, as it
once was, when nationalism among the former peoples of the empire be
the dominant
heritage in the realisation that 400 years of history cannot be swept aside
so neatly.24
for Ot
of associations
p. 185-201, with more recent trends, such as the establishment
toman studies in several Arab countries. This development,
inmy view, represents a
trend in the evolution of thoughtin theArabic-speaking part of what once was the
Ottoman
empire.
For
a representative
sample
of this new
thinking,
see
bers of a new journal, Arabic Historical Review for Ottoman Studies (or AHROS),
edited and published byAbdeljelil Temimi of theUniversity of Tunis; and Professor
Temimi's
essay,
"Problematiques
de
la recherche
historique
arabes
The Changing
Face
of the Ottoman
261
Empire
Haj argues that during the 17th and 18th centuries, therewere apparently
contradictory forces of centralisation and decentralisation at work. The
way that they interacted, he believes, might well have preserved at least
the essentials of the empire, but they also introduced enormous changes:
in the system of tax collection, the composition of the ruling elite, the
factionalism within that elite; and so on. This is a somewhat more elabo
rate and empirically informed hypothesis than that suggested by Hourani
40 years ago, an indication of the progress thathas been made and which
has been the work of many hands; and it has themerit of suggesting a
dynamic process, rather than headlong decline or stagnation, the previous
25
4Ali Abou-El-Haj,
Sixteenth
Rifaat,
to Eighteenth
Formation
Centuries,
Albany,
State:
the Ottoman Empire
of theModern
and Cor
1991, p. 1. As Suraiya Faroqhi
nell Fleischer point out in thepreface to thiswork (p. xi), ?such relativelyinnocuous
statements
may stop being innocuouswhen one considers thecontext inwhich they
aremade?, namely the tradition
which continues to see theexperienceof other civili
sations
as exotic,
those found
strange,
elsewhere.
subject
similar
to
O'Rourke,
because
it had
the same
a Chance,
amount
New
of intelligence
York,
1992, p.
and energy
167.
as a footstool?,
262
Karl
Barbir
27 - This point ismade most forcefullyby Roger Owen in "TheMiddle East in the
eighteenth
cit, p.
century..."
102, where
Owen
sharply
criticises
?what
remains
basi
so-called
Western
with
so-called
Islamic
civilisation
always
to the latter's
disadvantage)). Likewise, Owen (p. 108) criticises the obsession of some western
scholarswith thenotion of Ottoman decline; in his view, thatconception is ?clearly
ideological and stemsdirectlyfrom the initialprojectof examining theMiddle East in
termsof an entitycalled 'Islamic' society, somethingwhich can only be compared
with anotherentity- Western society.Once thenatureof thisproject is clearly stated
then the use of such concepts
as
'decline'
stand revealed
for what
at work within
it?.
28 - Russell, Alexander, The Natural History of Aleppo, 2nd ed. revised by Patrick
Russell,
2 vols.,
London:
G. G.
and J. Robinson,
1794,1,
p. 336.
The Changing
Face
of the Ottoman
263
Empire
po, whom Russell knew intimately: 'If you take... the reverse of what
you have seen daily practised by us, to be the actual law, you will be
nearer the truthand in less danger ofmisleading your countrymen'.29
That Russell and the mufti were not exceptional or unusual in their
'
perceptions of their own times may be learned from the famed Abd al
Rahman al-Gabartl, chronicler of the 18th and early 19th centuries, wit
ness to theNapoleonic
occupation of Egypt, the establishment of the dy
'All, and busy correspondent with important schol
nasty ofMuhammad
ars elsewhere in the Ottoman world, from Istanbul to Damascus.
In his
introduction, he writes:
Peoples of the past, from the timeGod created this human race,
devoted themselves to thewriting of history, forebear after fore
bear, descendant after descendant, until the people of our time
abandoned it, ignored it,passed over it,neglected it,considered it
thework of the idle, and said: it is [merely] the tales of the an
cients [asdtir aUawwaliri]. By my life, theymay be excused; they
are busy with more importantthingsand are not pleased toweary
theirpens on such an arduous path. Things in this age have been
turnedupside down; [history's] prestige has declined; the founda
tions of judgement have become unsteady. Events are recorded
neither in registersnor inbooks. The concerns of themoment that
are not of [immediate] benefit are lost.What has passed and gone
cannot be recovered except when some poor wretch, secluded in
the corners of obscurity and neglect, withdrawn fromwhat others
do, occupies himself in the time of his isolation and consoles his
solitude by counting thewickednesses of fateand itsblessings.30
Here, we have but a glimpse of what 18th-century Ottoman realities
and the changing face of the Fertile Crescent were; and that glimpse is an
object lesson for the future. In effect,we are challenged, as other histori
ans are, to see the experience of our subjects of study as normal; to evalu
ate the relative importance of continuity and of change; and tomake the
Bulaq:
Russell,
al-GabartT,
Bulaq
Press,
'Abd
al-Rahman,
1879, vol.
'Agd'ib
al-atar
Ji
'l-taragim
I, p. 5.
al-ahbar,
4 vols.,
264
Karl
Barbir
Ottoman world;31 and it is unfortunate that there are still those who still
make that judgement today, not necessarily out of ignorance or dense
ness, but because of the straitened circumstances of specialised knowl
edge inmany countries. There are several dimensions to this difficulty.
One is the question of what themodern Middle East is about. This may
seem peculiar, since we who write about the 18th-century Ottoman em
pire do not automatically think of ourselves as students ofmodern Middle
dent
marked thatmy field seemed awfully narrow to him. In fact, he said: 'My field is
much broader.' Being impetuousand ratherdefensive aboutmy subject,as graduate
studentssometimesare, I asked himwhat his area of specialisationwas. He promptly
replied:
'the second
administration
of Andrew
Jackson'.
Shaul,
"Iran",
p.
1479-1496.
The Changing
face
of the Ottoman
265
Empire
cat Review, we might regret the fact that the editor rather densely insisted
that the genesis of that issue ?was the recent war in the Persian Gulf?.
the editor did say that he hoped that ?the essays [would] di
Nonetheless,
rect... readers to scholarly works thatwould allow them to deepen their
knowledge ofMiddle East history?.33
We should celebrate the fact that someone is paying attention to any
aspect of what we are interested in, regardless of the tragic events that
prompted that attention. It is perhaps ironic thatMr Hourani's recent his
tory of theArabs has won phenomenal success (more than 100,000 cop
ies have been sold) in part because of theGulf War.34 That success would
indicate a public, in the English-speaking world at least, receptive and
I would offer these reser
willing to hear from a specialist. Nonetheless,
as
in
the
of
them
vations,
spirit
challenges to our futurework.
posing
we
are
to
audiences
that potentially may re
the
broader
sensitive
Firstly,
ceive our efforts, beyond the specialists whom we know and admire? To
torical writing in the ex-Ottoman lands of what is now the Arab world,
alongside themore familiar south east European lands that have recog
nised theirOttoman heritage, for better or forworse.
Yet, what unites the efforts of those interested in theOttoman empire
in the 18th century, other than chronology and place? Some suggestive
answers may be found in a recently reprinted essay byWilliam Bouwsma,
a cultural historian of early modern Europe. In that essay, he argues that
history is accessible to all individuals, that it provides social utility, yet
that as a discipline it has forgotten that it is 'two-faced', like Janus: it
faces in one direction
the profession with footnotes, trendy approaches,
and academic vaudeville; but italso faces in another direction, toward the
general public, where itmust make sense, reach common experience,
provoke as well as reassure, stimulate and move.35 The academic profes
33 - "In this issue: themodern Middle East", in: American Historical Review,
LXXXXVI/5 (December 1991),p. iv.
34 - Hourani, Albert,A History of theArab Peoples, Cambridge,Mass., 1991.
35
Bouwsma,
William,
"The
history
teacher
as mediator",
in: A Usable
Past;
Es
says inEuropean Cultural History, Berkeley, 1990, p. 421-430, esp. p. 423, and p.
425 forhistoryas a social utility.A similarcall forwider relevance,but froma differ
ent perspective, thatof 'hooking' a non-specialist audience thatneeds an organising
myth, a not-so-factualframework to explain the past, is McNeill, William H.,
"Mythistory,
or truth,myth,
in:Mythistory
266
Karl
barbir
thatwas put to death afterWorld War II. Indeed, Professor J.H. Plumb
celebrated its death in a famous book published more than two decades
ago. Plumb concluded his work with these memorable words: 'The old
past is dying, its force weakening, and so it should. Indeed, the historian
should speed iton itsway, for itwas compounded of bigotry, of national
that society needs'.37 In fact, the trend by which societies retain a vivid
memory of theworst aspects of a mythical past seems still to be at work
inmany places on our planet.38
Other alternatives, particularly the big models and big structures are
also problematic. Although orientalism is in retreat, at least in theway it
was done until fairly recently, and
although modernisation theory is now
regarded as inadequate inmany respects, Marxism and its variants, and
world-systems theory, also have problems. One of the common difficul
ties in all these approaches is that they explain toomuch; they tempt us to
re-invent our worlds in the times of our subjects, and to evade the patient,
empirical work needed to establish the validity of such approaches. They
also allow us to invent people as categories, with labels of our own choos
ing; we are then prevented from respecting our subjects' consciousness,
or even paying attention to it.
36 - Plumb, J.H.,The Death of thePast, Boston, 1970, p. 140-145; thequotation is
on p.
145. A more
Noble
Dream:
The
Chicago, 1988.
37
38
Plumb,
See
Edward,
17 above.
"Orientalism
Question'
and
assessment
the American
is Novick,
Historical
Peter, That
Profession,
144.
op. cit, p.
note
less confident
Two
recent
reconsidered",
essays worth
in: Sullivan,
Arab World:
Critical
Responses,
New
York
and London,
1990, p.
198-227.
The Changing
Face
of the Ottoman
Empire
267
challenge, at least in the view of thiswriter, lies in three areas: our agen
das, which we need tomake explicit; our evidence, which does not speak
for itself; and our audience, which we each must determine. May we all
be worthy students of our subject; and may we all be aware of our mutual
needs and concerns!
(Siena College, Loudonville N.Y.)