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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 October 2014
This article analyzes interviews related to the 1916–19 Sharifian siege of Medina that were published in a collection on the city's history by Saudi Arabian historian Ahmad Murshid. These oral histories narrate how Fakhri Pasha (Turkish: Fahreddin), the Ottoman military commander stationed in Medina during the siege, expelled residents from their homes, strictly controlled the supply of food in the city, and managed military operations out of the Holy Mosque of the Prophet Muhammad. The article seeks to explore the perspective of ordinary civilians who experienced the siege, a perspective largely missing from the literature on the subject. The interviews are positioned here as a valuable historical source for understanding the impact of the siege on these individuals and on their families, communities, and identities. Their memories underscore the interviewees’ deep attachment to their city, as well as to their identity as madanīs and as legitimate narrators of Medina's history.
1 “Tayba,” meaning “good” or “pleasant,” is one of Medina's many names.
2 Amin, AhmadMurshid, Salih, Tayba wa-Dhikrayat al-Ahibba, vol. 1 (Jeddah: Dar al-Bilad li-l-Tibaʿa wa-l-Nashr, 1993)Google Scholar, and Tayba wa-Dhikrayat al-Ahibba, vol. 2 (Jeddah: Dar al-Bilad li-l-Tibaʿa wa-l-Nashr, 1995).
3 See Akın's discussion of the term seferberlik, which developed from meaning the mobilization of troops into referring to the full disastrous wartime experience, in “World War I and the Ottoman Home Front,” podcast with Yiğit Akın, Chris Gratien, and Seçil Yılmaz, Ottoman History Podcast no. 119, 23 August 2013, http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2013/08/world-war-i-ottoman-empire.html (accessed 27 June 2014). See also Neyzi's, Leyla works on memory in Anatolia in the Turkish, Armenian, and Jewish contexts, esp. “Remembering Smyrna/Izmir: Shared History, Shared Trauma,” History and Memory 20 (2008): 106–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schilcher, Linda Schatkowski, “The Famine of 1915–1918 in Greater Syria,” in Problems of the Modern Middle East in Historical Perspective: Essays in Honour of Albert Hourani, ed. Spagnolo, John (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1992), 234–54Google Scholar; and Hanna, Abdallah, “The First World War According to the Memories of ‘Commoners’ in the Bilād al-Shām,” in The World in World Wars: Experiences, Perceptions, and Perspectives from Africa and Asia, ed. Liebau, Heike, Bromber, Katrin, Lange, Katharina, Hamzah, Dyala, and Ahuja, Ravi (Boston: Brill, 2010), 299–311CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Winter, Jay, Remembering War: The Great War between Historical Memory and History in the Twentieth Century (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006), 6Google Scholar.
5 Fujitani, T., White, Geoffrey M., and Yoneyama, Lisa, “Introduction,” in Perilous Memories: The Asia-Pacific War(s), ed. Fujitani, T., White, Geoffrey M., and Yoneyama, Lisa (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001), 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Khalid al-Tawil, “Tayba wa-Mahbubuha: al-Hujra al-Nabawiyya wa-Kunuzuha wa-Hikayat ‘al-Agahwat’ Yasriduha ‘Murshid,’” al-Watan Online, 24 May 2010, http://www.alwatan.com.sa/Culture/News_Detail.aspx?ArticleID=3550&CategoryID=7 (accessed 3 April 2012).
7 Fujitani, White, and Yoneyama, “Introduction,” xi.
8 Katātīb, sing. kuttāb, are small schools, usually attached to mosques, in which children are taught a curriculum mainly focused on the Qurʾan and the Arabic language.
9 Contacts in Riyadh who searched for the book in bookstores and university libraries were unable to find it and were advised to discontinue their search. The volume is also not to be found in libraries outside the kingdom or for purchase anywhere online. This lack of availability contrasts strangely with the fact that Murshid's work on the siege has been publicly featured in multiple articles in the “Thaqafa” section of al-Watan Online newspaper, based in Abha with branches in Riyadh, Dammam, and Jeddah. A June 2013 article, for example, mentions his research in its coverage of a play reenacting the suffering of Medinians during the siege. The play, titled “Safarbarlik,” written by Fahd al-Asmar and produced by Badi al-Tamimi, was performed at the Ministry of Education's General Directorate for Education in Medina. See Ahmad Deen, “‘al-Madina’ Tastaʿid Ayyam ‘Safarbarlik’: Masrahiyya Tasif Haluha wa-Tahjir Sukkaniha Qabl al-Hukm al-Suʿudi,” al-Watan Online, 17 June 2013, http://www.alwatan.com.sa/culture/News_Detail.aspx?ArticleID=149799&CategoryID=7 (accessed 27 June 2014).
10 Murshid, Tayba, 1:159.
11 Ibid.
12 Sayigh, Rosemary, “Women's Nakba Stories: Between Being and Knowing,” in Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, ed. Saʿdi, Ahmad H. and Abu-Lughod, Lila (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 138Google Scholar.
13 Sharīf (pl. ashrāf), meaning “noble,” is the title of the leader and steward of Islam's two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina. The legitimacy of Sharifian rule is largely based on a claim of noble descent from the great-grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad. For more details, see Teitelbaum, Joshua, The Rise and Fall of the Hashimite Kingdom of Arabia (London: C. Hurst & Co. Ltd., 2001), 9Google Scholar; and al-Rasheed, Madawi, A History of Saudi Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 31–32Google Scholar.
14 Faroqhi, Suraiya, The Ottoman Empire and the World around It (London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2004), 84Google Scholar.
15 Inalcik, Halil, “The Ottoman State: Economy and Society, 1300–1600,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire: 1300–1600, vol. 1, ed. Inalcik, Halil with Quataert, Donald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 322Google Scholar.
16 Faroqhi, Suraiya, Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj Under the Ottomans (London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 1994), 7Google Scholar.
17 Cleveland, William L. and Bunton, Martin, A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2009), 293–94Google Scholar.
18 A description of the appointment of Husayn as sharīf of Mecca given by his son ʿAbd Allah can be found in Peters, Francis E., Mecca: A Literary History of the Muslim Holy Land (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 347–48Google Scholar.
19 Wilson, Mary C., “The Hashemites, the Arab Revolt, and Arab Nationalism,” in The Origins of Arab Nationalism, ed. Khalidi, Rashid, Anderson, Lisa, Muslih, Muhammad, and Simon, Reeva S. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 207Google Scholar.
20 For more information on the Hijaz railway, see Ochsenwald, William, The Hijaz Railroad (Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1980)Google Scholar.
21 William Ochsenwald, “Ironic Origins: Arab Nationalism in the Hijaz, 1882–1914,” in Khalidi et al., The Origins of Arab Nationalism, 194.
22 Ibid., 196.
23 Erickson's, Edward J.Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001)Google Scholar provides a particularly detailed analysis of the Ottoman Empire's difficulties fighting as a Great Power in the war. See also Aksakal, Mustafa, The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Ochsenwald, “Ironic Origins,” 200–201. Kandemir insists that the revolt did not occur because the Arabs of the region wanted independence: “Did the Arabs want independence? No, for the entirety of this war, the Arabs fought shoulder to shoulder with the Turks on every front, starting with Çanakkale. There were even Arabs who gave their lives at the Aydın front in our Independence War, fighting side by side with [our] Little Mehmets against the Greeks. And in the First World War, not a single rebellious Arab was to be found in any area that the Arabs populated—not in Iraq or Syria; not in Lebanon, Yemen, or Palestine. The only rebel was the amir of Mecca, Sharif Husayn Pasha. This pasha desired to become the king of all Arabs, if not their emperor.” Kandemir goes on to explain how the British equipped Husayn with everything he needed to rebel against the Turks and describes those Arabs who helped with the revolt as follows: “The Arabs that Sharif Husayn used in this revolt were the most destitute and ignorant of Bedouins, who knew nothing about the world nor in fact anything beyond the deserts of Hijaz, living a life of nomadism and subsisting on looting; in other words, they were ʿurbān.” Feridun Kandemir, Fahreddin Paşa’nın Medine Müdafaası: Peygamberimizin Gölgesinde Son Türkler, 14. Baskı (Istanbul: Yağmur Yayınları, 2011), 41–42. ʿUrbān is an Arabic term referring to desert nomads.
25 For detailed accounts of British-Sharifian exchanges during this period and the significant part they played in influencing historical outcomes, see for example Kedourie, Elie, In the Anglo-Arab Labyrinth: The McMahon–Husayn Correspondence and Its Interpretations, 1914–1939 (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000)Google Scholar; and Leatherdale, Clive, Britain and Saudi Arabia, 1925–1939: The Imperial Oasis (New York: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1983)Google Scholar.
26 Kandemir, Fahreddin Paşa’nın Medine Müdafaası, 44; Kıcıman, Naci Kaşif, Medine Müdafaası: Hicaz Bizden Nasıl Ayrıldı? 3. Basım (Istanbul: Sebil Yayınevi, 1994), 158Google Scholar.
27 Lawrence, T.E., Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Reprint, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1997 [1935]), 115Google Scholar.
28 Ibid., 135.
29 Kıcıman, Medine Müdafaası, 91–93.
30 Ibid., 174.
31 Kandemir, Fahreddin Paşa’nın Medine Müdafaası, 190.
32 Kandemir explains the meaning of mücavir as Muslims who relocate to Medina from all over the world, dedicated to spending the rest of their lives close to the Prophet's tomb.
33 Kandemir, Fahreddin Paşa’nın Medine Müdafaası, 191. Muslims believe that the Prophet will intercede on their behalf for God's mercy on the Day of Judgment.
34 Ibid., 194.
35 For the full Turkish text of this poem, see ibid., 408.
36 Murshid, Tayba, 2:175.
37 Small inlets by which water flowed to various parts of the city.
38 Murshid, Tayba, 1:167–68.
39 Ibid.
40 A gold pound.
41 Murshid, Tayba, 1:224.
42 Ibid., 1:225.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid., 1:323.
45 “Takarna” (sing. Takruni; also Takruri) is a term historically used to refer to people from a kingdom by the same name that once existed on the lower Senegal River. It continues to be used today to refer more generically to those of West African origin. See al-Naqar, ʿUmar, “Takrūr, the History of a Name,” Journal of African History 10 (1969): 365–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
46 Murshid, Tayba, 1:183.
47 Consuming a cat or a dead horse, for example, would be prohibited under normal circumstances, according to the Islamic ban on eating carnivores or carrion.
48 Murshid, Tayba, 1:168.
49 Ibid.,1:168.
50 Ibid., 1:225.
51 Ibid., 2:128.
52 Ibid., 1:171.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid., 2:219.
55 Ibid., 1:176.
56 Ibid., 1:40.
57 Ibid., 2:220
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid., 1:324.
60 Ibid., 1:184.
61 Ibid., 2:220.
62 Ibid., 2:99.
63 Ibid., 2:77, 103.
64 Ibid., 1:176.
65 Ibid., 2:129.
66 Ibid., 1:171–72.
67 Ibid., 2:169–70.
68 Ibid., 1:171.
69 Ibid., 1:169.
70 Ibid., 2:221.
71 Caruth, Cathy, “Excerpt from Trauma and Experience,” in Theories of Memory: A Reader, ed. Rossington, Michael and Whitehead, Anne (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 200Google Scholar.
72 Murshid, Tayba, 1:171.
73 Bal, Mieke, “Introduction,” in Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present, ed. Bal, Mieke, Crewe, Jonathan, and Spitzer, Leo (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1999), ixGoogle Scholar.
74 Susan J. Brison, “Trauma Narratives and the Remaking of the Self,” in Bal et al., Acts of Memory, 46.
75 Halbwachs, Maurice, On Collective Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 51Google Scholar.
76 Stockwell, Jill, “Women's Affective Memories of Trauma and the Transmission of Emotional Knowledge in Argentina,” Memory Studies 4 (2011): 76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
77 Esmeir, Samera, “Memories of Conquest: Witnessing Death in Tantura,” in Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory, ed. Saʿdi, Ahmad H. and Abu-Lughod, Lila (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 249Google Scholar.
