New Trends in Egyptian Historiography of the Ottoman Period. A German-Egyptian Encounter

New Trends in Egyptian Historiography of the Ottoman Period. A German-Egyptian Encounter

Organizer(s)
The workshop was organized jointly by Magdi Guirguis (Fellow of Europe in the Middle East / The Middle East in Europe), Georges Khalil (Coordinator of Europe in the Middle East/ The Middle East in Europe, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin), Ulrike Freitag and Nora Lafi (ZMO).
Location
Berlin
Country
Germany
From - Until
14.03.2007 -
Conf. Website
By
Nora Lafi, Zentrum Moderner Orient Berlin

Last March, at the Zentrum Moderner Orient Berlin was organized a German-Egyptian workshop on the directions of contemporary Egyptian historiography. This activity was part of the "Cities Compared: Cosmopolitanism in the Mediterranean and Adjacent Regions" research project, that is directed by Prof. Ulrike Freitag and Dr. Nora Lafi (ZMO) and that is part of the research initiative "Europe in the Middle-East / The Middle-East in Europe" (EUME). The workshop was also organized by Dr. Magdi Guirguis (EUME Fellow) and Georges Khalil (EUME Coordinator, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin), with the help of Dr. Dana Sajdi and Dr. Shaden Tageldin (EUME Fellows).

Since several years Egyptian historiography is changing in a profound way. A new generation of historians is revisiting the heritage of the nationalist and Marxist schools of historical writing in Egypt through a set of new questions and methods. A younger generation of Egyptian historians refocus their research to questions of relationship between state and society, between religion and society, between elites and ordinary people, and between the local and the global. While much of Egyptian History in the past has been written through the perspective of institutional local and colonial archives, younger Egyptian historians build their research on thorough investigations of new local archival material and the exploration of the central Ottoman archives in Istanbul. Many of these inquiries investigate the pre-Napoleonic and pre-Muhammed Ali Ottoman Period in Egypt and suggest a different interpretation of the confrontation with the ambiguous modernity the 19th c. brought.

The ZMO workshop offered an introduction and illustration of these new methods and stakes in the writing of Egyptian history, with a focus on archival resources, methods of investigation and heuristic paradigms. It was conceived as an occasion to present and discuss ongoing research on the Ottoman period between Egyptian and German based researchers. This perspective proved efficient, with very interesting dialogues and exchanges of ideas, methods and results.

In her introduction, Dr. Nora Lafi presented the general historiographical panorama of Egyptian research in the last few decades and proposed some thematic tracks to be explored in the wake of the present renewal. Among these tracks, she underlined the importance of a collective reflection on the chronological definition of the Ottoman period in Egypt, in order to explore the theme of local autonomy in the Empire. She also insisted on the importance of a renewal in the use and interpretation of archival resources and of the diffusion of a critical perspective on the heritage of colonial paradigms. In order to promote a renewed history of the Ottoman period in Egypt, she suggested the exploration of the followings themes: local relays of the imperial power, local accommodations of the imperial dimension, evolution of local institutions, role of the notables, evolution of the position of the individual into the broader social framework, evolution of the role of religion in society, evolution of the “living together” ottoman features during the reforms. Dr. Magdi Guirguis presented the panel of Egyptian historians who had been invited to this event. During the first session, with Dr. Shaden Tageldin as a discussant, Prof. Elsayed Mohammad Achmawi (Cairo University) confronted to the theme of Egyptian approaches to the Ottoman period. Dr. Malte Fuhrmann (ZMO), in a comparative perspective, proposed a similar look at Turkish and German Ottoman historiographies. Dr. Mohammad Sabri ad-Dali (Hilwan University, Cairo) disserted on the role of Sufi narratives in the building of a political sphere in Egypt (16th-17th c.) and Nasser Abd Allah Osman Abo Zead (Azhar University) on the relationship between Ulema and Society in 16th-17th c. Egypt.

The second session, with Dr. Dana Sajdi as a discussant, featured Karima Thabet El Sayed Ghoneem (Mansoura University: Law and Politics in Ottoman Cairo), Dr. Florian Riedler (ZMO: “History from below” in an Ottoman Context), Dr. Hossam Mohammad Abd Almity (Bani-Sueif University: Merchants and State in 18th c. Egypt), Dr. Nasser Ahmed Ibrahim Soliman (Cairo University: The Copts and the French Occupation of Egypt), Rizq Hassan Ahmed Noury (Cairo University: Corruption and Administration in Egypt at the time of Mohammad Ali) and Nasra Abd Elmotagaly Ibrahim Aly (Banha University: Society and State in 18th and 19th c. Rural Egypt). The discussion allowed a sharing of perspectives on method and questionings, with a focus on the way of analysing society and powers between history from below and what the history of the elites still has to teach us about the functioning of urban institutions.

In conjunction to this workshop, a visit to the archives of the German Foreign Office was organised for participants by Dr. Silke Nagel (ZMO), an event that reinforced the common experience of reflection on innovative uses of archival materials.

Contact (announcement)

Dr. Nora Lafi
Zentrum Moderner Orient
Kirchweg 33
14129 Berlin, Germany
Tel: + 49 30 80 307 239

Chair (with Prof. Ulrike Freitag) of the research programme on "Cosmopolitanism in Mediterranean Cities", Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin

http://www.zmo.de
Editors Information
Published on
22.06.2007
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English
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