The Great Syrian Revolt and the Rise of Arab Nationalism

NOTES

NOTES chapter 1. introduction 1. League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes of the Eighth Session, Van Rees to Session (1926), pp. 125–126.Van Rees was a memberof the commission investigating the revolt and charged with protecting the mandate population from the excesses and abuses of the mandatory power. 2. Excerpt from the widely disseminated ‘‘To Arms’’ proclamation and manifesto distributed in Damascus on 23 August 1925 and signed by Sulṭân al-Aṭrash. See Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Archives Diplomatiques–Nantes (hereafter mae-Nantes), carton 1704, Bulletin de Renseignements (br) 155, 28 August 1925, and Chapter 4. It appeared in the archives of France, Britain, and the League of Nations as well as in newspapers in Cairo, Paris, and London. 3. Ḥannâ Abî Râshid, Jabal al-durûz (1961 ed.), pp. 180–181. He reproduced the letters. See Chapter 2, note 25, for a full discussion of this work. 4. I compiled the story of the ‘‘First Revolt of Sulṭân al-Aṭrash’’ from a number of sources, including several interviews with his son Manṣûr Sulṭân al-Aṭrash between 1999 and 2002 and many interviews in Jabal Ḥawrân. See also Abî Râshid , Jabal al-durûz; Salâma Ubayd, al-Thawra al-sûriyya al-kubrâ: 1925–1927 alâ ḍau‫ء‬ wathâ‫ء‬iq lam tunshar, pp. 92–95; Elizabeth Pauline MacCallum, The Nationalist Crusade in Syria, pp. 108–109; and Kais M. Firro, A History of the Druzes, pp. 266–267. 5. Albert Hourani, ‘‘Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables,’’ in William R. Polk and Richard L. Chambers, eds., Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century, p. 47. 6. Philip S. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism , 1920–1945. 7. Linda Schatkowski Schilcher, Families in Politics: Damascene Factions and Estates of the 18th and 19th Centuries. 8. Rashid Khalidi and James L. Gelvin have made recent ground-breaking contributions to understanding popular politics. See Khalidi’s Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness and his ‘‘Ottomanism and Arabism in Syria before 1914: A Reassessment,’’ in Rashid Khalidi, Lisa Anderson, et al., eds., The Origins of Arab Nationalism, pp. 50–69. See Gelvin’s Divided Loyalties: Nation-  Notes to Pages 9–15 alism and Mass Politics in Syria at the Close of Empire for Damascus between 1918 and 1920. 9. Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900, p. 157. See also Marion Farouk Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, ‘‘The Application of the 1858 Land Code in Greater Syria: Some Preliminary Observations ,’’ in Tarif Khalidi, ed., Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East. 10. See Norman N. Lewis, Nomads and Settlers in Syria and Jordan, 1800–1980. 11. Najib Elias Saliba, ‘‘Wilayat Suriyya 1876–1909,’’ pp. 195–197; Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876–1909, pp. 99–100. 12. This is clear from a random survey of Syrian newspapers during the mandate. The Damascus daily al-Muqtabas, forexample, had a weeklycolumn entitled ‘‘News from Istanbul’’ as well as features like ‘‘Who Is Mustafa Kemal?’’ In April and May 1926 al-Muqtabas ran an eight-part serialized front-page feature titled ‘‘Mudhakkir ât Muṣṭafâ Kamâl.’’ 13. Linda Schatkowski Schilcher has laid the groundwork for considering the urban-rural linkages between Damascus and Ḥawrân in a series of articles. See, for example, ‘‘The Grain Economy of Late Ottoman Syria and the Issue of LargeScale Commercialization,’’ in Çaǧlar Keydar and Faruk Tabak, eds., Landholding and Commercial Agriculture in the Middle East, pp. 173–195. 14. See the Private Papers collection of all three politicians in the Markaz alWath â‫ء‬iq al-Târîkhiyya (mwt), Damascus (Center for Historical Documents). 15. Jacques Weulersse, Paysans de Syrie et du Proche-Orient. He argued that all Syria, and by extension the Arab East, was dominated by large estates and feudal exploitation. See Haim Gerber, The Social Origins of the Modern Middle East, pp. 95–101, for a concise critique. 16. The following are the best and most representative of their generation: Adham al-Jundî, Târîkh al-thawrât al-sûriyya fî ahd al-intidâb al-fransî; Munîr al-Rayyis, al-Kitâb al-dhahabî lil-thawrât al-waṭaniyya fî al-mashriq al- arabî: althawra al-sûriyya al-kubrâ; Ẓâfir al-Qâsimî, Wathâ‫ء‬iq jadîda an...