MALIK in MODERN MIDDLE EASTERN TITULATURE * by AMI AYALON Tel Aviv on a Sunny Morning, 29 October 1916, a Large Number of Notab
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MALIK IN MODERN MIDDLE EASTERN TITULATURE * BY AMI AYALON Tel Aviv On a sunny morning, 29 October 1916, a large number of notables, 'ulamä', townsmen and tribesmen, gathered in the Grand Mosque of Mecca. They came to hear the Sharif Husayn ibn Ali declare himself "King of the Arab Lands" (malik al-bildd al-"arabiy'ya) and to offer him the traditional bay'a. Husayn, until recently the Amir of Mecca approved by the Ottoman Sultan, had rebelled against his master who, in turn, had revoked the Sharif's appointment, leaving him with no official status. Husayn resolved to proclaim his sovereignty. He would have adopted the title khalifa, or at least amir al-mu'minin; but he knew that the British would never recognize him as such, and he could by no means dispense with British recognition. On the advice of his son Abdallah the Sharif contented himself with becoming malik-the first Arab ruler to be so I designated in modern times.1 The act of declaration immediately became a controversial event. The British and the French objected to Husayn's claim to sovereignty over "the Arab lands", and forced him to settle for the more modest designation "King of the Hijaz". Another controversy would develop in later years among scholars who would argue about the Sharif's motiva- tion in adopting the title-whether it was an early expression of Arab nationalism or, perhaps, merely a reflection of Husayn's ambition to strengthen his position vis-a-vis his enemies in the peninsula. One thing, however, was indisputable: Husayn regarded the title malik as a sign of * The author is indebted to Prof. B. Lewis and to Ms. H. Silman for criticism of an earlier version of this article. ' Elie Kedourie, In the Anglo-ArabLabyrinth (Cambridge 1976),pp. 144ff; Abdallah ibn Husayn, Muclhcrkkiral(Jerusalem 1954),pp. 129-131.For texts of Husayn's proclama- tion and the notables' pledge of loyalty, and description of the ceremony, see al-Qibla (Mecca), no. 22 (3 Muharram 1335/30October 1916). 307 independent government. Being a "king" was intended to mean sover- eign rule over his country and recognition by other sovereign rulers-in emulation of the British model. Yet there was something unusual in the Sharif's choice of a title. Malik had not been a common appellation for Muslim rulers in recent centuries, nor had it carried much prestige. On the contrary, in the past it had even born a derogatory connotation. How, then, did the name come to appeal to as proud a potentate as Husayn ibn'All? How, moreover, did it suddenly become so attractive that within a mere decade, between 1916-1926, no less than seven heads of state in the Middle East-in the Hijaz, Najd, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen and Afghanistan--coveted the title and assumed it as a sign of dignified sovereignty ? The history of the royal title since the birth of Islam was marked by vicissitudes which, by the early nineteenth century, had brought its standing to a low ebb. Then, with westernization the name began to acquire a new appeal. It became attractive enough to be adopted by rulers in the region in the early twentieth century-to be largely discredited only a few decades later. Malik thus seems to have a curious biography, which it would be instructive to trace. In the following pages I propose to examine the changes in the usage of the term since the early nineteenth century, after a brief survey of its pre-modern history. I 2 The name malik was already used as a royal title in pre-Islamic times.2 Islam, however, presented a new order, in which God alone was "the King, the Truth", "the Possessor of Heavens and Earth". In this view, heads of the community of believers, the Caliphs, were vested with divine authority so that they could administer God's divinely-created polity; yet its ultimate possession, as well as the kingly title, remained exclusively His. Accordingly, a man's claim to such a title was regarded as a contemptible feature of the prior, unholy order that Islam sought to replace.' Malik thus came to connote the temporal, mundane facet of 2 The title appears in pre-Islamicinscriptions from southern Arabia and Hira, e.g. the Namara epitaph of 328 A.D. See Et. Combe et. al., Repertoirechronologique d'épigraphie arabe, Vol. I (Cairo 1931),pp. 1-2. 3 An analogous approach may be seen in the Old Testament, where the idea of human .