A new historiography on the Ottoman Arab and Eastern provinces.

• Author: Atmaca, Metin
• Position: "The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, 1516-1918: A Social and Cultural History", "Ottoman-Iranian Borderlands: Making a Boundary, 1843-1914" and "War and State Formation in Syria: Cemal Pasha's Governorate during World War I, 1914-1917" - Book review

The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, 1516-1918: A Social and Cultural History

By Bruce Alan Masters

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013, 271 pages, $31.48, ISBN: 9781107619036.

Ottoman-Iranian Borderlands: Making a Boundary, 1843-1914

By Sabri Ates

New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013, 366 pages, $99.00, ISBN: 9781107033658.

War and State Formation in Syria: Cemal Pasha's Governorate During World War I, 1914-1917

By M. Talha Cicek

New York: Routledge, 2014, 294 pages, $121.40, ISBN: 9780415728188.

Beginning in the early 1980s, a number of works were published on the Arab provinces. These works criticized nationalistic approaches that treated the Ottomans similarly to Western colonial powers and blamed them for much of the violence that took place in the 19th and 20th century. The main accomplishment of these writings was the reintegration of the Ottoman past into the history of the modern Middle East. Nationalist historiography of Middle Eastern countries places the end of the Ottoman period with the arrival of Napoleon in Egypt in 1798. According to this historiography, the local elites played a dominant role in the modern period, as founders of the modern Middle East nations such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Tunus, and Algeria, operating solely within a local "proto-nationalist" environment with no indication of influence from other events taking place within the Ottoman Empire as a whole. (1)

Recent works in the last couple of decades, which do not completely ignore this nationalist historiography but refute some of its approaches, have started to pick up on the concept of Albert Hourani's 'politics of notables' and have showed the influence of local Ottoman elites in the history of the Arab regions. (2) For instance, Philip Khoury's work on urban Damascene notables attempts to give a balanced interpretation to the rise of Arab nationalism in Syria. (3) Khoury explains how long-term Ottoman reforms, commercialization in agrarian relations, and European economic penetration helped merge a few influential families into an upper class elite that would eventually lead local politics in Syria after 1860. Another work that is noteworthy to mention is the study by David Commins on the Damascene ulama in late 19th century Ottoman Syria. (4) Commins' book explores the tension between the Salafis and traditional ulama through unpublished manuscripts, correspondence, and inheritance documents of three generations of a notable Damascus family. In addition to tensions with the ulama, Arabism was on the rise among young men with secular education who sought the advancement of Arab interests in the Ottoman Empire.

Many nationalist works tend to use documents and "indigenous" literature to argue that Middle East states had pre-existing nationalist sentiments. For example, Arab and Egyptian nationalists have used Abdal-Rahman al-Jabarti's work and other Arab narratives for such purposes. Arab nationalist works also tend to focus on the historical period after 1800, using local archival documents as well as British and French primary and secondary sources. The divide between Turkish and Arab scholarship is threatening to place the efforts of historians such as Albert Hourani in danger. Decades before, Hourani placed the Ottomans within the context of Arab history without prejudice. A handful of scholars from modern Arab nations claim that Arabic sources alone are sufficient for the historiography of Ottoman Arab lands and that works based on these sources alone are more authentic and faithful to the Arab people than those that include Ottoman sources. Therefore, there is very little work in the Arab world that relies mostly on the Ottoman sources such as Kadi Sijills, or Islamic court records. (5)

The nationalist Arab historian will probably stay for a long time dissatisfied about their past during the Ottoman period. On the other hand, the question of "what induced quietude rather than rebellion?" (6) in the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire still remains unanswered and thus leaves out a big chunk of the common history lived together. A similar question has been asked about the Roman Empire's administration for centuries over its provinces. Masters adopts the same line of questioning throughout the book and presents solid arguments in his efforts to find answers. The query becomes more legitimate since the Ottomans refer to the past experiences of the Byzantine Empire in the Balkans and Anatolia as well as the Mamluk rule in the Arab territories.

Masters' work is timely in the context of intensified discussions over a model for the post-Arab Spring...