Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (11 page)

For a deeply religious society and in a state where politics and religion were intertwined, this is quite understandable. At the same time, religion also penetrated the 1908 revolution in unanticipated ways. As the French historian Mona Ozouf has written, “beginning a new life cannot be imagined without faith,” resulting in a revolutionary “transfer of sacrality” from old to new.
⁹⁴
Indeed, the popular iconography around the Ottoman revolution flirted with religious and quasi-messianic images, language, and expectations.
urriyya
underwent a process of animation, and in surprising ways,
urriyya
was sacralized discursively and ideologically. Far more than a political concept,
urriyya
was treated as a “noble concept,” and there was a deep and general reverence expressed toward all things
urriyya.
In some ways,
urriyya
became a new religion that demanded loyalty, love, and personal sacrifice. This connection between religious ardor and the new order (this “blessed era,” or
al-'asr al-mubārak)
was both explicit and implicit. The people's ultimate loyalty was owed to
urriyya
itself;
urriyya
became the most sacred source of authority. Overall,
urriyya
served as a potent symbol in the “world-making” of Ottoman citizenship, providing a sacred source for reformulating the bond between individual and state, as well as between citizens.

Immediately after the revolution, the public watched as the acting governor of Jerusalem demanded from all the government clerks, army officers, and police that they would “swear before God” to uphold the constitution and the laws of the government.
⁹⁵
Similar vows to the new
order were reported from around the Ottoman world. In Damascus, the U.S. consul reported that after the crowds expressed “very liberal opinions,” a military officer asked the people to swear “that if tyranny shall reign again, they would overthrow it no matter how dear it might cost them. They solemnly declared that they were ready to sacrifice for liberty their wives, their children and their blood! After this solemn oath three times three cheers were given for Liberty, the Army and the Sultan.”
⁹⁶
In fact, many of the speeches given in the revolutionary celebrations were reported in the press as akin to a religious sermon, often ending in “amen,” both pronounced by the speaker and repeated by the audience.

The constitution quickly became the foundational text of the religion of
urriyya
—it was repeatedly referred to as the “precious constitution”
(al-dustūr al-karīm)
, the “holy constitution”
(al-dustūr al-muqaddas)—
the sorts of expressions that were often used to describe the sacred books.
⁹⁷
Jews in the empire also used their own religious imagery, calling the constitution a “new Torah”: “Jerusalem has awakened, Jerusalem, with the three religions, the pious and modest, that Jerusalem has awakened to the new Torah which was given to the peoples of Turkey [
sic].”
In the popular celebrations that took place in mid-August in Hebron in southern Palestine, the Jewish youth prepared a flag decorated on one side with the Ten Commandments in gold lettering, and on the other side was the slogan “Long live liberty, fraternity, and equality!” in Hebrew and Arabic in silver lettering, establishing at the least a visual (if not moral) parity between them.
⁹⁸
On another occasion, the deputy to the Maronite Patriarch in Jerusalem reminded the assembled crowd that “we remembered that we swore an oath on brotherhood and unity, and it will be a sin to break one's oath by stopping at the beginning of the road in the constitutional era.”
⁹⁹

To a certain extent, these are the contours of the language and culture—Muslim, Christian, and Jew all inhabited a society marked at every level by religious tradition, and the Arabic language itself, as the language of the Qur'an, is laden with religious resonance. In some ways, then, it is natural that religious expression was mobilized for the new order. And yet, the degree to which the revolution and its emblem of
urriyya
were endowed with sacred value at times bordered on sacrilegious. While singing the praises of Macedonia for its leading role in the revolution, the young Palestinian poet Is'af al-Nashashibi declared: “From Macedonia life appeared to us, from Macedonia the light of justice was illuminated. From Macedonia truth began, from Macedonia, from Macedonia, appeared liberty, life of the Ottoman nation. Oh Macedonia…
You are our second
ka'ba,
you are our other
qibla.”
¹⁰⁰