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  • Glimpses of Ottoman Palestine

    Glimpses of Ottoman Palestine

    Bahrain Tribune, Bahrain
    Nov 14 2004

    'The exhibition at Beit Al Quran was a one-to-one conversation with
    the elite and the ordinary
    - an exchange of thought and not an eloquent exhibition of wit or
    oratory.'

    It may appear naive, a little preposterous, to expect 104 photographs
    and photocopies of 18 hand-written documents to do full justice to
    the mighty Ottoman empire that ruled Palestine for over 400 years -
    almost uninterrupted.

    It will also be naive to expect such a small exhibition - crammed into
    a small gallery with only breathing space - (had there been a crowd,
    there would have been more jostling than actual viewing), to expose
    you to the complexities and the psyche of the ruler and the ruled in
    all bitter-sweet aspects.

    Realising that any pre-conceived notions would be only a bias and
    dangerous, I stepped into Beit Al Quran - not to see what I wanted
    to see, but to see what was all there to see: glimpses into freedom,
    harmony, camaraderie and community spirit in Palestine between 1850
    and 1919.

    Water-carriers, women from Siloam selling vegetables or melons, Shaikh
    Noury offering food to passers-by, gypsies, boating in Engaddi/Arnon
    (Dead Sea), fishermen using their dishes as cymbals, pilgrims at the
    Lion's and the Damascus gates, celebration of the renewal of Jerusalem
    water pipeline... well, it was a gallery of people of individual honour
    and personal character, of independence, of the faces of humanity
    without mask. There were no masters, no dictators, no champions.

    It was also a hall for a one-to-one conversation with the elite and
    the ordinary - an exchange of thought and not an eloquent exhibition
    of wit or oratory.

    The still moments carried in them infinite space, and this infinite
    space was infinitely exhibited - as the everlasting joy.

    Kudos to the Turkish embassy in Bahrain and Beit Al Quran for the
    judicious selection of the photographs from the collection of Turkish
    Consulate General in Jerusalem.

    "Of an estimated 15,000 photographs in existence - until the end of
    the Ottoman period in Palestine - the Consulate General has acquired
    copies of 1,500 after years of painstaking search of the archives of
    Orient House, the Arab Studies Society and other local institutions as
    well as private family albums," the Director of Museum at the centre,
    Ashraf Al Ansari, tells me.

    The photographs - faces, landscapes, town scenes, holy places - all
    captured the fabric of the communities, their unity in diversity, the
    social, economic and cultural life, the Ottoman Turkish architectural
    imprint on monuments and structures. The documents, provided by the
    Ottoman Archives Department of the Directorate General of the State
    Archives of the Prime Ministry of the Republic of Turkey, depicted the
    social and administrative aspects of Ottoman governance in Palestine
    - a place which had remained one of the most important districts of
    the empire from 1517 until the end of World War I.

    The most important document was the ferman (ordinance) of Fatih
    Sultan Mehmet guaranteeing religious freedom to all the clergymen
    from different religions in Al Quds in 1457 - and affirming that the
    empire was one of the most tolerant in the world.

    "Unlike the preceding rulers, the Ottomans allowed the majority of
    Muslims and Christian Arabs as well as minorities such as Jews,
    Circassians, Druses, Serbs, Assyrians, Armenians and Turks to
    peacefully coexist - as a natural right - regardless of their religious
    or ethnic backgrounds," Al Ansari says. The population also included
    large groups of foreign missionaries, teachers and fringe groups of
    Christians and Jewish refugees.

    To further affirm his argument, Al Ansari points to another ordinance
    (issued on August 31, 1565) on keeping of the holy places in Al
    Quds such as Mariam's Tomb and Qadem-Isa clean and the prevention of
    improper acts on such sites.

    "Most of the inhabitants, Arabic speaking Christians and Muslims,
    lived in a few hundred villages with self-sufficiency. The elite lived
    in the towns and were different from the subjects in the villages. The
    high priests were often Greek though the congregation was Arabian. The
    landowners were often Turks," Al Ansari says.

    The state never prevented any of the Christian communities from
    exercising their historically acknowledged rights of free passage into
    Jerusalem nor interfered in any way with their religious conduct, he
    says. Further evidence that the empire kept to its contract with the
    People of the Book is provided in church documents. They reveal the
    systematic building, renovation and upkeep of churches and monasteries
    in Jerusalem and beyond.

    For instant, the permission to the Armenian Catholic community
    in Jerusalem in 1887 to build a church on property close to a
    Muslim mystic fellowship, even though the Armenian Catholics in
    Jerusalem numbered just four households of 22 men and women. What is
    extraordinary about the incident is that the permission was given
    at about the same time as state elements were massacring Armenians
    in Anatolia.

    No visitor to the exhibition would miss the eclectic social milieu
    and its various moods - a man selling ice-cream in Jerusalem (1917), a
    local Arab pasha in full Ottoman Army insignia (1900) children watching
    through the magic box (1919), an American cavasse (1905) the cattle
    market in the Sultan's pool (1900), a Samaritan with a scroll (1901).

    More, a 1918 photograph of a women's union making handicrafts
    in Ramallah is perhaps the best evidence of women's emancipation
    during the Ottomans when they were allowed to earn a living with a
    condition of not getting involved with men. The sorts of employment
    were embroidery and weaving.

    Education was another priority of the empire which encouraged the
    teaching of both Arabic and English languages by opening the Arab
    Primary School and the Friends School in Ramallah.

    Other achievements include a railway line between Jerusalem and Jaffa
    opened in 1892, the first major highway joining the two cities that was
    completed in 1867l the town hospital was rebuilt in 1891 in the west
    side of Jerusalem, the first windmill was built in 1839, the Citadel,
    near Jaffa Gate, was repaired, adding a few adjoining structures,
    the Clock Tower, a magnificent square tower with four huge towers
    at the top of each side, was built in 1909 on top of Jaffa Gate as
    a memorial to the British conquest during World War I.

    In 1863, the local authority ordered the removal of all market
    platforms to create space for pedestrians in 1885, old street tiles
    were replaced in all of the City's alleys and main streets, with the
    provision of side channels for drainage.

    The empire has gone, but the holy territories have retained to
    date some remarkable features of the bygone era empire in the daily
    socio-cultural life in Palestine. The Ottoman concept is still in the
    memories of the Palestinian people. And the exhibition succeeded in
    its aim - if it was to depict the remarkable cultural ebb and flow,
    which characterised the Ottoman period, if it was to try and find
    out hints from the Ottoman rule in this territory so that they could
    be feasible examples for the present day, if it was to remember the
    longest stable period of the Palestinian history with respect.

    A walk through the gallery was like a visit to the Holy Land. At the
    same time, it was a reminder of her spirit as a land of peace and
    the possibility and hope for a better future.
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