Event Report-Back -- Before the Modern, After the Medieval: Egypt and the Middle East in the Eighteenth Century

[Photo of event. Image from Daniel Woodward] [Photo of event. Image from Daniel Woodward]

Event Report-Back -- Before the Modern, After the Medieval: Egypt and the Middle East in the Eighteenth Century

By : Daniel Woodward

On 28 and 29 March 2014 the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations at the American University in Cairo (AUC) convened its Annual History Seminar at Oriental Hall in downtown Cairo. Titled “Before the Modern, After the Medieval: Egypt and the Middle East in the 18th Century,” the seminar brought renowned scholars from across Egypt and the world together to question the narrative of the eighteenth century as a period of stagnation or decline which still dominants Egyptian and Middle Eastern history, and to try to find new frameworks through which to understand the period.

Dr. Emad Abu-Ghazi of Cairo University opened the seminar by addressing the issue of whether European colonialism of the nineteenth century curtailed regional transitions to modernity with a paper titled “Precursors to Modernity: A Reading of Consular Treaty from the 16th Century.” Dr. Abu-Ghazi used a sixteenth century treaty between Egypt and the city of Ragusa to examine ongoing changes in Egyptian society during these period, and to argue that the treaty reflects many values which we associate with modernity long before the French invasion of 1798, the date traditionally marked as the beginning of the modern period in Egypt.

Dr. Rachida Chih of Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in France and Dr. Justin Stearns of New York University at Abu Dhabi presented papers which examined intellectual developments eighteenth century Egypt and Morocco. Dr. Chih argued that traditional understandings of nineteenth century neo-Sufism which see the movement as a radical break in religious and intellectual thought, in fact ignore the deep ties of nineteenth century reformists to their eighteenth and seventeenth century forbearers. Dr. Stearns, presenting a paper on Moroccan intellectual history, argued that the traditional narrative of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as periods of intellectual decline across the Islamic world is not borne out by actual examination of the intellectual production of the period. As evidence he pointed to the deep and ongoing interest of religious scholars in the rational sciences, a point ignored by histories which focus on their spiritual and political significance. Both papers convincingly identified a robust intellectual dynamism in the region during the eighteenth century. They also encourage thought on the definition of various concepts, including those of Sufism and neo-Sufism and point that such definitions themselves change over time.

Dealing with economic and social history, Dr. Ghislaine Alleaume  of Aix-Marseille Université presented a paper on the findings of her research on waqf documents from Alexandria prior to the nineteenth century. Interestingly, her research shows a sharp increase in awqaf in the first half of the eighteenth century, a finding which casts doubt on the traditional view of Alexandria as a regional backwater in the centuries prior to the reign of Muhammad Ali. Dr. Nelly Hanna of the American University in Cairo presented a paper titled “Guild History or Guild Histories,” which problematized the work of mid-twentieth century historians, which saw eighteenth centuries guilds in Egypt as static. Dr. Hanna presented evidence of textile guilds reacting to shifts in world trade and targeting specific markets abroad by producing new products especially for these markets. This, Dr. Hanna argued, means that some guilds in this period were not static, but were indeed actively adapting to and effecting shifts in the global economy.

In the under-explored field of eighteenth century literature, Dr. Adam Talib of the American University in Cairo gave a paper which presented several Arabic poems from the end of the eighteen century which focus on pocket watches, a simple device which has deep effect on the structure of our lives. Dr. Talib contended that these poems capture a moment in the Arab Eastern Mediterranean’s encounter with Europe’s technological revolution and the shifting mentalities that accompanied it. By exploring these shifting mentalities, Dr. Talib argued, we may be able to establish a better periodization of Middle Eastern history than the traditional narratives of stagnation in this period. Some scholars have argued that a changing awareness of time and time-keeping, time-discipline and different ways of organizing time productively are among the elements that characterized Western societies in the early modern world and allowed for the rise of Capitalist structures and European hegemony. Studying other attitudes in the Arab world towards the concept of personal time and watches therefore opens an avenue for comparative research.  Dr. Hussein Hammouda, also of the American University in Cairo, gave a paper dealing with Egyptian literature in the eighteenth century, a subject almost entirely ignored by earlier scholars. In this paper, Dr. Hammouda asked whether Egyptian literature of the eighteen century was merely a “surrender” to the paradigms of the medieval period, or whether it contain new structures which led to the more well-known developments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Other interesting papers were given by Dr. Mohamed Sabri al-Dali of Helwan University, Dr. Sabri al-Adl of Misr International University, Dr. Sayed Ashmawi of Cairo University and Dr. Nasser Ibrahim of Qatar University.

All of the papers presented at this seminar pointed to a dynamism in eighteen century society in the Middle East which constitutes a direct challenge to the narratives of stagnation or decline posited by earlier historians of the period. However, they disagreed over how this dynamism was to be interpreted, i.e. whether there were elements of the modern already brewing in the eighteenth century or whether these are later developments. Dr Abou Ghazi raised the notion of unfinished or incomplete modernity, and having focused on the sixteenth century in his paper, he stressed the idea that this part of the world had experienced more than one attempt at modernity and at a transformation but that other larger historical developments impeded this. Abou Ghazi also connected this interruption of development to the political realities that shaped who benefited from the economic production and profits of the labor of people in this part of the world. Several scholars, including Dr Ghislaine Alleaume, argued for focusing on particular sets of dates based on available sources rather than blocks of historical time, or periods, such as the whole eighteenth century. Both Drs Rachida Chih and Justin Stearns stressed the importance of redefining concepts, including Sufism, in light of changing circumstances. Several of the participants, including Stearns, added that even concepts like modernity and the early modern act as strait jackets that limit and confine the imagination of historians, and that they need to somehow liberate themselves from such concepts and their related paradigms. The seminar ended with the participants acknowledging that the work presented over the two days was a mere start and that more research is clearly needed if the old decline paradigm is to be finally put to rest. In that light, Dr Magdi Guirguis called for more collective and group research over such issues since no one scholar would be able to cover all aspects of the debate.

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412