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EDHEM ELDEM OTTOMANS AT THE ALHAMBRA, 1844-1914 AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PERCEPTION OF AL-ANDALUS BY OTTOMAN SUBJECTS IN TIMES OF MODERNITY A PHOTOGRAPH It all started with a photograph a friend showed me years ago, and which I came to seriously study only very recently. An albumen print pasted on cardboard, with no indication of the photographer, depicted a slender bearded man wearing a dark cloak and a white turban, standing in the corner of a Moresque courtyard. The back of the photograph bore inscriptions in both Turkish and Arabic, starting with a legend for the photograph, in the former language (fig. 1): “An apartment in the palace of the Alhambra, located in the city of Granada in Al-Andalus.” Followed a dedication to a certain Hasan Tahsin Bey, described as “prosecutor at the Beirut court of appeal.” This mention was dated 22 January 1327, which corresponds to 4 February 1912, and signed by “Khalīl Jawād al- Khālidī, former naib (deputy kadi, or judge) of Diyarbekir.” The author then proceeded to introduce the six verses that ended the inscription: “A copy of the poem I wrote in the visitor’s book of the Alhambra.” Department of History, Boğaziçi University. Chaire internationale d’histoire turque et ottomane, Collège de France. Turcica, 49, 2018, p. 239-359. doi: 10.2143/TURC.49.0.3285083 © 2018Turcica.Tous droitsréservés. 240 EDHEM ELDEM Fig. 1. (opposite page) Photograph of Khalīl Jawād al-Khālidī, taken in the ‘Arab courtyard’ (patio árabe) of Rafael Garzón’s studio, Granada, probably on 28 May 1904; (left) On the back of the photograph is his dedication to Hasan Tahsin Bey, dated 22 January 1327/4 February 1912. Courtesy of Hasan Tahsin Bey’s great-granddaughter, Esra Gençtürk. The poem itself was in Arabic, and read as follows: I stood in the Alhambra, contemplating tearfully, Heeding the warning, summoning different fragments. So I said, o Alhambra, come back; And she answered, can the dead ever return? I remain crying and being mourned, Tears are of no use, far from it.1 We do not know much about Hasan Tahsin Bey, other than the fact that he served for almost twenty years in the Arab provinces of the Empire and eventually died relatively young of uremia in 1920.2 1. The original text reads: وقفت بالحمراء مستعبرا معتبرا اندب اشتاتا فقلت یا حمرا َالا فارجعی قالت و هل یرجع من ماتا ُفمازلت َابکی و ُابکی بها هیهات ینفع الدمع هیهات 2. Information gathered from his great-granddaughter, Esra Gençtürk, who kindly gave me the photograph to study. OTTOMANS AT THE ALHAMBRA 241 242 EDHEM ELDEM A document in the Ottoman state archives shows that he received this dedicated photograph only a few months before he was appointed president of the penal chamber at the court of appeal in Syria.3 The sender, however, is a much better-known figure. A member of the famous Khālidī family, Khalīl Jawād (1864-1941) was formed at the Istanbul “School of Kadis” (Medresetü’l-Kudat) and received several appointments as naib and kadi in several Ottoman towns, including Diyarbekir in 1910, as suggested by his dedication. As a jurist with scholarly interests, he often took advantage of administrative vacancies to travel throughout the Islamic world. His career had started under Ottoman rule; it ended in Palestine under British mandate.4 3. Ottoman State Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, hereafter BOA), İ. AZN. 107/1330 (7 Ramazan 1330/20 August 1912). 4. Born in Jerusalem in 1282/1864, Khalīl Jawād Bedr Muṣṭafa Khalīl Muḥammad Ṣan‛allah al-Khālidī received his initial education in his hometown, at Al-Aqsā, before leaving for Istanbul, where he studied at the “School of Kadis” (Medresetü’l- Kudat) from 1306-1307/1888-1887 to his graduation in June 1895. He remained unemployed for some five years. He travelled to Tunis and the Maghreb, and went to Egypt in August 1896, where he studied with the famed scholar ‛Abd al-Raḥman al-Sharbīnī, sheikh of Al-Azhar. In July 1901, he was appointed naib to the district of Samandağ (Jabal Sam‛ān), in Aleppo. A few years later, he set out on a journey to the Maghreb, reaching Morocco in February 1904 and returning to Beirut in October of the same year. In January 1906, he was again appointed naib, this time to the town of Kalkandelen in the Rumelian province of Kosovo, where he spent about eight months. Following yet another period of unemployment, he was appointed naib to the district of Mitrovica, again in Kosovo, and in October 1909, he was invited to participate in a delegation of Islamic scholars sent to Hungary. In December of that year, he was appointed kadi to the city of Diyarbekir. He remained in that position for about twenty-one months, followed by another administrative vacancy of two years and a half. His fifth appointment came in April 1914, when he was called upon to join the Islamic court of appeal attached to the Sheikhulislamate and known under the name of Meclis-i Tedkikat-ı Şer‘iyye (Council of Shari Investigations). He remained in that office for six and a half years. In the spring of 1920 he left Istanbul for Jerusalem, where he became vice-president of the Shari court of appeal. Upon the death of Kāmil al-Ḥusaynī, mufti of Jerusalem, in May 1921, Shaikh Khalīl Jawād was a candidate for the vacant position, but the British High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel’s choice fell on Ḥājj Muḥammad Amīn al-Ḥusaynī. Estranged from public office by his opposing stand, he engaged in scholarly work and travel, including a three-month journey to southern Spain in 1351/1932. He retired formally in 1934 and died in Cairo on 10 Ramazan 1360/4 October 1941. See, “al-Khālidī (al-Shaikh Khalīl),” Al- ʻAwdāt, Min Aʻlām al-Fikr, p. 153-155; “Khalīl Jawād al-Khālidī,” Ziriklī, Al-Aʻlām, OTTOMANS AT THE ALHAMBRA 243 For the purposes of this study, the point was to try to understand what this particular photograph and its accompanying text meant in the broader context of the life of a late-Ottoman intellectual. To do so, I had two main avenues: visual and textual. Of course, the first of the two was most tempting if only because of the ambiguous context of an Arab ‛ālim posing in one of the most iconic settings of Arabo- Islamic culture. I assiduously set out to determine where exactly in the Alhambra Shaikh Khalīl had decided to pose, hoping for some meaningful context or reference. In a form of poetic justice, given my frequent criticism of art historical practice,5 an art historian made me realize the futility of my quest. A careful and critical look at the image – of which I seemed to have been incapable – revealed a number of details, which contradicted the idea that this was a corner of the Alhambra. The incongruous vases and flower pots, the photograph- like flat landscape behind the Moresque window, and, most of all, the inconsistent roof tiles and chimneys at the top of the image meant – to who knew how to look – that this was an artificial setting, most probably a photographic studio of some sort. Once forced back into the right path, I had no difficulty identifying the setting as the studio of Rafael Garzón Rodríguez (1863-1923), a Granada photographer, who specialized in such scenes for visiting tourists, mostly locals.6 [1969], II, p. 366; Ziriklī, Al-Aʻlām, [2002], II, p. 316-317; and, most particularly, Salameh, “Al-Shaykh Khalīl al-Khālidī.” See, also, http://khalidi.org/17.htm (last accessed on 1 October 2017). 5. See, for example, Eldem, “Making Sense of Osman Hamdi Bey.” 6. There is no proper biography or study of Garzón, but the information collected from various sources suggests that he started to work in 1878, probably as an apprentice to the French photographer Charles Mauzaisse, and acquired some fame from the end of the 1880s on. In 1898 he seems to have formed a partnership with another photographer, Rafael Señán, but they must have split rather early as by 1900 both men had separate and rival studios on the same Calle Real de la Alhambra, which led to the famed monument. Against Garzón’s “Arab courtyard” or “Courtyard of the Kadid,” Señán had dubbed his setting the “great mosque of Boabdil” (gran mezquita de Boabdil), in reference to the last Nasrid ruler of the Alhambra, Abu ‛Abdallah Muḥammad XII, known to the Spaniards as Boabdil [el Chico]. A third photographer, Abelardo Linares, later opened a similar studio on the same street. Garzón’s business expanded to other tourist destinations, mainly Cordoba and Seville, where he made use of the same kind of artifacts to create a Moresque-themed studio. Garzón also specialized in practically 244 EDHEM ELDEM The following passage from an advertorial published in 1919 gave a perfect idea about what Garzón’s “Arab courtyard” (patio árabe) was meant to represent: Its owner, Mr. Garzón, has had the rich idea to establish a photographic workshop in that courtyard, provided with a wardrobe room, well supplied with Arab costumes, and where many tourists visiting Granada have their photographs taken: some peeking out of a window, admiring the splendid landscape; others reclining on a soft cushion, smoking; yet another with his beautiful sultana; and in thousands of other such picturesque poses, which constitute the loveliest and most surprising keepsake one can take back home from the Alhambra of Granada.7 Indeed, Garzón produced an amazing number of such photographs taken in various spots of his easily recognizable courtyard (fig.