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FELLAH AND TOWNSMAN IN THE MIDDLE EAST FELLAH AND TOWNSMAN IN THE MIDDLE EAST Studies in Social History Gabriel Baer Institute o.f Asian and A.frican Studies, Hebrew University o.f Jerusalem FRANKCASS First published 1982 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and in the United States o.f America by FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED 270 Madison Ave, NewYork NY 10016 Transferred to Digital Printing 2006 Copyright © 1982 Gabriel Baer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Baer, Gabriel Fellah and townsman in the Middle East. I. Near East - Social conditions I. Title 956 HN656.A8 ISBN 0-7146-3126-4 A II rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior pennission ofFrank Cass and Company Limited. Typeset by Computacomp (UK) Ltd, Fort William, Scotland CONTENTS Introduction vii Acknowledgments xi PART ONE FELLAH AND TOWNSMAN IN EGYPT AND SYRIA Chapter 1 Shirbini's Hazz al-Qul}fif and its Significance 3 i Who was Yusufal-Shirbini? 3 ii Village and Town in Seventeenth Century Egypt 7 Terms - 7 ; Differences - 8; Contacts and Conflicts - 13 iii 'Ulama' and Fellahs - Attitudes and Prejudices 16 iv The Significance ofShirbini's Hazz al-Qul:1uf 22 Notes 38 Chapter 2 Village and City in Egypt and Syria, 1500-1914 49 Introduction 49 Ottoman Egypt 51 Nineteenth Century Egypt 63 Syria and Palestine 78 Conclusion 88 Notes 91 Chapter 3 Village and City in the Middle East - Dichotomy or Continuum 101 Notes 105 PART TWO THE VILLAGE SHAYKH IN PALESTINE 107 Chapter 1 The Office and Functions ofthe Mukhtar 109 Nores 124 Chapter 2 The Economic and Social Position 131 Nores 141 PART THREE THE TURKISH GUILDS 147 Chapter 1 Administrative, Economic and Social Functions 149 Introduction and General Remarks 149 Functions 153 (1) The guild as an administrative link - 153 ; (2) Guilds and taxation - 155; (3) Control ofthe quality ofproducts and ofweights and measures - 155; (4) Fixing ofprices (narh) and wages - 157; (5) Supply ofservices and labour - 159; (6) Supply and distribution ofgoods - 160; (7) Judicial functions and arbitration ofdisputes - 161 ; (8) Provident fund and mutual help - 163 ; (9) Social functions - 165 Conclusion 167 Notes 168 Chapter 2 Monopolies and Restrictive Practices 175 Notes 187 Chapter 3 The Structure ofTurkish Guilds and its Significance for Ottoman Social History 193 i Apprentices - 193 ; ii Journeymen - 194; iii Masters - 196 ; iv The Guild Elite - 198 ; v Officers ofthe Guild - 199; vi Lonca and Guild Council­ 201 ; vii The Head ofthe Guild - 203 ; Summary­ 207 Notes 208 Chapter 4 Ottoman Guilds -A Reassessment 21 3 No~s 220 PART FOUR URBAN AND RURAL REVOLT 223 Chapter 1 Popular Revolt in Ottoman Cairo 225 Notes 247 Chapter 2 Fellah Rebellion in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent 253 Introduction - 253; Background and motives - 255; Demands and aims - 270; Peasants and other groups - 275 ; Participants and leaders - 286 ; Action and organization - 296; Results and conclusion - 307 Notes 312 Index 325 INTRODUCTION This volume deals with the history of the common people of the Middle East, both villagers and inhabitants of towns and cities. It tries to investigate some of the characteristic traits of the structure and development of urban and rural society in pre-modern and modern Middle Eastern history, in particular of the lower layers of the population. The subjects studied are the division of this population into different groups, the relation between these groups, the relation between the common people and the upper layers of society, the notables, and in particular their relation with the government. One of the principal themes ofthis complex is the position and function of the intermediaries between the common people and the government, such as shaykhs of villages or guilds, the ulama, and notables. Their position has been of crucial significance for the function of the units of the common people and for the social history of the Middle East in general and has therefore been investigated in great detail. Among the relations between different groups of the population, a central position is occupied by the problem of urban-rural dichotomy. Differences, contacts and conflicts between village and city form the subject of Part One of this volume, but these themes reappear in other parts as well. A second major question dealt with is violent resistance of the urban and rural common people to government or to their overlords. We have tried to find out the background, aims, participation, leadership, organization and results of popular revolt and rebellion in various countries of the Middle East and in various periods. The period covered by this volume extends from the sixteenth century, when the Arab-speaking population of the Middle East was conquered by the Ottomans and the Ottoman guilds emerged as an viii FELLAH AND TOWNSMAN IN THE MIDDLE EAST important feature of urban life, up to the 1960s. However, not all the essays go through the history of four centuries, and in each case the limitation of the period dealt with has an obvious and, we hope, convincing reason. The different geographical ranges of the different chapters are the result ofthe fact that some ofthem were written as case studies or monographs. The area studied comprises present-day Turkey, Egypt, and 'Greater' Syria, including Lebanon and Palestine. It has been one of the principal aims of these studies to elucidate the common traits ofthis area, its unity, as well as the variety ofsocial features which exist within it, and to explain the reasons for different structures and developments. Methodically the essays are ofthree different kinds. They begin with a monograph on a satirical treatise on the Egyptian fellah written by Yusuf al-Shirbini in the seventeenth century and a critical evaluation of its significance. Parts Two and Three are detailed case studies of the village shaykh in Palestine and the Turkish guilds. In addition to the description and analysis ofthe available material, we have tried to make comparisons with parallel findings on Egypt which we published a few years ago. Finally, the volume includes essays which are analyses of some larger themes based partially on former studies, my own and those of others, and partially on new material. To this category belong the discussions of the relations between village and city, of fellah rebellion, as well as the reassessment of our knowledge about Ottoman guilds. The study ofsocial history can derive information from a large variety of sources. Among those used in this volume are the following: a work of literature (Shirbini's satire on the Egyptian fellah); chronicles, such as those of Shidyaq for Lebanon or Jabarti for Egypt (including his most illuminating earlier Tdrikh of the French Occupation of Egypt); manuscripts of local histories ofshorter periods, both published (such as those of Niqula Turk for Egypt or Abu Shaqra and'Aqiqi for Lebanon) and unpublished (such as Alfmad yelebi's chronicle); biographies and encyclopedias (such as the works of Mulfibbi and Muradi, and in particular the opus of 'Ali Mubarak); diaries, both published (such as that of Monk Neophytos) and unpublished (such as Hekekyan's Diaries in the British Library); travel accounts {for instance, the books of Sonnini or of Menahem Mendel of Kamenets} and collections of letters, (like those of Lady Duff Gordon). Important material may be found in various kinds of archives. We have used such archival sources both directly and indirectly - through collections and studies of others. For the study of urban society the most important documents are the records of the Qa~i's Court, the sijill, and our study of the Turkish guilds is based primarily on Osman Nuri's collection of these records. In addition, Egypt;s urban and rural history is very well reflected in the consular correspondence and records to be INTRODUCTION ix found in the Public Record office in London. Rustum's collections from the Egyptian archives, as well as the studies of some scholars who used Turkish, French and Russian archives, were ofgreat additional value. To the same category belong Refik's collections offirmans concerning life in Istanbul. The files of the Jordanian administration of the West Bank, now kept in the Israel State Archives, served as the basis of our study of the village mukhtar in Palestine. For the more recent periods, newspapers are of great value, probably even more for social history than for political developments. Finally, we have of course used a great variety of publications and studies which are referred to in the footnotes and need not be enumerated here in detail. We would like, however, to draw attention to the important material found in a number of contributions to the impressive Description de ['Egypte of Napoleon's savants concerning one of the main themes of this volume, the relation between town and countryside. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS About one-third of the contents of this volume is being published here for the first time. The rest has been published before, and the right to republish it, with some additions and corrections, is duly acknowledged as follows. Part I, Chapter 1, paragraphs i-iii, were first published in Asian and A.frican Studies, Vol. 8, No.3, 1972; most of paragraph iv is new and has not been published before. Part I, Chapter 2, was originally written as a paper for the Princeton Conference on the Economic History of the Middle East, held in June 1974. The papers have now been published in A. L. Udovitch (ed,), The Islamic Middle East, 700-1900: Studies in Economic and Social History, Darwin Press, Princeton.

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