Middle Eastern Politics and Historical Memory

Martyrdom, Revolution, and Forging National Identities

Jacob Lassner

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780755602094
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781838607289
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

How is the complex history of the ancient Near East and Islamic World brought to bear in contemporary political discourse?

In this book, Medieval Near Eastern historian Jacob Lassner explores the resonance of ancient and medieval history in the political disputes that dominate the contemporary Middle East.

From identification with ancient forbears as a method of legitimization and nation-building, to tracing the deep history of the concept of revolution in the Arab world, the author probes the historical foundations of modern conflicts in the region. A medievalist, the author takes the position that an appreciation of cultural history is essential to understanding the debate surrounding the Israel/Palestine conflict. In turn, the book identifies the misappropriation and misunderstanding of the past, deliberate or accidental, as key weapon in the ongoing conflict.

Part One

Imagined History and Contemporaneous Political Behavior

1

Recovering and Invoking an Idealized Islamic Past: Problems and Approaches to Competing Narratives and Historical Memories

Among the venerable civilizations extending from the Indus to the Nile, none seem to leave a more precise and identifiable record of their early development than Islam. Literally, tens of thousands of pages in printed works and yet unedited manuscripts record the dramatic events of the first three Islamic centuries, a time span that is arguably the formative period of Islamic civilization. Strewn among the memorabilia of the time, there is for a historian’s pleasure compelling material about politics and the growth of political institutions. For all the richness of detail, there is something disquieting about the accounts of the Muslim chroniclers. The tale they tell is too richly textured. One could argue that it is also too compelling. For the story of the early Muslim polity is a history that has been discovered, embellished and, when necessary, invented over many generations. That in an effort to enhance the public image of generous patrons, whether persons or political factions whose credentials to rule were not generally recognized, or those whose credentials were generally recognized but whose rule was not universally accepted. In any case, the portrayal of men and events by apologists cum historians can be so patently tendentious that it raises doubts concerning the basic historicity of specific episodes, if not also the larger events that frame them. In short, historical memory made so malleable can be misleading whether referred to by earlier generations of Muslims, or as is often the case, their modern counterparts.

Problems

Scholars who use early Arabic accounts and their later permutations to illuminate past and present are obliged to ask what, if anything, we can learn from this literature. There is not enough evidence from archival sources and material culture against which to balance literary accounts. How then can texts so contrived shed light on events far removed in time and place and in cultural settings different from our own? Caution may force us to conclude that with the data currently available, it is improbable that anyone can successfully write a comprehensive narrative of early Islamic times, let alone describe the subtle nuances of an evolving story that has informed readers to this very day. One can only conclude that the problems this complex literature present are a challenge not only to historians of the distant past but of contemporary times, because the changing perceptions of an earlier history continue to influence political thought and behavior among traditional Muslims. What kind of analysis should the historian interested in the broad sweep of Islamic history then consider? One might look to the historical exposition favored by historians of Europe and the Americas ever since the Annales School and its successors took root on the Continent and beyond. That is, a rendering of the past based on isolating minutiae drawn on an extended historical canvas while examining historical events and their reception as the culmination of long-term phenomena. Attempting this approach, the modern historian can paraphrase the Muslim apologist as in the past and follow the loose chronology of the more comprehensive annals, but only naive readers willing to accept traditions at face value or those arguing on behalf of parochial interests occasioned by contemporaneous politics are likely to sanction that effort.

Not surprisingly, modern historians who think themselves methodologically aware, treat their subjects with proper caution. This seeming restraint can be compromised, however, by self-serving caginess. Having discredited received narratives of the early sources and their later versions as ahistorical, some scholars hunt randomly through Arabic texts in search of incidental information. They rightly suppose that the sum of the parts is contrived; nevertheless, they consider particular statements lifted out of context to be essential truths. Rummaging through difficult sources to ferret out these truths is then justified by the need for data with which to erect a theoretical scaffolding that can support complex interpretations, understandings of the past suited to contemporary sensibilities. This linking of text to theory is in part a quest for academic legitimacy. Historians of the Near East, at least in the United States, are often educated and employed by departments of history, as opposed to being trained and housed in departments of Oriental or Near Eastern studies (the case not all that long ago). They therefore perceive a need to resonate to the sensibilities of the most powerful constituencies of the host units: in most, if not all, cases, the historians of modern Europe and the United States. As a result, individuals who in previous generations would have been trained in Semitic philology and who would have felt comfortable in the analysis, if not in the writing of narrative history based on original sources, now march in step with colleagues who give higher marks for overarching theory.

The concern with historical paradigms at the expense of close textual readings is admittedly the symptom of larger and more consequential developments within the American academy. Moved, if not stung, by the accusation that history as a discipline lacks theoretical elegance, many of Cleo’s practitioners have crossed disciplinary boundaries to drink the bubbly with social scientists and literary critics. Whereas in the past, the disinclination of historians to preoccupy themselves with theory might have been claimed a sign of intellectual restraint—if not maturity—or simply good sense, it is now considered a shortcoming. The perceived failure of a positivist outlook has made historical analysis an extremely messy enterprise. Doing history in the postmodern age conjures up images of blind men and women running barefoot and backwards through epistemological minefields. The prospects of negotiating so dangerous an area dulls the appetite for lively description and confident writing. Thick and flowing narrative once informed by an intimate acquaintance with sources has given way to fine-tooling methods of analysis as historians of the Near East scurry about in search of conceptual order. Invoking a skepticism that has penetrated other fields of the humanities, there are scholars who talk endlessly of historical processes and/or the limits of interpretation, as if it were impossible to demand a detailed and informed picture of a Near Eastern past and its effect on contemporaneous events.

Men of genuine learning can shape the ambiguities of human experience into elegant, if artificially knit schemes. However, not all histories generate the kind of data with which to build ornate models, and not all historians have the substantive learning and conceptual skills to make use of, let alone formulate, theories that can apply to a wide spectrum of Near Eastern events past and present. The conceptions and models used by many modern scholars of the region are often derivative and not always suited to the local culture. Similarly, the attempts of imaginative social scientists to explain Near Eastern societies are frequently marred by a shocking ignorance of languages and textual traditions, the keys to understanding the extraordinarily rich and complex past of the region. We should be clear about rummaging through the Arabic sources to formulate theory or construct models of the past. In that scholarly enterprise, the use of extant sources does not suggest a theory or model, rather they are cherry-picked to buttress overarching conceptions that are often preconceived and in need of some semblance of textual support to gain authority. For even in today’s atmosphere of relaxed scholarly standards and cost-conscious academic publishers, footnotes still retain symbolic importance. It may of course be true that in specific instances, various data may reflect aspects of a genuine Near Eastern past, and that past might be used to illumine more recent events, but what are the criteria to make such determinations? The rummagers rarely pose questions about evidence with seriousness, let alone with a specific method in mind. The operative premise of hunt and peck history seems to be, if the data fit, employ them as required. It is as though the rummagers’ paradigms of Near Eastern history reflect a language with no weak verbs or exceptions to general rules of grammar. At times, these reconstructions of the past serve as the foundation of highly imaginative templates that explain an opaque history of times gone by as well as the influence of those times on a ubiquitous Near Eastern present.

We would be mistaken to think that these discussions linked to theory and the analytical framework that they generate for understanding present events are models of clarity. Doubt as to the historicity of our sources may create a need for clear thought, but the search for answers to difficult questions often gives rise to increasing abstraction, made all the more abstract, or so would seem, by language that compresses ideas into dense technical terms. The prose of some theory seekers tends to collapse meaning rather than sharpen understanding. Still, they and the rummagers who represent different backgrounds, different interests, and, not the least, varying degrees of talent, are quite serious about their work. One would have to concede that the more reflective and able of these historians and social scientists have raised many interesting questions about pre-Islamic and early Islamic influences on the formation of Islamic thought and institutions, including those of modern times. This is certainly true as regards the politics of social organization, and, more specifically, the interrelationship of religious and ruling elites—questions deemed most relevant with current interest focused so sharply on social history. Because of their broad scope, these questions are likely to engage us for some time. There is nevertheless the danger that questions, however elegantly put, and the answers they occasion, however artfully conceived, may be more than our fragile sources are capable of bearing. In this respect, the sophisticated musings of some modern historians and the models of human behavior they employ may be no less tendentious and politically driven than the discredited narratives of their pre-modern analogs.

Some scholars, seemingly overwhelmed by the nature of Arabic historiography, and taxed by linguistic demands, have embraced antiseptic analytical frameworks that leave them much less dependent on the written word. There would seem to be an inverse relationship between the volume and complexity of the textual evidence that these scholars cite and the dramatic claims that they trumpet. For example, a celebrated historian suggested, I hope whimsically (but I fear not) that satellite imaging subjected to scientific analysis might determine traces of excreta from pack animals, and that traces of these droppings might reveal patterns of Near Eastern trade routes. Whether or not this is possible or how scientists might distinguish between ancient, medieval, or modern excreta did not enter into the discussion as I remember it. In any case, it is difficult to imagine, punning aside, that such raw data could be analyzed for historiographical purposes without a general framework dependent on literary sources.

Other scholars, exercising extreme caution, have opted to withdraw altogether from studying the history of the first Islamic centuries. They favor, instead, safer periods marked by less troublesome documentation—that is, periods where there are what they consider reliable chronicles, if not also archival materials. This choice, while understandable, is also worrisome. Given the importance of the first four Islamic centuries to later developments, including those of modern times, we do the historical traditions, the discipline, and ourselves no justice by declining to do research rooted in early historical writings. To the contrary, historians can learn much about state and society past and present from these accounts if they are willing to shift the initial focus of their investigation. Rather than start with recorded events as if they boldly represent and/or misrepresent actual states of the past, scholars would do better to focus on the intricate process by which events were perceived and then recorded for political, or if one prefers, ideological ends. In this sense, retrieving the past from Arabic historiography is to retrieve officially sanctioned views—not history as it was (as if that is ever attainable, except in the very narrowest and broadest sense)—but history as it was likely to have been understood by historians and their audiences over generations. Yet in doing this kind of Islamic history, that is, seeking to recover official views, one can never quite escape grappling with historical memories of a past that might have been. Contrived as they are, the earlier Arabic historical traditions and their later versions are not always, or entirely, without reference to historical realities. Even when an Arabic account gives every indication of being fanciful, there may be beneath the storyline some allusion, however faint at times, to actual events deeply embedded in the historical memory of Near Eastern peoples.

Paradoxically, this pastiche of fact and fiction can be as real as reality itself because contemporaries and subsequent generations of Muslims have accepted these accounts as certifiable truths. As a result, highly imaginative descriptions of the past have influenced directly the course of later events in the region. Indeed, this manipulation of historical memory continues to dominate consciousness and behavior in today’s Near East. The following pages will record any number of instances in which the residual effects of a received past have influenced and continue to influence decisions of contemporary actors. The manner in which Muslim apologists transform reality into an idealized view of history is, therefore, a rather appropriate question for historians of the modern as well as pre-modern Near East. We are obliged to ask if and how residual elements of an elusive reality can be extracted from the propaganda in which they are embedded. Suffice it to say, when the complicated process of transforming events into idealized happenings is better understood, historians will be able to speculate in a more informed manner about a dimly understood past as well as the influence of that past on a complex present and politically uncertain future.

The starting point of any scholarly investigation is the tale itself. I refer here to extended narratives rather than detailed lists of eponymous ancestors. As a rule, apologists for various political factions did not invent traditions out of whole cloth. They preferred instead to authenticate their writing by weaving strands of historical fact into a larger fabric of their own making. In this fashion, they legitimized their creations by invoking historical memories still vivid among the faithful. For Muslims, precedent was and continues to be a powerful guide for political thought and behavior. There is, what I would label, a point of disturbance in each text. That is, a point at which the apologist, ever conscious of their patron’s image, finds it expedient to promote the latter’s accomplishments and, when necessary, alter unflattering realities. Attention is focused on juxtaposing contemporary events with earlier times, as the apologist justifying the present is obliged to search the past for inspiration, guidance, and, above all, evidence of their patron’s legitimacy. Conversely, it is necessary to indict political opponents and would-be opponents—this too based on evidence derived from memories of the past. Where historical realities were less than kind and patrons were lacking or even culpable, there is a need to exercise damage control and embellish details of an older tradition to obtain a more...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedicatory Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part One: Imagined History and Contemporaneous Political Behavior
• Essay 1: Recovering and Invoking an Idealized Islamic Past: Problems and Approaches to Competing Narratives and Historical Memories
• Essay 2: Myths of Martyrdom and Rebellion: Recalling Muslim Self-Sacrifice and Tribal Virtues of Manliness and Honor
• Essay 3: Martyrdom Versus Low-Profile Politics: Interpreting the Past for Alternative Paths toward Regime Change and Political Legitimacy
• Essay 4: Being on the “Right Side of History”: The Concept and Praxis of a Proper Islamic Revolution
• Part Two: Identity Politics and Contemporary Political Behavior
• Essay 5: Forging National Identities in the Modern Arab Nation State: Inventing Legacies of Near and Distant Pasts
• Essay 6: The Holy Land, Canaan, and Arabia: The Quest for Arab Polity: Inventing an Ancient Past in Response to Zionism
• Essay 7: The Uses and Misuses of Modern Biblical Scholarship: Academic Politics and National Identity: Egypt, Israel, and Palestine
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright