|
|
|
Ottoman Jerusalem |
- Missionary
Descriptions of Life in Nineteenth Century Jerusalem
By Dr. Hala Fattah
|
It has long been known
that the records of foreign missionaries in the Near and Middle East
serve as valuable repositories of the social, religious, political,
and even economic events of their adopted towns or districts. The
reports sent to the Missionary Herald, a journal first issued in
1805 as the official organ of the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions (based in Boston) are one such source. Among
their very interesting reports are those that dwell on the historic
accommodation between faith and power that was one of the
characteristics of Jerusalem throughout its long history.
In contrast to the received wisdom that stresses that Christians and
Muslims were in perpetual conflict with one another in the Ottoman
empire, due to the latent anti-Christian hostility exhibited by
generations of Muslim Ottoman rulers, the situation in Jerusalem was
far more complex. When the Reverends Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons
were sent as Protestant missionaries to the city in the early 19th
century, they did encounter great hostility but it did not stem from
Muslims. Most of it arose from the Catholics in Jerusalem. On one
occasion, in 1824, the missionaries at the American-led Palestine
Mission believed that "the Catholics in Palestine violently oppose
the efforts made to circulate the Scriptures" and that, due to their
power in the Ottoman empire, not only forbade the Catholic Patriarch
from meeting with the two Protestant missionaries but also
influenced the issuance of " a Firman (Sultanic decree) from the
Grand Seignore at Constantinople (the Sultan himself), forbidding
the sale of Bibles, and other religious materials, in his
dominions." Unlike the Protestant clergy, the Catholic hierarchy did
not believe that Christians should read the Bible without the
intercession of their parish priests. This was true until up to 50
years ago.
There is also a mistaken belief that the primary purpose of the
foreign Missions was to proselytize among the Muslim population of
Palestine. But, as the letter of intent of the American Board of
Commissioners to the two American missionaries shows, most Christian
missionary activity was directed at Jews (and Jewish converts to
Christianity in the US were initially believed to be more successful
than Protestant missionaries in furthering that assignment). In one
part of the letter, the missionaries are told frankly that "[their]
Mission ... might be the means not only of conveying the Gospel to
Jews and Mohamedans but of awakening [Christians] to the duties of
the times", thus making clear that the mission was many-tiered,
aimed at all "native" religions in Jerusalem, including Eastern
Christianity.
On the whole, however, the recognition on the part of the two
missionaries that Ottoman Jerusalem catered to a plurality of faiths
and confessions forced them to adapt their work to the local
situation.For instance, they realized that for their missionary work
to succeed, the Bible would have to be translated into different
languages, both European and non-European (including Hebrew, Arabic,
Farsi and Turkish). Moreover, and much to their surprise, the
propensity of the two missionaries to learn Farsi and Arabic was
highly admired, and even gained them the friendship of some of the "Mussulmen".
Finally, while "modernization" theory has had its day, there is some
truth to the fact that external influences did play a part in the
shaping of local Christian identity in Ottoman Palestine. One of the
interesting facets of the missionaries' work in Jerusalem consisted
in the selection of highly motivated Christian youths for further
education in the United States. In the 1820's, the Turco-Greek war
succeeded in granting independence to Greece. In the spirit of the
age, it seemed almost natural that young Greek men from Jerusalem
would be among the first selected for foreign educational missions,
thus lending credence to the oft-repeated statement that
missionaries were the first wave of modernizers in the Middle East.
Of Iraqi origin, Dr. Hala Fattah is a historian of the Arab
provinces of the Ottoman empire, especially Iraq. She is the author
of The Politics of Regional Trade of Iraq, Arabia and the Gulf,
1745-1900 (S.U.N.Y Press, 1996). Presently, she is an Independent
Scholar.
Reference:
Salibi, Kamal and Khoury, Yusuf K., Eds. The Missionary Herald:
“Reports from Ottoman Syria, 1819-1870.” Vol.1, Amman: Royal
Institute for Interfaith Studies, 1995.
|
| |
| |
|
