Savage Savage Human Beasts er the Purest Arabs P Savage Human Beasts or the Purest Arabs P The incorporation of the Alawi community into the Syrian state during the French mandate period (1918-1946) paul van caldenborgh PAUL VAN CALDENBORGH Savage human beasts or the purest Arabs? ISBN: 90-6464-836-0 Copyright © 2005 Paul Van Caldenborgh Savage human beasts or the purest Arabs? The incorporation of the Alawi community into the Syrian state during the French mandate period (1918-1946) een wetenschappelijke proeve op het gebied van de Letteren Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, prof. dr. C.W.P.M. Blom, volgens besluit van het College van Decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op maandag 14 maart 2005 des namiddags om 1.30 uur precies door Paulus Petrus Theresa Wilhelmina Van Caldenborgh geboren op 9 september 1975 te Eindhoven Promotor: prof. dr. C.H.M. Versteegh Copromotores: dr. D. Douwes (ISIM, Leiden) dr. R. Meijer Manuscriptcommissie: prof. dr. P.J.A.N. Rietbergen prof. dr. T. Atabaki (Universiteit Utrecht) prof. dr. E.J. Zürcher (Universiteit Leiden) Contents Acknowledgements 1 Note on transcription 2 Introduction 3 The Alawi community 3 State of the art 7 The present study 10 Segmentary organisation 11 Politicisation of ethnicity 12 Structure of the study 14 Assessment of the sources 16 French archival sources 16 The Service de Renseignements 17 French conceptions of the Alawi community 19 British archival sources 21 Syrian newspapers 22 1. From Ottoman province to Syrian state 25 1.1 Defensive modernisation of the Ottoman Empire 26 1.1.1 The Ottoman Empire during the period of reforms 27 1.1.2 The Syrian provincial bureaucracy 29 1.1.3 French interests in the Levant 30 1.2 French mandate policy 34 1.2.1 Territorial partition 34 1.2.2 City against countryside 36 1.2.3 Elite against elite 37 1.2.4 Administrative organisation 37 1.2.5 Failure of French policy 38 1.3 Quest for Syrian unity (1918-1946) 1.3.1 Period of confrontation ( 1918-1927) 1.3.2 Period of honourable cooperation (1927-1939) 1.3.3 World War II & Anglo-French rivalry ( 1939-1946) 2. The birth of Alawi particularism (1918-1926) 2.1 The Alawi revolt of sheikh Salih al-Ali (1919-1921) 2.1.1 Origins of the revolt 2.1.2 Sharifian patronage & Kemalist support 2.2 The institutionalisation of Alawi politics (1920-1926) 2.2.1 The creation of an Alawi state 2.2.2 The federal experiment 2.2.3 Organic Law 2.3 Conclusion 3. The question of Syrian unity (1926-1936) 3.1 The rise of Sulayman al-Murshid 3.2 Unionism gains ground 3.3 Sectarian tensions: the 'rubber ball' incident 3.4 Status quo 3.5 A stab in the back? The events of 1936 3.6 Conclusion 4. Nationalist politics in the Province of Latakia (1936-1939) 4.1 Creating centralised rule 4.2 Parliamentary elections in the Province of Latakia 4.3 Politics of division 4.4 Land disputes 4.4.1 The Ba'amra dispute 4.4.2 The Khandaq dispute 4.4.3 The Stamu dispute 4.5 The French take over 4.6 Conclusion 5. Incorporation into Syria (1939-1946) 155 5 1 Decline of French authonty corruption 156 5 2 The Alawi triumvirate 161 5 3 Sulayman al-Murshid 170 5 4 Independence and unity 179 5 5 Conclusion 184 Conclusion 185 The 'Alawi revolt' and the 'isabat movement 185 The birth of Alawi particularism 186 Challenges to Alawi particularism 188 Incorporation into the Syrian state 189 Appendices 193 Reference list for the principal Alawi clans and clan leaders 193 Alawi deputies to the Syrian Federal Councils and Alawi Representative Councils 194 Petition congress of Tartus 195 Reference list 197 Samenvatting 205 Curriculum vitae 211 Acknowledgements This research project was carried out within the framework of the Institute for Historical, Literary and Cultural Studies (HLCS) in Nijmegen and the Centre for Non-Western Studies (CNWS) in Leiden. Many thanks to the staff of the Centre des Archives diplomatiques in Nantes, the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris, the Service historique de l'Armée de Terre in Vincennes, the Public Record Office in London, and the Institut Français d'Etudes arabes and the Asad Library in Damascus, for helping me find the numerous documents and newspapers on which this study is based. I would like to address a special word of thanks to Ms. Kim Duistermaat of the Netherlands Institute for Academic Studies in Damascus (NIASD) for her support and hospitality during my stay in Syria. Notes on transcription In the transcription of terms in Arabie and Arabie names, no diacritic signs have been used except for the 'ayn (') and the hamza (')· For Arabic toponyms, the common English forms have been used where possible: for example, Damascus instead of Dimashq. The French mandate authorities do not seem to have employed a consequent and clear system of transcription of terms in Arabic and Arabic names. To prevent confusion, I have replaced the French transcription in the references and in full quotes with the system of transcription outlined above. Introduction This study will provide a narrative account and analysis of the political development of the Alawi community under French mandate rule (1918-1946), and of the role it played in the complex process that led to the formation of the Syrian state that became independent in 1946'. In the first section of this introduction, I discuss some basic characteristics of the Alawi community, with a focus on its relationships with its neighbours and the state. Then, I present a state of the art with the principal studies that have been published about the Alawi community during the French mandate period and about the French mandate period in general. The third section presents the main questions this study seeks to answer, as well as some theoretical concepts with which to answer them. The final section discusses the three principal types of sources on which this study is based: French and British archival sources, and contemporary Syrian newspapers. The Alawi community The Alawi community is best characterised as a heterodox-Islamic rural-based community, consisting of kinship groups or clans. On the principles of Alawi religion not much is known, and the existing literature is highly speculative (see for example Bar-Asher & Kofsky 2002, Moosa 1988)2. However, as Douwes (1993) has argued, the popular manifestations of Alawi religion such as the veneration of sheikhs and saints were widely shared among the rural With the French mandate period, I refer to the period starting from the arrival of the first French troops in the Levant in October 1918 to the evacuation of the last French troops in April 1946. Officially, it was only on 22 July 1922 that the League of Nations promulgated the Mandate Chart and that the mandate over Syria and Lebanon, granted to the French during the conference of San Remo on 25 April 1920, became official Given the confusing developments of World War II, it is not clear when the French mandate ended (see section 13 3) On 30 April 1946, the last French troops led Syria. The Alawis distinguish between an apparent (zahir) and inner (batin) meaning, the latter being known only to a select group of initiated adult males. The lack of knowledge on the Alawi religion is caused also by the second characteristic of Alawi faith, the principle oftaqiya or dissimulation, which may be defined as "dispensation from the requirements of religion under compulsion or threat of injury" (Encyclopaedia oj Islam, 1913-1936, Vol. X 628). The principle of taqiya offered the Alawis the possibility to adapt outwardly to their surroundings to integrate or avoid persecution, while remaining faithful to their own religion In practice, it made the Alawis vulnerable to attacks of immorality and infidelity A third major charactenslic of the Alawi religion is the concept of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, which appears to be closely related to cosmology 4 The Alawis of Syria, 1918-1946 population of Ottoman Syria. The religious sheikhs knew the secret world of the Alawi faith, and they formed the only source of that knowledge. Normally, the religious sheikhs passed on their knowledge to their sons, developing religious lineages. Each religious sheikh had a particular sirr or secret with which he could help the people by relating worldly matters to the 'true meaning'. Some religious sheikhs, for example, were known for their power to cure the ill, but they also gave advice on harvest times, children's names, and all sorts of everyday affairs. The religious sheikhs also acted as guardians of the shrines of the saints, the most important of which was Khidr3. Some religious sheikhs reached the status of saint themselves. On the eve of the French mandate period (1918-1946), most Alawis lived concentrated in and around a small mountain range on the Mediterranean coast, the Alawi Mountain, which stretches from the north of present-day Lebanon to the city of Antakya in present-day Turkey. To the east of the mountain range lies the Ghab, a fertile plain separated from the mountain by the river Orontes, and to the northeast lies the hilly region of Zawiya Mountain. The average height of the Alawi Mountain is one thousand metres, while the summits in the northern part of the mountain can reach up to two thousand metres. Its peaks lie close together, separated by narrow valleys, and are covered by thick forests and maquis.