Suchergebnisse

The aim of the paper is twofold: a) to critically assess the socio-political crisis within the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem that arose between the Greek hierarchy and the Arab laity concerning the implementation of a new regulatory framework of patriarchal operation, according to the Young Turks Constitution; and b) to examine the subsequent internal conflict within the ecclesiastical bureaucracy and its ideological and political connotations. The first question has deep historical roots. From the nineteenth century onwards the Arab lay community demanded emancipation from Greek religious (and economic) control that was perceived as cultural imperialism. Their claim was rejected by the hierarchical apparatus in the name of the identity between 'Hellenism' and 'Orthodoxy' which was an expression of a 'hegemonic' strategy to maintain its institutional dominance. The restoration of the Constitution (1908), following the Young Turk's Revolution, afforded the opportunity for a more liberal modification of the religious administration with the participation of the laity in the decision-making process. The refusal of the hierarchy, however, which perceived any change as a threat to its absolute power and national composition, led to the Arab orthodox uprising. The effort of patriarch Damianos to proceed to negotiations was repudiated by the hierarchy and led to his dethronement by the Synod. Damianos, however, with the support of the Arab laity and its Russian protector managed to re-establish his authority, assenting to the adoption of the so-called Turkish Order (1910) that stipulated the establishment of a Mixed Council for the management of patriarchal affairs. We provide a contextual historical account of the associated events, sketching out the social considerations, the cultural stakes and the political goals of the key-players involved in these interconnected crises. This conflict was strongly influenced by the issue of administration/ownership of vast patriarchal land and properties, and by the broader process of nation building and secularization within the orthodox commonwealth in the late Ottoman period.

Dissent between the clerical establishment and lay followers is not an infrequent phenomenon and has often focused on church appointments, leadership, and political issues. In the Middle East, such tensions are found between churches usually led by European clergy and their predominantly Arab congregations. Here we combine historical and geographical research methods to investigate a neglected source of contention—that of property held by the church. We reconstruct, analyze, and present detailed case studies of long-term disputes over real estate between the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem (its Greek patriarch and clergy), and its lay Arab community, known as Rum Orthodox, Roman Christians, or Greek Orthodox, and which number about 71,000 members.

AbstractIn the late Ottoman and Mandatory periods, Palestine's rural landscape underwent a great transformation. This study examines how the Muslim population expanded beyond its traditional inhabitation in the highlands and settled the fluid inventory of marginal lands in the coastal plains and unpopulated valleys of Palestine. In settling these marginal landscapes their settlement dovetailed with Jewish settlement patterns. While most studies have emphasized the competitive aspect of this process, examining Zionist and Arab national claims, this research points to a different aspect of this new settlement—mainly how much the Jewish and Muslim settlement patterns mirrored one another and how they were part of similar physical processes and complemented one another. Relying on censuses, aerial photographs, and period maps, as well as other archival sources, this is the first systematic research to examine the full extent of new Muslim settlements in Palestine in the late Ottoman and Mandatory periods, and to draw parallels between this phenomenon and the settlement endeavors of the Zionists.

AbstractThis paper is a sequel to Fischel and Kark's study on the private lands owned by Sultan Abdülhamid II (1842-1918, ruled 1876-1909) in Palestine and analyzes their fate after his forced abdication. In particular, we examine the court cases that arose around these lands, cases which were initiated by his heirs after 1920. For 28 years the heirs, led by his eldest son, Mohammad Selim and his daughter Amina Namika, approached half a dozen governments in the Middle East and Europe to regain the properties they claimed. The appeals represented a test of the British colonial legal system as well as issues of land settlement and the role of foreign courts in interpreting Turkish and Ottoman law. We furthermore examine the disposition of the sultan's lands from his abdication in 1909 to the last attempts by his heirs to recover them from the State of Israel in 1950, the general context of his lands in the Middle East as a whole, and the legal precedent set by the Mandatory Palestine court cases.

AbstractThis paper surveys the private lands owned by of Sultan Abdülhamid II in Palestine and analyzes their spatial distribution and impact, in the context of regional imperial policy. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire faced serious external and internal problems. Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909) used various traditional and modern methods in order to increase the internal cohesion of the empire and strengthen itvis-à-visexternal threats.One unique measure taken by the sultan was the purchase of large tracts of land. He became one of the largest landowners in the empire. In Palestine alone, the sultan purchased around 3% of the total area and initiated measures to increase these lands' productivity for his Privy Purse. In addition to gaining economic profit, Abdülhamid II employed his private lands to solve problems which challenged the sovereignty of the empire. These included attempts to settle the Bedouins, the establishment of new towns in order to subjugate nomads in regions where they threatened rural settlements, settling Muslim refugees from the Caucasus and the Balkans, and protecting strategically sensitive lands located on the frontiers, by purchasing them and thus keeping them out of the hands of others.