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.