Palestine and the Decline of the Ottoman Empire

Modernization and the Path to Palestinian Statehood

Farid Al-Salim

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780857737199
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Process
• Index: Politics & International Relations

During the final decades of Ottoman rule, Palestine was administratively divided into two states, Jerusalem and Beirut. Both provinces exhibited a strikingly cohesive history of modernisation, and as the Ottoman Empire began to recede, the education systems, taxation and bureaucracy which were left behind formed the foundation of administration in the Palestinian authority today. The reign of Sultan Abdulmecid I saw great changes in Palestine, in line with the Tanzimat reform programme. These changes included the monetisation of the economy, structural changes in land ownership, legal reform, moves towards Ottoman centralisation and the first European immigration to the area. Education was expanded to the lower classes, and Arab and Palestinian nationalism and Islamic movements began to stir by the end of the century as the first Zionist settlers arrived. At the heart of these radical shifts in thought and infrastructure were the new administrative centres established by the Ottomans during this period of re-organisation.
Drawing extensively on official Ottoman records, Farid Al-Salim charts the transformation of one such centre, Tulkarm, from a small village in central Palestine to a seat of administrative reform in order to provide a new account of the forces behind the formation of modern Palestine.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Palestine can be divided into five main subdivisions as follows: Galilee and its narrow coastal plains around and north of Haifa-Acre Bay, including the Marj Ibn Amir, Lake Tiberias and the Hule Basin; the central and southern coastal plains with Tulkarm, Jaffa, Ramla and Gaza as centres; the central mountain areas of Nablus, Jerusalem and Khalil (Hebron); the Jordan Rift Valley south of Beisan, including the Jericho oasis; and the Naqab Desert, to the east and southeast of Gaza, with Bir al-Sab’ as its centre.

In few countries of the world has geography influenced history more than in Palestine. Its geographical position as a land bridge between Asia and Africa, and between the Mediterranean and Red seas, and the great variations within the land's natural conditions (geology, topography and climate), have deeply affected the history of the country and influenced the course of human activities. Globally, Palestine's land bridge position connects far-reaching destinations in Europe at one end and eastern Asia at the other. Palestine is also part of a transitional area between the wet temperate maritime zone and the arid tropical zone (in other words, a transitional area between the desert and the sown). Being a part of the borderlands between the Mediterranean and the Arabian cultural zone, Palestine was always exposed to and influenced by any great developments or changes happening in both East and West. Regionally, Palestine was affected by the events and developments happening in both of its neighbours, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.

One of the main goals of this book is to review historiographical trends and set new directions for late Ottoman history. This book demonstrates that current research on the late Ottoman Empire still operates within the confines of the centre–periphery model, and sustains dualistic and state-centred narratives. Second, I argue that a ‘historical trajectory’ framework is a better analytical tool and empirical strategy. I show that the Ottoman Empire was characterized by distinct imperial paths during the nineteenth century, each representing an alternative route to state–society and local–global relations. The book further suggests that a trajectory-specific approach can provide new prospects for understanding the modern history of the Middle East in general and Palestine in particular especially from social and economic perspective.

In the last decades of Ottoman rule, Palestine was administratively divided into two provinces. Jerusalem, the southern province, was made an administratively independent province directly linked with the Ministry of Interior in Istanbul. Damascus, and after 1888 Beirut Province, contained the rest of the country. This included the northern part of Palestine and was divided into the sanjaks of Acre and Nablus. Both provinces helped to form the foundation of modern Palestine. Modernity in Palestine did not come about as a result of specific events, but rather as the cumulative effect of political, economic, and social developments that took place during the nineteenth century and persisted throughout the final years of the Ottoman period. Even though Palestine did not constitute a single administrative or political unit throughout this period, the history of its various districts and communities shows a striking cohesiveness. This cohesiveness, especially among the political and social elites, constitutes the foundation of modern Palestinian society, which continued to develop from the mid-nineteenth century until the twentieth century despite changing relationships between the central authority and local leaders.

This book addresses the role of the late Ottoman administrative system and the new social structure in provincial Palestine. In particular, it emphasizes the impact of Ottoman reforms on the new administrative centres and countryside of Palestine, using the history of the District of Tulkarm between 1876 to 1918 as a case study. Tulkarm, the administrative centre of this qada’ (district), was a small village in central Palestine until 1876, when the Ottomans created a new qada’ called Bani Sa`b-Tulkarm. The Ottoman strategy in constructing the new districts shifted authority away from established local and regional leaders toward new towns which previously had not held political or economic power. As such, from 1876 to 1918, the village of Tulkarm, which became the seat of the new qada`, and its district underwent social, economic, demographic, and environmental changes that vividly illustrate the cumulative effect of modernity throughout Palestine. The Ottomans combined centralized administrative practice with decentralized practice by the incorporation of intermediate groups such as grant lands holders and tax farmers into the central administration. This new policy started in 1839 and reached a new stage by 1858 with the Ottoman Land Code.

The primary goal of this research is to begin exploring the missing history of modern Palestine, namely its provincial history. The nineteenth century saw not only a new emphasis on monetary relations over the whole of Palestine with the expansion of both the regional and the global markets, but also the initiation of capitalist social relationships of production and exchange. Accompanying these shifts were structural changes in the land tenure and ownership systems, the development of industrial, artisanal and service activities, labour force transformation, population redistribution, and commensurate urban growth. The Ottoman authorities introduced administrative, legal, and governmental reform (rationalization) and centralization, which also contributed to the process of transformation. No less significant was the new ‘peaceful crusade’ of religiously inspired European immigration, investment, and institutional development.¹ Modern education expanded and increased in scope, as social values, norms, and lifestyles changed. Arab and Palestinian nationalism, as well as Islamic modernist consciousness, awoke. All of this occurred in the context of a rapidly increasing population, mainly due to natural increase and immigration, which restructured the demographic composition of the country. The linkages among the central state, provincial officials, local intermediaries, and peasantry were influential in the centralization process. The Tanzimat reform period brought many changes in the province that affected the points of contention between the state and local population.

Recent social historians of Greater Syria, such as Seikaly, Kark, Lerman, Ghanaym, Yazbak, and Doumani, focused on the major cities of Palestine, especially the coastal cities. The focus of this research is on the main suppliers of those cities: the countryside and small administrative towns like Tulkarm, Beisan (Bayt Shan) and Bir al-Sab`a (Birsheba) that the Ottomans created in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several radical transformations occurred in Palestinian social, economic, educational, and demographic institutions, as well as in political anatomy and infrastructure. Alexander Scholch was among the pioneers to shed light on this matter in his book, Palestine in Transformation.² The Ottoman Empire established modern governmental administrative systems attempting to emulate the European systems in civil and land laws, administration, education, and health services.

There were many reasons for the Ottoman establishment of a new modern administrative system in Palestine. The first objective was to centralize Ottoman rule in order to increase the budget revenues from the new land tax. Beginning in 1865, the Ottoman government ordered all landowners to register their holdings in official documents. This new land tax meant that all landowners were required to pay a 10 per cent land tax directly to Ottoman officials. The second objective, especially after the second half of the nineteenth century, was to end the role of local notables as mediators, tax collectors, and local leaders. The third objective of the Ottoman administrators was to establish a modern centralized security system based on police agents, border guards, and a standing army. The Seventh Ottoman Army was stationed in Nablus and the Eighth Army in Tulkarm. Finally, the Ottomans wanted to keep all provinces in general, and Palestine in particular, under direct control of Istanbul because they feared an imperialist thrust by the European powers.³

Tulkarm represented a town in which all Ottoman concerns for modernization converged and, therefore, provided a unique opportunity for understanding the development of modern Palestine. Tulkarm not only represented one of the new administrative centres of the time within the interior of the Ottoman Arab provinces, but also its location within Palestine presented the Ottomans with the gravest need to modernize administration in order to meet the pressing challenges of European penetration and Zionist immigration by the 1880s.

Modernization and growth in Palestine in the late Ottoman period resulted from changes in the modes of production, including technological changes. The changes were not only expressed in an increase in the amount of product, but in important structural changes as well as in the sectors of agriculture, manufacture and services, in the patterns of consumption and savings, and in the distribution of capital and incomes. Integration into the world economy exposed Palestine's economy to the influence of the changes taking place in the economies of Europe, and generated new forces and processes in them. However, though the operative factors were to a great extent external, the bearers of this growth were primarily Palestinian Arabs, Muslims and Christians.

Tulkarm represented the second largest administrative unit in Ottoman Palestine in the nineteenth century. ⁴ During this period, forms of administration such as land tenure, education, and the governmental departments underwent a number of important changes. These changes were partly the result of administrative reforms undertaken by the Ottoman central government known collectively as the Tanzimat. They were undertaken as part of the new policy of Ottoman governmental centralization and partly as the result of new political and economic pressures resulting from increased contact with Europe.

This study takes for its starting point the declaration of the Ottoman constitution (dustur) of 1876. This year marks the beginning of the most significant changes in the administration and exploitation of the Palestinian lands since the imposition of the semi-feudal iqta` system in the early Ottoman period (1516). The year 1918, which witnessed the withdrawal of the Ottoman army and the indefinite occupation by British military forces, constitutes the end of the period under study.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Palestine and the rest of the Ottoman Empire faced fundamental reforms that affected its status. The reforms were implemented to centralize, modernize, and strengthen the Empire's sovereignty. In this era, Tulkarm and the Bani Sa`b area underwent considerable demographic, economic, political, and administrative development. This investigates the consequences of these developments by focusing on the social and political elites of the time. The new administrative system and the privatization of land tenure led to a change, in particular, in the circumstances of the upper class. The old class system was formulated between urban and rural areas in a utilitarian relationship. Two groups enjoyed upper-class status in the old system: the socio-religious and the socio-political. The `ulama (religious scholars), Qadi al-Shara` (the Islamic Court judge) and the Ashraf (Prophet Muhammad's descendants) formed the socio-religious class. This group worked as the legislative body to provide a balance against the socio-political group. They enjoyed many privileges due to their status, such as freedom from taxation and conscription. The socio-political group was comprised of urban and rural officials. The urban leader was the bek or the agha, who was appointed as district governor (mutasalim) and tax collector. The bek or the agha was the chief commander of local troops, which were used to maintain order and ensure security. The rural leaders were the shaykhs or mashayaikh (the leaders of powerful peasant families). They were in control of many nearby villages called nahiya. The shaykh was in charge of the peasant militias. His main duties were to collect taxes and to keep order and security. Two powerful families, the al-Barqawi and the al-Jayyusi, ruled the Tulkarm area before 1876. Both families had close relationships with the Tuqan and `Abd al-Hadi families in Nablus, the main city of the region.

The implementation of the Tanzimat led to a transformation of the old social system to one characterized by a centralized bureaucratic government. This transformation was a turning point in which power shifted from the old upper class to land owners, office-holding aristocrats, merchants, and businessmen. The centre of economic and political power shifted to the plains and coastal areas such as Yaffa (Jaffa) and Haifa. Most of the traditional affluent urban and rural families adapted to the new system and retained their position. Families such as the al-Jayyusi and `Abd al-Hadi supported the new system and prospered, while families like the al-Barqawi and the al-Nimr who opposed the new system lost their position.<sup>5</sup> Members of the old socio-religious class were more careful in their reactions to the new system. Due to their position in the legislative body, they enjoyed some level of independence, and thus managed to preserve much of their privileges by working with the new order. The religious leaders had a great sense of consciousness about the changes in the administrative system, and by 1876 members of leading families such as the al-Karmi, Isma`il and al-Tayyah became part of the bureaucracy by becoming landowners and by participating in the new administrative councils.

Contrary to expectations, remarkably reliable and rich local sources on this subject are accessible to historians. The primary local sources that this study focuses on are the records and registers of the Muslim Law Court (Sijil al-Mahkamh al-Shar`iyya) of Tulkarm, Nablus, Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Yaffa.⁶ Unfortunately, the Court in Tulkarm lost most of its records during World War I, leaving only the two Ottoman records now available. Since Tulkarm was a qada', and was connected to a higher administrative unit, the Mutasarifyya (district) of Nablus, I consulted the records there. In addition, the records of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Yaffa were consulted because of the religious importance of the first documents and the economic importance of the second. All these records are available in microfilm copies at the Center of Documents and Manuscripts at the University of Jordan in Amman. From 1918 to 1929, the people of the Tulkarm district established a new land register.⁷ They issued new deeds by using the elderly people as witnesses and by bringing their own copies as a proof of their claims. This event can be seen clearly in the Tulkarm Muslim Law Court annals from record numbers 3 to 16.

One of the important characteristics of these registers is that they contain local information. The Islamic registers cover the social, economic and political matters in the administrative area of interest and also the surrounding area. In fact they cover all the local events of the Tulkarm qada and connect the qada with the other parts of the Ottoman Empire. These registers contain many firmans (the Ottoman Imperial orders) to all kinds of locations including to the city, village, and tribe. What makes these registers unique is their comprehensiveness. The registers deal with all kinds of daily activities based on the Islamic Code. The Islamic Court of Law serviced other monotheistic sects as well. Many cases relating to Christians, Jews, Druze, and Bahais were considered by the Court. In addition, the service was not only for the elites or the high class. It functioned for the public in general, and it was trusted by people of all classes for its verdicts and judgments. The role of the Islamic Court of law was never withdrawn, though the Ottoman Empire created other legal institutions during the second half of the nineteenth century, such as the Civil Court, the Landscape Department and the Islamic Pious Foundations Department. The courts of Shari`a law remained a safe and trusted institution for all kinds of Ottoman people, regardless of their religious affiliation.⁸

In general, these registers contain the following types of materials. First, details of pleas entered in the Qadi courts and the decisions that were made. Second, certifications and verifications of official and private documents and actions, the details of which are set down in the registers. Third, registration in detail of properties of merchants, soldiers, officials, and learned men, including much information about their life histories, properties, and positions in society. The organizations of the military, religious and economic groups, and the administrative and financial organization of urban and rural areas were also included, along with economic information such as prices, taxes, coinage, and the movement of trade.⁹

The materials in the Muslim Court of Law were written by members of a scribal institution, rigorously trained in certain methods of writing and penmanship. The script in which they wrote was regular in form throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule. However, it appears that the scribes in religious courts were not similarly trained in a regular system of calligraphy. The scripts in which the judicial registers are written vary widely, are quite irregular, and present far greater difficulties of decipherment than do those in administrative registers. However, the materials contained in these registers are of such important for the study of the political, social and economic structure and development of the Ottoman empire that these difficulties must be surmounted and the materials in these archives consulted in the course of any research about the Ottoman Empire.¹⁰

The registers were a kind of daily journal, and their orders were used as legal evidence, especially with regard to land tenure issues. The court serviced almost every Ottoman citizen and it was open all the time (except on religious holidays). The public trusted the Islamic courts because it was impartial and objective. No higher authority could interfere in their rulings. The registers were further protected by the court staff through active judicial review and strict custody.

The registers were organized according to the Islamic calendar and in some cases classified under subject categories. Personal affairs were among the most important rulings of this court. Example...