Middle Eastern History- ASH 1044- Final Exam Notes PDF

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Sultan vs. Caliph Sultan: Political Power- Caliph: Religious Power- Sultan & caliph could be same person- Rashidun & Umayyads (caliphs, not sultans) -

Buyids (C 945 CE) – caliph power was largely symbolic

Abbasid Caliph- figure head (not much

power)- ritualized -

Retinue- group of advisors (executioner- swift justice) Caliph- symbols of direct democracy- Weekly court sessiono anyone comes in & appeals ruling to caliph

Below Caliph- refined administration: -

Wazir/Vizier- Chief advisor (top/head administration)- Division of Abbasid Admin (3 main offices): Army, Treasury, Chancery

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Earthly administration under the Wazir and possession of the 3 offices shifted into the hands of the sultan

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Harun Al-Rashid (R 786-809 CE)- Archetypal fantasy Abbasid caliph o Famous for his night inspections of Baghdad in disguise- Jafar was the leaders assistant o Harun Al-Rashid had an assistant- Ja’Far Bin Yahya (767-803 CE)- From former Buddhist family from Afghanistan o This family supplied a bunch of the Wazirs to the Abbasid caliphs- Social mobility- being outsiders to being leaders o Shortly after Harun Al-Rashid the Abbasid caliphs lost temporal power- stopped being kings & just figureheads as caliphs

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The Buyids only held power as sultans for century- Supplanted by Turks- became Muslims in Transoxiana at end of 10th century

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1030’s- entered Khorasan, 1055- took over Baghdad- Claimed they were saving Abbasid caliphate from these Shia Buyids o They took the title of sultan for the first time (Sultan meaning king)

Orientalism -

European and western interest in the east-

especially focused on Islam and the lands of the middle

east -

Used to be that this was considered a neutral quantity- A generic neutral name for a school of art

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Late 1970’s- significant book- history of the middle eastern studies was released: Orientalism, by Edward W. Said: o argues orientalism is a discourse- (a set of ideas repeated over and over) about a place which doesn’t actually exist in the real world, exists only in minds of those in west who talk about it o Figures of western cultural production who wrote and painted and thought about orient- creating fantasy which had nothing to do with middle east, mostly to do with obsessions, difficulties & troubles Europe working out itself o stereotypes not used to explain middle east but reinforce western cultural concepts o That discussion of politics of orientalism present day has history since period of ottoman decentralization o When ottomans became not as strong as before militarily, Europeans began travel to middle east in increasing numbers, learn things about ME civilization & bring ideas back to Europe where transformed & reconfiged to European audiences o EUROPEAN ENLIGHTENMENT- lots of interest in fear of Prophet Muhammad- devil or secular hero? o Interest coincided with expansion of European reading public & public which consumed cultural products o 1701- first French translation of the story of sinbad the sailor o Shortly after- translation of lots of texts under heading of a thousand and one nights

worked to save their kingdom from murderous sultan- very popular in the west- widespread readership

o Voltaire’s famous work- middle of 18th century- shows Turks as source of philosophical wisdom 

Not noble savages- civilized & offer wisdom for enlightenment for Europeans

o Orientalism not completely negative- also way of putting words in mouths of ME that positive- words rarely about ME itself, always means of reflecting back to Europe -

Mozart’s opera abduction- example orientalism- story about pasha somewhere on Mediterranean coastbig European fear of Muslim pirates coming from north African coast during time period

Madrasa -

1990 & first decade of this century- talk of Taliban madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan o Pakistan & Afghanistan- places that were believed radicalization took place- Young people taught ideology of Taliban

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Taliban- students

Madrasa- Arabic word for “place of study” or “school”

o Many different kinds of schools- Key institutions of the Islamic middle east o Going back 1000 years or more- a site where knowledge was diffused at the most basic level

o Elementary age children- boys age 6-10/12- Medieval period- learn basic literacy skills (SPECIFICALLY memorization) o Curriculum of the first level of education- memorizing the Quran- Not everyone attended the school o Ulama- lower degree of learning (basic literacy or memorization)- Supported by payments of parents, endowments work as school teachers -

Al-Azhar (Cairo)- centralized place of higher learning- Learning in more advanced places involved each teacher typically teaching a single book from the Islamic tradition or other tradition- Ijaza- certificate of mastery of a given book o Once a student had heard & memorized a whole book, he would receive a Ijaza

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Al-Tabari (D. 923 CE)- learned man- Legal schools- schools formed around a teacher where the lessons would be passed on o Ibn Sina (AKA Avicenna) (C 980-1037 CE)- talks about what a Muslim intellectual is, describes his learning inside and outside of madrasa

Young Turks & Young Ottomans -

Namik Kamal- Member of a movement called the young ottomans which rose in the 1860’s and 1870’s

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Young Ottomans: o This was a movement of opposition to the Tanzimat, not because they opposed the reforms, but because they thought the reforms did not go far enough o There was an expansion of bureaucracy, modernization of education and training o This expansion and modernization created a new larger class of educated clerks and officers, many of them drawn from the ordinary population, rather than from elite ranks o This group was looking for some political voice, they weren’t seeking democracy with universal franchise o They held themselves to be more competent than others, than the government, and wanted control of the state based on their own competence (a kind of meritocracy)

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This is what Kamal was arguing for

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The young ottomans had their triumph in 1876 when a parliament and constitution were established in Turkey o This parliamentary moment was short lived, it happened at a time of bankruptcy and Sultan Abdal Hamid was a very wily leader and soon was able to marginalize and shut down this parliament

o But there was a brief window of representative government, this was by no means a fully democratic parliament, only men could vote, they had to be over 25, they had to be tax paying, they had to be ottoman nationals, so really it was a restrictive democracy o This parliament did bring in deputies from all over the empire and it a very multi-ethnic multi-religious multi-linguistic congress o Hamid was able to sideline it and it was not until 1907 that there was a move to push for something like this again by a group called the Young Turks -

Young Turks: o A secret society made up largely of officers, but also some public servants o these men were echoing the call and the organization of the young ottomans in many ways, but they were doing it with 30 years more of experience with nationalism under their belts and were much more interested in a nationalist claim to belonging in the ottoman empire o this nationalist claim was Turkish, and it wanted the Turkish ethnicity and the Turkish language in many ways to the exclusion of the Persians, Armenians, Arabs, Greeks, and other non-Turks who made up a large part of the population of the empire o There were however members of all these groups involved in the Young Turks o It was a complex movement and not simply ethnically nationalist in any straight forward way

Suez Canal -

The Suez Canal connected the Mediterranean to the Red Sea- could go directly to Europe or Asia

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This was particularly significant to India and Britain- creation of canal was foreign private investment

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The capital European countries had in 1850’s was invested in shares of companies building things

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Ferdinand De Lesseps, a French diplomat and a promoter, he received a concession in 1854 from the ruler of Egypt o allowed him build canal- Suez company created- raised 2 million francs to start construction o Work started April 29, 1859- labor given by the ruler of Egypt o The project vigorously rejected by British- it threatened their control of trade routes to India

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After Egypt went into default (not paying loans) in 1875, after the cotton prices were cheap again, they had to sell a lot of things included shares of the canal which were bought by the British for 100 million francs

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In 1882, they invaded Egypt and occupied and they protected their investors who had control of the Suez Canal

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Egypt, Tunisia and the Ottoman empire went bankrupt in the 1870’s- They all refinanced their debt but the conditions to refinancing the debt were that European creditors could take control of their finance ministries

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The Suez canal was paid for foreign indirect investment with unpaid labor the Egyptian peasantry and was taken by the British through bankruptcy laws and invasion laws...