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Foreign Doctors at the Imam's Court: Medical Binghamton University The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB) Art History Faculty Scholarship Art History 7-1-2015 Foreign Doctors at the Imam’s Court: Medical Diplomacy in Yemen’s Coffee Era Nancy Um Binghamton University--SUNY, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://orb.binghamton.edu/art_hist_fac Part of the Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons Recommended Citation Um, Nancy, "Foreign Doctors at the Imam’s Court: Medical Diplomacy in Yemen’s Coffee Era" (2015). Art History Faculty Scholarship. 1. https://orb.binghamton.edu/art_hist_fac/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Art History at The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). It has been accepted for inclusion in Art History Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB). For more information, please contact [email protected]. Line 1 Line 1 Foreign Doctors at the Imam’s Court: 2 2 Medical Diplomacy in Yemen’s Coffee Era 3 3 4 4 5 5 NANCY UM, BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 The New Diplomatic History 13 13 14 14 Once believed to be the most “conservative” subarea in historical studies, seem- 15 15 ingly “impermeable to theoretical and methodological innovations that have 16 16 transformed almost every other sector of the profession,” early modern diplo- 17 17 matic history has witnessed a rebirth (Watkins 2008b, 1). Under the rubric of 18 18 the “new diplomatic history,” scholars from literary studies, art history, theater 19 19 and performance studies, and international relations have joined historians to 20 20 reconsider the early modern cross- cultural encounter as ambassadors, diplomats, 21 21 envoys, and emissaries initiated and engaged in it. A number of recent publica- 22 22 tions on the topic attest to the revitalization of this wave of inquiry.1 23 23 Those who have spearheaded this initiative would agree that a revived early 24 24 modern diplomatic history should be wholly interdisciplinary in scope and 25 25 method, but they are far from unanimous about the finer shape and direction 26 26 this refashioned subfield should take. Even so, recent studies have shown a few 27 27 28 28 The author wishes to thank Su Fang Ng for her generous invitation to participate in this volume, Bernard Haykel for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this piece, and Rudi Matthee for 29 29 consulting on the 1701 Persian embassy to Yemen. Fatimah Muhaidat assisted with the intricacies 30 30 of Arabic poetry, and Mark Wagner gave important advice about sources on the Persian delegation. Funding for research in London, the Hague, and Yemen was provided by the American Institute for 31 31 Yemeni Studies and the Harpur College Dean’s Office, Binghamton University. 32 32 Transliteration of Arabic words has been simplified in this article. Only ʿayn and hamza have been marked with special symbols. Dates are given in CE only unless they derive from an Arabic 33 33 source, in which case they include the AH (after hijra) date separated from the CE date by a slash, 34 34 such as 1103/1691 – 92. 1. In addition to specific references included in the following paragraph, see Watkins 2008a; 35 35 Charry and Shahani 2009a. 36 36 Genre, Vol. 48, No. 2 July 2015 DOI 10.1215/00166928-2884880 © 2015 by University of Oklahoma GEN482_07Um_1pp.indd 143 5/27/15 10:15 AM 144 GENRE dominant preoccupations. Many historians have been interested in the question of Line 1 Line 1 sources and call on records that have been overlooked or need to be read again in 2 2 more nuanced and dynamic ways (Mokhberi 2012; Hevia 1995). The imperative 3 3 to find non- Western sources that describe diplomatic exchanges, including East- 4 4 East and South- South meetings, is particularly pressing in response to the West- 5 5 ern bias implicit in most studies of the cross- cultural encounter (Alam and Sub- 6 6 rahmanyam 2007, 54 – 82; Subrahmanyam 2011, 73 – 132; Matar 2009, 72 – 135). 7 7 Literary scholars have turned avidly to the themes of messaging, representation, 8 8 and reception, exploring the heightened instability of signs as they cross cul- 9 9 tural borders (Loomba 2009). Yet others have looked at the diplomatic encounter 10 10 through the lenses of spectacle and cultural performance (Banerjee 2009). There 11 11 is also an effort to bring the new diplomatic history in line with gender studies, 12 12 highlighting the embassies sent by powerful queens and queen mothers (Watkins 13 13 2008b, 7). If one salient feature of this wave of scholarship may be identified, it is 14 14 that the ambassador can no longer be seen as a passive figure simply transmitting 15 15 a stable message from a distant state but must be considered as an actor in his or 16 16 her own right, reacting to the vagaries of circumstance and sometimes improvis- 17 17 ing responses or deviating from a dispatched mission. So the independent gaze 18 18 of the envoy, once a “seemingly nameless and faceless messenger,” has emerged 19 19 as a compelling force with the potential to convey, bolster, or subvert the larger 20 20 needs of the state (Charry and Shahani 2009b, 3). 21 21 The present study eagerly pursues this recrafted critical interest in premod- 22 22 ern diplomatic engagements as a way to explore the multifaceted cross- cultural 23 23 encounter in the early modern Indian Ocean. The focused site of exploration is 24 24 the Arabian Peninsula during the first quarter of the eighteenth century, a slice of 25 25 time within the longer period that I refer to as the era of coffee, when foreigners 26 26 flocked to Yemen’s shores to procure a commodity that was then still difficult to 27 27 obtain outside the region. But rather than look at cross- cultural diplomacy from a 28 28 generic position, I will examine a few instances when foreign doctors were called 29 29 on or enlisted to treat the imam of Yemen, which happened on several occasions. 30 30 Admittedly, the scattered references to these events of cross- cultural medical care 31 31 are usually short and fleeting, and thus on their own they appear unremarkable. 32 32 But when one reads across an array of European and Arabic historical sources 33 33 from Yemen, informal patterns of “medical diplomacy” emerge.2 Its recipient, the 34 34 35 35 2. The term medical diplomacy was coined in 1978 by Peter Bourne of the Jimmy Carter admin- 36 36 istration. Since then it has represented a larger set of initiatives under the umbrella of global health GEN482_07Um_1pp.indd 144 5/27/15 10:15 AM MEDICAL DIPLOMACY IN YEMEN’S COFFEE ERA 145 Line 1 Line 1 imam of Yemen, frequently sought care by foreign doctors and medicine from 2 2 abroad. These requests were not always obliged but nevertheless may be charac- 3 3 terized as a distinct register of exchange that was intertwined with the political, 4 4 religious, or commercial agendas of foreign emissaries and merchants in Yemen. 5 5 By turning to this overlooked aspect of Yemen’s cross- cultural relations, this 6 6 study responds to the directives of the new diplomatic history that look beyond 7 7 the large- scale political or commercial ramifications of foreign envoys and their 8 8 lofty goals of cross- cultural self- representation (although these features are also 9 9 present in some of the exchanges described below). Cross- cultural medical care 10 10 may have been a prosaic by- product of diplomatic exchange in at least one case 11 11 and in others may have been used as a tool to gain commercial leverage. But 12 12 by highlighting the seemingly incidental and secondary aspects of these con- 13 13 tacts rather than the deliberate and immediately visible ones, we may explore the 14 14 fundamental imbrication of various sets of interests that defined cross- cultural 15 15 phenomena in Yemen’s age of coffee. Moreover, while the goals of this study are 16 16 empirical, with the desire to document heretofore unremarked upon events, the 17 17 larger objective goes beyond a simple recording or reconstruction of the past. 18 18 At stake here is an investigation of the role foreigners played as both agents of 19 19 exchange and recorders of events in Yemen’s early modern history. 20 20 21 21 Yemen’s Coffee Era 22 22 23 23 The period I refer to as Yemen’s coffee era begins around 1570, when Ottoman 24 24 rule, which lasted from 1538 to 1636, facilitated large- scale local coffee cultiva- 25 25 tion (Tuchscherer 2003, 50). It ends in by 1740, after Dutch experiments with 26 26 growing coffee in Southeast Asia succeeded and coffee plants were then trans- 27 27 ported beyond their earliest homes in Yemen and the Horn of Africa to colonial 28 28 plantations in other parts of the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic world (Knaap 29 29 1986; Campbell 2003). In contrast to the following periods of global dispersal, 30 30 during Yemen’s coffee era the demand for this relatively new commodity was on 31 31 the rise, and the region provided beans to most of the world. 32 32 The coffee era is particularly worthy of scholarly investigation, because it 33 33 marks a moment of Yemen’s heightened cross- cultural contact when merchants 34 34 35 35 diplomacy.
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