Grehan Legend of Samarmar

THE LEGEND OF THE SAMARMAR: PARADES AND COMMUNAL IDENTITY IN SYRIAN
TOWNS c. 1500-1800
Author(s): James Grehan
Source: Past & Present , AUGUST 2009, No. 204 (AUGUST 2009), pp. 89-125
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/40586923
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THE LEGEND OF THE SAMARMAR:
PARADES AND COMMUNAL IDENTITY
IN SYRIAN TOWNS c. 1 500-1 800
The locusts first appeared outside Damascus in the spring of

1747, the latest in a cycle of infestations that, throughout re-
corded history, had descended upon southern Syria every few
decades. To the townspeople who lived through it, the sight was
terrifying. 'The locusts came like a black cloud', remembered
the chronicler Ahmad al-Budayri, a barber from Damascus.
'They covered everything: the trees and the crops. May God
Almighty save us'.1 Their arrival - as always, right before the
spring harvest - threatened the food supply and created a gen-
uine civic emergency. Yet in spite of the palpable fear and despair
in the chronicler's words, the communal response was not at all
fatalistic. First to act was the governor, Esad Pa§a al-cAzm, who
drew from an armoury of seemingly immemorial weapons against
the locusts. He appointed two Sufis, local 'experts' in these mat-
ters, to bring water from a sacred spring in Persia, near Isfahan.
Local lore held that this water, which had a magical potency,
would attract a mysterious black bird, the 'samarmar', which
would swoop down on the locusts and devour them. The Sufis
went on their way, remembering the strict instructions for carry-
ing the water. Once they had drawn it from the spring, they could
not look back, pass with it under any roof, or allow it to touch the
ground. If they could fulfil all these conditions, a cloud of black
birds would slowly follow in their train. The next month, the Sufis
returned with their precious cargo.2 They circled Damascus in a
big parade of banners and music. Onlookers deliriously wept and
wailed. To hasten the arrival of the samarmar, the authorities
immediately began distributing the water. They hung buckets
in high points around the city: from the minarets of the grand
Umayyad Mosque, from the Takiyya Sulaymaniyya built under
Süleyman the Magnificent, and at the shrine of the thirteenth-
century mystic Ibn cArabi. The governor kept the rest in his
1 Ahmad al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-yawmiyya [Everyday Events of Damas-

cus], ed. Ahmad Izzat cAbd al-Karim (Cairo, 1959), 73-4.
z Ibid., 81.
Past and Present, no. 204 (August 2009) © The Past and Present Society, Oxford, 2009
doi: 10.1 093/pastj/gtp024

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90 PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER 204
palace, and made plans to put it in the Haw

to the south from which the city obtained
everyone waited.
Witnesses tell us nothing again until the
locusts had apparently burrowed into the
re-emerging in new swarms. The gover
action this time. He issued orders for tow
to begin collecting and burying them in n
and in the non-Muslim cemeteries. To e
imposed quotas and fines. Suddenly, electr
racing through the city. Peasants in two n
flocks of the samarmar approaching. The c
tions. Townspeople decorated the markets.
of the city, accompanied by a crowd of me
who were weeping and beseeching God
Damascus, the work continued. Strangely
of locusts seemed to be increasing; effort
proving futile. As the alarm grew, Ibrahim
city's most famous Sufis, led yet another p
and drums. The parade wound down to th
Zaynab, granddaughter of the prophet Mu
assembled Sufis prayed until evening. At th
returned to the city and circled it, stoppi
governor's palace. Before dispersing, they
a Sufi ceremony in which the leader of th
backs of his prone disciples, who would
of faith, rise without any signs of injury
authorities convened communal prayers
work.3 As the days passed, the initial euph
mar never came, and the locusts went on
mous feast.
What are we to make of this chain of events? So far as the
townspeople of eighteenth-century Damascus were concerned,
they were undertaking emergency measures which were long
familiar to their community - periodically organized, as we
shall see, since at least the sixteenth century. The spectacle
unfolded as if they were enacting some unspoken script: the
departure of the Sufis; the hallowed procedures for their mission;
the homecoming to parades; the hanging up of buckets; and the
3 Ibid., 88-93.

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THE LEGEND OF THE SAMARMAR 9 1
anxious wait for the samarmar. Everyone - from Ott

cials, to Sufi masters, to onlookers at Sufi parades - s
take their place in an elaborate drama, or at least to u
how it ought to be played out. 'Preserved' only in writ
these ceremonies must, in retrospect, appear rather m
Even eyewitnesses would have known little about the
these beliefs, the means of their diffusion to Damasc
geographical extent of their circulation by the eighteen
Nevertheless, each of these scenes clearly held great s
for the community, which pinned their hopes on them
ing a natural disaster.
Some basic assumptions of the participants are fairly
belief in magic and the existence of exotic creatures
places; the continuous need for prayer; and the wisdom
ing a few practical measures as well. But it is not simpl
of what people believed. Collective action was necessar
to this communal response, and part and parcel of
identity itself, was the use of public processions, wh
either to activate magical potions or to appeal for divi
the name of the entire city. How did Damascenes - or
matter, other townspeople in Ottoman Syria - receiv
pret these spectacles?
In early modern Europe, processions served as one o
interesting barometers of cultural change. In the sha
Enlightenment, the old rituals of religion and kingsh
much of their efficacy by the eighteenth century, an
inspire awe and fear. Increasingly, Europeans view
empty shows, which had lost their hold on their
During the same period, nothing so dramatic occur
Ottoman Middle East. As the legend of the samarm
demonstrates, public processions maintained their rel
state and society alike, and continued to excite popula
But if no new attitudes called urban ritual into question, we
should not simply infer the triumph of hidebound 'tradition'.
This apparent timelessness was precisely the effect that early
modern political culture - whether in the Ottoman Empire or
4 Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Perception
and Communication (New York, 1987), ch. 16; Carlo M. Cipolla, Faith, Reason, and the
Plague in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany, trans. Muriel Kittel (Ithaca, 1979).

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92 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 204
elsewhere - so often sought to achie

managed illusion of continuity, which n
and explained, the ritual repertoire of S
gradual modification from the sixteenth
The original impetus for these changes
conquest of Syria and Egypt (1516-17),
long-reigning Mamluk dynasty (1250-
integration into a new imperial order.
consequences were the administrative a
Ottomans soon implanted in their new p
to see is the extent to which Ottoman rule unleashed broader
cultural transformations, beyond the direct mechanisms of gov-
ernment; for over its full range, the interaction between Ottoman
state and provincial society assumed cultural as well as political
forms. Public ritual offers a telling gauge of this Ottomanization',
by which elements of a distinctively Ottoman pageantry and style
made their way into a local ceremonial code that had fully
emerged by the late medieval period.
As an early modern empire, the Ottoman state faced ideo-
logical (as well as more obvious administrative) constraints that
it routinely - and often quite willingly - had to recognize and
accept. Thus Ottomanization was an uneven process, recasting
some urban spectacles even as it left others relatively untouched.
To account for these differences, we first need to look at the var-
iety of processions and gatherings that Syrian towns organized,
and then to explore the terms on which communal and dynastic
identity responded and adapted to one another. Only after recre-
ating this wider ritual history can we return to the legend of the
samarmar and begin to make sense of its long life cycle: its murky
origins; the specialized ceremonial niche that it came to inhabit in
early modern Syria; and the reasons for its enduring appeal.
SUFIS ON PARADE: RELIGION AND PUBLIC SPECTACLE
One of the most salient features in the processions held for

samarmar was the ritual leadership of the Sufis. Even though
5 For the parallels in early modern Europe, where urban processions also relied
'fiction of unchangeability', see Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, 2n
(New York, 2005), 260-1.

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THE LEGEND OF THE SAMARMAR 93
governor of Damascus was the one who had origin

their participation, and had formally dispatched t
he thereafter retreated into the background. Withi
the whole affair had fallen into the hands of reli
Many of these responsibilities plainly grew out of
gious authority and charisma. They represented th
dition within Islam, and were generally credite
esoteric knowledge about the cosmos.6 They wo
seem to stand out as natural candidates to activate an arcane
ritual for the summoning of a magical bird. Indeed, they took
these duties in their stride. As if executing a well-rehearsed per-
formance, they went off to the sacred spring and soon returned
with the precious water. Without asking anyone, they then con-
ducted their own parade, advertised with their own banners and
music. As the infestation of locusts dragged into the next year, the
Sufis did not hesitate to launch further parades, as they saw fit,
and even marched up to the gate of the governor's palace. They
took these measures on their own initiative, as if they knew best
and would have been surprised by any criticism of their actions.
No one in Damascus thought that any of these processions, or
that the Sufis' ease in sponsoring them, were the least bit odd or
out of place. One reason for this broad acceptance was the
common sight of many other processions, sanctioned by religion
or custom, passing through the streets of Syrian towns. Most were
small-time affairs that revolved around neighbourhood or family
life and needed no permission from the authorities. One popular
ceremony, eagerly staged by any family that had the means, was
the passage of a new bride's trousseau to her future house.7 Other
gatherings were the ragtag parades (arada) of the backstreets,
celebrating circumcisions, religious holidays, or the return of pil-
grims from the holy cities of Mecca and Medina; among the most
enthusiastic participants were local youths, who, as part of the
festivities, might engage in games with rivals from neighbouring
quarters.8 Most common of all these popular processions were
6 Among these reputed powers was the ability to keep locusts at bay: Muhammad al-
Muhibbi, Khulasat al-athrfi ay an al-qarn al-hadi 'ashar [The Essence of the Deeds of
the Notables of the Eleventh Century], 4 vols. (Beirut, n.d.), i, 424.
bee, tor example, Abraham Marcus, 1 he Middle hast on the bve oj Modernity: Aleppo
in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1989), 203, 272, 323.
8 Philip S. Khoury, 'Syrian Urban Politics in Transition: The Quarters of Damascus
during the French Mandate', Internat. Jl Middle East Studies, xvi ( 1 984); J. Lecerf and
R. Tresse, 'Les Arada de Damas', Bulletin d'études orientales, vii-viii (1937-8). At the
(cont. on p. 94)

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94 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 204
the funerals that wound out nearly every

the outskirts of town. Burials of the most
might become communal events, attrac
mourners and official honours from the
the most devotion was the death of relig
fame and prestige reflected glory on the
Hanafi (d. 1542/3), a former Janissary
much affection for his piety and merit
local religious foundations in Aleppo. On
the governor ordered the entire city into mo
the markets in his memory.9 It was a gran
of ordinary processions that contempo
leaving their city every day.
What made Sufi parades different from
cessions found in neighbourhoods and c
was their relative freedom. Ever since the
Sufism in the late medieval period, they
leeway in staging ritual performance, freely
tive rites and gestures into urban space. 10
about venturing into the streets and taking t
open spaces surrounding the towns, fa
Among their favourite destinations were l
(n. 8cont.)
end of the Mamluk period, many of the carãda were pe
bourhood gangs, who, even in the early years of Ottom
local politics. The rebel governor, Canbirdi al-Ghaza
forces (1521), declaring that they were not fighti
Ottomans from their womenfolk. See Ibn Jum'a,
Governors and the Judges], in Wulat Dimashqfi al-ah
of Damascus in the Ottoman Era], ed. Salah al-Din al-
Ira M. Lapidus, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages , 2
Under the Ottoman administration, the parading co
Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-yawmiyya, ed. cAbd a
Yawmiyat shamiyya [Damascene Journals], ed. Akra
249.
9 Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn al-Hanbali, Durr al-habab fi tarikh dyan Halab
[Sparkling Pearls in the History of the Notables of Aleppo], 2 vols. (Damascus,
1972-4), i, 328. For the closing of Damascus upon the death of cAbd al-Ghani al-
Nabulsi (d. 1731), see Muhammad Khalil al-Muradi, Silk al-durarfi dyan al-qarn al-
thani cashar [A String of Pearls of the Notables of the Twelfth Century], 4 vols. (Beirut,
1988), iii, 37-8. References to crowds attending the funerals of urban notables are
numerous in the biographical sources.
For a discussion of Sufi parading in Mamluk Cairo, see Boaz bhoshan, lJopular
Culture in Medieval Cairo (Cambridge, 1993), 11, 17.

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THE LEGEND OF THE S AMARMAR 9 5
where they would pray and honour some revered fo

guiding light from the Sufi tradition. Syria was particul
nate in holding the graves of many celebrated figure
Islamic history, mostly Companions of the prophet
or members of his household, all of whom had beco
for local pilgrims and supplicants. Sufis enthusias
these sites into their own rituals. To take a fairly u
episode from the town of Horns: in April 1710, we h
order parading out to one of the most famous religiou
in central Syria, the tomb of Khalid ibn al-Walid (d.
Muslim military commander. In the afternoon, they
a second shrine, where they prayed again. Returning t
capped the day by performing the düsa. As their shay
their backs, his disciples shouted declarations of faith
mand.11 This outing was remarkable mostly for its o
The rituals were fairly standard, and were frequent
We learn of it simply because a local chronicler bother
note of it and write down the news. Most impressive
and flair of the parade, which always caught the atte
temporaries. As they recognized, no other social o
independent of official patronage, could match the
or pageantry of Sufi ceremonies. The Sufi orders co
call upon their own members, draw on their own re
flaunt their own stock of familiar symbols. The state
Sufi participation in communal spectacles, as happ
rituals of the samarmar; but even without official pr
Sufis were capable of staging their own events as the
This public assertiveness on the part of Sufi leader
surprising in view of their connection with mystical I
paradox immediately melts away when we look mor
their social position. Although they represented a
pious meditation and introspection, only a few S
gave themselves up to a life of spiritual exercises. Mo
of Sufi orders pursued their workaday lives; only in thei
would they socialize at their Sufi lodge or participat
monies. Even the Sufi shaykhs, who headed all these
orders, were worldly figures who have to be clas
1 1 Muhammad al-Makki, Tarikh Hints: yawmiyat [The History of H

ed. Umar Najib al-'Umar (Damascus, 1987), 150-1. For other pro
shrine: ibid., 217, 244. For another description of the düsa, see Ibn Ka
shamiyya, ed. al-'Ulabi, 1 17-18.

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other urban notables. Many came from

had long run their own lodges and acqu
grees. One manifestation of this charism
spiritual energy that passed from the most
their successors. Other beliefs credited th
the ability to perform miracles or foret
this religious prestige and elevated spirit
rewards: urban property, management
(waqf), commercial interests, tax-farms
showered by the state. Sufis belonged t
order, and, notwithstanding occasional
officials, stood firmly behind it. Their lodg
extensive social networks. More than spi
bours and disciples, Sufi shaykhs were
of distributing material largesse and
supporters.
Sufis were not shy about demonstrating their social impor-
tance. In public appearances, they passed through the streets in
noisy processions of drums, flutes and horns that mimicked ele-
ments of the dhikr, their ceremonial prayer in which they chanted
the name of God and, in some orders, danced or whirled. Among
their most indispensable accoutrements were banners, which
acted as the equivalent of identity badges. Each order had its
own colours and designs, which it jealously guarded from
others. When Muhammad al-Iskaf (d. 1524/5), a Sufi shaykh
from Aleppo, joined the Qadiriyya order, a delegation from the
Ahmadiyya order, to which he had first belonged, descended on
his house in a rage. Tempers calmed only after they noticed ban-
ners from both orders fluttering together outside: the red of the
Ahmadiyya next to the green of the Qadiriyya. The shaykh had
symbolically declared his dual allegiance, which was a perfectly
acceptable decision in view of the many Sufis who had sought
initiation into more than one lodge. The crowd that gathered
for vengeance was a measure of Sufi popularity, and showed
how quickly their followings could assemble. In a significant
detail, our contemporary chronicler dismisses them merely as
'ignorant ones', which in the condescending shorthand of many
literate observers puts them firmly among the working-class pop-
ulation of the town.12 It was precisely from the artisans and day-
12Ibn al-Hanbali, Durr al-habab, ii, 89.

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labourers, who looked up to Sufi masters for relig

and social assistance., that the orders drew their ra
their ceremonial tours around town, Sufi leaders c
their numerous devotees, fervent and boisterous,
name and magnify their status.
Heads of the big orders went everywhere wit
escorts, who with their colour and commotion effectively
announced the arrival of a dignitary. Badr al-Din al-Jabawi (d.
1626/7), a famous Sufi from Damascus, would occasionally visit
Aleppo. In typical Sufi style, he and his followers entered with a
great fanfare of banners, drums and flutes. At the Umayyad
Mosque, his disciples staged their version of the dhikr, creating
a sensation as they fell to the ground in spiritual rapture.13
Augmenting such processions were the spontaneous welcomes
that might attend their arrival. A distinguished Sufi might find
himself swept up into a full-blown Sufi parade swollen by local
onlookers who had come for a glance at a living source of precious
baraka. Even in the countryside, a Sufi master, moving along the
roads with his own entourage, might inspire ceremonial tributes.
cAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi (1641-1731), one of the great scholars
and mystics of the Ottoman period, found himself ushered into
the village of Jenin (1 690) with a procession of banners and drums
arranged by the resident Sufi shaykh.14 Only the most self-
effacing Sufis, determined to live out the highest ideals of modesty
and virtue, would forgo such pomp and celebrity, refusing to let
even their own followers stage parades on their behalf.15
The Sufis' uninhibited appropriation of urban space is all the
more striking in comparison with other religious notables. Aside
from the Sufis, the chief figures were the ulema (ulama), mem-
bers of the official religious establishment who served as jurists,
scholars, preachers and prayer leaders, and, at the highest levels,
held state appointments at local mosques and religious schools.
1 3 Muhammad ibn 'Umar al-Urdi, Mdadin al-dhahabfi al-ayan al-musharrafa bihim

Halab [Gold Mines of the Notables by whom Aleppo Has Been Honoured], éd. Isa
Sulayman Abu Salim (Amman, 1992), 418.
Abd al-Ohani al-Nabulsi, al-Hadra al-unsiyyafi al-nhla al-qudsiyya [ 1 he Human
Presence on the Saintly Journey] , ed. Akram al-'Ulabi (Beirut, 1990), 350. See also
Mustafa ibn Kamal al-Din al-Bakri, al-Khamra al-hasiyyafi al-rihla al-qudsiyya [The
Sipped Wine on the Saintly Journey], ed. Ahmad Samih Khalidi (Yaffa, 1946), 68-9;
Ibn Kannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-XJlabi, 8, 235.
See, for example, al-Urdi, Maadin, ed. Abu Salim, 298; al-Muhibbi, Khulasat,
i, 293.

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As the guardians of orthodox Islam,

interpret Islamic doctrine and manage
systems, which enjoyed official patro
mize the political order. The differ
Sufis should not be overstated. They h
lapped to some degree, and, on the wh
tions as complementary paths along th
of sharing immense social prestige de
public presence was very different. T
themselves to mosques and religious
classes and conducted prayers accordin
Only during public emergencies - ab
such as drought or earthquake - migh
ritual routines and, at the behest of t
mass prayers for divine mercy. In Da
events were held on open ground on th
received official sponsorship, blessed
governor and other notables.17 In the m
ventions, the state might ask for pra
during a major campaign.18 But these
ferent in character from the indepen
were able to organize. The ulema had
16 See the routines prescribed in Ibn Kannan, al-M

al-shamiyya [The Islamic Processions among the
Ismail, 2 vols. (Damascus, 1992-3), i, 417-19.
17 See, for example, al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimash
114, 225; Najm al-Din al-Ghazzi, al-Kawakib al-s
Wandering Stars among the Notables of the Ten
Jabbur, 3 vols. (Beirut, 1 979), i, 83; Hasan ibn 'Ab
Quds fi al-qarn al-thani cashar al-hijri [Biographies
Twelfth Century], ed. Salama Salih al-Nacima
Hanbali, Durr al-habab, i, 771-2; ii, 130-1, 197-8
miyya, ed. al-XJlabi, 147; al-Muhibbi, Khulasat, iv
113; al-TJrdi, Maadin, ed. Abu Salim, 318, 339.
See, for example, Ibn Kannan, Yawmiyat
Muhammad al-Khalili, Tarikh al-Quds wa al-Kha
Hebron], ed. Muhammad (Adnan Bakhit and Nu
142-5; Isma'il al-Mahasini, 'Safahat min tarikh D
al-hijri mustakhraja min kunnash Ismacil al-Mah
Damascus in the Eleventh Islamic Century, Excer
al-Mahasini], ed. Salah al-Din al-Munajjid, Mdh
(1960), 132-3; al-Makki, Tarikh Hims, ed. al-cUm
Hullat al-dhahab al-ibrizfi rihlat Bdlabakk wa al-
Gold on the Journey to Baalbek and the Beloved B
Journeys to Lebanon], ed. Salah al-Din al-Munajj
81.

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leading scholars were also religious dignitaries and

own visibility on the streets. They might walk wit
students, or converse with townspeople who ha
change greetings, or seek their advice or favour.
knots of ulema in no way constituted parades w
elaborate protocol.
The few ulema who could lead their own parad
as exceptions who confirmed the rule. In eighte
Jerusalem, the chief preacher at al-Aqsa Mosqu
public escort from the congregation on the first F
Rajab, the sixth month of the Islamic calendar. Su
banners and standards, he returned to his house a
prayer in the company of notables and worshippers
colourful procession through the streets. 19 The or
ing of this ceremony are obscure, and almost cert
custom unique to Jerusalem. Equally significant is
the governor and other local notables, who lent an
acter to the affair and offered their stamp of appr
nothing spontaneous about it, as the predictable t
parade each year indicates. The same was true o
pilgrimages from Jerusalem to the tomb of Mose
and to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem
place at the head of the assembled pilgrims wer
judge, the chief of the local ashrãf (recognized
the prophet Muhammad), and other notables, a
turned these religious processions into fully fledg
monies. The year that cAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi ar
pilgrimage to Moses' shrine (1690), he estimated
about two hundred men.20 Though led by membe
gious establishment, the column marched under t
tion and sponsorship of the state, which was really
organizing it.
This official character was most visible in the grandest religious
procession, the annual pilgrimage caravan to the holy cities of
1 9 al-Husayni, Tarajim, ed. al-Na(imat, 214. The honour was accorded to at least one
preacher and his son, who inherited the position. The biography contains no informa-
tion about the history of the spectacle, and gives no indication whether it involved only
the scions of one particular family or came as a function of the office itself.
al-Nabulsi, al-Hadra, ed. al-Ulabi, 135. On the pilgrimage to Bethlehem, see
Oded Peri, 'Islamic Law and Christian Holy Sites: Jerusalem and its Vicinity in
Early Ottoman Times', Islamic Law and Society, vi (1999), 103.

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1 00 PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER 204
Mecca and Medina. Two convoys, launch

Damascus, guided pilgrims from aroun
through the long and perilous voyage to
Ottoman state anxiously watched the fate
on which a great deal of Ottoman prestige
huge ideological investment in the pilgrim
parades held under state direction. Amo
Damascus were leading members of the
tion.21 Most active were Janissary officers
ceremony at the tomb of Abu al-Darda', o
of the prophet Muhammad. In a special br
the occasion, they bathed the official stand
rose water and perfumed the air with ince
circled the crowd and allowed people to dau
leftover water, which was believed to hav
Putting the banner on its standard, they p
and then turned towards the governor's p
drums and music. In the presence of the ch
(chief jurisconsult), they turned over the b
himself, who, by the eighteenth century, h
mand of the expedition.22 The complete dep
the pilgrims, who in any given year might
to thirty thousand, could last for two to thre
impressive spectacle that might draw o
around, just to watch the passing of so m
through the streets.24 Similar fanfare mig
avans, especially when political conditions i
21 Ibn Kannan, al-Mawakib, ed. Isma'il, ii, 345-9. For d

sions during a single pilgrimage season, see Ibn Kannan
tJlabi, 149, 155-7.
22 Muhammad ibn TJthman al-Miknasi, Rihlat al-Mikn
raqibfi hajj Bay t Allah al-haram wa ziyarat al-Quds al-sh
bi-qabr al-Habib [The Journey of al-Miknasi: The Ach
Guardian in the Pilgrimage to the Sacred House of God,
and Hebron, and the Blessing from the Grave of the
Bukabut (Beirut, 2003), 247-8. For a European account
Henry Maundrell, A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem
Comprising the Narratives of Arculf, Willibald, Bernard
Tudela, Sir John Maundeville, de la Brocquière, and M
(London, 1848), 489-90.
2 See, for example, al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-yawmiyya, ed. cAbd al-Karim,
179.
24 For a reference to peasants coming to Damascus to watch the filing of the pil-
grimage caravan through the streets, see al-Muhibbi, Khulasau i, 217.

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THE LEGEND OF THE SAMARMAR 1 0 1
unsettled. News of its safe passage could spark off wild

tions, like the three-day festivities ordered by the gov
1696, after the caravan had repeatedly eluded menacing
Bedouin.25 The appearance of the weary column was a cause of
rejoicing for the entire community, who, even in quiet years,
would rush out to greet homecoming pilgrims and escort them
into town.
II
PARADES OF POWER: OFFICIAL ENTRIES AND TRIUMPHAL

PROCESSIONS
Like the pilgrimage caravan, the majority of public proces

Ottoman towns were functions of political authority. Far
than the preparations for the samarmar and other Sufi p
they directly promoted the image of the Ottoman st
invested ritual leadership in its officials. From the sixtee
eighteenth centuries, the Ottoman establishment reli
fairly stable mix of signals, which sought to remind the
population of the sovereign dynasty, celebrate its acco
ments, and announce the comings and goings of high off
posted to the provinces. In its most regular manifes
urban ritual was the servant of state power.26
25Ibn Jumca, al-Bashat wa al-qudat, 51. For other examples, see Mikha'i
Tarikh al-Sham [The History of Damascus], ed. Ahmad Ghassan Sabbanu
(Damascus, 1982), 70; Hasan Agha, Tarikh Hasan Agha al-Abd [The History of
Hasan Agha al-cAbd], ed. Yusuf Nu'aysa (Damascus, 1979), 35; Ibn Kannan,
Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-TJlabi, 127; Raslan ibn Yahya al-Qari, al-Wuzam aladhina
hakamu Dimashq [The Viziers who Ruled Damascus], in Wulat Dimashq, ed. al-
Munajjid, 78.
1 he historical literature on urban processions and spectacles is vast, ror some ot
the most influential interpretations, see Peter Arnade, Realms of Ritual: Burgundian
Ceremony and Civic Life in Late Medieval Ghent (Ithaca, 1996); Mary Beard, The
Roman Triumph (Cambridge, Mass., 2007); David M. Bergeron, English Civic
Pageantry, 1558-1642 (London, 1971); Robert Darnton, Ά Bourgeois Puts his
World in Order: The City as a Text', in his The Great Cat Massacre: And Other
Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1985); Alan Dundes and Alessandro
Falassi, La terra in piazza: An Interpretation of the Palio of Siena (Berkeley, 1975);
Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (Princeton,
1980); Barbara A. Hanawalt and Kathryn L. Reyerson (eds.), City and Spectacle in
Medieval Europe (Minneapolis, 1 994); Jacques Heers, Fêtes, jeux et joutes dans les sociétés
d'Occident à la fin du Moyen Âge (Montreal, 1971); Michael McCormick, Eternal
Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval
West (New York, 1986); Mervyn James, 'Ritual, Drama and Social Body in the Late
Medieval English Town', Past and Present, no. 98 (Feb. 1 983); David I. Kertzer, Ritual,
(com. on p. 102)

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1 02 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 204
One basic aim of political processions wa

sultan's authority. Prior to the Ottoman
might experience this message in its mos
ence of the sultan himself, marching int
troops. The Mamluk ruler spent most of
Mamluk capital, but might periodically
Syrian provinces, both to reconnoitre th
to reassert his sovereignty in a ceremoni
ing of Ottoman rule, this option was rar
Syria's great distance from Istanbul, the
Selim I, who in 1 5 1 6 entered both Alep
queror, only two other sultans would
Süleyman I (in 1549, and again in 1553), and Murad IV (in
1638), both of whom sojourned briefly in Aleppo while conduct-
ing campaigns on the Iraqi frontier.28 Yet the absence of the sul-
tan's person did not diminish the Ottoman presence in Syrian
towns. Officials took great pains to reaffirm links with Istanbul
and exalt the ruling dynasty as just, benevolent and inevitable.
Among the ceremonies reminding townspeople of the Ottoman
connection were the formal entries of the governors and chief
judges (qãdt) . Standing at the head of the provincial bureaucracy,
these two figures tended to spend much of their careers on the
(n. 26 cont.)
Politics, and Power (New Haven, 1988); Charles Phythian-Adams, 'Ceremony and the
Citizen: The Communal Year at Coventry, 1450-1 550', in Peter Clark (ed.), The Early
Modern Town: A Reader (London, 1 976); Barbara Wisch and Susan Scott Munshower
(eds.)j 'All the World's a Stage . . . ': Art and Pageantry in the Renaissance and Baroque
(University Park, 1990).
For sultanic visits to Syrian towns at the end of the Mamluk period, see, for
example, cAbd al-Rahman 'Ulaymi, al-Uns al-jalil bi-tarikh al-Quds wa al-Khalil [The
Exalted Company in the History of Jerusalem and Hebron], 2 vols. (Cairo, 1968), ii,
315; Ibn Tulun, Mufakahat al-khillanfi hawadith al-zaman [The Diversion of Friends
with the Events of the Time], ed. Muhammad Mustafa, 2 vols. (Cairo, 1962), ii,
13-16.
28 For the initial entry of Selim I into Damascus, see Ibn Tulun, Mufakahat, ed.
Mustafa, ii, 30. For Syrian references to Süleyman Fs visits to Aleppo, see Istifan al-
Duwayhi, Tarikh al-azmina [History of the Times], ed. Butrus Fahd (Juniya,
Lebanon, 1976), 418-20; Muhammad Raghib al-Tabbakh, Vlam al-nubala bi-tarikh
Halab al-shahba [Information about the Notables in the History of Aleppo the Grey],
2nd edn, ed. Muhammad Kamal, 7 vols. (Aleppo, 1988), iii, 165. For Murad IV's stay
in Aleppo, see Kamil al-Ghazzi, Nahr al-dhahab fi tarikh Halab [The River of Gold
in the History of Aleppo], 3 vols. (Aleppo, 1988), iii, 220-1. After Murad 's tour, only
the grand vizier, not the sultan himself, would have further reason to visit Syria again. For
the reception that the grand vizier received in Damascus during preparations for
Napoleon's invasion of Palestine (1799), see Hasan Agha, Tarikh, ed. Nuaysa, 68.

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move, eyeing opportunities for advancement at the

they awaited their next appointment. In keeping with
position, they maintained large households which, by
eenth century, might easily comprise hundreds of r
dependants, together with a long column of baggage
At a bare minimum, governors would have to bring
armed soldiers, who would act as their personal guar
effect, function as a makeshift police force during th
office. Thus their entry had an overtly military cha
nalled by a display of weapons and armour and th
cannons, which, in Ottoman protocol, was a salut
exclusively for their arrival.29 The entourages of
were generally smaller, but, with their stately tr
crowds of dignitaries, amply demonstrated the high
status held by senior members of the religious estab
Only a few officials would have eschewed the usual pa
when a chief judge slipped unobtrusively into Damas
Even then, the notables would be sure, as always, to g
arrival, who would play such a prominent role in the
affairs.31 A complete absence of ceremony would ha
unthinkable sight, tantamount to dishonouring the p
itself.
The choreography of official entries was careful an
ous. Ibn Kannan (d. 1740), a Damascene scholar and Sufi, con-
cluded his lengthy topography of his home town with an overview
of the procedures. His comments are valuable because most of
our information about these events, drawn from sources like
chronicles and biographical dictionaries, is rather cursory and
denuded of colour and detail. What he presents is an idealized
script, which was fairly well known to his fellow Damascenes.
29 Ibn Kannan, al-Mawakib, ed. Isma'il, ii, 350-1. Visiting governors were entitled
to the same honour: see, for example, Ibn Kannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-TJlabi,
43 1 . Among references to large processions staged by incoming governors (most not-
ably in the eighteenth century), see al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-yawmiyya, ed.
cAbd al-Karim, 48, 212; Hasan Agha, Tarikh, ed. Nuaysa, 1 1, 13, 27, 37, 49, 55, 65,
68, 113.
30 Excessive opulence could raise eyebrows. One chief judge, Mustafa Merzifonlu,
had secured an appointment to Damascus in spite of his humble origins and previously
lacklustre career. Contemporaries whispered about his rapid ascent, which owed
everything to family connections, and clucked at the extravagant column which
brought him into the city. al-Muhibbi, Khulasat, iv, 393-4.
Ibn Kannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al- Ulabi, 346. For one of the rare governors
who skipped an official entry: ibid., 350.

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Though undoubtedly schematic and le

helps to flesh out the finer points of a p
otherwise be invisible to our eyes. Let us f
extended to the incoming governor. In it
the welcome might begin as far away as
expect representatives of the provincia
come to greet him in advance and offer g
emonial sherbets. Closer to Damascus, he
the nearby village of Harasta, allowing Ja
present themselves and make his acqua
protocol reigned at every step. At the ve
commander of the imperial Janissaries
vincial treasurer would don decorative un
large turbans. In their wake would com
Damascus, accompanied by the chief judg
the formal entry itself, would ride at the he
right-hand side of the governor. The co
further than the governor's palace, where
would offer their own greetings before th
by his personal entourage, withdrew for
monial act would be to visit the Umayy
Friday, attend the noon prayer, and pay h
of John the Baptist, where he would hea
Qur'an. As a final gesture, he would
Selimiye, built over the tomb of the medi
to whom the Ottoman dynasty showed a
Ceremonies for the chief judge had many
by a delegation of ulema, he would follow
from Harasta, but would instead stop at t
citadel,33 where the lieutenant governor
person. The official conclusion would com
a private interview with the governor, w
invest him with robes of office.34
Officials understood ceremonial entries
code of rank and prestige, directly connec
honour and importance. They were theref
32 Ibn Kannan, al-Mawakib, ed. Isma'il, ii, 339-44. F

Tbn Kannan. Yawmivat shamivva. ed. al-Ulabi. 299.
33 See, for example, Ibn Kannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-cUlabi, 37-8, for a judg
whose procession wound to the citadel.
Ibn Kannan, al-Mawakib, ed. Ismail, ii, 349-50.

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THE LEGEND OF THE S AMARMAR 1 0 5
to questions of rank and precedence. When Nasuh Pa§

Damascus as governor for the first time (1708) and
chief judge ride ahead of him in the procession, h
necessary to apologize for the breach of protocol.35 A
were keenly aware of the nuances of official ritual. Go
high rank expected replacements of lesser title to com
them in person before leaving for their next assignm
junior official was the outgoing governor, he would,
ance with etiquette, stage his departure early and wel
social superior on the road.36 These encounters br
sensitivities which were quick to be offended. In 1764
pilgrimage caravans, freshly arrived from Damascus
converged outside Medina. Quarrels about ceremoni
dence exploded into skirmishes between soldiers. Gaining the
upper hand was the governor of Damascus, Osman Pa§a Gürcü
(1760-1), who humiliated the Egyptian commander, Ali Bey al-
Kabir, with a public harangue in which he came close to striking
his counterpart.37 Their rivalry culminated in Ali Bey's subse-
quent invasion of Syria and occupation of Damascus, which
occurred as part of his short-lived rebellion against the sultan
(1771-2). In the tense ceremonial clashes outside Medina, nei-
ther official viewed their dispute as a struggle over empty symbols.
In projecting authority, official entries acted as a kind of polit-
ical theatre, in which governors and judges introduced themselves
to local subjects. They did not merely enter towns; they had to
strike the right poses and attend to appearances. First impressions
mattered. Officials who flouted decorum, or seemed indifferent
or overmighty, might later find themselves fighting negative per-
ceptions about their character - and therefore about their cap-
acity for justice - that might prove very hard to undo. One route
to favour lay through concrete acts of charity and benevolence.
Capping their initial visit to the Umayyad Mosque, governors of
Damascus sometimes distributed gifts to the preachers and
muezzins; it was a calculated gesture of goodwill towards the
ulema, who were crucial in formulating political opinion about
35IbnKannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-TJlabi, 144.

in τι ττ y ί ~» r τ · τ λ τ C· * · · ^* ^ yv
ion J^annan, ai-Niawanio^ ea. Ismail, n, jdu.

Ibn al-Siddiq, Ghara ib al-bada ι wa 'ajaib al-waqai [The Marvels of the
Wonders and Oddities of the Events], ed. Yusuf al-Nu'aysa (Damascus, 1 988), 15
P. M. Holt, Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, 1516-1922: A Political History (Ithaca, 196
96-7.

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town.38 Other officials might win praise,

the doubt, by playing their ceremonia
Receb Pa§a, newly installed as governo
for the town of Hebron (1714) and entere
of banners and music. He had come to restore the Table of
Abraham, the celebrated soup kitchen which had been an
urban landmark since medieval times. Witnesses commented
on his appearance of modesty, which contrasted with that of his
predecessor, Nasuh Pa§a, who had acted with 'arrogance'.39 A
governor who was proficient in the use of public rituals could
more easily lay the groundwork for policies that he wished to
enact, and could more freely accumulate the political trust and
credit which were necessary for effective leadership.
Most participants needed few inducements to rise to the occa-
sion. Contemporaries leave the impression of officials and sol-
diers who enjoyed ceremonial pomp, and savoured their time in
the public eye. One Janissary officer, Husayn al-Turkumani, was
remembered as 'the ornament of the processions' for the dashing
appearance that he and his troops cultivated.40 Spectators were
watching very closely. They made a note of the finery and equip-
ment: colourful uniforms and banners, embroidered furs of great
value, saddles adorned with gold and jewels.41 Rare was the offi-
cial who succumbed to distractions and fell out of step. Kücük
Sinan Pa§a, governor of Damascus, 'astonished' onlookers when
he recognized an old acquaintance who was watching his cere-
monial entry (1608) from the window of a nearby mosque.
Completely disregarding protocol, the governor laughed, then
smiled, waved warmly in his direction, and put his hand to his
head.42 This brief encounter, which went against all the rules, is
a reminder of the model bravura with which men of the sword
were supposed to conduct themselves.43 In public processions,
Ibn Kannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-Ulabi, 222; see also ibid., 130, 350.
39 al-Khalili, Tarikh al-Quds wa al-Khalil, ed. Bakhit and Hammud, 184-5.
al-Muradi, Silk al-durar, ii, 63. For another stylish soldier, see al-Muhibbi,
Khulasat, iii, 428.
See, for example, Hasan al-Bunni, larajim al-ayan min abna al-zaman [lhe
Biographies of Notables from among the Sons of the Time], ed. Salah al-Din al-
Munajjid, 2 vols. (Damascus, 1959-63), i, 216.
** Ibid., 'û, 230.
See, for example, the re-entry of the imperial Janissaries into Damascus (1746),
six years after being expelled in a local power struggle: al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq
al-yawmiyya, ed. 'Abd al-Karim, 159.

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surrounded by grim-faced soldiers, they were not

with the crowds gathered at their flanks. Their bod
show a stern aloofness. The watchwords were dig
strength, which might, on a moment's notice, pass in
intimidation.
These martial virtues were most fully on display during trium-
phal processions. Like its early modern Eurasian peers, the
Ottoman state seized on these opportunities to proclaim its suc-
cesses, which bolstered its legitimacy and helped to maintain its
aura of overwhelming inevitability. Among the most tangible
measures of political fortune was prowess on the battlefield,
regarded as one of the surest signs of divine favour and protection.
As soon as reports of military victories reached provincial cities,
local officials would spread the word by ordering the illumination
of the main markets with lanterns and candles.44 It was a mark of
honour that, in normal times, was reserved only for religious holi-
days: Ramadan nights, the birthday of the prophet Muhammad,
and perhaps Laylat al-Nisf in the midst of Sha ban (the eighth
month).45 In an era before street lighting, the effect of these illu-
minations should not be underestimated, and, with their dazzling
night-time glow, would have underscored the official message of
Ottoman glory and success. More frequently than through these
visual displays, the state communicated through sound.
Accompanying many official celebrations was the firing of can-
nons. Besides military victories, shots from the citadel could pro-
claim the accession of a new sultan,46 or the birth of an heir to the
44 See, for example, al-Burini, Tarajim, ed. al-Munajjid, i, 324; Ibn Juma, al-Bashat
wa al-qudat, 4, 5, 9, 39, 40, 43, 47, 51; al-Duwayhi, Tarikh al-azmina, ed. Fahd, 520;
Bulus al-Halabi, Nukhba min safrat al-Batriyark Makariyus al-Halabi [A Passage from
the Travels of the Patriarch Makariyus al-Halabi], ed. Qustantin al-Basha (Harisa,
Lebanon, 1912), 45; Ibn Kannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-'Ulabi, 20, 127, 249,
511; Burayk, Tarikh al-Sham, ed. Sabbanu, 70; al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-
yawmiyya, ed. cAbd al-Karim, 26, 70; Hasan Agha, Tarikh, ed. Nu'aysa, 35, 52, 54.
On illuminations in Istanbul, see Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and
Daily Life in the Ottoman Emùire, new edn (New York, 2005' 178.
45 For specific references to illuminations during religious holidays, see al-Budayri,
Hawadith Dimashq al-yawmiyya, ed. cAbd al-Karim, 23, 1 87; cAbd al-Rahman ibn cAbd
al-Razzaq al-Dimashqi, Hadaiq al-in am fi fada" il al-Sham [The Gardens of Favour in
the Virtues of Damascus], ed. Yusuf Badiwi (Damascus, 1995), 1 2 1 ; al-Makki, Tarikh
Hims> ed. al-TJmar, 110; (Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, al-Haqiqa wa al-majazfi al-rihla ila
bilad al-Sham wa Misr wa al-Hijaz [The Truth and the Metaphor in the Journey to
Syria, Egypt and the Hijaz], ed. Äbd al-Majid al-Haridi (Cairo, 1986), 132-3.
See, for example, Najm al-Din al-Ghazzi, Lutf al-samar wa qatf al-thamar [The
Gracefulness of the Conversation and the Plucking of the Fruit], ed. Mahmud
(com. on p. 108)

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throne. In 1776, celebrations in Damascus

future Mahmud II (1808-39) stretched o
nights, complete with illumination of the m
religious holiday'.47 Provincial officials, t
public announcements for their own pu
the eighteenth century, as imperial power
tralized, governors such as Esad Pa§a a
(1743-57) might seize upon these tactics to
of family members and political clients t
his lieutenant governor, Musa Kahya, w
governor of Sidon in 1747, the edict prom
nons, which took townspeople by surprise
the reason for it.48
An extension of the triumphal procession
of humiliation. To uphold its image as the
order, the state would publicly exact reve
rebellious subjects. One favourite techni
counterfeiters and dishonest shopkeepers,
faces and seat them backwards on a don
mortification, they would then be paraded
kets.49 Executions, which drew their own
sometimes preceded by processions if the
laws or prisoners of war. One governo
hauled back fifty Bedouin from a victorio
each was bound and seated on a saddle nex
on which he would be impaled the next
(n. 46 cont.)
al-Shaykh, 2 vols. (Damascus, 1 981-2), i, 1 56; Burayk, Tarikh al-Sham, ed. Sabbanu,
44-5; Mikha'il al-Dimashqi, Hawadith al-Sham wa Lubnan [The Events of Damascus
and Lebanon], ed. Ahmad Ghassan Sabbanu (Damascus, 1982), 37.
Hasan Agha, Tarikh, ed. Nu'aysa, 3-4. For other examples, see Burayk, Tarikh al-
Sham, ed. Sabbanu, 77; al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-yawmiyya, ed. cAbd al-
Karim, 233-4; al-Muradi, Silk al-durar, iii, 161; al-Qari, al-Wuzara, 83, 84; Akram
al-Ramini, Nablus fi al-qarn al-tasi( cashar: dirasa mustakhlasa min sijillat al-mahkama
al-shariyya bi-Nablus [Nablus in the Nineteenth Century: A Study Derived from the
Records of the Islamic Court in Nablus] (Amman, 1979), 177.
al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-yawmiyya, ed. Abd al-Karim, 1 02. For an earl-
ier occasion heralding success for the cAzm family, and announced with gunpowder:
ibid., 74-5.
See, for example, al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-yawmiyya, ed. Abd al-Karim,
133-4, 162.
al-Burini, Tarajim, ed. al-Munajjid, ii, 233.

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distance from the main military frontiers, such triump

almost always honoured the exploits of provincial force
All these spectacles of punishment, whether judicial or
tended towards a symbolic exaggeration of state powe
beneath the rhetoric of absolute sultanic authority co
match its grand pretensions. As with other early moder
the Ottoman state apparatus was relatively small, a
a political control which, by modern standards, wa
uneven, and everywhere subject to local bargaining, co
and contestation.52 One ritual proof of these limitation
even though triumphal processions were designed as d
state power and prestige, they might not always take p
state supervision. They were prey to manipulation and
sion from below, especially when official authority wa
for reasons of political expedience, was forced to over
bolic transgressions. In 1788, local Janissary factions w
able to expel the governor of Damascus. During his
soldiers brazenly paraded through the streets in torchlig
sions, sounding drums and drinking openly.53 Throug
monial act of intimidation, they declared their defian
governor. And yet in keeping their cohesion, and in p
the discipline necessary for such a public performance,
able to claim a certain legitimacy for their actions. Co
their insubordination, they fell back on ritual means to
they were no random mob of mutineers, and that the c
dissolved into disorder.
Contributing to this subversion of ritual norms was the sol-
diers' rough and ready subculture. Prone to public brawling,
they could escalate petty vendettas into pitched street battles.
Even in calmer moments, they paid little heed to the rules of
polite conduct. They drank alcohol, consumed drugs, swore fear-
lessly, and consorted with socially marginal figures, who thereby
gained a measure of their protection. This association with
al-Muhibbi, Khulasat, i, 387. For other examples of triumphal entries, see al-
Burini, Tarajim, ed. al-Munajjid, ii, 216, 233; al-Muhibbi, Khulasat, ii, 157, 219; al-
Muradi, Silk al-durar, ii, 59.
On the limits of the early modern state, see, for example, William Beik, Absolutism
and Society in Seventeenth-Century France: State Power and Provincial Aristocracy in
Languedoc (New York, 1985); James B. Collins, The State in Early Modern France
(New York, 1995); Nicholas Henshall, The Myth of Absolutism: Change and
Continuity in Early Modern European Monarchy (New York, 1992).
53al-Qari, al-Wuzara' 86.

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1 1 0 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 204
military units bred a certain confidence th

in public space. In 1748, a group of prost
lic censure, held their own procession thr
Damascus. With their hair unbound and
they marched through the streets, singing
ing tambourines.54 Their parade, which w
vative opinion, took obvious inspiration
marches of soldiers, whose truculent value
clearly emboldened them. No less galling w
processions to saints' tombs, especially
orders, who likewise supplied their own m
The irony is that, even as social outcasts
homage to the very conventions that th
and reviled by mainstream society, which
at arm's length, they nonetheless reasserte
bers of the community by drawing on well-
ritual.
So, officialdom could never maintain an a
over its rituals and prevent them from bein
uses. Symbols of power and sanctity cou
political and religious authorities, who migh
appropriated them for their own ends. To p
ideological circuit between the state and
always close. Townspeople did not passiv
that they were told or automatically ap
They might greet official messages with q
sion, or, in moments of greatest disson
attempts to speak on behalf of the urban c
state holidays, they might decide that some
tially meaningless, and completely withdra
Soon after Bedouin raiders decimated the
1757, cannon shots from the citadel of Da
accession of Mustafa III (1757-74) to the sultanate. Depressed
and anxious, and coping with the outbreak of severe factional
violence, Damascenes shrugged off the celebrations, which
never really took place beyond the walls of the citadel.55 Other
It seems that one of the prostitutes had taken a 'Turkish youth' as a lover. When he
fell ill, and came to the verge of dying, she made a vow to hold prayers at the tomb of
Shaykh Arslan if he were to recover. The parade was part of her fulfilment of the
pledge. al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-yawmiyya, ed. (Abd al-Karim, 112.
Burayk, Tarikh al-Sham, ed. Sabbanu, 61.

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forms of protest were more direct, and might constit

rebuke to the political order. Upon hearing of the dism
high-handed and enormously unpopular Hüseyin Pa§a,
of Damascus (1740), the people exulted, and on their o
tive, illuminated the markets.56 The death of Ahmed
(1 804), who was widely loathed as a tyrant, was greeted
erance from heaven and set off even greater jubilatio
Acre, his provincial seat, and Damascus, where he h
four times as governor, townspeople regarded the new
picion, as if he was somehow testing them. When his
soon thereafter confirmed, they celebrated in the stre
together 'an illumination of a peculiar kind'.57 Urban p
were not blindly submissive to the state. They were c
inverting official rituals into a critique of misrule and exp
At the same time, these outbursts had their limits. In c
death of Cezzar, townspeople were not calling for any
the overthrow of the Ottoman establishment. An unpo
cial had passed from the scene. The familiar social o
now continue, undisturbed and unbroken, in the hand
men.
Ill
URBAN RITUAL AS A MEANS OF OTTOMANIZATION?
As a general rule, most processions were a means of reiteratin

Ottoman political order. But what was it about these rituals
made them specifically Ottoman'? At no point did the Otto
push for the systematic transformation of every aspect of u
ritual. The accumulation of Ottoman gestures and symbols w
both gradual and selective, and sprang from both imperial
local initiatives.
In the immediate aftermath of the conquest of Syria (1516), the
Ottomans moved cautiously, and adopted policies which allowed
for much continuity between the old and new orders.58 In official
56Ibn Kannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-TJlabi, 513.

al-Dimashqi, Hawadith al-Sham wa Lubnan, ed. Sabbanu, 2 1 . For a similar dem-
onstration in Beirut (1785), celebrating the arrest of a chieftain from the Shihabi clan,
see Rufa1 il Karamah, Hawadith Lubnan wa Suriya min sanat 1745 ila sanat 1800 [The
Events of Lebanon and Syria, 1745-1800], ed. Basilus Qattan (Beirut, 1983?), 86-7.
Muhammad fAdnan Bakhit, The Ottoman Province of Damascus in the Sixteenth
Century (Beirut, 1982); Abdul-Rahim Abu-Husayn, Provincial Leaderships in Syria,
(com. on p. 112)

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ceremony, they contented themselves with

which were most visible in the zone around th
one Ramadan parade of the pilgrimage litter (
a Mamluk custom in Damascus - they simpl
banner which read 'The Sultan of Rum, Selim'
conqueror of Egypt and Syria.59 To illiterate by
the vast majority of the population - little wo
different.60 For the Ottomans, it was enough t
creet reminders of their assumption of power
customs that the local population regarded
Islamic rule. Since the Ottomans wished to pre
as the guardians of Islam, and thereby consoli
recently conquered lands, they had little wish to t
lished practice. More intrusive reforms could
unwanted backlash. When Ottoman officials in
ended the sounding of drums from the citadel t
night, townspeople protested that it was a hig
that dated back to Ayyubid times.61 The ne
quickly yielded, and as late as the eighteenth c
were still in use.62
In these early years, the most noticeable trade
rule was the placing of cannons in the citadel.
bolic centre of provincial administration, w
expected to get news about the state and its o
Mamluk dynasty, the main means of commun
visual. Following some imperial triumph or ce
ernor would mount banners on the ramparts
(n. 58 com.)
1575-1650 (Beirut, 1985). The Ottomans were not alone amon
their ceremonial caution. One historian has noted how, in me
of the (Sunni) Ayyubid dynasty resembled their (Shi(ite) Fat
Sanders, Ritual, Politics, and the City in Fatimid Cairo (Alban
59 Ibn Tulun, Mufakahat, ed. Mustafa, ii, 69, 86. The chron
preference for the Mamluk design, which was more ornate t
Even for the literate few, banners would have been dimcult to read rrom a dis-
tance. Jane Hathaway has therefore called our attention to the design of the standards
on which they flew. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, political factions
in Ottoman Egypt took care to advertise their identity with different symbols at the top:
the knob of the Faqaris versus the disc of the Qasimis. See Jane Hathaway, A Tale of Two
Factions: Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen (Albany, 2003), 37-
8, 111-22.
61 Ibn Tulun, Mufakahat, ed. Mustafa, ii, 84.
Ibn Kannan, al-Mawakib, ed. Ismail, i, 221.

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al-basha'ir).63 The Ottomans briefly continued this pra

they were able to install their own preferred form of
tion, which relied on the ceremonial firing of cannon
as noted earlier, was one of the most distinctive elements in
the Ottoman vocabulary of official proclamations.64 Unlike the
Mamluks, who had famously spurned gunpowder weapons, the
Ottomans had no qualms about the technology, which they
adapted for many purposes.65 Ideal for urban 'broadcasting',
cannons would allow them to address urban populations through
a medium which was louder and more obtrusive than the old
Mamluk semaphore, thereby carrying, in one instant, official
messages far beyond the vicinity of the citadel. Relative to medi-
eval techniques, it was a more efficient means of announcing offi-
cial news.
The subsequent penetration of Ottoman customs was slow and
uneven. At least a few Mamluk symbols seem to have lingered
throughout the sixteenth century. In 1600, we hear of a huge
parade in Damascus cheering Ottoman victories in Hungary.
Soldiers waved Ottoman banners freshly transported from the
battlefield as they moved along a route perfumed with incense.
Among the most interesting details of this celebration were the
oversized brass candlesticks, once favoured in Mamluk cere-
mony, which participants also carried along.66 The exhibition
of these objects did not signify some enduring allegiance to the
Mamluk legacy. After all, the parade was celebrating the triumph
of Ottoman arms. Nor should the candlesticks be viewed strictly
as symbols of Mamluk rule. To put it more accurately, they had
persisted as elements in a local sense of pageantry and power.67
The Ottomans understood their significance precisely in this
light, and, for roughly a century, freely permitted their use.
When the fashion finally faded away - almost certainly in the
63 On these practices at the citadel of Damascus, see Ibn Tulun, Mufakahat, ed.
Mustafa, i, 8, 92, 93, 167, 183, 194, 204-5, 21 1, 218, 226, 228, 230.
64 See, for example, ibid., ii, 81, 87, 90, 91, 92.
David Ayalon, Gunpowder and Firearms in the Mamluk Kingdom, 2nd edn
(London, 1978).
aKbunni, larajim, ed. al-Munajjid, ι, 324; Carl t. retry, lwilight o} Majesty: lhe
Reigns of the Mamluk Sultans al-Ashraf Qaytbay and Qansuh al-Ghawri in Egypt
(Seattle, 1993), 162-3.
For an account of candlesticks in Mamluk ceremony, see James W. Allan, Islamic
Metalwork: The Nuhad Es-Said Collection (London, 1982), 82-3.

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seventeenth century - official objections h

its demise.
The comparison with architecture is irresistible. Over several
centuries, Ottoman rule put its physical stamp on the face of all
Syrian towns. It did not, however, break with the architectural
legacy of the past. Local building traditions survived. Especially
in the sixteenth century, the Ottomans fostered a hybrid style -
termed 'neo-Mamluk' by art historians today - which preserved
features of the Mamluk heritage and expressed local architectural
tastes more than any political identification. At the same time,
they gradually put up new monuments, or restored earlier ones,
with elements of a recognizably Ottoman style: for example, in
new interior decorative touches, hemispherical domes, or the tall
minarets that increasingly graced the urban skyline.68 Some of
these projects lay along the routes of processions, or were deliber-
ately incorporated into them. In Damascus, the Ottomans show-
ered attention on the tomb of Ibn cArabi; upon his return from the
conquest of Egypt in 1 5 1 7, Selim I went out of his way to visit it in
person, and inspected renovations at the site. By 1521, Ottoman
governors were already making it part of their initial tour of the
city after their first Friday prayers at the Umayyad Mosque.69 It
was a conscious effort to link Ottoman power with local Islamic
lore. The Ottomans thereby emphasized their Islamic pedigree,
and through familiar references from the urban landscape, rein-
forced their bonds with local society.
68 On patterns of Ottomanization in urban architecture, see Ülkü Bates, 'Façades in

Ottoman Cairo', and Irene A. Bierman, 'The Ottomanization of Crete', both in Irene
A. Bierman, Rifa'at Abou el-Haj and Donald Preziosi (eds.), The Ottoman City and its
Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order (New Rochelle, 1991); Çigdem Kafesçioglu,
'In the Image of Rum', Muqarnas, xvi (1999); André Raymond, The Great Arab Cities
in the 16th- 18th Centuries: An Introduction (New York, 1984), esp. ch. 4; Amy Singer,
Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany,
2002), esp. ch. 2; Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, The Image of an Ottoman City:
Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries
(Leiden, 2004), esp. ch. 5.
On the visit of Selim I to the shrine, see Ibn Tulun, Mufakahat, ed. Mustafa, ii, 70.
On the first governor who made it part of his ceremonial schedule, see Ibn Jumca, al-
Bashat wa al-qudat, 3-4; and for later references to this practice, see Ibn Kannan,
Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-TJlabi, 224-5, 347. On Ottoman interest in Ibn cArabi,
see Ryad Atlagh, 'The Paradoxes of a Mausoleum', Jl Muhyiddin Ibn cArabi Soc,
xxii (1997); Kafesçioglu, 'In the Image of Rum', 74; Barbara von Schlegell, 'Sufism
in the Ottoman Arab World: Shaykh cAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (d. 1143/1731)'
(Univ. of California, Berkeley, Ph.D. thesis, 1997), 265; Watenpaugh, Image of an
Ottoman City, 38-9.

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By the eighteenth century, it was easy for local observers

back and summarize key differences between Mamlu
Ottoman protocol. Ibn Kannan, whose detailed account o
cial entries we have already noted, dutifully catalogu
innovations. He is not always certain about the dating
practices, but implies that, by his own lifetime, the
usages were well entrenched. Some of the most blatant
ures from medieval precedent had to do with the res
of the religious establishment. The Ottomans, explai
Kannan, had done away with the office of chief Suf
ously known as shaykh al-shuyükh).70 More noticeable w
changes within the legal system. Whereas the Mam
awarded ceremonial honours to chief judges from all fou
dox Sunni legal schools, the Ottomans concentrated o
Hanafi appointee, who alone would be dressed in cer
furs and unambiguously recognized as chief judge.7
other major figure in the provincial administration,
entitled to his own ceremonial honours, which by the lat
teenth century were often staged as a night-time sp
Instead of entering in a full-blown procession, like the g
most incoming judges preferred to ride behind a column
bearers, who would light their way into town. Contemp
were fully aware that the practice dated from the Ottoma
and that it was reserved almost exclusively for the offic
judge.72 It may have also been a peculiarly Damascene
No other Syrian town seems to have reproduced these n
receptions.73 Though conscious of a common Ottoman p
order, urban pride - particularly in a great centre o
learning - might introduce a few extra flourishes.
70 Ibn Kannan, al-Mawakib, ed. Isma'il, ii, 18.

Ibid., 17, 64-5. The four orthodox legal traditions in Sunni Islam are th
ShafTi, Maliki and Hanbali.
Ibid., 65-6. For references to the night-time entries of chief judge
Kannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-XJlabi, 102, 127, 141, 154-5, 321. Onl
tional circumstances might other members of the religious establishment
same honour. One Damascene scholar managed to make a career in the
religious schools of Istanbul, and on 'two or three' visits back home, f
entitled to enter 'in the manner of the mollas' - i.e. judges appointed from
Istanbul. See al-Muradi, Silk al-durar, ii, 98.
It is possible that torchlight may have had a more limited use in the ceremonies
held by other towns. In Aleppo, the governor's formal entry proceeded through the
covered market complex, where torches would light his route along the dim passage-
ways. See Watenpaugh, Image of an Ottoman City, 177.

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Perhaps the most striking divergence fr

was the greater aloofness of the Ottomans
their governors had fewer processions., a
about conducting their official entry into
requisite visit, on their first Friday, to t
Mamluks had been more visible and accessible. The Mamluk
governors of Hama, for instance, held regular processions,
every Tuesday and Friday. They rode out with a column of dig-
nitaries to a nearby village, returned to town, and spent an hour at
a local market. All along the route, Mamluk subjects were free to
approach with their grievances. After making this public appear-
ance, the entourage would head back to the palace, where the
governor and judges would hear further lawsuits and petitions.75
Under the Ottoman administration, governors maintained a
greater social distance. Instead of regular processions, they
were more likely to make surprise tours of the city, which were
meant mostly as an emphatic show of law and order, not as an
opportunity to mingle with subjects and hear their complaints.
Petitioners knew that it was better to turn up at the governor's
palace and present themselves at the weekly divan (that is, admin-
istrative council) than to wait for the next parade.
It was not a question of the Ottomans appearing more 'foreign'
than earlier rulers; rather, it was simply a difference in political
style. In the eyes of the Ottomans, public disclosure of the self had
become less fashionable, and, for high officials, now seemed to
compromise social prestige.76 In this partial withdrawal from
public view, we can glimpse a dim reflection of the exclusive
court culture of Istanbul, whose baroque pomp and sumptuous-
ness were so typical of early modern empires.77 The greater scale
74 Ibn Kannan, al-Mawakib, ed. Isma'il, ii, 71.

IJ Ibid., 108-9.
For a discussion of this sensibility among the Ottoman elite, see Leslie Peirce,
Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab (Berkeley, 2003), 156.
For parallels in the early modern Mediterranean, see Burke, Historical Anthropology of
Early Modern Italy, ch. 10; Gérard Labrot, 'Le Comportement collectif de l'aristo-
cratie napolitaine du seizième au dix-huitième siècle', Revue historique, dxxiii (1977).
On the transformation of Ottoman court ceremonial in the sixteenth century, see
Gülru Necipoglu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power: The Topkapi Palace in the
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (New York, 1991), 22-30. On the broader theme of
ritual transformation at early modern courts, see, for example, János M. Bak (ed.),
Coronations: Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual (Berkeley, 1990); Peter
Burke, The Fabrication of Louis X/F(New Haven, 1992); Otto Cartellieri, The Court
of Burgundy, trans. Malcolm Letts (1929; New York, 1972); Pamela Kyle Crossley, A
(cont. on p. 117)

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and complexity of these states, which far exceeded thos

medieval predecessors, favoured a commensurate grand
ceremony and public image.
Counterbalancing the relative remoteness of Ottoman
style, and the consequent reduction in official processi
capacity to organize on a more imposing scale and br
townspeople, for the first time, into the performance
ritual. By the end of the fifteenth century, Mamluk g
and emirs might parade with neighbourhood gangs who
had attached as local levies to their own forces. But the
hardly any effort to mobilize townspeople through othe
of social solidarity. The Ottomans showed that they ha
articulated vision of urban society, which they were ver
displaying, both to themselves and to their subjects. Pa
way were the guilds, which achieved their fullest and m
plex organization only under Ottoman rule. Their functi
manifold. In addition to various administrative and economic
responsibilities, they had a certain social significance and were
perfectly suited for ceremonial events. In 1664, the French trav-
eller Jean de Thévenot, newly arrived in Aleppo, witnessed
an entire week of celebrations for the birth of an Ottoman
prince (the future Mustafa II, 1695-1703). One of the highlights,
staggered over the final five nights, was a grand procession
of the local guilds, who marched through the main market-
place with costumes, tools and specimens of their work.78 It
was an obvious imitation of ceremonial models from Istanbul,
where, as far back as the late sixteenth century, guilds had parti-
cipated in imperial festivals and paraded past the sultan and his
(n. 77 com.)
Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (Berkeley, 1999);
Norbert Elias, Court Society, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York, 1983); John H.
Elliott, 'Philip IV of Spain: Prisoner of Ceremony', in A. G. Dickens (ed.), The
Courts of Europe: Politics, Patronage and Royalty, 1400-1800 (London, 1977);
Richard S. Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, i,
From Peter the Great to the Death of Nicholas I (Princeton, 1995).
78 Jean de Thévenot, The Travels of Monsieur de Thévenot into the Levant, trans. A.
Lovell, 3 vols. ( 1 687; Farnborough, 1 97 1 ), ii, 35-8. It was not the first parade that the
guilds of Aleppo had conducted. In 1 638, they greeted Murad IVas he entered the city
during his campaign against the Safavids. al-Halabi, Nukhba, ed. al-Basha, 44. For an
eighteenth-century example of celebrations held in Damascus, honouring the birth of
an Ottoman prince, see al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-yawmiyya, ed. Abd al-
Karim, 234.

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court.79 By the seventeenth century, elemen

mony in the capital had definitely made their w
where much of the urban population was pr
in Ottoman forms of ritual. In this sense, O
not occur solely 'from above'. The worki
embraced distinctive features of Ottoman po
relished the chance to join official celebration
IV
CONCLUSION: THE MIGRATION OF THE SAMARMAR
The spread of Ottoman ceremony did not, however, lead to ful

standardization. The Ottomans never tried - and would hardly
have been able - to impose such uniformity, which in any case i
really the hallmark of modern states. Like other early modern
empires, the Ottoman state had a cosmopolitan outlook, bor
of governing far-flung provinces with their own customs and
usages. By necessity, its policies were pragmatic and eclectic.80
In their own way, public processions reflected the requirements
statecraft. Ottoman ceremonies coexisted with those of local
provenance, which often pre-dated Ottoman rule. No one saw
any contradiction in this commingling of symbols and traditions.
Across their vast empire, the Ottomans were content to leave
selective reminders of their power and adapt them as conditions
warranted. Regional variation was taken for granted.
The Ottomans showed the most interest in ceremonies that
fulfilled explicitly political purposes. These mainly took the
form of official entries, triumphal processions and dynastic cele-
brations, all of which invoked the Ottoman sultans and their offi-
cials as the divinely ordained rulers of the land. One characteristic
of this official ritual was its malleability. Under Ottoman rule, it
underwent a perceptible evolution - not all at once, but steadily
and deliberately. Many of the new elements in the ceremonial
On the parading of guilds in Istanbul, see Nurhan Atasoy, òurname-t Mumayun

[Imperial Festival Book] (Istanbul, 1998); Esin Atil, Levni and the Surname: The Story
of an Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Festival (Istanbul, 1999); Faroqhi, Subjects of the
Sultan, 168-74; Derin Terzioglu, 'The Imperial Circumcision Festival of 1582: An
Interpretation', Muqarnas, xii (1995).
For an incisive discussion of Ottoman statecraft, and its many parallels with other
early modern states, see Dina Rizk Khoury, State and Provincial Society in the Ottoman
Empire: Mosul, 1540-1834 (New York, 1997); Ariel Salzmann, Tocqueville in the
Ottoman Empire: Rival Paths to the Modern State (Leiden, 2004) .

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code were implemented on the initiative of the Ottom

ities: new technologies of communication; new types
sions; an altered protocol; a different ceremonial sensi
as integration into the Ottoman political order procee
society was capable of adding its own innovations, wh
into the overall pattern of regional variation in ur
Contemporaries thought that nothing was odd abo
changes, and treated them as the prerogative of the au
As late as the eighteenth century, the process was sti
taking place. In 1762, the Christians of Damascus,
the intercession of a high-ranking Christian scribe, w
abolish a long-standing custom which required them to
governors, and those returning with the pilgrimage ca
a parade illuminated by lanterns and candles.82 The
backlash, for nothing about their parade was seen as sa
immutable.
Apart from such spectacles of state power, the Ottomans
showed little desire to tamper with the ceremonial code, and
allowed plenty of scope for local custom, which flourished in a
manifold diversity. We cannot talk about a single 'Syrian3 pattern.
Ceremonies found in one town did not automatically turn up in
another. To return to the legend of the samarmar: it did not
appear uniformly throughout the region. In fact, only the two
large towns of Syria, Aleppo and Damascus, took the trouble to
retrieve the magical water and hold the accompanying parades.
Small towns seem to have fallen back on their own time-honoured
remedies. Through these very different ceremonial reactions to
locusts and other public emergencies, urban culture displayed its
deep-seated pride in locality. It made the most of the historical
materials to hand, nurturing rituals that bore the imprint of a
specific place and its traditions. Towns looked to their unique
geographical setting, architectural legacy, and, above all, to the
sites and artefacts connected with Islamic tradition, which, in
Syria, boasted an unusually long and celebrated history. In
Latakia, officials and notables liked to stage communal events
around a local saint, Ibn Hani, whose shrine overlooked the
Mediterranean about two hours outside town.83 As their main
81 Ibn Kannan, al-Mazuakib, ed. Isma'il, ii, 70.

Burayk, Tarikh al-Sham, ed. Sabbanu, 83.
i>ee, tor example, the mass circumcision that Abd al-Ohani al-JNabulsi chanced
upon in 1693: al-Nabulsi, al-Haqiqa, ed. al-Haridi, 60-1.

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line of defence, the people of Horns sum

sacred relics: one of the original Uthm
commissioned in the seventh century.
disaster, all eyes turned to the citade
was stored in a mosque. The authorities
public prayers and parade it through th
baraka, the ancient text had become a c
from the local sense of identity.85
Unlike official ceremonies, these expr
evolved more slowly, and hardly felt th
tion. This comparative resistance to chan
from late medieval culture seem like an almost immemorial fea-
ture of urban pageantry, to be invoked, whenever circumstances
required, by the collective consciousness. This illusion of perma-
nence has largely obscured the origins of local ceremonies, espe-
cially in small towns, which have bequeathed few of their own
historical narratives. In the case of Horns, this patchy coverage
has made it extremely difficult to determine when the sacred copy
of the Qur'an was first put on parade, even after taking into
account the great antiquity of the manuscript itself.86
For the customs of the large towns, we have fuller information.
Particularly instructive is the samarmar, which upon closer
inspection appears very old, but far from timeless. The earliest
version of the legend dates from a wave of locusts in Aleppo in
1196. Following instructions almost identical to those of later
84al-Makki, Tarikh Hints, ed. al-Umar, 32, 121; al-Miknasi, Rihlat, ed. Bukabut,
177; al-Nabulsi, al-Haqiqa3 ed. al-Haridi, 32. Horns was not the only small town which
used the Qur'an in its communal ceremonies. In 1688, public prayers were held for
rain in the port of Sidon. At the conclusion, the governor led a procession which
carried copies of the Qur'an (albeit not Uthmanic tomes). Bernard Heyberger, Les
Chrétiens du Proche-Orient au temps de la réforme catholique: Syrie, Liban, Palestine,
XVir-XVIir siècles (Rome, 1994), 156.
The significant detail here was not merely possession of an early Qur'an. At the
time of the Ottoman conquest, Damascus had held its own copy, albeit originally
brought from the early Arab fort city of Kufa. Though stored in the Umayyad
Mosque and venerated along with other objects, it never became the centre of an
urban cult. In 1711, the governor of Damascus brought another Uthmanic copy
from the village Busra in the Hawran and placed it in the Umayyad Mosque. The
act drew praise, but this manuscript, like the other, never generated anything like the
devotion seen in Horns. See Ibn Tulun, Mufakahat, ed. Mustafa, i, 123; ii, 36; Ibn
Kannan, al-Mawakib, ed. Ismail, i, 421-2; Ibn Kannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-
Ulabi, 203.
Visiting Horns (1693), al-Nabulsi commented only that the mosque inside the
citadel, which held the venerated Qur'an, dated from the early twelfth century. al-
Nabulsi, al-Haqiqa, ed. al-Haridi, 32.

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Ottoman missions, the Ayyubid governor ordered pre

for a bird called the samandal, summoned with ma
taken from a spring in Khuzistan (south-western I
several generations afterwards, these rituals largely
from view. So far as authors from the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries could remember, the first specific literary reference to
the samarmar went back to the early fourteenth century, and
called for the same journey to the holy spring near Isfahan that
they themselves would cite.88 In their accounts, the first actual
mission from Syria had taken place in 1455, dispatched by the
residents of Aleppo.89 Less significant than the sketchiness of the
early legend was the general timing of its arrival, which corre-
sponded with the proliferation of Sufi orders and networks
across the Middle East during the late medieval period.
Information about the samarmar very likely came from itinerant
Sufis moving westwards from Iran. Indirect proof of this chain of
transmission can be found in the very first parade in 1196,
entrusted to the leadership of three 'Persians'. As late as 1557,
the Ottoman authorities in Aleppo were still careful to appoint a
'Persian' as head of the expedition to the sacred spring, presum-
ably on account of his superior expertise in handling the rituals.90
The designation of a Persian Sufi seems rather surprising. By
the mid sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was locked in a
long military and ideological struggle with the neighbouring
Safavid dynasty of Persia (1501-1722). The rivalry extended to
symbolic forms of aggression as the Safavids, who began the con-
version of Persia to Shnte Islam, actively promoted rituals that
would accentuate their Shnte identity and heighten the contrast
87 Shihab al-Din al-Nuwayri, Nihayat al-arab fi funan al-adab [The End of the Goal
in the Arts of Culture], 31 vols. (Cairo, 1964-98), x, 295-6. For a discussion of the
early literary history of the samarmar, see Von Lutz Berger, 'Mit wundertätigem
Wasser gegen göttliche Heere: Heuschreckenbekämpfung in der vormodernen
arabisch-islamischen Welt', Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, xcvi
(2006), 35-40. I am grateful to Florian Schwarz for bringing this article to my
attention.
Zayn al-Din Umar ibn al-Muzaffar ibn al-Wardi, Kharidat ai- aja ib wafaridat al-
gharaib [The Pearl of Marvels and Wonders] (Cairo, 1939), 147. In Damascus, the
first explicit mention of the samarmar appears in 1 365. Water for the bird was brought
from the 'direction of the east'. See Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa al-nihayafi al-tarikh [The
Beginning and End in History], 14 vols. (Cairo, 1932), xiv, 313.
al-Cihazzi, al-Kawakib, ed. Jabbur, in, 202-3; Ibn al-Hanbali, Durr al-habab, n,
57-9; al-Tabbakh, Ham, ed. Kamal, iii, 47-8.
yual-Ghazzi, al-Kawakib, ed. Jabbur, iii, 202-3.

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with the Ottomans. Syrian towns were n

from the beginning felt some of the ten
and again in 1518, Shnte processions on
provoked disturbances in the streets of D
height of these political and religious anta
century, would Ottoman officials have
anyone who might possibly be identified
of a communal delegation? Two points ne
which together explain how the samarm
Syria.
The first is that, since the rituals of the samarmar did not serve
any overtly political purpose, they could never amount to any-
thing like a challenge to Ottoman authority. Officials in Aleppo
seem to have treated the processions of 1 557 - the first that they
had seen - as a strictly communal affair that could be safely
tolerated. Besides, the samarmar had pre-dated the Safavid dyn-
asty, and required the use of no recognizably Shnte symbols. The
Ottoman authorities therefore made no attempt to stamp it out.
The governor allowed Sufis to parade with the sacred water, and
insisted only that townspeople took the trouble to gather and bury
daily quotas of the insects, which would be weighed and regis-
tered by the chief judge. We can detect only a brief whiff of sus-
picion. A few participants, following the usual instructions about
seeking elevated places, tried to hang ritual buckets from the
ramparts of the citadel. The military commander refused, claim-
ing that it would be permissible only with the direct consent of the
sultan.92 In this moment of hesitation, tinged with perplexity, the
Ottomans were coming to grips with communal ceremonies that
struck them as exotic and outlandish, and that, in all probability,
had not penetrated to Anatolia and the Balkans. After four dec-
ades of rule in their Syrian lands, they were still becoming accus-
tomed to local ways. But with the imperial willingness to
accommodate the customs of so many different provinces, the
91 Ibn Tulun, Mufakahat, ed. Mustafa, i, 244-5; ii, 78-9. On Safavid efforts to
promote Shi'ite ritual, see Rula Jurdi Abisaab, Converting Persia: Religion and Power
in the Safavid Empire (New York, 2004), 42-50; Kathryn Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs,
and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran (Cambridge, Mass., 2002),
218-36; Yitzhak Nakash, 'An Attempt to Trace the Origin of the Rituals of c Ashura *'
in Die Welt des Islams, xxxiii (1993); Andrew J. Newman, Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a
Persian Empire (London, 2006).
yz al-Ghazzi, al-Kazvakib, ed. Jabbur, iii, 202-3; Ibn al-Hanbali, Durr al-habab, ii,
15-16, 57-9; al-Tabbakh, /7am, ed. Kamal, iii, 171-4.

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samarmar did not seem particularly alarming or t

It was a Syrian ritual, long familiar to Aleppans,
implications for Ottoman power.93
This localization of the samarmar provides the secon
longevity. Though the sacred water continued to be
Persia, the bird had become deeply ingrained in the cu
largest Syrian towns - particularly Damascus, whe
monies were performed with the greatest frequency
have lasted the longest. One sign of this transformat
the connection with Persian Sufis seems gradually to
During the locust infestation of 1 587, the governor
was content to form the usual delegation from mem
Sufi orders. He made no mention of the earlier prov
Persian mystic, as if any upright Sufis were capable of
the mission. This assumption would thereafter serve
from the late sixteenth century, local Sufis would
as masters of the ceremonies.94 Was it a gentle push
ize the legend, or at least to dilute its Persian content
unlikely. After all, the procession continued on its w
which was still recognized as the source of the sacred
as late as the eighteenth century, observers would ke
this version of the story without the least hesitation.
with post-Safavid rulers, and the attendant anti-Shn
made no difference. During the processions of 1 747
cus, which coincided with the last years of a long w
93 One further proof of the communal character of these ceremon

ticipation of non-Muslims. During the locust plague of 1641, the c
prelates of Aleppo joined the crowd welcoming the Sufis who had
from Persia with the magical water. al-Halabi, Nukhba, ed. al-Basha
al-Ghazzi, al-Kawakib, ed. Jabbur, iii, 3 1 . No reference to Persian
in the next account, which comes from the infestation of 1651 aroun
Muradi, Silk al-durar, iii, 214.
Unly with the preparations tor I00Z, as Damascus endured an unusually severe
bout of locusts, does a new variation of the lore briefly make its way into the record. For
the first and only time, we hear of Sufis drawing their water from a spring near Ankara,
in central Anatolia. But this revision, reported by a single source, did not last. In all
likelihood, it grew out of a familiar pattern in pre-modern religion, whereby two or
more sites might stake competing claims to the same holy figures or objects. Faced with
these obvious contradictions, authors often presented the rival accounts side by side
without comment, as if to leave judgement to the reader. Our source in this instance,
the Damascene scholar Muhammad al-Muhibbi (d. 1699), mentions the apparent
expedition to Ankara even as he openly quotes earlier traditions about the spring in
Persia. He makes no effort to resolve the conflicting narratives. See al-Muhibbi,
Khulasat, ii, 124-5.

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Ottoman-Persian frontier ( 1 743-7), no one fo

tion, or any hint of sedition, in sending a tea
famous spring in Persia.96 As the itinerary of
Sufis shows, the flight of the samarmar tr
quarrels, and seems to have escaped any buffet
controversy.
The survival of this legend suggests an underlying cultural sta-
bility that followed a burst of ritual innovation in the late medieval
period. From the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, the lore of the
samarmar continued to make sense to townspeople, to offer them
consolation, and to seem worthy of regular invocation. So deep
was their loyalty that, even when they agreed that the samarmar
had failed to come, they preferred to blame the qualifications of
the water carriers rather than the truth of the legend itself.97 If any
changes had taken place in the ceremonies since their first appear-
ance in Syria, these had more to do with a certain malleability that
was found in all urban ritual. Most impressive was the samarmar's
long staying-power. Although it was very much an 'invented tra-
dition' that accompanied the spread of organized Sufism, it
quickly passed into usage as a seemingly ancestral custom.
There is nothing astonishing about this success. No less than
modern nation states, which are usually discussed as the authors
of 'invented traditions', pre-modern communities were quite
capable of manufacturing or absorbing new rituals and obser-
vances and then preserving them over long stretches of time.98
QfS τ-« .1 · Γ- _
ror tne ceremonies periormea in uamastus ini/uo anu ± / ^<±, &cc, ic^c^uvciy,
Ibn Kannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-'Ulabi, 138, and Ibn JunVa, al-Bashat
al-qudat, 52, 60. On the locusts of 1747-8, see al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq
yawmiyya, ed. cAbd al-Karim, 73-4, 81-2, 88-92; al-Muradi, Silk al-durar, iii, 2
" Ibn al-Hanbah, Durr al-habab, n, 59.
For the classic discussion of 'invented traditions , concerned mainly with the
modern period, see Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of
Tradition (Cambridge, 1983). Since the publication of this volume, the topic has
attracted extensive commentary and debate from a wide range of fields. For a small
sample of the literature (indicating its modernist tendencies), see Penina V. Adelman,
Ά Drink from Miriam's Cup: Invention of Tradition among Jewish Women', Jl
Feminist Studies in Religion, χ (1994); Alain Babadzan, 'Anthropology, Nationalism,
and the "Invention of Tradition"', Anthropological Forum, χ (2000); Nandini
Bhattacharyya-Panda, Appropriation and Invention of Tradition: The East India
Company and Hindu Law in Early Colonial Bengal (Oxford, 2008); Selim Deringil,
'The Invention of Tradition as Public Image in the Late Ottoman Empire, 1808-
1908', Comparative Studies in Society and History, xxxv (1993); Peter G. Forster,
'Culture, Nationalism, and the Invention of Tradition in Malawi', Jl Mod. African
Studies, xxxii ( 1 994); James R. Lewis and Olav Hammer (eds.), The Invention of Sacred
Tradition (Cambridge, 2007); Billie Melman, 'Claiming the Nation's Past: The
(com. on p. 125)

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THE LEGEND OF THE S AMARMAR 1 2 5
Particularly enduring were those symbols that merged

munal identity and had the potential to rally population
of crisis. The key to this stability had nothing to do with a
seated inertia or instinct for 'tradition', which is often ima
define pre-modern culture. It required active social sup
renewal. More than the complaisance of the author
samarmar could count on Sufi caretakers who were committed
to perpetuating its lore and had a direct interest in keeping this
knowledge alive, thereby promoting their own ritual leadership
within the community. The survival of this magical bird over so
many centuries was one measure of the long heyday of Sufism
across the Ottoman Middle East during the late medieval and
early modern periods. In the prestige and vigour of Sufi forms
of worship and social organization, the samarmar would save
itself from extinction until the arrival of new political and cultural
forces in the nineteenth century finally drove it from the skies."
Portland State University James Grehan
(n. 98 com.)
Invention of an Anglo-Saxon Tradition', J7 Contemporary Hist., xxvi (199
W. Said, 'Invention, Memory, and Place', Critical Inquiry, xxvi (2000).
The last recorded reference to the 'arrival' of the samarmar came in 1 8 1
an infestation of locusts that covered much of Syria and Lebanon: Haydar
Shihabi, Lubnan fi (ahd al-umara al-shihabiyin [Lebanon in the Age of
Emirs], ed. Fu'ad Afram al-Bustani and Asad Rustum, 3 vols. (Beirut, 1969
In folk memory, the samarmar probably lingered a little longer. We can fi
for it, for instance, in Butrus al-Bustani's modern Arabic dictionary, first
1867. See Butrus al-Bustani, Muhit al-muhit [The Extent of the Ocean]
1987), 427.

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Grehan Legend of Samarmar

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THE LEGEND OF THE SAMARMAR: PARADES AND COMMUNAL IDENTITY IN SYRIAN

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/40586923

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The locusts first appeared outside Damascus in the spring of

1 Ahmad al-Budayri, Hawadith Dimashq al-yawmiyya [Everyday Events of Damas-

doi: 10.1 093/pastj/gtp024

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palace, and made plans to put it in the Haw

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anxious wait for the samarmar. Everyone - from Ott

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elsewhere - so often sought to achie

SUFIS ON PARADE: RELIGION AND PUBLIC SPECTACLE

One of the most salient features in the processions held for

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governor of Damascus was the one who had origin

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the funerals that wound out nearly every

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where they would pray and honour some revered fo

1 1 Muhammad al-Makki, Tarikh Hints: yawmiyat [The History of H

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other urban notables. Many came from

12Ibn al-Hanbali, Durr al-habab, ii, 89.

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labourers, who looked up to Sufi masters for relig

1 3 Muhammad ibn 'Umar al-Urdi, Mdadin al-dhahabfi al-ayan al-musharrafa bihim

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As the guardians of orthodox Islam,

16 See the routines prescribed in Ibn Kannan, al-M

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leading scholars were also religious dignitaries and

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Mecca and Medina. Two convoys, launch

21 Ibn Kannan, al-Mawakib, ed. Isma'il, ii, 345-9. For d

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unsettled. News of its safe passage could spark off wild

PARADES OF POWER: OFFICIAL ENTRIES AND TRIUMPHAL

Like the pilgrimage caravan, the majority of public proces

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One basic aim of political processions wa

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move, eyeing opportunities for advancement at the

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Though undoubtedly schematic and le

32 Ibn Kannan, al-Mawakib, ed. Isma'il, ii, 339-44. F

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to questions of rank and precedence. When Nasuh Pa§

35IbnKannan, Yawmiyat shamiyya, ed. al-TJlabi, 144.

ion J^annan, ai-Niawanio^ ea. Ismail, n, jdu.

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town.38 Other officials might win praise,

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surrounded by grim-faced soldiers, they were not

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throne. In 1776, celebrations in Damascus

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distance from the main military frontiers, such triump

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military units bred a certain confidence th

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forms of protest were more direct, and might constit

URBAN RITUAL AS A MEANS OF OTTOMANIZATION?