The maktaba
al-Khālidiyya
Daniele
Sicari – Università degli Studi di
Palermo (Italy)
Introduction
It is more
important than ever, at this moment, to raise an issue about Jerusalem, in
order to preserve the historical memory and the cultural heritage of a city
which identity is being increasingly threatened by a hideous project of
colonisation. The serious danger arising from the alteration, the stealing and
even the destruction of such considerable legacy, which are intended to erase
the Arab and Islamic past of Jerusalem and Palestine, makes it necessary to
recover the history of this region in order to reaffirm its great relevance in
the Muslim world, both in the past and the present.
In the course
of the Ottoman history, no city has ever assumed the dignity of capital merely
on religious basis, which is contrary to the modern Israeli claimings for
Jerusalem as its own capital, “unified and eternal”.[2] As
a matter of fact, in spite of its extraordinary importance – both in a
religious and a symbolic perspective – due to the high presence of holy places
for the three major religions[3],
Jerusalem started to assume a prominent role, administratively and also
politically, only at the mid-19th century, which was further
enhanced by the creation of an indipendent mutaṣarrifiyya
around 1872.
The question of
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has once more been raised on 6th
December 2017 by the US President Donald Trump’s official recognition of an
Israeli exclusive sovereignty over the city.[4]
This declaration, which has regrettably had a stronger impact at a regional
level than worldwide, represents a serious act which tends to modify
effectively the traditional status of the holy city. In fact, not only it does
not take into account that part of the city – East Jerusalem – which is mostly
inhabited by Palestinian people, but it also withholds the history of Jerusalem
itself which, from the 7th century AD until the nakba of 1948 – while acknowledging the important presence of
different co-existing and interacting communities – is an Islamic history. Such
recognition, which has been formally rejected by the UN General Assembly, puts
nonetheless a considerable issue with regard to the stability of the
Palestinian community – thrown into a further state of unrest – and the
historical and cultural identity of a city lying under Israeli occupation for
over fifty years.
In this
perspective, the recent efforts which many Palestinian scholars put in the
process of collecting, analysing and finally prudently disclosing their
historical heritage represent a fundamental step in order to preserve and
re-establish the Arab and Islamic identity of Jerusalem al-Quds. In this respect, we esteem it necessary to underline the
peculiar importance of historical archives – with main regard to the
manuscripts and the Arabic documentation – which, despite their great value as
first-hand sources, are regrettably much less used both by Western and Arab
historians and scholars.[5]
It is no
coincidence that we have chosen to extend and to deepen a discussion on the
holy city which we have started a few years ago by the study of some
late-Ottoman travelogues (riḥla) in
Palestine.[6] By
this short contribution we wish to shed some more light on the peculiar
position that Jerusalem occupied in the context of the region of Palestine
during the late-Ottoman period (mid-19th – beginning of the 20th
century) by highlighting the relevance of the Palestinian historical and
cultural heritage kept in the archives and the libraries of the holy city. In
particular, it intends to focus on the fundamental role played by those family
groups which, through the activity of some of their members (a̔yān) as well as their relationship
with the Ottoman government, were able to affect the social life of the city,
on the one side, and to influence political decision-making, on the other, by
maintaining and even extending their hegemony in the period considered. Nor
must we lose sight of the peculiar relationship that those same notables had
established with the cultural sphere, not only by their political activity but
also by the foundation – or the revitalisation, depending on the situation – of
institutions (awqāf) which were
appointed for the collection and the preservation of Arabic and Islamic
manuscripts, and also historical volumes, reviews and private documents of
different nature, as in the case of the maktaba
al-Khālidiyya, which was founded in Jerusalem at the beginning of last
century. The role of such libraries and/or archives was not restricted to the
conservation of historical records, but it also often involved the performance
of scientific councils which had a great impact both on the social and the
cultural sphere. In this perspective, it is also worth pointing out that today,
in the light of recent events, the role of some of these cultural institutions
has become increasingly important.
In compliance
with those scholars who are engaged in the process of recovery of their past,
we wish to give our even small contribution to the highlighting of a specific
part of the Palestinian history, and also express the special attentiveness of
the Chair of Arabic and Islamic Studies of the University of Palermo both for
the Palestinian and the Jerusalem questions.
We finally wish
to thank Mr. Yahia Yakhlef, Editor of the important Awrāq Filasṭīniyya review, for having agreed upon the publication
of this article, and d. ̔Aziz al-Assa, President of the Cultural Department of
the Nādī al-muwaẓẓafīn of Jerusalem,
for his invaluable help and his friendly support.
A.
The rise of Jerusalem in the mid-19th century
Palestine has
not represented an enclosed political or administrative unit, indipendent from
the neighbouring Arab territories – such as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and ̔Iraq –
until World War I and the fall of the Ottoman empire.
Up to the
mid-19th century, the Ottoman history of Palestine has not been
characterized by significant episodes – apart from certain interesting local
attempts to make some crucial areas indipendent from the Ottoman authority[7] –
rather it has mostly followed the fates of those regions forming part of Bilād al-Shām.[8] In
the first half of the 19th century, as a matter of fact, Palestine
started to experience a remarkable series of radical changes – administrative,
economic and also social – which have to be considered within the framework of
the broader process of reform triggered by the Ottoman government and known as Tanẓīmāt khayriyya (beneficial reforms,
1839-1876).[9]
In spite of the
special consideration that it has enjoyed through the centuries, for a long
time during the Ottoman age Jerusalem has occupied a relatively marginal
position with regard to other important cities of Palestine, such as ̔Akka and
Haifa, along the northern coastal line. Its administrative relevance was
firstly enhanced by the campaign of Ibrāhīm Bāshā and the Egyptian presence in
Palestine during the decade 1830-1840[10],
and it was further consolidated after the restoration of the Ottoman rule.
Around 1872, following the Vilayet
Law of 1864, Jerusalem’s district (sanjak)
was separated from the Ottoman province of Greater Syria (wilāyat al-Shām) to become an indipendent governatorate (mutaṣarrifiyya) put under the direct
control of Istanbul.[11]
Not only these
changes had a strong impact at an administrative and a political level, but
they also deeply affected the social establishment of the city. In order to
give an example, it is useful to refer to the impressive increase of its
population starting from the mid-19th century. At the beginning of
the 19th century Jerusalem was still a very modest city with
approximately 10,000 inhabitants. At first, such increase was very slow, so
that around 1840 the city’s population had just grown by 5,000[12],
but it started to change rapidly in the following years. As a matter of fact,
by the end of the century the population of Jerusalem was more than 40,000 (it
was still largely composed by Arab Muslims, since the Jewish community did not
seem to exceed 14,500)[13],
and more than 60,000 by the beginning of the following century.[14]
We must consider these changes as emblematic of the significance that Jerusalem
was gradually assuming in that period.
Such rapid
increase of the city’s population, mostly due to the reforms which were carried
out during the Tanẓīmāt period and to
the settlement of Jewish immigrants and refugees coming from Eastern and
Central Europe profiting from European consular protection[15],
fundamentally reflected the new opportunities created by better economic,
political and social conditions.
The rise of
Jerusalem at an administrative and economic level was also reflected in an
expansion of the city (such as the foundation of new quarters outside the
Ottoman walls), and in an improvement of the urban facilities and the
communication routes[16],
so that by the end of the 19th century the political and economic
axis had finally moved from the north (̔Akka) to the south (Jerusalem) of the
region of Palestine.
Another
important aspect that cannot be underestimated, with regard to the process of
modernization which the city of Jerusalem underwent at the end of the Ottoman
period, is the increasing European presence in the region. Western powers such
as France and Great Britain had already shown a specific interest in the
territories of the Levant since the beginning of the 19th century,
as the case of Napoleon’s siege of Acre in 1799 shows. Such concerns got a
chance to grow after the restoration of the Ottoman rule by 1840, thanks to the
military support that Great Britain had ensured to the Empire.[17]
Basically, the
Western presence in Palestine materialised in at least three ways: 1) politically,
by the foundation of foreign consulates[18];
2) economic, by the improvement of foreign entrepreneurial activities and the
trade; 3) cultural, by the foundation of missionary schools and cultural
institutions.[19]
The spreading of Western culture in the Palestinian region, and in Jerusalem in
particular, through the teaching of foreign languages (English, French and
German) and modern sciences, both inside the missionary institutes and the
Ottoman high schools (makātib) which
had arisen out of the Tanẓīmāt, had a
strong impact on the training of the youngest members of important families of
Jerusalem who would most likely become the future notables of the city and the
leaders of the Palestinian nationalistic movement at the beginning of the 20th
century, as we shall better see in the following paragraph.
Although it is
not yet possible to talk about an obvious risk concerning the Palestinian
identity at this stage, it is nonetheless a fact that from the mid-19th
century on, traditional Palestinian culture underwent a considerable change.
B.
Notables and families: the role of al-Khālidīs
Talking about
Palestine – but this is true also in respect of the neighbouring regions
forming the Middle East – it is quite hard to give a description of society in
terms of ‘social classes’, which may result “ambiguous and mystifying”. This
basically depends on a pronounced social mobility founded on the family unit,
which represents the basis of all the social establishment.[20]
This particular feature gives us a proper understanding of the conveyance and
the settlement of a single family branch in different areas, and also of the
positive or negative effects that a single member might have on the family
group which he belonged to.
The reforms
introduced by Ibrāhīm Bāshā had enhanced the status of the notables of
Jerusalem, so that family groups like al-Ḥusaynī and al-Khālidī, which were the
two leading families of the city, had become prominent by maintaining or even
developing their relationship with the political authority, which gradually
“gave them a position of leadership among a certain section of the local
population”.[21]
It is worth to
point out that before the establishment of an indipendent mutaṣarrifiyya, the governor (mutasallim)
of Jerusalem and the qāḍī shar̔ī,
which represented respectively the most important political and juridical
offices, where directly appointed by the Sublime Porte from outside the group
of the ̔ulamā’ of the city who, for
this reason, were prevented to take control of these positions, nor could they
assume the privilege to transmit them by inheritance. In this respect, as far
as the Islamic Law Court (maḥkama
shar̔iyya) is concerned – the members of al-Khālidīs often represented
quite an exception.[22]
Unlike other
important inland cities of Palestine such as Ṣafad, Nāblus or al-Khalīl, which
economy mostly depended on the fact of being located on traditional trading
routes, the particular position of the notables of Jerusalem mainly depended on
their assignment at key religious offices, such as the iftā’, the niqābat al-ashrāf
and the control of several awqāf of
the city, among which the masjid al-Aqṣā,
by means of which they could exercise their influence over administrative,
religious and social issues. Since the 18th century, many of these
offices had become hereditary, and they had fallen to well-known families,
which gradually led to a crystallisation of the urban social establishment and
a considerable reduction of social mobility.[23]
Starting from the
mid-19th century, the social establishment of Jerusalem underwent
important changes which fundamentally reflected the general spirit of reform in
Palestine and in the neighbouring territories.
The access to
the modern Ottoman makātib, whose
curricula were mostly based on a Western model, as well as the knowledge of
European languages, became gradually necessary for the purposes of a political
or an administrative career. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the wide
experience of Yūsuf Ḍiyā’ al-Dīn al-Khālidī (1842-1906) who was the first
Palestinian representative of the mutaṣarrifiyya
of Jerusalem at the first Ottoman parliament (1877).[24]
The
al-Khālidīs, who claimed descent from Khālid b. al-Walīd, a companion (ṣaḥābī) of the prophet Muḥammad, are
esteemed to have first settled in Jerusalem during the 14th century.[25]
Many members of this family occupied important offices at the maḥkama al-shar̔iyya of the city since
the 16th century, mainly due to the short term of the Ottoman
judgeship (two years) and the consequent frequency of the necessary
replacements, which led them to increase their position in the course of the
three following centuries.[26]
It is also worth to say that not only they were able to maintain the control of
the most important religious office in Jerusalem, but they also assumed
relevant juridical positions in Jaffa, Gazza and elsewhere in Bilād al-Shām.[27]
Yūsuf Ḍiyā’
al-Dīn al-Khālidī was not the sole to climb the steps of a relevant political
career between the end of the 19th and the beginnings of the 20th
century. As a matter of fact, he was soon followed by his brother Yāsīn, who
assumed the control of Jerusalem’s municipal council (baladiyyat al-Quds) from 1898 to 1901, and his nephew Rūḥī b. Yāsīn
(d. 1913) who, beyond being a member of the Committee of Union and Progress,
became a representative of Jerusalem at the Ottoman parliamant (majlis al-ma̔būthān) in 1912.[28]
In this respect, it is important to underline the peculiar political role of
al-Khālidīs to counter the Zionist threat as soon as its outbreak occurred at
the end of the 19th century, and especially after the first Zionist
Congress which was held in Basel in 1897. In a note that Yūsuf Ḍiyā’ al-Dīn
addressed to Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, in 1899, he
meaningfully affirmed that Palestine “constitutes indivisible part (jiz’an lā yatajazza’) of the Ottoman empire”.[29]
C.
The maktaba al-Khālidiyya
The foundation
of the maktaba al-Khālidiyya marks
the peculiar interest that al-Khālidī members attributed to the importance of
preserving both the historical heritage of their family and the Arab-Islamic
legacy present in Jerusalem. It is not, of course, the only Islamic library of
the city which historical and cultural relevance endures to the present day. In
this respect, it is worth mentioning the maktaba
of al-Aqṣā mosque (666 manuscripts); the maktaba
al-Budayriyya (636 manuscripts); the maktaba
al-Ḥusaynī, (172 manuscripts); the library of the Islamic museum at the ḥaram al-sharīf (644 manuscripts).[30]
The maktaba al-Khālidiyya is located in the
heart of the old city of Jerusalem, in the Bāb
al-Silsila neighbourhood, right where an Ottoman census of 1805 attested
the prominence of al-Khālidī family with at least two hundreds members.[31]
It is worth to point out that the first core of manuscripts had been gathered
around 1720 (560 manuscripts), almost two centuries before the establishment of
al-Khālidiyya as a public library.[32]
Compared to
other important collections, the maktaba
al-Khālidiyya houses the largest number of Islamic manuscripts (almost
1,200) in the whole region of Palestine, beyond thousands of private documents
belonging to members of al-Khālidī family as well as almost 5,000 volumes (in
Arabic and also in foreign languages) mostly coming from personal libraries.[33]
The maktaba was formally established in 1900
by the shaykh Rāghib b. Nu̔mān
al-Khālidī (1866-1951), one of the most prominent members of his family. In the
presence of other notable members of the Khālidī household, it was agreed that
when one of the family should die, his or her books must be transferred to the
library. It was also agreed that an administrator (nāẓir mutafarrigh) had to be appointed to oversee the library,
which had to be accessible to anyone who wanted to study in it.[34]
It is most
relevant that the shaykh Ṭāhir
al-Jazā’irī, who had founded the maktaba
al-Ẓāhiriyya in Damascus, took part in the activites of the maktaba al-Khālidiyya, with particular
regard to the arrangement of the manuscripts and the ranking of the book
heritage, which finally led to the publication of a catalogue.[35]
The shaykh Ṭāhir al-Jazā’irī was a
close friend of al-Khālidī family but, in addition to the connections between
members of local families, his presence in Jerusalem has also to be placed
within the wider context of the important interactions between maghāriba and mashāriqa in Bilād al-Shām between
the 19th and the 20th centuries, which were favoured by
the arrival of the shaykh ̔Abd
al-Qādir al-Jazā’irī in Damascus in 1856.[36]
From 1900 until
the end of the Ottoman period, the maktaba
al-Khālidiyya underwent a considerable development, due to the acquisition
of personal libraries belonging to members of the family, which were
transferred to the maktaba following
the decease of their owners, in accordance with what had been agreed at the
moment of its foundation. Among those notables we can find prominent personalities
such as Yāsīn b. Muḥammad ̔Alī (d. 1901), his brother Yūsuf Ḍiyā’ al-Dīn (d.
1906) and Rūḥī b. Yāsīn (d. 1912).[37]
Such was the reputation of the maktaba
at the beginning of the 20th century that it was often included in
the visits of many important ̔ulamā’
on their way to Jerusalem and Palestine. In this regard, it is worth to mention
the repeated visits that the important shaykh
of Damascus Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī
payed to the maktaba during his stay
in Jerusalem in 1903.[38]
The maktaba al-Khālidiyya was administered
by the shaykh Rāghib al-Khālidī until
the end of the 1940s. It retained its peculiar position in the course of the
following years, which endures to the present day. The nakba of 1948, and the occupation of Jerusalem in 1967, which have
greatly affected the city and the whole region of Palestine, have also
invariably had an influence on the role of the maktaba, with regard to the preservation of the Arab-Islamic
heritage. Such aspect is especially connected to the getaway of many al-Khālidī
members since 1948, and their scattering out of the city.[39]
Conclusive
remarks
The experience
of those al-Khālidī notables (a̔yān)
who were able to take advantage of the Ottoman policy of Tanẓīmāt by maintaining the control of key religious and juridical
offices in Jerusalem and other important cities of Palestine and, afterwards,
by assuming the responsibility of more relevant administrative and political
tasks, suggests a certain character of continuity, on the one hand, and
discontinuity, on the other. As to the first case, it reflects the physiognomy
of considerable part of the social structure of Palestine as well as of the
neighbouring regions of Bilād al-Shām,
which was basically founded on the traditional presence of important family
groups, on their relationship with the political authority and also on their
local and even regional connections, so that they often assumed the fundamental
role of mediators between political leadership and people.
As to the
second case, instead, it reflects the different economic, political and also
social conditions which came along with the process of reform and modernization
of the whole region. As a matter of fact, not only those ̔ulamā’ had to counter the ever-increasing despotism of the Ottoman
ruling class and the turkicisation of the Arab provinces, but they also had to
reassess their role with regard to the European interference as well as to the
spreading of the Zionist threat.
Such radical
changes greatly affected Jerusalem which, since 1872, had become the most
important city of the whole region of Palestine.
The past of a
city is necessarily connected to the activity of those institutions aiming at
preserving its historical memory and its cultural heritage. This applies in
particular to Jerusalem, which identity is seriously threatened by the Zionist
occupation of the city. In this perspective, not only the maktaba al-Khālidiyya represents a focal point for the whole
region, in consideration of the amazing number of manuscripts and its current
role in the conservation of the Arab and Islamic past of the city, but, with
regard to its relevance depending on the reputation of al-Khālidī family and to
the crucial period of its foundation, it has to be considered as a vital part
of that same legacy.
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Gerusalemme e la Palestina nella riḥla
maqdisiyya dello shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī (1903),
Proceedings of the 28th UEAI Congress (Palermo, 12-16 September
2016), Peeters Publishers, Leuven (forthcoming);
·
Sicari Daniele,
La trasmissione dei saperi a Damasco fra
tradizione e innovazione (1876 – 1908). La produzione arabo-islamica e la
documentazione siriana dell’epoca, Aracne Editrice Int.le srl, Rome 2012;
·
al Soumer Ammar, “Historical Documents Centre in Damascus:
Definition and Analysis. Representing the Other in the Law Court Documents”, in
Alifbâ. Studi arabo-islamici e
mediterranei, Atti del Convegno La
rappresentazione dell’Altro nell’area del Mediterraneo, xx (2006), pp. 19-29.
[1] In order to draft this article, we mainly turned to
the historical library of the Center for the Revitalization of the Islamic
Heritage and Researches (Mu’assasat iḥyā’
al-turāth wa’l-buḥūth al-islāmiyya) of Abū Dīs – Jerusalem.
[2] With regard to this specific subject, it may be
interesting to see Rashid I. Khalidi, “A Research Agenda for writing
the History of Jerusalem”, in Issam Nassari,
Salim Tamari (eds.), Pilgrims, Lepers and Stuffed Cabbage. Essays
on Jerusalem’s Cultural History, Institute of Jerusalem Studies, Jerusalem
2005, pp. 12-27.
[3] From a genuinely Islamic point of view, it is
sufficient to consider: “Glory to Him who journeyed His servant by night, from
the Sacred Mosque, to the Farthest Mosque, whose precincts We have blessed, in
order to show him of Our wonders. He is the Listener, the Beholder” (Quran, sūrat al-Isrā’, 17, i).
[4] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-trump-jerusalem/
Consulted on 7th March 2018.
[5] See, by way of example, Ammar al Soumer, “Historical Documents Centre
in Damascus: Definition and Analysis. Representing the Other in the Law Court
Documents”, in Alifbâ. Studi arabo-islamici e
mediterranei, xx (2006), pp. 19-29.
[6]
See our Daniele Sicari, “Déplacement
et engagement dans l’œuvre «Al-rawḍa al-nu̔māniyya fī siyāḥat Filasṭīn» de
Nu̔mān al-Qasāṭilī (1854-1920)”, in Laurence Denooz, Sylvie Thiéblemont-Dollet
(eds.), Déplacements et publics,
Proceedings of the International Conference “Déplacement(s) et Public(s)”,
Presses Universitaires de Lorraine, Nancy 2017, pp. 231-244; Ead., Gerusalemme e la Palestina nella riḥla maqdisiyya dello shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī (1903), Proceedings of the 28th
UEAI Congress (Palermo, 12-16 September 2016), Peeters Publishers, Leuven
(forthcoming).
[7] This is the case for a member of the local family of
al-Zaydānī, Ẓāhir al-̔Umar, who managed to put the region of Galilee (al-Jalīl) under his control in the 18th
century. Robert Mantran
(ed.), Storia dell’Impero ottomano,
Argo Editrice, Lecce 2011, pp. 412-414.
[8]
Andrea Giardina, Mario Liverani, Biancamaria Scarcia, La Palestina, Editori Riuniti, Roma 1987, p. 114.
[9]
See Alexander Schölch, Taḥawwulāt jadhariyya fī Filasṭīn
(1856-1882): dirāsāt ḥawla al-taṭawwur al-iqtiṣādī wa’l-ijtimā̔ī wa’l-siyāsī (tr.
Ar. Kāmil Jamīl al-̔Asalī), Dār al-Hudā, ̔Amman 1990;
see also Moshe Ma’oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine
1840-1861, Clarendon, Oxford 1968.
[11] Butrus Abu-Manneh,
“Jerusalem in the Tanzimat Period: the new Ottoman Administration and the
Notables”, in Die Welt des Islams,
xxx, 1990, p. 42.
[12] ̔Ādil Mannā̔,
Ta’rīkh Filasṭīn fī awākhir al-̔ahd
al-̔uthmānī 1700-1918 (qirā’a jadīda), Mu’assasat al-dirāsāt
al-filasṭīniyya, Beirut 2003, p. 177.
[13] Kamil Karpat, Ottoman Population 1830-1914: Demographics and Social Characteristics,
University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1985, pp. 156-157; see also Justin McCarthy, The Population of Palestine: Population Statistics of the Late Ottoman
Period and the Mandate, Columbia University Press, New York 1990.
[14] Yehoshua Ben-Arieh,
“The Population of the Large Towns in Palestine during the First Eighty Years
of the Nineteenth Century, according to Western Sources”, in Moshe Ma’oz (ed.),
Studies on Palestine during the Ottoman
Period, The Magnes Press, Jerusalem 1975, pp. 49-69; ̔Ādil Mannā̔, “Hal aṣbaḥat
al-Quds ̔āṣima fi̔liyya li-Filasṭīn fī awākhir al-̔ahd al-̔uthmānī?”, in Nassari, Tamari
(eds.), Pilgrims, Lepers and Stuffed
Cabbage, pp. 64-66; Johann
Büssow, Hamidian Palestine. Politics and Society in the District of Jerusalem
1872-1908, Brill, Leiden-Boston 2011, p. 110.
[18] See, by way of
example, Nawār Ḥusayn Muṣṭafà al-Jabūrī,
Al-nashāṭ al-qunṣulī al-faransī fī’l-Quds
al-sharīf (1840-1900), Dār wa maktaba al-Ḥāmid li’l-nashr wa’l-tawzī̔,
̔Amman 2015.
[19] This last aspect was quite common to all the region
of Bilād al-Shām. See
our Daniele Sicari, La trasmissione dei saperi a Damasco fra
tradizione e innovazione (1876 – 1908). La produzione arabo-islamica e la
documentazione siriana dell’epoca, Aracne Editrice Int.le srl, Rome 2012,
in particular chapters 1 and 4.
[21]
Büssow, p. 311. See
also Abu-Manneh, pp. 38-44;
Albert Hourani, “Ottoman Reform
and the Politics of Notables”, in W. Polk, R. Chambers (eds.), Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East,
University of Chicago Press, 1968, pp. 41-67 and Adil Manna, “Continuity and change in the socio-political elite
in Palestine during the late-Ottoman period”, in Thomas Philipp (ed.), The Syrian land in the 18th and
the 19th century: the common and the specific in the historical
experience, F. Steiner, Stuttgart 1992, pp. 69-89.
[24] Schölch, Taḥawwulāt
jadhariyya, pp. 280-292. See also ̔Ādil Mannā̔,
A̔lām Filasṭīn fī awākhir al-̔ahd
al-̔uthmānī (1800-1918), Mu’assasat al-dirāsāt al-filasṭīniyya, Beirut
2008, pp. 146-151; Rashid Khalidi,
“Palestinian Identity: the Construction of Modern National Consciousness”, in Israel Studies, vol. 3, no. 1 (1998),
pp. 266-272; and Mannā̔, Ta’rīkh Filasṭīn, pp. 199-204.
[25] Walīd al-Khālidī, Al-maktaba
al-khālidiyya fī’l-Quds, Beirut 2002, pp. 9-13. See also Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Asad,
Muḥammad Rūḥī al-Khālidī: rā’id al-baḥth
al-ta’rīkhī al-ḥadīth fī Filasṭīn, Ma̔had al-buḥūth wa’l-dirāsāt
al-̔arabiyya, Cairo 1970, pp. 26, 29.
[26] In this respect, see the shaykh Muḥammad ̔Alī b. ̔Alī al-Khālidī’s biography in Mannā̔, A̔lām Filasṭīn, p. 145.
[27] Ibid., pp. 132-156.
[28] Al-Khālidī, Al-maktaba al-khālidiyya, p. 20.
[29] Mannā̔,
A̔lām Filasṭīn, p. 160. See also
Walīd al-Khālidī, Qabla al-shatāt: al-ta’rīkh al-muṣawwar
li’l-sha̔b al-filasṭīnī 1876-1948, Mu’assasat al-dirāsāt al-filasṭīniyya,
Beirut 1987, p. 41.
[30] Al-Khālidī, Al-maktaba al-khālidiyya, p. 25.
With regard to the relevance of the matḥaf and its particular role in
preserving the Islamic legacy, see ̔Aziz al-Assa, “Al-matḥaf al-islāmī
fī’l-masjid al-Aqṣā al-mubārak: al-matḥaf al-̔ālamī al-waḥīd fī Filasṭīn”, in Mishwār nn. 5, 7-8 (2017), pp. 12-13
(i), 18-19 (ii), 14-15 (iii).
[31] Büssow, p. 154.
[32] Al-Khālidī, Al-maktaba al-khālidiyya, p. 2, 27.
[34] Kāmil Jamīl al-̔Asalī, Ma̔āhid
al-̔ilm fī Bayt al-maqdis, al-Jāmi̔a al-urduniyya, ̔Amman 1981, pp.
380-381. See also Salāmah al-Ḥarfī al-Balawī,
“Al-mu’assasāt al-ta̔līmiyya wa’l-maktabāt fī’l-Quds”, in Muḥsin Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ
(ed.), Dirāsāt fī’l-turāth al-thaqāfī
li-madīnat al-Quds, Markaz al-Zaytūna li’l-dirāsāt wa’l-istishārāt, Beirut
2010, p. 300.
[35]
Al-Khālidī, Al-maktaba al-khālidiyya, pp. 30-31. As far as the biography of
the shaykh Ṭāhir al-Jazā’irī is
concerned, see Muḥammad Sa̔īd al-Bānī,
Tanwīr al-baṣā’ir bi-sīrat al-shaykh
Ṭāhir, Maktabat al-ḥukūma al-̔arabiyya al-sūriyya, Damascus 1920, and also
̔Adnān al-Khaṭīb, Al-shaykh Ṭāhir al-Jazā’irī: rā’id al-nahḍa
al-̔ilmiyya fī Bilād al-Shām, Ma̔had al-buḥūth wa’l-dirāsāt al-̔arabiyya,
Damascus 1971.
[36] See Antonino Pellitteri,
Magribini a Damasco, Istituto per
l’Oriente, Roma 2002.
[37] Al-̔Asalī, p.
38. See also ̔Abdallāh Mukhlaṣ,
“Nafā’is al-khizāna al-khālidiyya fī’l-Quds al-sharīf”, in Majallat al-majma̔ al-̔ilmī al-̔arabī bi-Dimashq 4 (1924), pp.
366-369, 409-413, and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid,
Al-makhṭūṭāt al-̔arabiyya fī Filasṭīn,
Dār al-kitāb al-jadīd, Beirut 1982, p. 63.
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