Post by ColdHeat on Nov 27, 2004 0:37:40 GMT 3
Power of wisdom in Ottoman Palestine
photo: A busy street of Jerusalem.
The recently-concluded photographic exhibition on Ottoman Palestine stood out as a scholarly study, providing a testament to the Ottoman society’s dynamism and the capacity for change, and bringing to the fore important and much-overlooked fascinating aspects of an outstanding era, writes gopal kejriwal.
The Ottomans were able to think because they had wisdom, because they had power. There never seemed to be the problem of how to exercise power to achieve its responsible role – to do more good – rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use, of how to get the authority to live for rather than off the public.
A total of 104 photographs and photocopies of 18 written documents vouchsafed the most revolutionary record of lasting peace and freedom (you cannot separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom) that marked the mighty Ottoman Empire and its rule on Palestine for over 400 years – almost uninterrupted. The empire’s power consisted in its capacity to link its will with the purpose of others, to rule and lead by reason, cooperation and trust.
Small though, the displays at Beit Al Quran provided glimpses into the complexities and the psyche of the ruler and the ruled in all bitter-sweet aspects.
The gallery – of freedom, harmony, camaraderie and community spirit that co-existed in Palestine between 1850 and 1919 – highlighted the irrefutable fact that peace is not an absence of war but is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence and justice.
This peace – which was achieved through enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a noble manner – lived for centuries with honours and glories of its own, unattended by the dangers of war.
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. There was no servitude.
With the well-preserved black and white photographs of water-carriers, Siloam women selling vegetables or melons, philanthropist Shaikh Noury offering food to passers-by, gypsies, people in boats in Engaddi/Arnon, fishermen clattering their plates like cymbals, pilgrims inching their way through the Lion’s and the Damascus gates, the celebration of the renewal of Jerusalem water pipeline – the gallery was an opportunity for one-to-one conversations with the elite and the ordinary – for an exchange of thought and not an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory. Every citizen dutifully gave validity to his or her convictions, beliefs and philosophy.
The still moments all over the halls carried in them infinite space, and this infinite space was infinitely exhibited – as the everlasting joy.
Hats off to the Turkish embassy for mining the sources intelligently and the judicious selection of the photographs from the collection of Turkish Consulate General in Jerusalem – to capture the spirits of Ottoman Palestine.
“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 – also 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.
In support of 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 Arabs formed an important part of the structure of the empire and the Ottoman Constitution provided for one form of government of all Ottoman territories and people.
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 which reveal the systematic building, renovation and upkeep of churches and monasteries in Jerusalem and beyond. One fine example is the permission to the Armenian Catholic community in Jerusalem in 1887 to build a church even though the community comprised just four households of 22 men and women.
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 as 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 Arab Primary School, Friends School in Ramallah, and many others.
Other achievements include the opening of a railway line between Jerusalem and Jaffa in 1892, the completion of the first major highway joining the two cities in 1867, the inauguration of the town hospital in 1891 in the west side of Jerusalem and the first windmill in 1839, the renovation of the Citadel near Jaffa, adding a few adjoining structures, and the Clock Tower, the magnificent square tower with four huge towers at the top of each side that 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 and in 1885, old 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 of its remarkable features in the daily socio-cultural life in Palestine. The Ottoman concept remains in the memories of the Palestinians.
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 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.
The exhibition stood out as a scholarly study, providing a testament to the Ottoman society’s dynamism and the capacity for change, and bringing to the fore important and much-overlooked fascinating aspects of the period.
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.
photo: A busy street of Jerusalem.
The recently-concluded photographic exhibition on Ottoman Palestine stood out as a scholarly study, providing a testament to the Ottoman society’s dynamism and the capacity for change, and bringing to the fore important and much-overlooked fascinating aspects of an outstanding era, writes gopal kejriwal.
The Ottomans were able to think because they had wisdom, because they had power. There never seemed to be the problem of how to exercise power to achieve its responsible role – to do more good – rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use, of how to get the authority to live for rather than off the public.
A total of 104 photographs and photocopies of 18 written documents vouchsafed the most revolutionary record of lasting peace and freedom (you cannot separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom) that marked the mighty Ottoman Empire and its rule on Palestine for over 400 years – almost uninterrupted. The empire’s power consisted in its capacity to link its will with the purpose of others, to rule and lead by reason, cooperation and trust.
Small though, the displays at Beit Al Quran provided glimpses into the complexities and the psyche of the ruler and the ruled in all bitter-sweet aspects.
The gallery – of freedom, harmony, camaraderie and community spirit that co-existed in Palestine between 1850 and 1919 – highlighted the irrefutable fact that peace is not an absence of war but is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence and justice.
This peace – which was achieved through enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a noble manner – lived for centuries with honours and glories of its own, unattended by the dangers of war.
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. There was no servitude.
With the well-preserved black and white photographs of water-carriers, Siloam women selling vegetables or melons, philanthropist Shaikh Noury offering food to passers-by, gypsies, people in boats in Engaddi/Arnon, fishermen clattering their plates like cymbals, pilgrims inching their way through the Lion’s and the Damascus gates, the celebration of the renewal of Jerusalem water pipeline – the gallery was an opportunity for one-to-one conversations with the elite and the ordinary – for an exchange of thought and not an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory. Every citizen dutifully gave validity to his or her convictions, beliefs and philosophy.
The still moments all over the halls carried in them infinite space, and this infinite space was infinitely exhibited – as the everlasting joy.
Hats off to the Turkish embassy for mining the sources intelligently and the judicious selection of the photographs from the collection of Turkish Consulate General in Jerusalem – to capture the spirits of Ottoman Palestine.
“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 – also 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.
In support of 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 Arabs formed an important part of the structure of the empire and the Ottoman Constitution provided for one form of government of all Ottoman territories and people.
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 which reveal the systematic building, renovation and upkeep of churches and monasteries in Jerusalem and beyond. One fine example is the permission to the Armenian Catholic community in Jerusalem in 1887 to build a church even though the community comprised just four households of 22 men and women.
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 as 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 Arab Primary School, Friends School in Ramallah, and many others.
Other achievements include the opening of a railway line between Jerusalem and Jaffa in 1892, the completion of the first major highway joining the two cities in 1867, the inauguration of the town hospital in 1891 in the west side of Jerusalem and the first windmill in 1839, the renovation of the Citadel near Jaffa, adding a few adjoining structures, and the Clock Tower, the magnificent square tower with four huge towers at the top of each side that 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 and in 1885, old 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 of its remarkable features in the daily socio-cultural life in Palestine. The Ottoman concept remains in the memories of the Palestinians.
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 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.
The exhibition stood out as a scholarly study, providing a testament to the Ottoman society’s dynamism and the capacity for change, and bringing to the fore important and much-overlooked fascinating aspects of the period.
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.
