Dana Sajdi
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804785327
- eISBN:
- 9780804788281
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804785327.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This chapter ventures into the nineteenth century and examines the bowdlerized version of Ibn Budayr's chronicle as “edited and refined” by the Damascene scholar, Muḥamad Sa`īd al-Qāsimī. The chapter ...
More
This chapter ventures into the nineteenth century and examines the bowdlerized version of Ibn Budayr's chronicle as “edited and refined” by the Damascene scholar, Muḥamad Sa`īd al-Qāsimī. The chapter juxtaposes the two versions to expose the variances between the two texts and hence examines the historical vision and the ideological import of the editor's alterations to the barber's chronicle. Al-Qāsimī was a transitional figure who bridged the premodern scribal age to the print age of al-Nahḍa. Al-Qāsimī's Nahḍa- informed ideas about correct language and content of history leads him to alter both the content and form of the chronicle in such a way as to mute the barber's voice and “put him back in his place.” The purpose of the editor is to recreate the barber's book as a record of a Damascene heritage (turāth).Less
This chapter ventures into the nineteenth century and examines the bowdlerized version of Ibn Budayr's chronicle as “edited and refined” by the Damascene scholar, Muḥamad Sa`īd al-Qāsimī. The chapter juxtaposes the two versions to expose the variances between the two texts and hence examines the historical vision and the ideological import of the editor's alterations to the barber's chronicle. Al-Qāsimī was a transitional figure who bridged the premodern scribal age to the print age of al-Nahḍa. Al-Qāsimī's Nahḍa- informed ideas about correct language and content of history leads him to alter both the content and form of the chronicle in such a way as to mute the barber's voice and “put him back in his place.” The purpose of the editor is to recreate the barber's book as a record of a Damascene heritage (turāth).
Dana Sajdi
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804785327
- eISBN:
- 9780804788281
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804785327.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This book is about a barber, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr (fl. 1761), who shaved and coiffed, and probably circumcised and healed, in Damascus in the eighteenth century. The barber wrote a history ...
More
This book is about a barber, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr (fl. 1761), who shaved and coiffed, and probably circumcised and healed, in Damascus in the eighteenth century. The barber wrote a history book, a chronicle of the events that took place in his city during his lifetime. Examining the “life and work” of Ibn Budayr, the book uncovers the emergence of a larger trend of history writing by unusual authors—people outside the learned establishment—and identifies a new phenomenon: nouveau literacy. In addition to offering a microhistory of the barber and his work, this book discusses the social and literary aspects of nouveau literacy within the context of a changing social, political, and urban topography in the eighteenth-century Levant. Nouveau literacy is about the emergence of authority among various social groups as a result of new material and cultural wealth. Like the barber, the other nouveau literates use their chronicles to display their improved positions and to navigate a new social order. Finally, the book examines a later edition of the barber's history by the nineteenth-century scholar, Muḥammad Sa`īd al-Qāsimī (d. 1900), to show how the editorial interventions by a figure of al-Nahḍa (Arab Renaissance) served to silence the barber's voice.Less
This book is about a barber, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr (fl. 1761), who shaved and coiffed, and probably circumcised and healed, in Damascus in the eighteenth century. The barber wrote a history book, a chronicle of the events that took place in his city during his lifetime. Examining the “life and work” of Ibn Budayr, the book uncovers the emergence of a larger trend of history writing by unusual authors—people outside the learned establishment—and identifies a new phenomenon: nouveau literacy. In addition to offering a microhistory of the barber and his work, this book discusses the social and literary aspects of nouveau literacy within the context of a changing social, political, and urban topography in the eighteenth-century Levant. Nouveau literacy is about the emergence of authority among various social groups as a result of new material and cultural wealth. Like the barber, the other nouveau literates use their chronicles to display their improved positions and to navigate a new social order. Finally, the book examines a later edition of the barber's history by the nineteenth-century scholar, Muḥammad Sa`īd al-Qāsimī (d. 1900), to show how the editorial interventions by a figure of al-Nahḍa (Arab Renaissance) served to silence the barber's voice.
