Jerusalem 1900 by Vincent Lemire
Author:Vincent Lemire [Lemire, Vincent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-226-18837-9
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2017-04-05T16:00:00+00:00
ORIGIN OF THE MUNICIPALITY: AN URBAN COMMUNITY?
The history of the municipality of Jerusalem is embedded in the general problem of new relations between the central power and local powers within the reformed Ottoman empire of the end of the nineteenth century. The emergence of local representative institutions coexisting and collaborating with imperial authority was the guiding principle of Ottoman administrative reforms at the time. To gauge the causal links between the pre-existence of an “urban community” and the municipalization of urban powers, we must identify the part played by local initiative and that played by the central government in the origins of these institutions.4 In the case of Jerusalem, the scale clearly dips in favor of local initiative. This is not surprising since the municipality of Jerusalem was one of the earliest, or perhaps the first, to come into existence in the empire after the singular experience of the municipality of Galata, founded in Istanbul in 1856.5 Regardless of whether the municipality of Jerusalem was founded in 1863, as claimed by the Palestinian historian Aref al-Aref and by the Israeli historian Emanuel Gutmann,6 or in 1866–67, as indicated by the first documentary clues, the municipality of Jerusalem was one of the earliest of the empire. It was created at least ten years before the Ottoman government’s Great Law of October 5, 1877, on provincial municipalities (Vilayet Belediye Kanunu) led to a general movement of municipalization of provincial urban areas. In comparison, the municipality of Hebron was founded in 1886, that of Gaza in 1893, and that of Bethlehem only in 1894.7 The precocity of the municipality of Jerusalem should in itself suffice to call into question the traditional view of the city as a battleground, fragmented between irreconcilable communities.
The early date of its foundation is not the only clue pointing to the existence of an “urban community” prior to the foundation of the municipality of Jerusalem: even before the 1860s and the formal establishment of a “municipality” (Belediye), several institutions separate from the imperial administration embodied a form of common urban identity. In addition to the governor, the qadi, and the other officials of the governorate described in the preceding chapter, there were two institutions representing the specific interests of Jerusalem’s local notables. The first was the post of naqib al-Ashraf (literally, “the leader of the nobles”), representing the local Muslim aristocracy, the “Ashraf” families believed to be descended from the Prophet. Historians have often reduced this role to a simple honorific post, but certain episodes allow us to qualify this minimalist view. Looking at the so-called “affair of the flag” that agitated Jerusalem during the summer of 1843, we come across a naqib al-Ashraf vigorously opposing the disloyal maneuverings of the governor of the time. That summer, on the occasion of the opening of the French consulate, the tricolor flag raised over the new consulate was trampled during a riot that seemed to have been fomented from on high. The affair attracted a lot of attention, and the naqib
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS by Spencer Robert(2509)
Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks(2284)
The Turkish Psychedelic Explosion by Daniel Spicer(2249)
The First Muslim The Story of Muhammad by Lesley Hazleton(2159)
The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks(1934)
1453 by Roger Crowley(1883)
The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple(1797)
Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds by Davis Natalie Zemon(1786)
Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources by Martin Lings(1569)
God by Aslan Reza(1566)
by Christianity & Islam(1564)
A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi'is by John McHugo(1519)
Magic and Divination in Early Islam by Emilie Savage-Smith;(1462)
No God But God by Reza Aslan(1438)
The Flight of the Intellectuals by Berman Paul(1402)
Art of Betrayal by Gordon Corera(1368)
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick(1330)
What the Qur'an Meant by Garry Wills(1329)
Getting Jesus Right: How Muslims Get Jesus and Islam Wrong by James A Beverley & Craig A Evans(1280)
