Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period

The Ottoman empire in a few decisive battles destroyed the Mamluk sultanate (1250–1517), which included Egypt, Syria and parts of Anatolia (with the Hijaz within its sphere of influence). Egypt, the centre of empires since the Fatimids, and Syria as well, became taxpaying Ottoman provinces for the next three, nominally four, centuries. Later in the sixteenth century, the Yemen, Iraq and North Africa (with the exception of Morocco) were also incorporated into the Ottoman empire with varying degrees of centralism and firmness.

For Egypt in particular the change of rule was traumatic. It is true that, like the Mamluks, the Ottomans were Turcophone, Sunnis and ruled by a foreign-born military caste. But the Mamluk regime had become thoroughly familiar, and the Mamluk sultans and amirs were a localized elite, unlike the Ottomans who administered the provinces from Istanbul. The language of administration under the Mamluks was Arabic; under the Ottomans it became Turkish. Under the new regime, all governors, chief government officials, qāḍīs and soldiers came from the Turkish provinces and spoke Turkish. Thus, the foreign presence in the Arab lands was much more massive than before. Even worse, many of the natives of Syria, Egypt and other Arab lands regarded the Ottomans as bad Muslims, negligent of the religious ordinances and disrespectful of the Sharia, the holy law of Islam. This judgement automatically entailed a view of the rulers as unjust. Later, this negative image of the Ottomans greatly changed, as the Ottomans, starting with the long and enlightened reign of Sultan Sulaymān Qānūnī (the Magnificent, 1520–66), became more devout, partly owing to the conquest of the Arab lands, where they found ancient and venerated centres of Muslim culture and learning. The dynasty emphasized its role as pious Muslim rulers and defenders of Islam against Christian infidels in the west and Shia heretics in the east. Yet the differences in mentality and traditions between the Arabs, Egyptians in particular, and their Turkish-speaking rulers were too wide to overlook, and anti-Turkish sentiments persisted, besides a genuine loyalty towards the Ottoman dynasty itself and the distant sultan in Istanbul. Such seemingly contradictory sentiments could coexist in that pre-national age, and are reflected in the writings of Arab historians.

It is well known that the Mamluk sultanate was extremely rich in history-writing, more than any other period in pre-modern Islam. It was believed that Arabic historiography declined in quantity and quality during the Ottoman centuries. Yet research work on the history of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman empire has been progressing recently and there is a better appreciation of the wealth of Arabic historiography under Ottoman rule.¹

The political, diplomatic and military events leading to the Mamluk–Ottoman conflict and the occupation of Egypt (Muḥarram 923/ January 1517), and then the first six years of Ottoman rule (until Dhū’l-Ḥijja 928/November 1522) are superbly narrated by the Cairene chronicler Muḥammad ibn Iyās. The fifth volume of his Badā’i‘ al-zuhūr fī waqā’i‘ al-duhūr is a most valuable work that has few equivalents in describing day by day how a new regime steps into the shoes of the old one.² Ibn Iyās does not only report the decisions and moves undertaken by the Ottomans in Egypt, but his writing also reflects the people’s attitudes and feelings towards their new masters.

Ibn Iyās’ hostility towards the Ottomans is obvious from almost every page of his chronicle. He was not free from bias and identified with the fallen Mamluks; he was one of awlād al-nās, ‘the sons of the (important) men’, namely the Mamluks. As a chronicler, Ibn Iyās did not hesitate to criticize them and their government when they were in power, but he believed that the Ottomans were far worse. He judged all the Ottomans, Sultan Selim – who defeated the Mamluks – his soldiers and his qāḍīs, as bad, cruel and ignorant Muslims, even as barbarians. After Selim’s departure from Egypt and his death, the harshness of the regime seemed to moderate, and even Ibn Iyās softened his criticism.

The problem with this chronicle is that it is almost isolated. Even worse, he has no continuator.³ Ibn Iyās was one of the best representatives, but also the last, of the great Egyptian Mamluk historians. This tradition stops abruptly and totally after the Ottoman occupation. It cannot be determined whether that happened because Egypt was relegated from an empire to a province, or because the great part of the sixteenth century in Egypt passed peacefully and without major political upheavals. The fact remains that the next important chroniclers appeared in Egypt only in the next century. Some information about the history of Egypt in the sixteenth century is provided by non-Egyptian Arabic sources, such as the biographical dictionary (al-Kawākib al-sā’ira) of the Damascene Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī about prominent men (and a small number of women) in the tenth/sixteenth century, or by the important histories of the Meccan historian Quṭb al-Dīn al-Nahrawālī (d. 990/1582), who wrote a detailed account of the exploits of the Ottomans in the Yemen. He was familiar with developments in Egypt, the Hijaz and to a certain extent in Istanbul as well, since he travelled to the Ottoman capital where he met some of the most influential men. Al-Nahrawālī wrote a lengthy history of the Ottoman empire up to his time, which comprises a great part of his book about the history of Mecca.⁴ His attitude towards the Ottoman state is positive in the extreme, and his works influenced Egyptian historians for a long time. Another important source for conditions in Egypt, although not a usual chronicle, was a book⁵ by the Egyptian ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jazīrī (d. 962/1553), secretary to several umarā’ al-ḥajj, commanders of the Egyptian pilgrims’ caravan.

Since contemporary chroniclers did not cover the greater part of the sixteenth century, the information about that period is cursory and episodic. The historiography of the period organizes its coverage of events by what has been called by scholars the ‘sultan-pasha’ type of chronicle.⁶ The pasha, not the sultan, is the central figure in the narratives. The chroniclers characterize each viceroy by his personality (popular or unpopular, just, efficient in handling crime, and the like) and religious profile (whether he liked ‘ulamā’ and saintly men, or was a Sufi or a faqīh (jurist) or a sharīf, i.e. a descendant from the Prophet, etc.).

In 994/1586, the soldiers of the Ottoman garrison in Egypt, whose salaries were hit by rising inflation (as was happening in other provinces as well), took advantage of the weakened position of the governing pasha, or viceroy, and rose in rebellion against him. This was the beginning of a series of disturbances about which we have detailed information from seventeenth-century chroniclers. During these events, for the first time the sources speak about tensions between Rūmīs (Turks) and natives – Arabic-speaking soldiers, awlād ‘Arab. One of the two notable historians of this period is Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Mu‘tī al-Isḥāqī (his chronicle ends in 1033/1623–4). In his Kitāb akhbār al-uwal fīmā taṣarrafa fī Miṣr min arbāb al-duwal he gives a most laudatory chronicle of the Ottoman dynasty and a history of Egypt up to his time. Of far greater importance are the numerous historical writings of Muḥammad ibn Abī’l-Surūr al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddīqī (died c. 1071/1661), the leading historian of the first half of the seventeenth century. He was a member of a famous aristocratic Sufi family of ashrāf, who also claimed descent from Abū Bakr, the first caliph. The Bakrīs played a role in Egypt’s religious and public life until the middle of the twentieth century. Ibn Abī’l-Surūr himself had close relations with the Ottoman authorities in Egypt and not surprisingly his attitude towards the Ottomans is extremely laudatory, describing the sultans as impeccably orthodox. Almost all his chronicles are about Ottoman Egypt,⁷ but he also wrote a history of the Ottoman empire, naturally with a strong emphasis on Egypt.⁸ Among the viceroys of Egypt, Ibn Abī’l-Surūr has the highest esteem for Mehmet Pasha (reigned 1607–11), whose resolute suppression of the unruly soldiers won him the epithet Qul Qiran, ‘the breaker of the (rebellious) soldiers’. He punished the rebels who had killed a previous pasha, and abolished the illegal ṭulba tax, which they levied from the fellahin. After restoring the sultan’s authority, he reorganized the army and reformed the tax system to make it more equitable. Ibn Abī’l-Surūr wrote a lengthy and valuable account of these events.⁹ There are other less important chroniclers, Ibn Abī’l-Surūr’s contemporaries or near contemporaries, who wrote about political events and power struggles within the army. These are Muḥammad al-Burullusī al-Sa‘dī, Mar‘ī ibn Yūsuf al-Ḥanbalī al-Maqdisī (al-Karmī), Sa‘d al-Dīn al-Ghamrī and Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Bakr al-Sawāliḥī.¹⁰

It was only towards the end of the seventeenth century and during the eighteenth century that Arabic history-writing in Egypt became really mature and rich. We have many chronicles, some of them very valuable, which fall into two main categories: literary chronicles, written by educated ‘ulamā’ or scribes in standard literary Arabic, and the popular chronicles or ‘soldiers’ narratives. The ‘soldiers’ language is ungrammatical and the narratives have the characteristics of stories told before an audience. The chronicles of this category were created in the milieu of the seven ojaqs (the regiments of the Ottoman garrison in Cairo), more specifically in the ‘Azab ojaq, the second largest regiment in Cairo. The Janissaries, called also Mustaḥfizān, were the most powerful ojaq. These five manuscripts are known as the Damurdāshī group, since their authors are related in one way or another to officers in the ‘Azab regiment called by this surname.

The historians of the period describe in great detail the political struggles that they witnessed in Egypt, particularly in Cairo. After the pashas’ authority declined from the later part of the sixteenth century, power passed in the seventeenth century to the military grandees, called amirs, beys or ṣanājiq (the Arabized plural of the Turkish ṣanjaq or ṣanjaq beyi). In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, power shifted to the ojaqs, primarily to the Janissaries and the ‘Azab, in that order. For most of the eighteenth century, supremacy belonged to the constantly feuding Mamluk beys until 1798, when the French occupation put an end to the Mamluk regime. The military society in Egypt was divided along ethnic lines between Rūmīs (Turks) and awlād ‘Arab, Arabic-speaking natives of Egypt. Another division was between the Misir Qullari, literally the Egyptian slaves (i.e. soldiers) and the Qapi Qullari, the soldiers of the Porte, those troops who were sent from the core provinces of the empire (usually the Janissaries). That division was between two kinds of Turkish-speaking men, with weaker or stronger roots in Egypt. Yet another rivalry in the army was that of the Faqāriyya versus the Qāsimiyya, two factions which appeared in the seventeenth century.

It must be emphasized that all political players in Egypt, as well as contemporary historians, fully realized that the country was still under the Sultan’s suzerainty, and except for the rebellion of ‘Alī Bey Bulut Kapan (1768–72), there was no local political power that dared to challenge the Sultan’s authority. Ambitious beys tried to strengthen their position in Egypt or increase their income, but without openly rising against Istanbul.

Yūsuf al-Mallawānī, also called Ibn al-Wakīl, about whose personality little is known, is the author of a valuable and scholarly chronicle, Tuḥfat al-nuwwāb bi-man malaka Miṣr min al-mulūk wa’l-nuwwāb, which covers early Islamic, Ottoman and Egyptian history, even ancient Egypt, and brings the narrative down to his death in 1131/1719.

Aḥmad Shalabī (Çelebi) ibn ‘Abd al-Ghanī’s chronicle, Awḍaḥ al-ishārāt fī man tawallā Miṣr al-Qāhira min al-wuzarā’ wa’l-bāshāt, covers the period from the Ottoman occupation in 923/1517 to the year 1150/1737. He was an ‘ālim and, like many ‘ulamā’ at the time, also had Sufi connections. He is unusually revealing personally, often telling about himself, his impressions of the events and personalities he witnessed, and his opinions and his sources of information. As other contemporary historians, he notices the declining power of the central Ottoman government and its representatives in Egypt. Sometimes he expresses contempt towards an Ottoman pasha (viceroy) or a qāḍī.¹¹ He also uses ethnic slurs when referring to Turks,¹² while fully acknowledging the role of the Sultan as the supreme ruler of Islam.

In addition to the political events, Aḥmad Shalabī, as other historians in Ottoman Egypt, writes about economic, social and cultural, mainly religious, subjects. For example, Aḥmad Shalabī and Yūsuf al-Mallawānī write about the devaluation of the currency, droughts, plague, the flood of the Nile and its effect on food shortages and prices. Occasionally, information is provided concerning Arab tribes and their chiefs, who were often involved in the power struggles in the capital, and more rarely about the common people, the city poor and fellahin. Events concerning the religious minorities, Christians and Jews, are also mentioned, usually when there were problems (with taxes or dhimmī officials accused of fraud) or when the minorities were victims of persecution. This episodic coverage gives a gloomier impression about the dhimmīs than the historical reality. Religious matters and personalities (‘ulamā’, Sufis and religious institutions) were always very important to that society, and it was natural that the chroniclers paid much attention to them. A good example is the detailed report which is told with some variations in several chronicles, Arabic and Turkish. It deals with a religiously motivated riot that took place in Cairo in the year 1123/1711 between a pro-Sufi crowd – mostly Arabic-speaking Egyptians – and Turkish-speakers, incited by a Turkish preacher (al-wā‘iẓ al-rūmī of the Arabic sources and the softa of the Turkish chronicles) against customs and beliefs associated with saint-worship, popular with the native Egyptians. The Ottoman chief qāḍī, the Azharī shaykhs and the Mamluk amirs were also drawn into the strife.¹³

Muṣṭafā ibn Ibrāhīm al-Maddāḥ al-Qinālī (or al-Qaynalī) was one of the Damurdāshī ‘Azab group. His chronicle, Majmū‘ laṭīf yashtamil ‘alā waqā’i‘ Miṣr al-Qāhira,¹⁴ covers Egyptian history until 1152/1739, with an insider’s information about events in the military and the power struggles among the amirs’ factions. The most important chronicler of this group is Aḥmad al-Damurdāshī Katkhudā ‘Azabān (meaning an officer below the rank of the regimental commander in the ‘Azab corps), whose chronicle, al-Durra al-muṣāna fī akhbār al-Kināna, ends in 1170/1756.¹⁵ His narrative is lively, detailed and trustworthy, and is full of information about military and political events, as well as anecdotes that throw light on various economic, religious and cultural aspects of Egyptian civilian society. It is important to note that Aḥmad al-Damurdāshī was keenly aware of the de facto autonomy of Egypt within the empire. He refers to the Ottoman state as al-dawla, ‘the (central) government’, or al-dawla al-rūmiyya. He calls the regime in Egypt dawlat al-mamālīk, namely, ‘the Mamluk government’, as it appears in the book’s title: Fī akhbār mā waqa‘a bi-Miṣr fī dawlat al-mamālīk, ‘Concerning what Happened in Egypt under the Mamluk Government’.

We come now to the monumental work of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥasan al-Jabartī (1168–1241/1754–1825 or 1826), the last and arguably the greatest of the historians of Ottoman Egypt. His importance as a chronicler was recognized a long time ago.¹⁶ Moreover, in addition to al-Jabartī’s proven worth as a historical source, modern scholarship has tended to admire him to the extent that his predecessors in Egyptian historiography during the Ottoman period have been unjustly dismissed.¹⁷ It must be said that al-Jabartī himself contributed to this conception by deliberately obscuring his debt to earlier historians, primarily Aḥmad Shalabī and Aḥmad al-Damurdāshī from whose writings he borrowed heavily to reconstruct the narrative of events preceding his own lifetime.¹⁸ Al-Jabartī came from a family of ‘ulamā’. He records that, when an Ottoman pasha who visited Cairo was amazed at the ignorance of the scholars of al-Azhar in the mathematical sciences, it was his father who saved the honour of the Egyptians by proving his knowledge in this discipline.

Al-Jabartī became a historian under the influence of the French occupation of Egypt in the year 1798. This was a traumatic event and the Egyptians’ first taste of the overwhelming military supremacy of modern Europe. Al-Jabartī wrote a detailed description of the occupation and the people’s reaction to the French. The Frenchmen’s claim that they were Muslims, or at least friends of Islam, was met with ridicule. The ideas of the Revolution were totally and naturally misunderstood. For all his hatred of the occupiers, al-Jabartī was impressed by their love of learning and science and by their system of justice.¹⁹ After the departure of the French army and the return of the Ottomans to Egypt, al-Jabartī wrote another account of the occupation that was much more hostile to the French and much more favourable to the Ottomans.²⁰ Finally he wrote his magnum opus, the ‘Ajā’ib.²¹ This work is a chronicle of Egypt from the end of the eleventh Hijra century (1099/1688) setting the stage for the rivalry within the amirs’ ranks between the Faqārī and the Qāsimī factions.²² The chronicle ends with the year 1236/1821, under Muḥammad ‘Alī’s rule. As the book’s title indicates, it is a combination of narrative (akhbār) organized by the Hijra years and obituaries (tarājim) of the notable persons who died during each year. As already mentioned above, al-Jabartī’s effort to belittle his reliance on earlier chroniclers leaves a bad impression. Nevertheless, his coverage of events since his own adolescence, starting around 1184/1770, is a masterpiece of history-writing. The detailed description and evaluation of the French occupation and, later, the early stages of Muḥammad ‘Alī’s rule, are written with precision, honesty and insight. The historian’s understanding of political events and of his society, with all its shades and nuances, is truly unparalleled. He presents the reader with a panoramic view of Egyptian, primarily Cairene, society, economy and culture, with several important glimpses of the bedouin and the fellahin as well. His obituaries of amirs, Arab shaykhs, ‘ulamā’, Sufis and other outstanding persons, and his chronicle, actually a diary, of the events he witnessed and experienced, are among the best in Islamic historiography. Al-Jabartī was a man of strong religious faith, an ardent orthodox Muslim, who hated infidels and the vulgar sides of popular Islam. He admired the reformed orthodox Sufi order of the Khalwatiyya, to which even the head ‘ulamā’ of al-Azhar (shuyūkh al-Azhar) belonged. On the other hand, he condemned and detested the excesses of the vulgar dervish orders. He often criticized the Mamluk amirs for their behaviour, but he leaves no doubt that they were better Muslims than the Ottomans, the Turkish soldiers who massacred them at the order of Muḥammad ‘Alī. He hated the latter’s tyranny, but acknowledged his talents. Al-Jabartī’s education and approach were thoroughly traditional, but he was the first modern historian, and he experienced ‘the impact of the West’. Owing to his talent, sensitivity and insight, al-Jabartī’s reputation as the greatest historian of Ottoman Egypt is fully justified.

Arabic historiography in Bilād al-Shām, Greater Syria, during the Ottoman period is at least as rich in quality and quantity as its Egyptian counterpart. A central and obvious reason was that Egypt had only one political and intellectual centre, Cairo, while Syria had at least three where historical works were written – Damascus, Lebanon and Aleppo. Far behind were smaller towns, Hims, Hama, Safad and Jerusalem. Only a part of the Syrian historical output from the Ottoman period has been published, even less than that of Egypt.

In all the regions that are included in the present survey, namely Egypt, Syria, Lebanon (and in the Yemen as well), the first decades after the Ottoman occupation are well chronicled, followed by a long lacuna in history-writing. The seventeenth century is much richer in historical coverage. Yet it was in the eighteenth century that the historiography became truly rich. The majority of historians who wrote in Arabic in Syria were men of religion, ‘ulamā’, members of families of religious scholars and functionaries, almost all of them with some Sufi affiliations, in accord with the spirit of the times. Several of the leading Lebanese chroniclers were Christian clerics or bureaucrats in the service of powerful rulers. The topics covered by the chronicles were local politics, power struggles between men and factions, careers of ‘ulamā’, Sufi shaykhs, prominent ashrāf and other a‘yān (notables). Special attention was paid to religious matters, among both Muslims and Christians. Since Damascus was a major station on the hajj route, much information is provided about the pilgrimage. The chronicles are good sources for social, economic and urban history, giving details about food prices, construction projects and the like. As in Egypt, Syrian historiography offers insights into the local attitudes towards the Ottoman empire and its local representatives.

By far the most important and prolific historian of the late Mamluk and the early Ottoman period is an ‘ālim, a native of the al-Ṣāliḥiyya suburb of Damascus, called Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī ibn Ṭūlūn al-Ṣāliḥī al-Dimashqī al-Ḥanafī (880–953/1475–1546). Like Ibn Iyās, his Egyptian contemporary, Ibn Ṭūlūn wrote a detailed, eyewitness account of the Ottoman occupation of his town, which deeply shocked him. Ibn Ṭūlūn was a professional and devoted ‘ālim, however, not a mamlūk’s son like Ibn Iyās, and his judgement on the Ottomans, from the Sultan down, was less biased and more balanced. His Arabic style is literary, unlike that of Ibn Iyās, whose Arabic is lively but ungrammatical. Ibn Ṭūlūn wrote no less than 753 treatises, many about Islamic learning, but he owes his fame to his many historical writings. He even wrote his autobiography, a rare genre in pre-modern Arabic.²³ His best and most detailed historical work is Mufākahat al-khullān fī ḥawādith al-zamān, a chronicle covering the last decades of Mamluk Syria, Damascus in particular, from 884/1489, and the first years of Ottoman rule in Damascus until the year 926/1520.²⁴ While Ibn Ṭūlūn’s narrative is less dramatic than Ibn Iyās’ and his political analysis is weaker, Ibn Ṭūlūn is less prejudiced and more accurate and reliable in his reporting.²⁵ Ibn Ṭūlūn’s world and world view are an ‘ālim’s, yet he also reveals a humanistic sense of justice.

Ibn Ṭūlūn also wrote a book about al-Ṣāliḥiyya, his native suburb of Damascus, entitled al-Qalā’id al-jawhariyya fī ta’rīkh al-Ṣāliḥiyya, which is an important source of lives of notables, primarily religious functionaries and ‘ulamā’, and religious institutions. Another book is about al-Mazza, a village near Damascus where the author lived for some time.²⁶ Ibn Ṭūlūn wrote two important books about the personalities and careers of office-holders in Damascus, who served in that city under the Mamluks and the Ottomans, one about governors of the province of Damascus and the second about the chief qāḍīs in that city.²⁷ He also wrote a biographical dictionary of ‘ulamā’ whom he knew, arranged alphabetically, al-Tamattu῾ bi’l-iqrān bayna tarājim al-shuyūkh wa’l-aqrān. The full extent of Ibn Ṭūlūn’s worth as the leading historian of Damascus has only recently been revealed and his many works are being published and studied.

Another great historian of the period, whom Ibn Ṭūlūn regarded as his teacher, was ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Nu‘aymī, the author of the important historical encyclopedia of the schools and houses of worship in Damascus, entitled al-Dāris fī ta’rīkh al-madāris. Al-Nu‘aymī was one of the outstanding Islamic scholars of Damascus, and an expert on awqāf (pious endowments). The work is organized by madhhabs (schools of law) and types of institutions, Koran schools, madrasas, zāwiyas (Sufi centres) and the like, and includes biographies of teachers and also details about relevant awqāf.

No other chronicles about the rest of the sixteenth century have been published at present.²⁸

An important historical source for Damascus in the sixteenth century is Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī’s al-Kawākib al-sā’ira bi-a‘yān al-mī’a al-‘āshira, the first of the three centennial biographical dictionaries of Ottoman Syria. Al-Ghazzī (977–1061/1570–1650 or 1651) was a member of a family of ‘ulamā’ and an orthodox Sufi of the Qadiri order, who lived in Damascus where he held several religious offices. The biographies in the Kawākib are arranged by generations (ṭabaqāt) of thirty-three years each. The order is alphabetical, starting with men named Muḥammad, as a token of respect for the Prophet. Among his biographies there are Ottoman officials, qāḍīs and governors. He criticized several rulers for their corruption. Since he lived most of his adult life in the seventeenth century, he had to rely extensively on information he found in earlier historians, such as Ibn Ṭūlūn, Ibn al-Ḥimṣī and ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al-Sha‘rānī.²⁹

Al-Ghazzī continued the Kawākib with a dictionary of lives of notables in the first ṭabaqa of the eleventh/seventeenth century, entitled Luṭf al-samar wa-qaṭf al-thamar min tarājim a‘yān al-ṭabaqa al-ūlā min al-qarn al-ḥādī ‘ashar. It has 254 biographies including Ottoman judges, military personnel, poets, dervishes, physicians and guild chiefs. From approximately the same time we have Tarājim al-a‘yan min abnā’ al-zamān, the biographical dictionary of Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Būrīnī (d. 1024/1615). He too was on good terms with the authorities, travelled extensively through Syria and gives an exact account of what he saw and heard.

This brief survey of the biographical dictionaries of the sixteenth century will not be complete without mentioning the work (al-Shaqā’iq al-nu‘māniyya etc.) of Ṭāsköprülüzāde Aḥmad ibn Muṣṭafā (d. 968/1560), a Turkish historian, who, writing in Arabic, recorded Ottoman ‘ulamā’ and Sufis from the establishment of the empire. They are arranged by the sultans’ reigns.

A popular collection of biographies from early Islam to the year AH 1000 was written by Ibn al-‘Imād, another Hanbali ‘ālim born in the al-Ṣāliḥiyya suburb of Damascus (d. 1089/1622), entitled Shadharāt al-dhahab.

The great centennial dictionary for eleventh-/seventeenth-century Syria is Khulāṣat al-athar fī a‘yān al-qarn al-ḥādī ‘ashar by Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Muḥibbī (d. 1111/1699). Muḥibbī also was a member of a wealthy family of Damascene ‘ulamā’. The work consists of 1,289 biographies of distinguished persons. It provides important information about politics, religion and culture in the Ottoman Middle East and the Hijaz. There are also biographies about personages from India and Kurdistan.³⁰

The history of Damascus in the eighteenth century is recorded in a detailed and uninterrupted manner by several reliable contemporary chronicles. The earliest is Ibn Kannān’s Yawmiyyāt shāmiyya, covering the period between 1111/1699 and 1153/1740. Ibn Kannān describes daily life in Damascus, in particular his native al-Ṣāliḥiyya suburb. Again, he writes about men of religion and the pilgrimage and also about Arab and Turkish officials. There is also information about construction works and about parks and palaces in the city. Ibn Kannān belonged to the Hanafi madhhab³¹ and the Khalwati Sufi order in which his father was a shaykh. He was also an ‘ālim, and taught at the Murshidiyya Madrasa.

The immediate continuator of Ibn Kannān’s narrative was a chronicler, who, unlike the great majority of the historians of Ottoman Syria, was not a scholar but a barber, called Aḥmad al-Budayrī al-Ḥallāq (‘the Barber’). His work, Ḥawādith Dimashq al-yawmiyya, covers the period 1154–76/1740 or 1741–62; thus, with Ibn Kannān, we have a continuous chronological narrative of Damascus for sixty-three years. Al-Budayrī was a Sufi, but his order was the Sadiyya, which was notoriously unorthodox. His shop was situated near the palace of As‘ad Pasha al-‘Aẓm, the governor of the province of Damascus. Through his occupation as a barber, Budayrī was in touch with the people who came to his shop, also for healing and the circumcision of their sons, and he learned about their problems and opinions. Al-Budayrī wrote about politics in the city and about Damascene society and economy, that is, food prices, the guilds and political factions, and the struggles between them. He also reports the deeds of Shaykh Ẓāhir al-‘Umar al-Zaydānī, the ruler of Galilee and the coast of Palestine. He writes with feeling about the disaster of 1170/1757, when the pilgrims’ caravan was attacked and sacked by bedouin and many of the pilgrims were massacred.

The original text of the chronicle has not survived. What we have is the edition made by Shaykh al-Qāsimī, a nineteenth-century ‘ālim, who brought what must have been al-Budayrī’s rather colloquial style closer to standard literary Arabic.

Another Damascene chronicler, a Greek Orthodox priest of Damascus named Mīkhā’īl Breik, brings the historical coverage of the city to 1782. The book is entitled Ta’rīkh al-Shām. He explains that he began his history at the year 1720 because this was the time when the rule of the governors (wālīs) of the ‘Aẓm family started. He makes a point that they were the first native Arabs (awlād ‘Arab), as distinct from the Turks who rose to this office. At the same time, another Arab, and not a Greek, was appointed as the first Arab patriarch. Breik reports of conflicts in Damascus between Catholics and Greek Orthodox. He stands out among his contemporaries as the only historian who also wrote about events that were taking place outside the Ottoman empire, mainly in Europe.

The last centennial dictionary for the period under survey is Silk al-durar by the Damascene ‘ālim al-Murādī (he died in 1206/1791 or 1792 at the age of thirty-one). He came from a family of Hanafi ‘ulamā’ originating from Samarkand. Like his father before him, Muḥammad Khalīl served as the Hanafi muftī of Damascus and the naqīb al-ashrāf there. The book, which comprises 1,000 biographies, is a most valuable source for the political, social and cultural history of Syria in the eighteenth century. In addition to using contemporary chronicles, al-Murādī corresponded with other ‘ulamā’ in Syria and Egypt, asking them to collect materials for his biographical dictionary. Thus, al-Ḥajj Ḥasan from Jerusalem compiled for him lives of ‘ulamā’ and shaykhs who lived in Jerusalem in the twelfth/eighteenth century. Al-Murādī contacted also the Yemeni scholar Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī who lived in Cairo. The latter convinced his disciple al-Jabartī to collect materials for al-Murādī. This prompted al-Jabartī to become a historian.

Strangely, al-Murādī failed to include the biographies of the governors of the ‘Aẓm family, perhaps because of their fallāḥ origin. The only exception was Muḥammad Pasha al-‘Aẓm (1731–83), perhaps because he was sufficiently removed in time from the family’s humble origins, or because he was recognized as a just ruler. Al-Murādī was appointed as the Hanafi muftī during his governorship.³²

Two biographical works on the governors of Damascus were written by Ibn Jum‘a al-Maqarrī and Ibn al-Qārī. The former (d. after 1156/1743) was a Hanafi qāḍī and a Qadiri Sufi. Sayyid Raslān Ibn al-Qārī was a member of a well-known Damascene family of ashrāf. He wrote his book in the first half of the nineteenth century.³³

Two biographies of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar were written by Mīkhā’īl and ‘Abbūd al-Ṣabbāgh, two Christian brothers from Acre, who were related to Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh, a man in Ẓāhir al-‘Umar’s service. The biographies praise Ibrāhīm and try to absolve him of responsibility for his master’s policies.³⁴

Although Mount Lebanon was a part of Greater Syria (Bilād al-Shām) and, of course, a part of the Ottoman empire, it was a separate political and administrative unit and had its own history owing to its unique topography. It often enjoyed a degree of independence and had a predominantly non-Muslim population of Christians and Druze. During the Ottoman period, Lebanon had many important, well-educated historians, several of whom were clergymen, and others were bureaucrats. The former were preoccupied with the history of their communities, defending their creed and describing the quarrels among different Christian churches. The Lebanese historians wrote about the politics of the region (some recorded the history of other parts of Syria as well), struggles between factions, the great feudal families of the Mountain, and the leaders. They wrote about the history of the two semi-autonomous dynasties who ruled Lebanon until the nineteenth century, the Ma‘nids and the Shihābs. The former, who ruled the region from the sixteenth century until 1697, were Druze; the latter, who reigned from 1697 until 1841, were Muslims. Neither dynasty emphasized its religion, but tried to guard their autonomy. The outstanding Ma‘nid ruler was Fakhr al-Dīn Ⅱ (1586–1635) and the longest ruling Shihābī was Bashīr Ⅱ (1789–1841). Both received due attention from historians.

Patriarch Isṭifān al-Duwayhī (1630–1704), the greatest of the Maronite church historians, is the author of the only history of Syria with an emphasis on Lebanon in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by a contemporary writer. He wrote about the Maronite community and church with the purpose of defending their Catholic orthodoxy and attacking other Christian churches, such as the Jacobites, whom he considered as hostile to his church as the Mamluk sultans. His general history, Ta’rīkh al-azmina, is a chronicle of Syria from the Crusades until the end of the seventeenth century,³⁵ but the fullest and the most informative account is about the last two centuries. Duwayhī’s emphasis is on northern Lebanon where the population was Maronite. It was ruled by Druze amirs or by Muslims, who were appointed by the Mamluks, and later by the Ottomans. The writer names his sources, Lebanese chroniclers who wrote about various local lords. He also used Maronite books and the Vatican archives.

During the eighteenth century educated and secular chroniclers, who were interested in politics in southern Lebanon which became the political centre, wrote Lebanese history. They describe the power struggles between the leading feudal families.³⁶

Ḥananiyā al-Munayyir (d. 1823), a Greek monk of the Shuwayrite religious order, wrote a history of the Shuf region of Lebanon and the Shihābīs. He concentrated on his own religious order and other Christian religious topics. The most important historian of this period is Aḥmad Ḥaydar al-Shihābī (1761–1835), a cousin of Bashīr Ⅱ. He had access to official documents, such as Bashīr’s correspondence with Ottoman governors. He wrote a history of Lebanon from 622 (the rise of Islam) until 1827, entitled Ghurar al-ḥisān fī akhbār al-zamān.³⁷ Bashīr always concealed his religious identity, although he died a Catholic. Aḥmad Ḥaydar was a Maronite convert from Islam. It is not surprising that in his history Aḥmad Ḥaydar expresses unmitigated support for the Shihābīs, in particular for Bashīr Ⅱ, against their Lebanese and Ottoman enemies. In collecting materials for his historical work Aḥmad Ḥaydar was assisted by some of Lebanon’s leading men of letters, such as Buṭrus al-Bustānī, Nāṣīf al-Yāzijī, Fāris Aḥmad al-Shidyāq, Ṭannūs al-Shidyāq and Niqūlā al-Turk. The two last mentioned eventually became historians in their own right. Unlike Aḥmad Ḥaydar al-Shihābī, who wrote the history of rulers and ruling families, Ṭannūs al-Shidyāq (1791–1861) as a historian saw Lebanon as a national community despite the ethnic and political divisions. With the help of Buṭrus al-Bustānī he published a book about the noble families of Mount Lebanon and their origins.³⁸

Niqūlā al-Turk, a Greek Catholic Lebanese, was sent by Bashīr Ⅱ to act as a spy on the French army in Egypt. The result of his mission was his chronicle, Dhikr tamalluk jumhūr al-fransāwiyya al-aqṭār al-miṣriyya wa’l-shāmiyya (A Report on the French Republic’s Occupation of the Lands of Egypt and Syria). Comparison with al-Jabartī, who described the same events, shows that, unlike the Egyptian chronicler, Niqūlā al-Turk admired the French, although he did criticize them when reporting the atrocities they committed against the inhabitants of Jaffa in Palestine during the French occupation of that town.

Arabic historiography of Ottoman Iraq (before the eighteenth century) was considerably more limited than that of Egypt or Syria during the same period. For the sixteenth century, no historical parallel to Ibn Iyās or Ibn Ṭūlūn that would describe Iraq’s conditions under the Ottomans who conquered the country in 941/1534 has come down to us, and the few works that were written are in Turkish.³⁹ Iraqi historiography emerged in earnest in the seventeenth century and arrived to maturity in the eighteenth century. The historians tended to write about Iraq’s main cities: Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, and several smaller towns. Generally, Iraqi annals during the Ottoman period are similar to their Egyptian and Syrian counterparts in describing their society: governors, qāḍīs, ‘ulamā’, Sufis, ashrāf and some glimpses of the common people. As expected, power struggles among the rulers are a constant feature in the chronicles. As for foreign affairs, wars between Iran and Ottoman Iraq are the main theme. Baghdad itself was occupied by the Safavids from 1622 until 1632. The attacks of the Iranians under Nādir Shāh during the first half of the eighteenth century (1733 until 1746, including sieges of Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk) were the most traumatic events in the political history of Iraq, and are reported in detail by Iraqi chroniclers.

The first historian of Ottoman Iraq worthy of the name was ‘Alī al-Ḥuwayzī (d. 1075/1664). He was born in Bahrain and migrated to Iraq. He lived in the court of the amirs of the Afrasiyāb house, founded at the end of the sixteenth century by a local magnate who administered the province of Basra as his private domain; his descendants ruled the province until the end of the seventeenth century under formal Ottoman suzerainty. Al-Ḥuwayzī’s history of Basra in the first half of the century is entitled al-Sīra al-murḍiyya fī sharḥ al-farḍiyya.

Aḥmad ibn ‘Abdallah al-Ghurābī from Baghdad (d. 1102/1690) wrote the first chronicle that is arranged by years. For his information, he relied on Turkish official documents and eyewitness reports. He was a preacher and a man of letters (adīb). His book, ‘Uyūn akhbār al-a‘yān mimmā maḍā min sālif al-‘uṣur wa’l-azmān, is a chronicle of the political events in Baghdad in the seventeenth century.

Similarly to the situation in Syria, eighteenth-century Iraq saw the emergence of governors (wālīs) of local Iraqi families. Maḥmūd al-Raḥabī, a muftī, wrote the biography of pashas who confronted the Iranians in 1145/1736. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Suwaydī (d. 1175/1761), an important chronicler, wrote the history of Baghdad in the first half of the eighteenth century. His book, Ta’rīkh Baghdād or Ḥadīqat al-zawrā’ fī sīrat al-wuzarā’, tells the history of the city through the biography of the governors Ḥasan Pasha and his son Aḥmad Pasha.

This survey will be concluded with two brothers from Mosul who wrote about the history of Iraq until their time. Yāsīn ibn Khayrallāh al-‘Umarī al-Khaṭīb (d. after 1232/1816), the more important of the two, wrote a general historical work from the Hijra until 1226/1811, with an emphasis on Iraq, in particular Mosul and Baghdad.⁴⁰ Muḥammad Amīn al-‘Umarī, Yāsīn’s brother, wrote Manhal al-awliyā’, another book on Mosul.

Despite the important differences between the various Arab provinces of the Ottoman empire, certain common features emerge in their historiography. With the notable exception of Iraq, local chronicles cover reasonably well the first decades or at least the first years after the Ottoman occupation in the early sixteenth century. The rest of that century has much less historiographical coverage. The seventeenth century witnessed more intensive historical writing in Arabic, which came to full maturity and richness in the eighteenth century. This is true with regard to Iraq as well.

Many of the chronicles are good sources for political history. Most also provide information about economic, social and cultural history. Again, notwithstanding the differences between the societies of the various Arab lands and cities, there are strong similarities owing to the common religion (at least for the Muslim majority), common language and culture. The roles and status of the ‘ulamā’, ashrāf, Sufis, guilds, leaders of city quarters and the like were as a general rule similar in Cairo, Aleppo, Baghdad or Jerusalem. This is reflected in the historical writings of the period.

Latent or even explicit patriotism is discernible in the writings of the local historians. Nationalistic sentiments were of course unknown at the time. The writers (and no doubt the population at large) accepted the Ottoman rule and hegemony as legitimate and natural, despite occasional expressions of criticism of the regime or even antipathy towards the Turks. As the Ottoman rule was becoming more decentralized after the sixteenth century, and as local forces, such as the Mamluks in Egypt or the leaders of strong Arab families elsewhere, were entering the ruling elites in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, the Sultan and the Ottoman capital seemed more distant and even irrelevant. Only rarely do Arab chroniclers tell their readers about events in Istanbul, and then only when these events could affect matters in the province.

¹ Only a few items of the extensive research literature on Arabic historiography during the Ottoman period can be mentioned here. On Egypt: See Crecelius (ed.), Eighteenth Century Egypt, which consists of several important essays and has a very rich and useful bibliography in the text and footnotes. Some of the papers also discuss the earlier centuries. References are made to earlier historiographical studies by David Ayalon, P. M. Holt, Muhammad Anīs, Laylā ‘Abd al-Laṭīf and others. On Syria: See al-Munajjid, al-Mu’arrikhūn; Rāfeq, The Province of Damascus, pp. 320–33; al-Ṣabbāgh, Min a‘lām al-fikr al-῾arabī. On Lebanon: Hourani, ‘Historians of Lebanon’. On Iraq: Ra’ūf, al-Ta’rīkh. On the Yemen: Soudan, Le Yemen ottoman.

² Ibn Iyās’ contemporary, the Damascene ‘alim Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ṭūlūn, also wrote an eyewitness report of the Ottoman occupation of Damascus, Mufākahat al-khullān etc. It is an important and honest report, but not as well written and dramatic as that of Ibn Iyās. The nearest parallel that comes to mind is al-Jabartī’s description of the French occupation of Egypt 280 years later.

³ ‘Abd al-Ṣamad al-Diyārbakrī, an Ottoman qāḍī who came to Egypt with Selim’s army and stayed there as a judge, wrote a chronicle (Dhikr al-khulafā’) in Turkish closely based on Ibn Iyās. He continued the narrative in detail for a period of two and a half years (up to Shawwāl 931/ July 1525).

⁴ al-Nahrawālī, al-Barq al-yamānī and Kitāb al-i‘lām.

⁵ al-Jazīrī, Durar al-fawā’id.

⁶ Hathaway, ‘Sultans, Pashas’.

⁷ Surprisingly, many of them are still in manuscript form, while al-Isḥāqī’s much inferior chronicle was published for the first time in 1296/1878–9. Yet with the growing interest in the history of Ottoman Egypt, two of Ibn Abī’l-Surūr’s works have been published recently: al-Nuzha al-zahiyya and al-Rawḍa al-ma’nūsa. See also the next note.

⁸ Ibn Abī’l-Surūr, al-Minaḥ al-raḥmāniyya.

⁹ Ibn Abī’l-Surūr, ‘Kashf al-kurba’.

¹⁰ See Crecelius, Eighteenth Century Egypt, pp. 87–8.

¹¹ A newly appointed viceroy tells the Mamluk amirs in Cairo: ‘You are the safeguard of the Sultan and the state, and we are guests here and the Sultan consults only you about the affairs of his state’ (Aḥmad Shalabī, Awḍaḥ al-ishārāt, p. 321). A certain arrogant Ottoman chief judge declared upon his arrival in Cairo that he would renew the Egyptians’ religion. Later, when he got into some trouble, the people said to him in biting sarcasm: ‘O Shaykh al-Islam, you are the one who came to Egypt to renew the people’s religion for them?’ (ibid., p. 315).

¹² Ibid., p. 253.

¹³ On this incident, see Winter, Egyptian Society, pp. 157–9.

¹⁴ It is still in manuscript form. See ‘Abd al-Wahhāb Bakr, ‘Interrelationships’.

¹⁵ See also Crecelius and ‘Abd al-Wahhāb Bakr (eds. and trs.), al-Damurdāshī’s Chronicle.

¹⁶ See e.g. Lane, The Manners and Customs, p. 222, where Lane, the great Arabist who wrote in the middle of the nineteenth century, praises al-Jabartī’s chronicle.

¹⁷ David Ayalon writes: ‘Of the local historians of Ottoman Egypt, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī stands out as a giant among dwarfs’ (Ayalon, ‘The Historian al-Jabartī’, 218).

¹⁸ See Crecelius, ‘Aḥmad Shalabī’.

¹⁹ See Moreh (ed. and tr.), al-Jabartī’s Chronicle.

²⁰ al-Jabartī, Maẓhar al-taqdīs.

²¹ al-Jabartī, ‘Ajā’ib. The dates of the writing of the three chronicles and other issues related to al-Jabartī’s manuscripts were established by Moreh, al-Jabartī’s Chronicle, pp. 1–30, esp. p. 18.

²² The historical narrative is preceded by a legendary version of the emergence of these two factions in the first days of the Ottoman occupation. See Holt, ‘Al-Jabartī’s Introduction’.

²³ Ibn Ṭūlūn, al-Fulk al-mashḥūn. He came from a family of well-to-do merchants and also high-ranking ‘ulamā’. His father traded in cotton. His mother was of Turkish stock, but he did not understand Turkish. His paternal uncle was a qāḍī and muftī.

²⁴ Unfortunately, the text that has come down to us is not complete. Al-Ghazzī, a famous seventeenth-century Syrian biographer, who relied heavily on Ibn Ṭūlūn’s works, saw the whole chronicle that included also the periods between 880–4/1476–80 and 927–51/1520–44. See al-Ghazzī, al-Kawākib al-sā’ira, vol. I, pp. 5, 35, 67, 193, 206.

²⁵ For example, Ibn Iyās calls the Ottoman army ‘a rabble’. Ibn Ṭūlūn visited the Ottoman camp and was impressed by its orderliness.

²⁶ Ibn Ṭūlūn, Ta’rīkh al-Mazza.

²⁷ They are respectively I‘lām al-warā and Quḍāt Dimashq; the first part of the latter work, giving the biographies of the Shafiis, was written by ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Nu‘aymī, Ibn Ṭūlūn’s senior colleague. Ibn Ṭūlūn added the biographies of the Hanafi, Maliki and Hanbali qāḍīs.

²⁸ A work by Mūsā al-Anṣārī called Nuzhat al-khāṭir, describing everyday life in Damascus in the sixteenth century, is still in manuscript.

²⁹ Ibn al-Ḥimṣī (d. 934/1527), a historian of Syria and Egypt whose writings have not survived. Al-Sha‘rānī (d. 973/1565) was the most important Egyptian mystic and historian of Sufism in his time. See Winter, Society and Religion.

³⁰ Laylā al-Ṣabbāgh wrote a detailed study of al-Muḥibbī and his work, entitled Min a‘lām al-fikr al-‘arabī etc.

³¹ Ibn Kannān came from a Hanbali family who lived in al-Ṣāliḥiyya suburb in which this madhhab had a strong following, but he chose to be a Hanafi, perhaps out of respect for ‘Abd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, the famous mystic, who was his teacher.

³² Rāfeq, The Province of Damascus, p. 330.

³³ The works of Ibn al-Jum‘a and Ibn al-Qārī were edited and published by al-Munajjid under the title Wulāt Dimashq fī’l-‘ahd al-‘uthmānī. Ibn al-Jum‘a’s work was published in translation together with Ibn Ṭūlūn’s collection of the biographies of governors of Damascus under the Mamluks and the early Ottomans in Laoust, Les Gouverneurs de Damas.

³⁴ See Mīkhā’īl al-Ṣabbāgh, Ta’rīkh. ‘Abbūd al-Ṣabbāgh’s biography is still in manuscript: ‘al-Rawḍ al-ẓāhir fī akhbār Ḍāhir’, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, F. A. arabe 4610.

³⁵ The later 1976 edition covers the period from the rise of Islam until 1098/1686.

³⁶ For a few examples, see Hourani, ‘Historians of Lebanon’.

³⁷ His books were published in several editions, e.g. Aḥmad Ḥaydar al-Shihābī, Lubnān; and his, Ta’rīkh.

³⁸ Under the title Akhbār al-a‘yān fī Jabal Lubnān.

³⁹ See Ra’ūf’s survey of Iraqi historiography under the Ottomans, mentioned in fn. 1. It is important to mention that the Yemen produced very rich historiography during the sixteenth century: see Soudan’s important and detailed study of the chronicle of al-Mawza‘ī (fl. 1618–22), Le Yemen ottoman, who praised ‘the just rule of the Ottomans’.

⁴⁰ Zubdat al-āthār al-jaliyya; Ghāyat al-marām; and Munyat al-udabā’.