Author: Professor İsmail Erünsal
Introduction and Arabic translation: Dr Ahmed Abdullah Najm
Turkish archival documents and sources rank among the most important historical sources, not only for the study of the Ottoman state itself but also for the history of a great many Arab countries. Egypt is a case in point: there, the Ottoman era constituted a long chapter whose imprint was felt across every sphere of political, cultural, economic and social life. These documents and sources serve as windows onto knowledge which, if read and engaged with judiciously by the historian of those countries, may help him assemble the mosaic of that vast mural which is his nation’s history. The more this body of source material, across its successive periods, is rendered accessible through translation to those who do not read Turkish in either its Ottoman or its modern form, the broader the horizons and the wider the window that open before the historian, carrying him from mere spectator of this history to participant in its writing.
This, in turn, may help to counter the bias that has afflicted the field of Ottoman studies and the appraisal of the Ottoman civilisational legacy. Such bias is no recent phenomenon; it is, rather, the product of long years of neglect and condescension in engaging with this period of Arab and Islamic history, at times compounded, as the tide of nationalism rose, by outright hostility. Yet the Ottoman state occupied a vast expanse of space and time in Islamic history, enduring for more than six centuries, during which it played pivotal roles. It extended the frontiers of the Islamic world through its conquests in Europe, most notably the conquest of Constantinople. It also stood as a bulwark against European ambitions in the Islamic and Arab worlds, thereby shielding Muslims from the twin perils of Christianisation and colonialism which befell a number of Asian and African countries once that state had weakened in later periods.
It is within this context that the present translation from the Turkish is offered, setting forth a fresh perspective advanced by one eminently qualified to speak on the matter: the distinguished Turkish historian Professor İsmail Erünsal, in his study entitled “Did the Ottomans Plunder the Waqf Libraries of the Arab Provinces?” (Fethedilen Arap Ülkelerindeki Vakıf Kütüphaneleri Osmanlılar Tarafından Yağmalandı mı?), published in 2014 in The Journal of Ottoman Studies.
The study represents an attempt to refute, or, if one may so put it, to dismantle, a civilisational charge that has stood for more than five centuries, and it does so on the strength of documents and sources written in Turkish. Offered by one of the foremost historians of contemporary Turkey, this study may well have succeeded in answering this question, or rather this accusation; at the very least, it has made a serious attempt to do so. In either case, it presents a new perspective that invites engagement, debate and even rejection, within a scholarly framework marked by impartiality and a disinterested commitment to historical truth, freed from the constraints of the narrow nationalist outlook that can so readily fetter studies of this kind in Ottoman history.
It may be stated with a measure of confidence that this study, which offers an alternative perspective on a significant historical question and whose translation is presented in the pages that follow, stands as evidence of the contribution Turkish documents and sources can make to revising certain narratives that Arab historiography has, by common accord, been wont to repeat, or, at the very least, to reconsidering how they are viewed. Ultimately, alongside documents and sources in other languages, it may help to complete the picture of Ottoman rule over Egypt and the Arab world in its many dimensions.
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