The Urban Social History of the Middle East, 1750-1950

7. Moving Out of Place: Minorities in Middle Eastern Urban Societies, 1800–1914

182 7 Moving Out of Place Minorities in Middle Eastern Urban Societies, 1800–1914 G U D R U N K R Ä M E R G U D R U N K R Ä M E R • M I N O R I T I E S H A V E P L A Y E D M I N O R I T I E S H A V E P L A Y E D a prominent role in the history of Middle Eastern societies, urban as well as rural, and the minority question continues to be highly relevant in contemporary politics. If minorities have mostly been studied in the context of modern nation-building processes, they are of equal interest with regard to the profound changes in urban society that were caused by, or related to, the transformations of socioeconomic, political, and cultural thought, practice, and organization that in spite of much criticism continue to be described as “modernization.” These transformations, which in some cases date back to the eighteenth century and in others only began to make themselves felt toward the end of the nineteenth, slowly accumulating in certain areas, and causing rapid if I would like to thank Thomas Berchtold (formerly of the Freie Universität Berlin) who as my research assistant and the critical reader of earlier drafts of this paper made it possible for me to reach further beyond my own field, and to enjoy doing so. Since work on the manuscript was completed several years ago, new studies have been published that I have not been able to systematically consult and integrate in my paper. This applies in particular to Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 2006, 107–8, 109–110, Identités confessionelles et espace urbain en terres d’islam. Moving Out of Place | 183 not traumatic ruptures in others, affected the lives of the entire population, whether majority or minority, Muslim or non-Muslim. Yet it was the role of the non-Muslims, whose part in the newly evolving spheres of commerce and culture was becoming quite conspicuous and whose share in the population of the major Middle Eastern cities was rising sharply at the same time, that caught the eye of observers, local as well as foreign. The assumption that nonMuslims acted as “agents of change” and “channels of modernization”,1 roles ascribed to ethnic minorities in all kinds of societies, and in addition, that they derived extra benefits from integration into a world market dominated by the Europeans not only because they were minorities but also because they were non-Muslim, merits special attention. Three sets of questions will be central to what follows: first, the question of boundaries, social as well as physical, so deeply relevant to the structuring of urban space and social interaction in Middle Eastern as in any other society. To what extent were these boundaries modified or possibly entirely redrawn in the course of modernization, and who were the “agents of change” here? More specifically: was the very concept of minorities an “invented” one, similar to other “imagined communities,” such as tribes and nations, that were emerging at the same time to be quickly transformed into highly effective social actors? Second, to what extent did the effects of modernization on local urban societies constitute a break with established patterns of interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims? Third, how general was the phenomenon, and to what extent was it characteristic of Middle Eastern urban society in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a whole? Thesubjectisinmanywaysadifficultone.Notonlyarewelookingatdiverse physical settings ranging from old inland cities of commerce, learning, pilgrimage , or production to port cities, some of them old but newly expanding, others entirely new, situated in different political contexts and developing according to specific parameters, but we are also looking at a wide range of individuals, groups, and communities distinguished by origin, creed, language, and status who lived as minorities among a majority population that, outside Iran, was in most cases either Arab or Turkish Sunni Muslim: Albanians, Berbers, Kurds, 1. Although Davison 1982 refers to the non-Muslim minorities as “agents of change,” he does not share the entire set of assumptions outlined above. 184 | G U D R U N K R Ä M E R G U D R U N K R Ä M E R and Nubians; Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians; Druzes, Alawis, and Alevis who might...