From Şikayet to Political Discourse and ‘Public Opinion’: Petitioning Practices to the King-Crane Commission

The King-Crane Commission, named after its two chairs, Henry Churchill King (1858-1934) and Charles R. Crane (1858-1939), was an American investigative commission set up to explore possible political arrangements for the former Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I and the collapse of the Empire. While most research has dealt with the issue of whether the petitions submitted to the King-Crane Commission were a genuine manifestation of ‘public opinion’ or merely manipulations by interested elite parties, this article shifts the focus beyond this debate. We argue that a textual analysis of these petitions can shed light on the transformation of the traditional Ottoman form of appeal into a modern political tool used to recruit and generate ‘public opinion’ and foster modern political discourse. We first present a historical overview of petitioning in the Ottoman Empire and the key changes in petitioning practices in the last half of the nineteenth century. We then discuss the King-Crane petitions and highlight their differences from traditional petitions, as well as their contribution to the emerging national discourse in Greater Syria. We show that petitions shifted toward stances that were more ideological and political in nature, a development that coincided with the collapse of the Empire

Press and Mass Communication in the Middle East. Festschrift for Martin Strohmeier

This book is a Festschrift for Professor Martin Strohmeier. It consists of various articles in German and English language on press and mass communication in the Eastern mediterranean region

Gendered reorganization in late Ottoman Beirut: the reciprocal influence of the domesticity discourse and the urban space

This chapter explores the relationship between women’s private lives and the evolving urban space in the late Ottoman Empire. Although numerous studies have fo- cused on either the public or the private/domestic sphere, there is scant research on the ways in which the discourse on domesticity and the expansion of the urban space impacted relationships between changes in the home and outside of it. Specifically, it examines how the gendered reorganization of the “modern” Arab home influenced the urban space and vice-versa. This reciprocal influence emerged in particular toward the end of the 19th cen- tury, when new urban spaces in Beirut such as department stores but also private balco- nies became loci where the private and the public, the domestic and the urban intersected. These “in-between spaces” gradually became both “feminine” and “masculine” thus forg- ing a larger place for women in the urban space

The Muḥīṭ al-Muḥīṭ Dictionary: The Transition from Classical to Modern Arabic Lexicography

This article discusses the contribution of the Muḥīṭ al-Muḥīṭ dictionary written by Buṭrus al-Bustānī, one of the leading figures of the Nahḍa, to the development of modern Arabic lexicography. This lexical endeavor is examined not only as part of a proto-national project, but as a pivotal moment in the development of modern Arabic lexical thought and in particular in al-Bustānī’s vision. Muḥīṭ al-Muḥīṭ constituted an important pedagogical step in transforming classical Arabic into “a living” language adapted to the needs of the Arab nation. However, although Muḥīṭ al-Muḥīṭ took the first crucial steps toward creating a modern Arabic lexical source, this dictionary mainly extends the age-old Arabic tradition of lexicography. It nevertheless paved the way to al-Bustānī’s final work, the encyclopedia Dāʾirat al-maʿārif, his most monumental effort and the cornerstone of al-Bustānī’s modern lexical vision

Women's Visibility in Petitions From Greater Syria During the Late Ottoman Period

This article focuses on petitions by Ottoman women from Greater Syria during the late Ottoman era. After offering a general overview of women's petitions in the Ottoman Empire, it explores changes in women's petitions between 1865 and 1919 through several case studies. The article then discusses women's "double-voiced" petitions following the empire's defeat in World War I, particularly those submitted to the King-Crane Commission. The concept of "double-voiced" petitions, or speaking in a voice that reflects both a dominant and a muted discourse, is extended here from the genre of literary fiction to Ottoman women's petitions. We argue that in Greater Syria double-voiced petitions only began to appear with the empire's collapse, when women both participated in national struggles and strove to protect their rights as women in their own societies