Download PDF | Mehmet Ali Neyzi - The Imperial School for Tribes_ Educating the Provincial Elite in the Late Ottoman Empire-I.B. Tauris (2023).
241 Pages
Introduction
The Auspicious Event was the term adopted by the Ottomans for the bloody abolition of the traditional Janissary Corps in 1826. The Ottoman state was determined to centralize its power in Istanbul and remove all impediments towards this objective. A new structure named The Mohammedan Victorious Army was established, modelled on the Napoleonic example.1 Over the previous centuries, the Janissaries had become a strongly entrenched and privileged group, becoming the terror of subjects and statesmen instead of being the terror of enemies.
This landmark event paved the way for the social, fiscal, legal and educational reforms known collectively as the Tanzimat, which continued unabated until the First World War. With increased centralization, the tentacles of the empire began to extend even to the remotest corners of the realm. Like the Habsburgs in Austria and the Romanovs in Russia, the Ottomans strived to realize ‘a transition to a modern imperial model infused with national imagery and identity’,2 hence the concept of Ottomanism was introduced along with centralization.
The land law of 1858 and the provincial reform law of 1864 laid out the legal foundations for the penetration of the state into the countryside. The new system of government was gradually introduced into the provinces, Syria (1866), Libya (1867), Hijaz (1868), Eastern Arabia (1871) and Yemen (1872). Carefully picked governors were charged with building local administrative councils to control their regions, boost agricultural output and maximize tax revenues. ‘Ottoman modernity involved a process of mediation and translation to adapt new ideas from the West to radically different settings across the Empire’.3 During this period, the government began to intervene more directly in the lives of individual Ottoman subjects. The first census was carried out in most parts of the empire in 1831, and censuses were repeated throughout the century.
However, the census was regarded by the provinces as groundwork for forced conscription in the army and resisted by much of the population. Meanwhile, the nineteenth century witnessed a constant increase in international trade. The development of cash crops encouraged the merchant classes to participate in the state’s project of centralized rule and helped to integrate the countryside with the cities. The relationship between the capital and economic centres like Aleppo, Damascus and Beirut was bolstered.4 Midhat Paşa can probably be described as one of the most effective pioneers in building the ‘soft power’ of the Ottoman Empire. In this new world, the state accepted to provide services for its citizens, with the population contributing to the welfare of the fatherland. Midhat Paşa was appointed to lead the Danube Province, newly created as a role model in 1864.
During his governorship, he developed the infrastructure: building schools, hospitals, roads and bridges, and urging local notables to support these investments. In 1869, he was sent to Baghdad, where he was able to replicate the Balkan experience. He reformed the 6th Army and opened a military school to train local recruits, also establishing commercial sea traffic between Basra-Suez and Istanbul. A special fleet like the one on the Danube was constructed to boost transportation on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. By applying the new land law, Midhat Paşa issued countless deeds to supporters of the regime and at the same time increased the tax base. He was able to extend the Ottoman state apparatus to Kuwait and Qatar and into the Arabian Peninsula. A similar drive to extend the administration of the empire was executed in the area known as today as Jordan, a frontier zone between the state and the nomadic tribes. In this region, the Ottomans led a systematic effort to fortify and expand the towns, starting from Ajlun in the north in the 1850s and gradually moving south to Maan in 1895.5
Around 25,000 Circassian refugees who fled the Russian army were settled in these locations, and the city of Amman was populated and made into a regional centre during this process. One of the outstanding characteristics of the nineteenth century was the creation of national education systems worldwide. In order to build unified and homogeneous populations, the Europeans developed methods of pedagogy and centrally defined curricula which were utilized to create ‘model citizens’. The Ottomans emulated the West by first revamping the military academy in 1834, a school which produced many future leaders of the country, including Ataturk.6 In 1838, a group of top-level bureaucrats proposed to build new high schools with a modern curriculum all around the country, which would cater to bright students who had completed their primary education. Uniforms, the class system and textbooks were novelties introduced into these schools.
The imperial edict of 1839 stipulated that education was one of the duties of the state and subsequently the first department of education in the Ottoman Empire was established.7 It was announced in 1846 that primary education would be reformed, the modern high schools would be multiplied, and a university would be opened. This structure evolved into a Ministry of Public Education in 1857, which was charged to educate and train students in the Western sciences.8 The Civil Service Academy9 was established in 1859 to produce qualified bureaucrats for administrative positions in the state apparatus, and in 1863 the first university was opened,10 while many new high schools were established in the provinces. Abdülaziz was the first Ottoman sultan to visit Europe in 1867, where he was taken to a tour of several schools in Paris, which impressed him. The French minister of education, Jean Victor Duruy, acted as a consultant to the sultan to prepare the Ottoman Regulation of Public Education issued in 1869.11 This regulation declared that education was the correct path to join the community of civilized nations and was an important milestone in the history of education in the Ottoman Empire.12
It is significant that in the same year the Russian Empire introduced a similar educational reform based on the French model, and in 1870 Japan announced a major national blueprint for state education.13 In 1876, Sultan Abdülhamid II, one of the most controversial figures in Ottoman history, found himself unexpectedly on the throne. ‘There is a strong tendency among historians to describe nineteenth century Ottoman political development in terms of a dichotomy between Westernizing reformers and traditionalist reactionaries. Sultan Abdülhamid II is a particularly good case to illustrate the inadequacy of this approach.’14
Abdülhamid continued the modernization drive of the Tanzimat, while he simultaneously embraced and promoted the Islamic heritage of the empire. After losing much of the Balkan territories in the early days of his reign, Sultan Abdülhamid came to rule a largely Muslim population. The Arab provinces had always had particular significance for the Ottoman state for varied reasons. The Pan Islamism that Abdülhamid espoused and the emphasis he placed on his caliphal role rendered the significance of these largely Muslim parts of the empire even greater in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Moreover, the Ottoman state feared that the infectious nature of nationalism which had resulted in the loss of the Western provinces would soon make its appearance in the Arab regions. Hence, the attempt to better integrate the Arabs into the empire acquired critical urgency and called for unconventional methods. The two areas of remarkable success of Sultan Abdülhamid’s reign were the implementation of the planned reforms of the Tanzimat in infrastructure and education. Both of these areas involved significant projects directly related to the Arab subjects of the sultan. Hijaz and Yemen were moved up the administrative hierarchy to become the top-level provinces of the empire. Sultan Abdülhamid was staunchly pacifist, and consequently, some years after his accession, the Ottoman Empire achieved a balanced budget and honored its debt payments. This policy allowed the state to divert its resources to infrastructure investments, particularly in the Arab provinces. Telegraph lines were extended to Hijaz and Basra, and the Hamidian clock towers became a symbol of the state in all the provincial capitals, with the Hijaz railway perhaps one of the most ambitious projects to be realized in the area of infrastructure.
The Hijaz railway has received ample scholarly and other types of attention, whereas the less visible Ottoman investments in education are not much celebrated. For the Ottomans, the encroachment of the West was not only a military and economic threat, but it was also ideological. In the area of education, the foreigners attacked the empire on several fronts. The missionaries multiplied their efforts in the empire in the nineteenth century, presenting an example where science and religious training could be applied side by side. The Ottoman minorities endowed their schools with funds; thus, the level of literacy as well as attendance in higher education of the non-Muslim subjects of the empire was far superior to that of the Muslims. Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece opened schools in the Balkan regions and lured students to study abroad. Iran penetrated the Eastern borders to promote Shiite teachings. These developments urged the religious institutions to support the sultan in promoting an Islamic education with a modernized curriculum. Abdülhamid had visited the Western capitals in the grand tour of Europe with his Uncle Abdülaziz, and he appreciated the benefits of science and technology. He had observed the rigorous, widespread education system in the West. It was clear that the Tanzimat efforts in the field of education mostly remained ink on paper. The literacy rate was low, primary schooling was still dominated by the religious schools, and the modern high schools were few and far between. There were two main causes for the slow development of public education in the Ottoman Empire. The first was the resistance of the religious institutions which still dominated this sphere. Sultan Abdülhamid led a strong drive to combine Western technology and science with an Islamic education. His approach allowed the religious elites and the populace to accept the new schooling system, which helped the establishment of new schools in all parts of the Empire.
The second reason the development of public education in the Ottoman Empire stalled during was financial. Upon the suggestion of the grand viziers Kamil Paşa and Sait Paşa, a new tax was instituted in 1884, which was added to the traditional tithe tax.15 The new tax was collected in the provinces, and half of the proceeds were used to finance the new high schools in these regions. This steady income allowed Sultan Abdülhamid to go down in history as the sultan who built the highest number of schools in the empire. In addition to this tax, Abdülhamid and his ministers devised many other schemes to contribute to the education budget. Sultan Abdülhamid boosted all levels of education defined in the regulation of 1869. The primary schools were either converted from the classical religious format or were built anew. High schools were multiplied, reaching a total of 619 around the empire with approximately 40.000 students by the end of the sultan’s reign in 1909. Midhat Paşa, who had become Governor of Syria in 1878, opened thirty-five schools in two years. Sait Paşa was another champion of education, and he claimed to have opened 156 high schools during his tenure as minister of education and later as grand vizier.
He also introduced French as a mandatory course in all high schools. Another important agent of change was Münif Paşa, who served as minister of education four times. Münif Paşa reorganized, upgraded and spread schools to train teachers to all the provinces,16 a very critical addition to the system. Also, several schools were opened to educate and train women as students and teachers. In this book I examine one of the most ambitious, but little-known educational projects of Sultan Abdülhamid II, the Aşiret Mektebi, School for Tribes. The tribes were a constant problem for the Ottoman Empire; they neither paid taxes, nor were willing to join the army. Their raids on urban areas and the Hajj (pilgrimage) caravans caused significant economic losses for the empire and undermined the legitimacy and prestige of the sultan. While continuing to utilize the classical Ottoman methods of co-opting Arab urban notables, Abdülhamid made a special effort to reach out to the Arab tribes. He frequently invited local leaders of the Arab provinces to the capital. It is also known that during his reign some of the powerful tribal chiefs could communicate directly with the palace by private telegraph codes.17 In 1891, when the Governor of Syria tried to block the visit of one of the minor tribal leaders to Istanbul, the palace stated that ‘any sheikh who wanted to visit the sultan could not be refused’.18 There are numerous references to the School for Tribes in the scholarly literature dealing with Ottoman history; however, most of these references consist of one or two lines, just noting the existence of the school or some specific aspect of it.
The first short article about the school appeared in a Turkish historical journal in 1972, the result of preliminary archival research.19 Interestingly, the only other two works dedicated to the school were written concurrently, one in England and the other in Turkey. Eugene Rogan’s article appeared in 1996,20 while Alişan Akpınar’s small booklet was completed in 1997.21 In 2001, Rogan’s article was translated into Turkish and was published in conjunction with Akpınar’s booklet. In his foreword to this edition, Akpınar states that the two scholars used much of the same archival material but were unaware of each other’s research.22 There have been no other specific publications on the School for Tribes for over two decades. Scholars have speculated about several features of the Aşiret Mektebi. One interpretation of the purpose of the school is based on the controversial theory of Ottoman Orientalism. In this reading, the school is labelled as an effort to bring civilization to the ‘savages’ of the empire.23 Other scholars theorize that one of the reasons for founding the school was to keep sons of tribal leaders as hostages in the capital, which would prevent any potential revolt.24 Furthermore, Orhan Koloğlu draws a parallel between the school and the janissary system as a method to recruit promising youngsters to the management of the empire. Michael Provence describes the arduous journey of these young students to the capital, which could sometimes take over one month, and adds that they were ‘virtually imprisoned within the school compound’.25 Despite the challenges of the experience, Provence regards the school as one of the more noteworthy vehicles utilized by Sultan Abdülhamid to modernize the empire.
Benjamin Fortna describes the career of Hacı Recai Efendi, the first Director of the School for Tribes, who promoted the expansion of religious training in the modern schools of the Ottoman Empire. Recai Efendi was one of the authors of the curriculum reform report of 1887, which stated that: ‘The establishment of matters of belief truly depends on being led and guided on that path in the beginning stages of adolescence.’26 The School for Tribes began recruiting twelve-year-old students who were trained in keeping with the tenets of this report. Another principle promoted by Recai was the necessity of having students perform their prayers as a congregation, a ritual which was strictly applied in the school. As Fortna summarizes: ‘Here is a Hamidian education policy in microcosm: a moving away from the more overtly secular aspects of the Tanzimat conception of Ottoman education toward a consciously Islamic basis.’27 Several sources state that there was a riot in the school in 1907 resulting from the poor quality of the food, and therefore the school was closed, yet many scholars question this simplistic explanation and suggest other possible reasons for the rather abrupt termination of the school. One view is that the students were politicized with the growing Young Turk and Arab nationalist movements. Others emphasize the high cost of the school, which became an insupportable drain on the budget. One of the aims of this book is to attempt to elaborate on the achievements and the failures of the school and assess the reasons for its closure. Corinne Blake investigated the careers of the Syrian graduates of the civil service academy, some of whom had studied earlier at the School for Tribes.
Her conclusion was that until the end of the First World War, most of these Arab graduates supported the continued existence of a multiethnic, polyglot Ottoman Empire.28 The examples provided by Benedict Anderson from Europe, Russia and the Far East illustrate that experiments similar to the School for Tribes were conducted in all parts of the globe. In Anderson’s words: ‘The interlock between particular educational and administrative pilgrimages provided the territorial base for new “imagined communities” in which natives could come to see themselves as “nationals”.’29 Indeed, in the transition from empires to nation states, ruling elites worldwide attempted to use educational institutions to mould their subjects into citizens. I attempt to analyze the School for Tribes through the discourse of its founders, the acts and ideology of its administrators/teachers, and the future lives and actions of its graduates. As with other institutions, not all the realities on the ground conformed to the assumptions made at the beginning of this initiative. The reactions of the students to this presumably transformative experience were contradictory and complex. However, the archival evidence suggests that the school was generally well-received, the institution and its graduates were held in high esteem, and the Arab graduates maintained close ties with the Ottomans even after the end of the First World War. In summary, I conclude that the Aşiret Mektebi can provide a unique perspective to reevaluate the late Ottoman struggle for modernity. A chronology of the school is presented in Chapter 1.
The proposal to establish the school was drafted in June 1892 and specified that students between the ages of twelve and sixteen, who were physically fit, intellectually gifted and belonged to prestigious tribal families, would be trained in the capital for five years. In July, Sultan Abdülhamid decreed that the school be opened on the auspicious date of the Prophet’s birthday, October 4, with fifty students from the Arab provinces. The inauguration was realized as planned, albeit with only twenty-five students, of whom only three could speak Turkish. In 1896, it was decided to further train the graduates in the military and civil service academies for one year to better prepare them for their future careers. Finally, in 1898, the first graduates were sent to their posts in their provinces.
This system was to continue; for instance, in 1904, thirty-eight captains and fourteen district governors were posted to their provinces to serve the empire as qualified and loyal Ottoman officers. The school was terminated at the end of 1907, at which time the remaining students were sent to high schools close to their hometowns. The recruitment of students to the School for Tribes and their placement processes are examined in Chapter 2. The difficulty of attracting the sons of tribal leaders became evident from the start. Having filled only half the projected quota at the time of inauguration, the administration agreed to admit Kurdish tribal students whose fathers were commanders in the army and were clamouring to get in. Already in the first year, the mission of the school was diluted. In 1902, Sultan Abdülhamid decided that twenty Albanian students should be recruited to the school. The student composition was further complicated in the following year when seven Javanese were admitted. Overall, the recruitment process was cumbersome and inconsistent; many applicants were rejected. In addition, several students failed the rigorous programme and were expelled or left on their own accord. The graduates who were assigned to military and administrative posts frequently demanded promotions and transfers. Nevertheless, the school continued to attract tribal students until it was closed in 1907. The preparation and evolution of the curriculum and some of the prominent educators of the school are presented in Chapter 3. At the time of foundation, the Hamidian regime had already added a strong Islamic flavour to the curriculum of state schools. As mentioned, one of the proponents of the new religious emphasis on education was Hacı Recai Efendi, who was appointed as the first director of the school.
The administration realized that the first mission of the school would be to teach the students Ottoman Turkish, starting with the Arabic alphabet. The next task was learning to read and recite the Quran. In the following years religious training was complemented with Turkish grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing skills as well as mathematics, geography and French. The five-year curriculum included an explicit instruction that loyalty to the exalted office of the caliphate should be properly cultivated by the educators. There is no doubt that the students received a rigorous education and the experience transformed them from the sons of nomadic tribesmen into an elite corps of Ottomans. However, the specific roles the graduates played in the Ottoman and the post-Ottoman contexts are almost unknown. One of the best methods to judge the effectiveness of the school would be to study the careers of the graduates. Chapter 4 is dedicated to several colourful graduates from Greater Syria, the region that sent the highest number of students to the school. Ramadan Shallash from Deir ez-Zor, a town on the Euphrates river, was a rebellious student, who continued his education at the military academy and served in the Ottoman army for many years. He has been described in Syria both as a national hero as well as a collaborator with the French. The second part of Chapter 4 is dedicated to Jabal Druze in Hawran.
The most distinguished student among the Druze contingent was Fahd al-Atrash, whose family was recognized by the Ottoman government as the leaders of their region. Fahd’s children, Asmahan and Farid al-Atrash became well-known artists in the Arab world. The final group of students presented in this chapter are from Akkar in northern Lebanon. The Merhebi’s were the local strongmen and managed to send nine of their sons to the school, probably the highest incidence in one family. A study on the Libyan graduates is presented in Chapter 5. Omar Mansour, who graduated in 1897 and continued his studies at the civil service academy, left his son a hand-written and unpublished diary dated 1919, which covers his years at the school and his early career. Omar Mansour had an illustrious life both as a member of the Ottoman Parliament as well as during the foundation of Libya in 1949, where he served as prime minister. Another prominent Libyan graduate is Sadullah Koloğlu, who entered the school with Omar Mansour and graduated from the civil service academy. After a long career in Anatolia, Sadullah became a governor of the Turkish Republic, the highest provincial post. Later he returned to Libya and was supported by King Idris, who appointed him as minister and briefly prime minister.
The life stories of twenty other Libyan graduates of the School for Tribes are briefly examined in the last part of the chapter. The impressive career of Abdulmuhsin Saadun from Iraq is presented in Chapter 6. The Saadun family were leaders of the powerful Muntafiq confederation of the Basra region, who originated from Mecca and were distinguished as descendants of the Prophet. The brothers Abdulmuhsin and Abdulkarim Saadun graduated from the School for Tribes and then completed their studies at the military academy. Abdulmuhsin Saadun served in the Ottoman Army and Parliament, and upon his return to Iraq became prime minister four times between 1923 and 1929. He committed suicide during his fourth term and the imprint of his education at the school can be seen in the farewell note he left behind for his son, which was written in Ottoman Turkish. In light of the research carried out on the Aşiret Mektebi and the careers of its graduates, it is clear that the school produced unique leaders who found a niche for themselves in the different political milieus of the Middle East.
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