Social structure and political power in acre 1740- 1830
p. 161-175
Texte intégral
1During the period investigated here, Acre witnessed a dramatic economic boom-to-bust cycle which made it from a little fishing village to the largest port on the Syrian coast and transformed it in the end again into a heap of ruins. In terms of population it became, admittedly with a considerable distance after Damascus and Aleppo, the third largest city in Bilād al-Shām, counting at its peak some 25 to 30 000 inhabitants. Not only did it become the most important commercial center in Bilād al-Shām, but it was even officially recognized repeatedly as the political center of the region between 1785 and 1816. During this period, the governors of Sidon, Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār and his follower Sulaymān Pasha, who both resided in Acre, were several times appointed, additionally, to the governorship of Damascus.
2In terms of time, Acre could look back, of course, on a long and distinguished history extending from Antiquity to the Crusades. But the Acre of the 18th century developed quite literally ex nihilo. As one traveller described it around 1700: «...beside a large Khan in which the French factors have taken up their quarters, a mosque and a few poor cottages, You see nothing here but a vast and spacious ruin».1
3In terms of space, the new Acre was built on well preserved urban ruins. This was not accidental, since the ruins functioned as an ideal source of building material: hewn stones were in abundance already on the construction site. The preexisting structures and the street plan determined to a large degree also the shape and form of new structures and their location. The same had occurred in other cities in Syria but it had been a gradual process extending over centuries and ancient structures were much less easily recognizable than they were in Acre. The first building activity of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar was the construction of a city wall, more or less along the medieval outline of the city. With that wall the space for urban development was defined, and Acre remained intra muros at a time when other cities in Syria had gone beyond their original circumference and had expanded extra muros.
4In terms of fonctions, Acre served as residency of a local ruler or governor and as a military strategic base. It shared this twofold role with other cities. But we find no other city being so exclusively oriented toward overseas export trade, and dealing in only one major cash crop which, moreover, was made a government monopoly.
5What was the impact of these features on the development of urban society? Did the society of Acre differ from less developed and more traditional urban societies? In what ways was the integration into the European dominated world economy felt? Because of the dearth of relevant sources, more questions will be raised than can be answered. Acre as a city and as an urban society distinguished itself by several unique features, which make it difficult to fit Acre into the typology of Ottoman provincial cities, though some of its features conform to the type.2
6The attempt to answer such questions is best begun by looking at the physical lay-out and development of Acre itself. There exists to our knowledge no map of the city drawn during the time we are concerned with, i.e. between 1740 and 1831. The French army produced several detalled maps of the immediate geographic surroundings of Acre, indicating artillery positions, trajectories and outer fortifications. But the area circumscribed by the walls remained a white spot. The French had neither access to nor interest in the lay-out of the city. We are therefore dependent on contemporary city maps with superimposed indications on building substance left by the Crusaders. The most helpful source here is the A. Kesten report of 1962, an architectural survey of the city and of its archeological remains3. From the maps included in this report we can detect a process described by Wirth with regard to other cities,4 namely how the uses and functions of the more recent city slowly changed the underlying patterns and physical lay-out of the earlier city while these patterns and these lay-out remained recognizable. in the case of Acre, however, this process was not the resuit of slowly changing political ideas or social structures. On the contrary, there occurred a radical change, and the degree to which ancient patterns are still recognizable depends frequently on the height of the rubble heap upon which the new city was constructed in the middle of the 18th century. Thus, the northeastern part of the city lies some seven to eight meters above the level of the Crusader city. Though some major buildings there are still built on the fundaments of Crusader structures, the lay-out of thoroughfares and blind alleys has changed completely. A major thoroughfare that lead from a gate in the northern wall southwards during Crusader times, for instance, cannot be traced anymore. The new Acre had only one gate, at the seashore on the eastern side. A main road bifurcated from there to the commercial parts and to the seat of government. In the southern and western part of the city, more or less on the level of the Crusader city, the new structures incorporated frequently older building substance and followed much more the lay-out of the older city. The Rectangular Quarter, the Pisan and the Genoese Quarter of Crusader times, with main streets separating the quarters, with entrance gates and some walls are clearly recognizable. The huge structures of Pisan and Venetian khans are still standing, or were rebuilt.
7The combination of a few large thoroughfares, connecting major public and commercial areas to the city gate, with a multitude of little branching-off blind alleys, leading to semi-public space and eventually to entrances of dwellings, dominates the street pattern of Acre as it does in many other premodern Middle Eastern cities.5
8A striking feature of the lay-out of the city is the strict functional division between different parts of the city. The northern part is dedicated to the political military complex. The centrer piece was the citadel, fortress-cum-residence of the ruler. The citadel was built on the foundations and walls of the Hospitaliers’ fortress and was integrated into the fortification structures of the northern wall. As in most other cities of the period, e.g. Aleppo, Damascus, Cairo, the citadel served as a defense for the city but also against the city in case of urban rebellion. Southeast of the citadel was the «Posta» or busta, a Crusader structure used as government building (serail). The complex was completed under Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār, who added to it the most beautiful mosque in Palestine dating from the Ottoman period. Its grandeur and its location indicate clearly that it was meant to have legitimizing functions for the government, rather than communal ones. The open space to the east of this complex served probably for military exercises, while parts of it contained gardens belonging the residence.
9Along the eastern water edge, facing the bay, the commercial area spreads. It is dominated by four khāns. The French Khan, already used at the beginning of the 18th century, coextended with the former Venetian Khān. Northeast of it, Ẓāhir al-‘Umar had Khān al-Shawārada added. To the south, he had Khān al-Shūna built into the former Pisan Khān. Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār later built Khān al-‘Umdān on the site of the Genoese Khān, southwest of the French Khān. North of the Khān al-Shawārada and close to the city gate, Ẓāhir had a bazaar erected. A large thoroughfare, passing by the bazaar, connected all three khans to the city gate. In the typical Middle Eastern city, economic activities were centered upon the bazaar. Artisan production and sales of merchandise were concentrated there. The bazaar was a major thoroughfare with many small khāns adjoined to it; in these khāns, artisans worked, merchandize was stored and merchants from abroad could stay over night. In Acre, the sheer size of the khāns is striking. The four khāns were much larger than the whole bazaar, and were not linked to it. The bazaar, standing so close to the city gate, probably functioned as the major place of exchange for produce coming from the rural hinterland, for the artisan production of townspeople and for imported merchandize. The khāns had very little to do with all that. Their major fonctions were the storage of cotton, later of grain, and its preparation for export. From the neighboring quay, cotton was loaded on the ships. The prominent position of the khāns and their location symbolize the major business of Acre, namely cotton export. The fact that the Khān al-Faranj was also the permanent residence of French merchants indicates the direction of this commerce.
10The central, western and southern parts of the city were residential areas, typically, these houses had one or two floors, and were turned toward an inner court. Two stories houses with several separate apartments also were common. We can find here the typical maze of branching-off blind alleys, accessed by a few larger streets. By 1806, Acre also boasted seven coffee houses.6
11The first and foremost fact of society in Acre is that it consisted entirely of immigrants. Among the population of ca. 25 000 in the early 1770’s, there could hardly be found a grown-up person who actually had been born in the city. Several devastating outbreaks of the bubonic plague took a high toll. In 1760, one third of the population perished and in 1785-86, an estimated half of the population died.7 A third severe outbreak of the epidemic in 1812-13 wiped out half of the Muslim population.8 If we add to this several famines and the total exodus of the population in 1775, when Abū al-Dhahab was about to conquer the city, as well as a dwindling of the population by attrition in the last years of al-Jazzār’s regime, the turn-over of population and the flow of immigration must have been even stronger than what the population estimates suggest. Immigrants came from the immediate surroundings of Acre such as Shfā ’Amr, but also from the villages and towns of Galilee and Mt. Lebanon, and from as far away as Damascus and Aleppo. Immigrants came from cities as well as from rural areas. The society of Acre was a frontier society by its being at the periphery of the old provincial centers, and by its being drawn into a whole new world of European raw material markets. But it was a frontier society with a twist: the political elite of this society was often itself on the verge of transformation and at the limits of legitimacy. Frequently, it would challenge the authority of the central government and go its own ways. The rulers were more often than not mere ursurpers. Nevertheless, the power of the ruling elite was from the very beginning considerable, and its control over the immigrant society formidable. There was, in other words, a strong government and a weak society.
12In 1783, the French consul in Acre, Renaudot, comments on society in Acre as follows:
«Le gouvernement Tyrannique au quel [ceux peuples] sont soumis augment ces vices, les fait maitre souvent, et détruit en eux les sentimens d’honneur et de probité que la nature peut semer dans leurs coeurs en leur donnant (??). Dans un des plus beau pays du monde les hommes sont méchants et Esclaves et tel est la nature du Gouvernement Despotique que celui qui donne la lois est plus Esclave que celui qui la reçoit. Un Pacha, avec deux mille hommes de troupes, peut-être les plus méprisables qu’il y ait au monde, fait trembler douze cent mille habitans: ā son tour il a les plus grandes frayeurs au milieu des misérables qui éxécutent ses volontés, toujour prest a fléchir le genouy devant lui, ou prest a lui porter le coup mortel. Les Esclaves ne conaissent que les extrèmes du inhumain, patient jusqu’ā la pussillanimité, ou colère jusqu’au désespoir; et cest sur ces principaux caractéristiques que tout est établi ici. Les Peuples Sédentaires sont si patients, si soumis, si humbles, en même tems si craintifs, si défiants qu’il n’osent, pour la plupart, en de quoi s’enrichir, a cause des Tyrans qui composent cette chaine de Despote du Trone au dernier (???) de l’empire, et qui surveillent le miserable Raya avec une avidité insatiable, pour savoir s’il a plus que ce qui est nécessaire ā sa vie et ā l’acquittement des droits dont un monopole actif et cruel surcharge sans cesse sa chétive et faible industrie.»9
13As we have noted elsewhere, al-Jazzār served in the contemporary French political debate as a paradigm of tyranny and of its evil consequences. At the eve of the French Revolution, these observations of Renaudot read like the textbook answer to the question «What are the consequences of despotism for society?». Though very much a theoretical treatise, it was based on observations made in Acre. The French reports are full of small or larger incidents without the author couching them into theoretical terms. The Arab historians giving evidence of al-Jazzār’s cruelty toward the population are so numerous that we are not entitled to dismiss their reports. There can be no doubt that al-Jazzār was in many ways a particularily unpleasant ruler, who often terrorized his subjects. Without knowing the context, it is often difficult to guess what the motives for such behaviour were. Not only did he have a violent temper, but he also seems to have gone through drinking bouts, lengthy mood swings and perhaps some spiritual illuminations. He was violent and drank heavily in his younger years.10 The Mamluk rebellion against him in 1789 seems to have shaken him to the depth. As the chronicle reports: «After that he became like a wild animal, so that nobody could face him anymore. In his phantasy he imagined that the whole world was against him.» He went on a murderous rampage that did not stop before the muftī and the qāḍī.11 Craftsmen, servants and other subjects were liquidated for no particular reason.
14When al-Jazzār returned from the Pilgrimage in 1791 his mood had changed. He was cheerful and happy «he foreswore drink and pederasty and applied himself to praying five times a day.»12 He had good reason to be content. His major enemy in Istanbul, Ḥasan Kapudān Pasha had died. The governorship of Damascus had been granted to him in addition to that of Acre, and he had just brought successfully the pilgrimage caravan back from Mecca.
15His mood, however, soon changed back to what it had been before. He had the qāḍī, the muftī and the director of the port executed. He then had more than two hundred men, comprising workers, scribes, chiefs (nawwāb), as well as carpenters and other artisans, arrested. Following a somewhat bizarre procedure, he had each brought before him, then ordered each to uncover his forehead and looked at him attentively. Those upon whom he pretended to see a «sign» were imprisoned. On the next day he ordered Maghribi troops to kill them all outside the city. In the evening the relatives were ordered to bury their dead but were forbidden from walling under penalty of death. Terrorized, the population did as ordered. What, then, were the reasons for such massacre? No manifest financial motive can be found, since al-Jazzār did not try to extort a ransom from his prisoners as he did so often. Was he acting under the effect of hallucination? Al-Jabartī reports that al-Jazzār claimed to have esoteric knowledge. According to Shihāb, the arrests and the massacre began with the smashing of all the city «gates», presumably designating the doors that lead to and closed off blind alleys and quarters. Perhaps we have here a hint of resistance, or suspected resistance, from the part of the population.13 This massacre, however, remains unparalleled. If al-Jazzār continued to have individuals tortured or killed, it was usually, at least to his thinking, for good political or financial reasons.
16Ẓāhir al-‘Umar and Sulaymān Pasha were, compared to al-Jazzār, mildly mannered rulers, but they left no doubt about their authority and power. Though government monopolies on olive oil, grain and cotton created hardship and outright famine, the rulers did not reconsider their policy. Internai political opponents, be they sons or Mamluks, were battled into defeat. ‘Abdallāh Pasha reverted to outright assassination and banishment to enforce his authority.
17We know too little about the circumstances under which al-Jazzār massacred two hundred townspeople to determine the impulse or the rational behind his behavior. But it is perhaps more important to ask what sort of society buries its dead in silence, and is not able nor willing to rebel. It is precisely the sort of society Renaudot describes in his memoir: «patient, soumis, humble, craintif.» For the whole period studied, namely, from the 1740’s to the 1830’s, we practically never hear of any rebellion nor of any protest issuing from the towns people of Acre. The one noteworthy exception is alate incident. In 1816, famine spread because of a bad harvest, but Sulaymān Pasha continued to export grain abroad for great profits. Women went on demonstrating in Acre, demanding flour. Sulaymān Pasha threatened to chase all the demonstrators out of Acre,14 and only offered to sell them biscuits from army supplies dating from the time of al-Jazzār!
18In moments of crisis, as when Abū al-Dhahab was approaching with his army, all the population left the city. When, under al-Jazzār, oppression and actual danger to life became unbearable in Acre, many people would flee to the mountains, the Ḥawrān or elsewhere. But was such faintheartedness the resuit of despotism or, on the contrary, could despotism thrive particularily well under such circumstances of unwillingness to resist? This brings us back to the question of the character of the society and of its structure.
19About the structure of society at the time of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar - or at any other time for that matter -, we know very little. Its most outstanding feature was its being an immigrant society. Practically everybody - commoner and gentleman, subject and member of the ruling elite, Christian and Muslim -was an immigrant. Even Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh, who was to become the mighty vezier of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar, was an immigrant, and so was his master. Al-Ṣabbāgh’s father had actually settled in Acre, but had then moved on to Damiette, where Ibrāhīm was born. Later, Ibrāhīm, the boy was sent to the monastry of St. John in Shuwayr; he spent there many years, studying especially medicine.15
20Was the population separated in quarters by religion or ethnicity as it was elsewhere? The distribution of churches and mosques in the city leads to the conclusion that the western part was Christian, and the eastern Muslim. That there existed clear eut border lines among the quarters, and that some areas were exclusively settled by Muslims and other areas by Christians cannot be ascertained. Hundred percent closure of populations within quarters did not exist in other cities. As in other cities, however, small sections, branching out blind alleys etc. seem to have been closed at night with gates; it was the case at least until 1791, when al-Jazzār had all gates removed. There seems to have been some structuring along community lines as far as residential distribution patterns were concerned. Maybe we can go even further, and assume that each Christian community settled close to its church. Most illuminating in this respect are the measures taken by the Christians in 1812-13 to protect themselves against the plague. In contrast to the Muslims,16 the Christians quarantined themselves against the epidemic. As a resuit, only a few Christians died. The Christian dead were among the poor who did not have the means to leave the city nor to go into seclusion. At least half the Muslim population perished during this occurrence of the plague. The Christians did not lock up the whole Christian quarter, manifestly because there was no clear eut separation of populations. Rather, several families would join in one house, and store as much food as they could afford and had space for. The more fortunate families also had a priest with them, who would perform mass for them. Others would lay planks across roofs in oder to be able to approach the church and listen to mass from a distance, while maintaining the quarantine. All this suggests the pattern of a community gravitating around its church, without separating itself completely from other urban dwellers. After all, the city was small - 800m at its longest extension - and dally interaction of all the city dwellers in work and business is a well documented fact. The ruler himself could not avoid having dally contact with the townpeople. Ẓāhir al-‘Umar once observed from his residence a woman in her apartment; when she noticed him, she reportedly opened her window wide and exhibited herself on purpose. Ẓāhir al-‘Umar ordered the woman and her husband to pack at once and had them sent back to Damascus, whence they had emigrated.17 When encountering in the streets naked derwishes, Ẓāhir al-‘Umar had them beaten; he made such behavior illegal, and had the prohibition proclaimed by the town crier. Similarily, he had the funeral procession of a shaykh stopped. The dubious claim to fame of the shaykh was that he would fly to heaven, and the people in the procession were chanting «Fly, fly».18
21The other feature worth mentioning here is that, throughout the 18th century, Christians seem to have been a majority. The largest among the Christians groups were the Greek Catholics, who flourished under the protective hand of the powerful vezier. Their fīrst church was that of St. John, built in 1737 by the Franciscans; it later was transferred to the community, and enlarged in 1765. The second church, St. Andrews, was the largest in Acre; it was built in 1764, and financed by al- Ṣabbāgh. Both churches are located in the south-western corner of the city. Since 1752, the community had a bishop. From 1765 to 1768, the Greek Catholic Patriarch had his residence at Acre.19 A Greek Orthodox church, St. George, existed already in the 1730’s, but was considerably enlarged during Ẓāhir’s rule. A church for the Maronites, St.Mary, was built after 1750.20 The fact that church structures expanded rapidly during this time, and that no churches were added later, itself is an indicator of the growth of the Christian communities and of their prosperity during the time of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar.
22An Ottoman mosque had been built already around 1600, the Sinān Pasha Mosque. Later it was torn down, and Sulaymān Pasha replaced it with the al-Baḥr Mosque. Already before Ẓāhir made Acre his permanent residence, he had an old synagoge converted into a mosque, the al-Mu‘allaq Mosque. A few years later, the al-Zaytūna Mosque was added. The most famous mosque, al-Jazzār’s Mosque, was built early in the latter’s rule; it reflected not so much the growing needs of the community of believers as the government’s need for legitimization. The city and the realm were without doubt those of a Muslim ruler. The fact that, most probably, the majority of urban dwellers were Christian was not perceived by anybody as a challenge to that order. When the Greek Catholic community wanted to repair its church in 1810, it obtained from the mufti of Acre a written permission to do so after he had inspected the building; indeed, both sides adhered to the rules applying traditionally to the dhimmī communities.21 Ẓāhir al-‘Umar appointed a qāḍī and a mufti. For the latter post, he brought from Damascus the son of an ‘ālim and friend of the family, ‘Abd al-Ḥalīm al-Shuwaykī. His father had already visited the family in Tiberias, and hosted Ẓāhir when he was on business in Damascus. ‘Abd al-Halīm came to Acre, where he was made muftī of the city and of the realm; he was also appointed teacher of the children of Ẓāhir al-‘Umar, at least one of whom, ‘Uthmān, developed some poetic skills himself.22 Remarkable today, but not extraordinary at the time, ‘Abd al-Ḥalīm also taught Arabic grammar and syntax to the son of Ibrāhīm al- Ṣabbāgh, Mikhā’īl.23 In the elite of Acre, a lot of interaction between members of different communities can be observed. Such interaction took place in education, or in the administration and in business. There is also some evidence of social intercourse, such as the case, at later period, of a Christian shoemaker who took on a Muslim apprentice.24 The fact that Ẓāhir al-‘Umar was prepared to arm Muslim as well as Christian inhabitants of Acre for common defense is perhaps more unusual. This step reflected not only Ẓāhir’s personal tolerance and broadmindedness, but also the localist character of his rule. For the whole period, we find no evidence of intercommunal tensions, though identification with one’s community existed by all means and was part of the general social order. Only when Abū al-Dhahab conquered Acre, there seems to have been some who whispered in his ears that the Christians had become too uppity.25
23We would like to know more about the social structure of the population, but evidence is meagre and relevant information remains maddeningly sporadic and anecdotal. The French reports cover in great detail the question of trade, and aspects of that are relevant for trade, but they have very little to say about the internai structure of society. The same is true for the accounts of European travellers. Major Arabic sources, such as ‘Abbūd, Mikhā’īl al- Ṣabbāgh and Haydar Aḥmad Shihāb, refer to social structure incidentally. Al-‘Awra, following his own interest and experience, reports in detail about the administration and its organization, but aspects of social organization appear only incidentally in his chronicle.
24Guilds, for instance, played in all comparable cities a major role. In addition to the important role they played in the organization of production, they frequently overlapped with Sufi organizations. As they included in many ways the families of their members, namely through training the young, providing goods for widows, guaranteeing price levels, etc., the guilds were a major force of social structuring. In reports concerning Acre, we hear, of course, about a variety of artisans and people in services: tassel makers and taylors, tobbacco sellers and gun powder merchants, shopkeepers and mule drivers, washers of corpses and prostitutes.26 May be the members of the professions in Acre were too few to form guilds. In any case, there is no evidence that guilds existed there. A French report mentions, under the name «les emballeurs», one group who packed raw cotton into baies for shipping, and who had a known head. Unfortunately, this report refers to Sidon and not to Acre.27 Though such workers must have existed in Acre as well, we cannot say whether they were organized in a guild. Throughout the whole period under investigation, Acre experienced intensive construction activities: private houses, churches and mosques, markets and khāns, aqueducts and roads were built and - what was by far the largest project over time - the fortifications of Acre were reconstructed and improvemed. Almost half the surface of Acre is taken by fortifications and by the citadel-cum-residence of the ruler. The masons and carpenters needed for such activities surely existed in sufficient numbers to form guilds. Again, there is no hint that guilds of masons or carpenters existed in Acre. There is evidence, on the contrary, of a very different sort of organizational framework for construction work. In connection with the many building activities undertaken by Sulaymān Pasha, especially between 1810 and 1815, we hear about two warsha (pl. wirash), workshops, or artisan ateliers. One consisted of masons, the other of carpenters. Their respective heads were called alfā (alpha). The head of the carpenter workshop was Boghus al-Armanī, and the head of the masons Yūsuf al-Ḥakīma. They were employed by government, and had scribes attached to them (most likely to keep the accounts of the workshops)28. These workshops were in charge of major public construction projects inside Acre, as well as in the wider realm of Acre. We have no information as to the number of carpenters, masons, etc. working in these ateliers. That they operated on a large scale, however, is evidenced by the number of beasts of burden kept in the workshops. At the time of Sulaymān Pasha’s death, the workshops had 400 mules, 400 donkeys and 300 camels.29 For handling of these animals alone, hundreds of drivers would be necessary. If we add to that the actual masons and carpenters, the workshops must have included the major part of the working population of Acre. The important point for our present investigation is that these workers were government paid and managed outfits, fulfilling the tasks that in other cities more independent minded guilds would fulfill. In other words, the Acre government played a dominant role not only in commerce and export, but also became the largest building contractor and purveyor of labor. Apparently, the government workshops already existed at the time of al-Jazzār. When in 1789 al-Jazzār was besieged by his rebellious Mamluks, he «mobilized the workers and the masons in the warsha and furnished them with arms.»30
25For greater projects, various populations were mobilized. In 1779, before moving to his new residence in Acre, al-Jazzār had the old fortifications and many of the city’s buildings repaired and reconstructed. For this purpose, he used corvée from the villages in the surroundings of Acre on a rotating rythm of three days.31 Occasionally, for instance when building the second wall around Acre, he would also use the city people, including Christians, as labor. Likewise, he used Metualis, especially for earth works, as forced labor.32 At occasions, people came voluntarily in search of work.33 Sulaymān Pasha used the same means. When he decided to remove all the earth entrenchments the French had thrown up in front of the fortifications of Acre, he ordered the workers of the warshas, all his scribes and administrators and practically every inhabitant of Acre to come out and help levelling these structures. When the Greek Catholic community refused to return on the second day Sulaymān had them locked out of their churches.34 A few years later, preparing against an imminent assault by the governor of Damascus, ‘Abdallāh Pasha took similar measures when he decided to eut a second moat around Acre and to have it filled with sea water. The whole population, rich and poor, old and young, had to corne out of the city, and with the help of wicker baskets, to remove earth from the ditch. Rations of bread and water were distributed at noon time, and only in the evening were the people allowed to retum to the city, the well-to-do returning before the poor.35
26To round up the picture, some other government enterprises should be mentioned here: there existed a government slaughterhouse36 and saltworks, managed by a government administrator.37 Private business and government enterprise were inseparably entangled when Ibrāhīm al- Ṣabbāgh founded a soap factory in Acre.38 Later, ‘Abdallāh Pasha made the production of soap an outright government monopoly.39
27Families that combined government service with entrepreneurial work such as the Sakrūj, Abu Qālush and al- Ṣabbāgh, were kept under relentless pressure and control. Though there existed obviously retail merchants in the new market built by Ẓāhir al-‘Umar, many areas of commerce, in particular the cotton trade, but also the olive oil and wheat trade, were government business. An urban elite made up of families producing international merchants as well as the top ‘ulamā’, so typical for other cities of the time, was absent in Acre and was, because of the government monopolies, systematically prevented from developping.
28The overwhelming dominance of the government establishment in Acre, in tenus of political power as well as economic control, is unparalleled in comparable Syrian cities. This situation originates in the monopolistic arrangement Ẓāhir al-‘Umar established with the French for the export of cotton, and which aimed at integrating the local economy into the world market. But if these patterns of government control of the economy could develop so successfully, it was only because of the peculiar characteristics of the society of Acre. While we have observed a certain coherence and continuity of dhimmī families working for the administration in Acre, most glaringly absent was an elite of strong, well established Muslim families filling a variety of functions in society. Al-Jazzār could kill the mufti and the qāḍī without qualms, since -in contrast to the situation in Damascus for instance - they had come from elsewhere and hence nobody in Acre would take up their case. If the population was frightened, submissive and patient, this was not caused, as Renaudot has suggested, by despotism, nor was it caused by the policy economic monopoly. Rather, these features could thrive thanks to a considerable weakness of the social structure and to the lack of urban elites, circumstances that can in turn be traced back to the fact that the society of Acre was completely made up of immigrants. These immigrants were not people who had migrated into a city and who had been absorbed into an already existing society; nor did they constitute a «frontier society», characterized by the remoteness of political authority. These immigrants were people who had come to an empty place, yet a place managed from the start by a strong - if not despotic - government.

Old Acre
1 Inner Wall (Ẓāhir al-‘Umar)
2 Outer Wall (Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzār)
3 Earth Works (‘Abdallāh Pasha)
4 al-Jazzār’s Mosque
5 al-Mu‘allaq Mosque
6 al-Raml Mosque
7 Shaykh Ghānim Shrine
8 Sinān Pasha Mosque
9 al-Zaytūn Mosque
10 St. John's Church
11 St. Andrew's Church 11a Our Lady Church
12 St. George’s Church
13 Latin Convent
14 Barracks
15 Arsenal
16 Citadel (Burj al-Khazna)
17 Old Serail (Bustā)
18 Residence of ‘Alī Pasha Katkhusā
19 Burj al-Kumandār
20 Burj Kurayyim
21 Burj el-Sancak
22 Burj al-Ḥadīd
23 Burj al-Sultān
24 Khan al-‘Umdān
25 Khān al-Shūna
26 Khān al-Faranj
27 Khān al-Shawarda
28 al-Sūq al-Abyaḍ
29 Ḥammām al-Bāshā
30 Ḥammām
31 Customs House
Notes de bas de page
1 Maundrell H., Reisebeschreibung nach dem Gel.Land, Hamburg, 1706, p. 428.
2 See Abdel Nour A., Introduction ā l’histoire urbaine de la Syrie Ottomane (xvie - xviiie siècles), Beirut, 1982 and Raymond A., Grandes villes arabes ā l’époque ottomane, Paris, 1985.
3 See for a summary Dichter B., The Maps of Acre- A Historical Cartography Acre, 1973, p. 70-98.
4 Wirth E., «Die Orientalische Stadt», Saeculum, XXV, 1975, p. 45-94.
5 See Map.
6 Seetzen U., Reisen durch Syrien, Palästina etc., 1806, Kruse F., ed.. Berlin. 1854, p. 90.
7 Renaudot speaks of almost half the population that has vanished, the rest being further threatened by famine; AN AE B1 979, 10 July 1886.
8 Al-‘Awra I., Tārīkh wilāyat Sulaymān Bāshā al-‘Ādil, Sidon, 1936, p. 186-188; AN AE CC St Jean d’Acre II, 15 March, 1813; 20 May, 1813. Al-‘Awra dates the plague to the end of 1811, one year earlier than when it actually started. The French consular reports confirm the high toll of the disease: between March and May every day ten and maximal 30 people died out of a total population of 5000. Between January and May some 1.800, or one third of the population had perished. If these figures, however, are correct, they leave us with a much lower population estimate than all other contemporary estimates.
9 AN AE B1 1040, Memoir sur le Commerce des français dans le Département du Consulas Gen-eral de Syrie et Palestine, 6 July 1783.
10 Already in 1773 de Taulés, the French consul in Sidon, reported al-Jazzār raising a jug of wine «as big as the club of Hercules» and saying: «On peut bien être rebelle au Grand Seigneur, quand on est rebelle ā Mahomet»; AN AE B1 1036, 30 Nov. 1773.
11 Shihāb Ḥ., Tārīkh Aḥmad Bāshā al-Jazzār, Beirut, 1955, p. 95.
12 Shihāb Ḥ., Aḥmad Bāshā al-Jazzār, p. 109.
13 Shihāb Ḥ., Aḥmad Bāshā al-Jazzār, p. 112, 113; Mishāqa M., Murder, Mayhem, Pillage and Plunder, Albany, 1988. Transl. from the Arabic ms. of Muntakhabāt min jawāb ’alā iqtirāḥ al-aḥbāb by W. Thackston, p. 28, 29; Al-JabartĪ ‘A.-R., ‘Ajā’ib al-āthārfī al-tarājim wa al- akhbār, Cairo, 1884, III, p. 232.
14 AN AE CC Acre vol III, 8 June 1816.
15 Shaykhū L„ «Mikhā’īl al-Baḥrī», al-Mashriq, III, 1900, p. 9-22; Shaykhū L., «Mikhā’īl al-Ṣabbāgh wa usratu-hu», al-Mashriq, VIII, 1905, p. 26.
16 With the exception of ’Alī Pasha, the Katkhudā of Sulaymān Pasha, who left Acre with his en tire household, Al-‘Awra I., Sulaymān Bāshā al- ‘Ādil, p. 186-188.
17 Al- Ṣabbāgh N., Tārikh al-shaykh Ẓāhir al-‘Umar al-Zaydām, Ḥarīsa, 1935, p. 56-57.
18 Al- Ṣabbāgh N., Ẓāhir al-‘Umar al-Zaydāni, p. 58.
19 Karāma R., Ḥawādith Lubnān wa Sūrīya min sana 1745 - 1855, Beirut, p. 34- 36.
20 See Shūrn., Toldot Akko, Tel Aviv, 1990, p. 196, quoting Mariti.
21 Al-‘Awra I., Sulaymān Bāshā al-‘Ādil, p. 177.
22 Al- Ṣabbāgh N., Ẓāhir al-‘Umar al-Zaydānī, p. 50-51; BustānĪ F., «MaẒāhir al-adāb fī balāṭ
Ẓāhir al-‘Umar», al- Mashriq. XLV, 1951, p. 235.
23 Al- Ṣabbāgh N., Ẓāhir al-‘Umar al-Zaydānī, p. 51; Mikhā’īl al-Baḥrī apparently collected the poems of al-’Umar’s sons and those of’Abd al-Halīm. He arrived around 1770 in Acre from Damascus where his father had moved to from Homs; ShaykhŪ L., «Mikhā’īl al-Baḥrī», p. 11.
24 Al-‘Awra T., Sulaymān Bāshā al- ‘Ādil, p. 397.
25 Al- Ṣabbāgh N., Ẓāhir al-‘Umar al-Zaydānī, p. 135.
26 Al-‘Awra I., Sulaymān Bāshā al- ‘Ādil, p. 150, 168, 370.
27 AN AE Bl, 1041, 5 March 1785.
28 Al-‘Awra I., Sulaymān Bāshā al- ‘Ādil, p. 160, 205, 208.
29 Al-‘Awra I., Sulaymān Bāshā al- ‘Ādil, p. 474.
30 Shihāb Ḥ., Aḥmad Bāshā al-Jazzār, p. 94.
31 Shihāb Ḥ., Aḥmad Bāshā al-Jazzār, p. 79.
32 Al-‘Awra I., Sulaymān Bāshā al- ‘Ādil, p. 15, 35.
33 Clarkee. D., Travels in Various Countries London, 1812,p. 164,observed 1801about Nazereth: A wretched poor place from where people are continually leaving, either leaving the country or going to Acre to work on the sites of fortification constructions.
34 Al-‘Awra I., Sulaymān Bāshā al- ‘Ādil, p. 368.
35 Carne J., Letters from the East, 2 vols., London 1826, II, p. 54-56.
36 Shihāb H., Aḥmad Bāshā al-Jazzār, p. 89 calls it malḥama; Al-‘Awra I., Sulaymān Bāshā al- ‘Ādil, p. 160 calls it qaṣṣābkhāna
37 Al-‘Awra I., Sulaymān Bāshā al- ‘Ādil, p. 160.
38 ShaykhŪ L., «Mikhā’īl al- Ṣabbāgh wa usratu-hu», p. 27.
39 AN AE CC Acre V, 17 April 1830.
Auteur
-
Thomas Philipp
Universität Erlangen - Allemagne
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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