THE OTTOMAN TURN + SEARCH FOR STANDARD OF TRUTH
In the past few decades, historiographical methods have transformed considerably to accommodate an increasingly globalized world. Historians working today must grapple with not only the increasing complexity of new ideas, but must also revisit the validity of old ones. As history marches forward, so too does the evolution of the methodological techniques used to describe it. This especially the case within the Middle East. Intellectual currents in the 20th century have carried Middle Eastern historiography far from its old Orientalist roots, towards a greater recontextualization of the region into the history of the Ottoman empire as a whole.
Within the sphere of historiographical methodology, there seems to be two key themes that dominate the discourse. First, the construction of the modern itself, and second, the rejection of Orientalism. With foundational analyses from the likes of Gramsci and Foucault, contemporary historians have various frameworks to consider when writing history. Critical examination of the constructed conditions we live under, and how these conditions affect our thinking, is necessary. The relation of the state to power, and therefore to human beings, is an area of study that historical projects today tend to pay close attention to. For instance, concepts such as the nation-state itself, as well as the meaning of tradition, are all part of a broader modern epistemic trend in our shared human history. The goal of historians in revisiting the ways in which we think about these ideas is to “peel back the layers” of modernity that have fogged our conception of reality. The result of this process should produce a rigorous and objective methodology, free from the constraints of prescribed narratives that have been inherited from prior epistemic assumptions.
As a part of the postcolonial trend in historiography beginning in the 1960s, scholars working today are sensitive to the ways in which the Western academy has impacted supposedly empirical literature on the East. Beginning with Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978, historians today are keenly aware of the tendencies of the academy to essentialize and exoticize the Eastern world, and this is particularly the case with the Middle East, which has traditionally been the subject of the Western world’s imagination. In order to deal with this problem, historians have taken various approaches. One such approach is the cultural approach, whose driving force is the search for a standard of truth. This results in a questioning of how culture plays a role in the development of knowledge generally, as well as within the natural sciences themselves, which have traditionally been embraced as objective and rational. Thus, cultural historians pose a challenge to the influence of Enlightenment rationality in the Western context. For example, a historian may choose to write microhistories, focusing on the lives and in-context cultural environments of people on the ground, rather than attempting to construct a larger historical narrative, which are often themselves the products of cultural change. After all, choosing what data is relevant to collect, measure, and use in the first place is a result of what we collectively and culturally deem to be valuable. The quest for truth will forever plague history as a field of inquiry, but each new historical project brings us closer to understanding.
For the Arab Middle East, the Orientalism problem is tied up in the Islam question. This is important because it means that critical re-evaluation of Islam is a worthy endeavour, to better investigate whether the Arab Middle East is an exception or the norm to existing historical trends. For example, Aziz al-Asmeh’s Islams and Modernities works to undo the notion of a single, fixed Islam, and suggests instead that a plurality exists in the way that Islam is experienced by the Muslim community. Likewise, Talal Asad encourages “thinking as Muslims do”, in order to produce historical work that is more conducive to the realities of living peoples and histories. This type of discourse seems to be wrapped up in ideas surrounding returning agency to the studied and the subaltern, whose voices have been traditionally marginalized in their own stories. Undoubtedly, like all types of historical analysis, this is a venture that is fraught with its own set of unique problems.
The second main trend within discourse on the modern Middle East is the extent of the involvement of the Ottoman empire on developments in the Arab world. Historians today are seriously questioning whether the history of the Arab Middle East can be disarticulated from historical narratives in the surrounding geographic regions, and the globe more broadly. In the view of those who believe that the Ottoman legacy is important to the Middle East, smaller histories are situated amidst other relevant, broader historical transformations. For example, the postwar development of ideas related to sovereignty and rights are phenomena that have spread and disseminated on a global scale, and therefore, are relevant to the discussion of regional histories. Use of historical timelines together with recording where and how epistemological transformations take place aids in pinpointing relevant moments to the understanding of modernity in the Middle East.
No other historical phenomena articulates this phenomenon better than the Tanzimat. This topic is deeply interrelated with the creation of the modern insofar as the Ottoman empire inducting its population into the modern world system. The Hatti-I Sharif of Gulhane rewrote subjects into citizens, which subsequently prompted these newly created citizens to engage in practical activities that reinforced the created “citizenship” identity. By the time the Islahat Fermani was issued in 1856, Ottoman citizens were readily equipped to realize and engage with these new modern epistemic processes, as evident through petitions and complaints filed with the government in Istanbul. In Ottoman Manufacturing in the Nineteenth Century, Quataert states that both European competition abroad and subsequently the reforms brought about by the Tanzimat that prioritized the free market devastated the Istanbul craft guild community. This linkage demonstrates that economies, politics, and social life do not work in isolation, but rather, that global capitalist change had begun to interweave itself into every aspect of human life. Therefore, it seems to be largely undeniable that the empire played a massive role in passing on modern mentalities to the Middle East.
This new modern world order was rapidly preceded by the fall of the empire. It seems that the combination of both the creation of the modern Ottoman subject and then the subsequent rapid transition into a post-Ottoman environment created historical conditions that resulted in what is now the modern Middle East. In Remapping the Modern Middle East, Emerence describes various factors that contributed to transformation in the Ottoman empire– the intersections of “economy on the coast, politics in the interior, and contention in the frontier”. In each of these regions, Emerence argues, a distinct identity emerged. The heterogeneous landscape of the late empire lends credit to the idea that a unified vision of the Middle East was unlikely, especially amidst such massive global upheaval. In spite of this, historians today still question whether the “self-determination” discourse in the immediate aftermath of 1917 truly dissolved imperial domination, or whether it merely rearranged power structures briefly.
The inextricable link between social, political, and economical processes is bound up in history. Thus, it seems that the historian’s work is both to provide a focus for these processes, and to find meaning within them, without imbuing them with their own images. Overall, the historiographical trajectory of the modern Middle East seems to be undeniably embedded within the larger historical context of the Ottoman empire, as well as the modernizing process of the world at large. Today’s scholars of the Middle East are looking to revise the Orientalist scholarship of old and reclaim histories that were damaged by colonial onlookers. This comes with rigorous examination of existing methodologies and structures, challenging what we truly know about the act of historicizing, of being tasked with writing humanity’s record. Though the challenges of this task are numerous, thanks to the critical reevaluations that have been taking place within the field, certainly a bright future lies ahead for scholars who are eager to do the work.