Governance in the periphery through schooling: educational policies and Nusayri/‘Alawi children in late Ottoman Syria

ABSTRACT

This article examines the campaign of schooling and education reforms for non-Sunni or “heterodox” groups, particularly the Nusayri community, during the reign of Abdulhamid II (1876–1908) in the late Ottoman Empire in Syria and Southern Turkey. Through a detailed examination of Ottoman archival documents, missionary reports, and accounts, this article sheds light on Ottoman strategies to correct the beliefs of Nusayri children through education to develop a decent and loyal Sunni generation and to prevent missionary activities among community members. The article links the educational policies of the Hamidian regime to its governance and hegemony strategies in the periphery, where Ottoman authority was relatively weak and challenged. In this regard, this article argues that the Ottoman State attempted to normalise and eradicate cultural, religious, and social distinctions by converting the Nusayris to Sunni Islam and educating them to create a homogenous social structure on the periphery, thereby transforming them into loyal subjects and preventing them from attending missionary schools. The campaign of schooling, which was instrumentalised in attaining ideological, political, and religious objectives, was a significant pillar of these policies. However, the late Ottoman administration did not apply uniform schooling and education policies towards the Nusayris at schools in Antakya and Latakia, as the central administration took into consideration regional geographic, demographic, political, and socioeconomic conditions, priorities, and risks. The ultimate goal of Hamidian educational initiatives was the preservation of the empire by the adoption of diverse approaches to accomplish its own goals, but the outcomes of the educational policies reflected the weaknesses of an empire that had been in turmoil for over a century.

KEYWORDS:

• Nusayris
• Abdulhamid II
• missionary schools
• correction of belief
• schooling

Acknowledgement

I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Hüseyin Ongan Arslan for his valuable suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Benjamin Fortna, “Islamic Morality in the Late Ottoman Secular Schools,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 32, no. 3 (2000): 372.

² In this article, I will use the term Nusayri without prejudice when referring to the society as they were described with this term in the two main primary sources of this article (Ottoman archival records and missionary accounts and reports). For the history of the Nusayri community, see Stefan Winter, A History of ‘Alawis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016); for their belief system see Yaron Friedman, The Nusayri – ‘Alawis: An Introduction to the Religion, History and Identity of the Leading Minority in Syria (Leiden: Brill, 2010).

³ Betül Açıkgöz, “The Transformation of School Knowledge in the late Ottoman Empire: Conflicting Histories,” History of Education 45, no. 5 (2016): 550.

⁴ See Kiyohiko Hasebe, “The 1869 Ottoman Public Education Act: Proceedings and Participants,” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 51 (2018): 181–207.

⁵ Emine Ö. Evered, Empire and Education under the Ottomans (New York: IB Tauris, 2012), 7.

⁶ Ibid., 5–6.

⁷ Benjamin C. Fortna, Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 45.

⁸ The traditional primary schools (Mekatib-i Sıbyaniye) adhered to traditional techniques (usul-ı atika). These schools, often referred to as neighbourhood schools (mahalle or sıbyan mektebleri), lacked adequate facilities and teachers, defined curriculum, and educational plan; therefore, the operation of educational activities mostly continued without regard for kids’ ages or abilities: see Selçuk Akşin Somel, Osmanlı’da Eğitimin Modernleşmesi (1839–1908). İslamlaşma, Otokrasi, Değişim, trans. Osman Yener (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınevi, 2010), 311–15.

⁹ Beginning in 1869, alongside traditional primary schools, the first schools named ibtida-i mekteb, providing education in an orderly manner with the new educational method (usül-i cedide) were formed. According to the 1869 Maarif-i Umumiye Nizamnamesi, each town and village would have at least one primary school, the education term would be four years, and 6- to 10-year-old boys and 7- to 11-year-old girls, teachers must be teacher training school (Darülmuallimin) graduates, and the costs of the schools and teacher salaries would be covered by the residents of the neighbourhoods and villages: see Bayram Kodaman, Abdülhamid Devri Eğitim Sistemi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 1991), 63–4, 87–8.

¹⁰ Somel, Osmanlı’da Eğitimin Modernleşmesi, 228.

¹¹ Esra Parmaksız, “II. Abdülhamid Dönemi (1876–1909) Eğitim Sistemi Eğitim Yapıları ve Askeri Rüşdiyeler” (PHD diss., Yıldız Teknik University, 2008), 54.

¹² Fortna, “Islamic Morality,” 375.

¹³ Evered, Empire and Education, 113–14.

¹⁴ Necati Alkan, Non-Sunni Muslims in the Late Ottoman Empire: State and Missionary Perceptions of the Alawis (London: IB Tauris 2022), 64.

¹⁵ For further information on Ottomanism and Islamism under the Hamidian regime, see Kemal H. Karpat, “Tarihsel Süreklilik, Kimlik Değişimi ya da Yenilikçi, Müslüman, Osmanlı ve Türk Olmak,” in Osmanlı Geçmişi ve Bugünün Türkiye’si, ed. Kemal H. Karpat (İstanbul: Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2004), 24–41.

¹⁶ Alkan, Non-Sunni Muslims in the Late Ottoman Empire, 64.

¹⁷ Somel, Osmanlı’da Eğitimin Modernleşmesi, 280–84; Faruk Yaslıçimen, “Saving the Minds and Loyalties of Subjects: Ottoman Education Policy against the Spread of Shiism in Iraq during the Time of Abdülhamid II,” DÎVÂN Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 21, no. 41 (2016/2): 63–108.

¹⁸ Faika Çelik, “Civilizing Mission” in the Late Ottoman Discourse: The Case of Gypsies,” Oriente Moderno 93 (2013): 580–83.

¹⁹ Necati Alkan, “The Ottoman Policy of ‘Correction of Belief(s),’” in Ottoman Sunnism, New Perspectives, ed. Vefa Erginbaş (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019), 179.

²⁰ Ibid., 181.

²¹ Presidency of the Republic of Turkey Ottoman Archives (BOA.) MVL. 750/107; BOA, A. MKT. MHM. 349/68; BOA. İ. MMS. 113/4821; BOA. A. MKT. MHM. 475/44, 2; BOA. BEO. AYN. d. 867, 141.

²² Nadav Solomonovich and Ruth Kark, “The Bedouins, the Ottoman Civilizing Mission and the Establishment of the Town of Beersheba,” Turkish Historical Review 10 (2020): 210, https://doi.org/10.1163/18775462-01002008.

²³ BOA. İ. MMS. 114/4867.

²⁴ BOA. Y. PRK. UM. 2/43, 2.

²⁵ Mutasarrıf Ziya Bey (1885–1892) is renowned for his commitment to improving the Nusayris’ condition and building numerous schools.

²⁶ BOA. Y.PRK.UM. 19/70.

²⁷ BOA. İ. MMS. 113/4821.

²⁸ BOA. İ. MMS. 113/4821. For the authorities’ permissions on June 1890 for schools and masjids in Latakia Antakya, and İskenderun see BOA. İ.DH. 1182/92,451; BOA. İ.MMS. 113/4821; BOA. İ.MMS. 114/4867; BOA. Y.PRK.UM. 19/70; BOA. Y.A.HUS. 266/97; BOA, İ. MMS, 130/5563; BOA. BEO. 142/10,630; BOA. İ.MF. 2/1311-R-1; BOA. DH. MKT, 1744/33; BOA. MV. 55/15; BOA. DH.MKT. 1823/38; BOA. MKT. 1741/110.

²⁹ Ali Sinan Bilgili, Selahattin Tozlu, Uğur Karabulut, and Naim Ürkmez, Osmanli Arsiv Belgelerinde Nusayriler ve Nusayrilik (1745–1920) (Ankara: Gazi Universitesi Türk Kültürü ve Hacı Bektaş Veli Arastirma Merkezi, 2010), 299–301. Between 1891 and 1895, the construction of at least 37 schools was completed, and 2,000 children attended these schools: see İlker Kiremit, “Değişim Sürecinde Bir Osmanlı Sancağı: Lazkiye (1864–1918)” (PhD diss., Hacettepe Üniversitesi, Ankara, 2019), 302; BOA. BEO. 819–61,390.

³⁰ BOA. BEO. 294/21,989; BOA. İ. MMS. 130/5563.

³¹ BOA. BEO. 294/21,989.

³² Ibid..

³³ BOA. MV. 76/93.

³⁴ Evered, Empire and Education, 120.

³⁵ Ibid., 109.

³⁶ BOA. İ. MMS. 130/5563.

³⁷ Even after three decades of educational modernisation, the rate of the primary schools teaching with the new method was extremely low. This is a sign that educational reforms or modernisation were not executed at the desired level: see Kodaman, Abdülhamid Devri Eğitim Sistemi, 83–6; Sacit Uğuz, “II. Abdülhamid’in Kapsayıcı Eğitim Politikasına Bir Örnek: Lazkiye Nusayrileri ve Hamidiye Mektepleri,” Current Research in Social Sciences 5, no. 1 (2019): 9–27; İbrahim Bozkurt, “Tanzimat’tan Cumhuriyet’e Modernleşme Sürecinde Mersin’de Eğitim,” Mersin Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi 4, no. 2 (2013): 203. For statistics on Ottoman elementary, secondary, and high schools, students, teachers, and civil servants, and foreign and private schools in the Ottoman Empire between 1873 and 1908, see Mehmet Ö. Alkan, Tanzimat’tan Cumhuriyet’e Modernleşme Sürecinde Eğitim İstatistikleri 1839–1924 (Ankara: T.T. Başbakanlık Devlet İstatistik Enstitüsü, 2000), 21–160.

³⁸ BOA. Y. PRK. AZN. 4/57.

³⁹ Ali Çapar, “Creating the Image of ‘the Greatest Sultan’: Indoctrination of Children through Children’s Periodicals under the Hamidian Regime (1876–1908),” Middle Eastern Studies 57, no. 2 (2021): 256.

⁴⁰ For the full list of the names of the schools in 1895, see Kiremit, “Değişim Sürecinde Bir Osmanlı Sancağı,” 304–6. For the full list of the names of the schools in 1904, see BOA. DH. TMIK. M. 168/7, 10.

⁴¹ BOA. Y. PRK. AZN. 4/57.

⁴² BOA. İ. MMS. 113/4821.

⁴³ BOA. İ. MMS. 113/4821; BOA. İ. MMS. 114/4867; BOA. DH. MKT. 866/56; BOA. İ. MMS. 113/4821; BOA. DH. MKT. 1767/69.

⁴⁴ Fortna, Imperial Classroom, 220–21.

⁴⁵ Thomas S. Popkewitz, “Curriculum History, Schooling and the History of the Present,” History of Education 40, no. 1 (2011): 1–19.

⁴⁶ Alkan, Non-Sunni Muslims in the Late Ottoman Empire, 101.

⁴⁷ Ibid.

⁴⁸ BOA. MF. MKT. 228/28.

⁴⁹ Ibid.

⁵⁰ Fortna, Imperial Classroom, 205.

⁵¹ See Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, L, New York, 28 May 1879, 238; further “Statics of Latakiyeh Mission,” Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, U.S.A, LXIII, Mansfield, Ohio, 1 June 1892; J. Boggs Dodds, “Supplementary Report from Suadia,” Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. LXV, Philadelphia, 30 May 1894, 296–7; “Statics of Syria Mission,” Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (1898). Session LXIX., Malton, M.P., June 1, 8, 143.

⁵² “Report of Foreign Mission Board,” Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, LV, Northwood, Ohio, 28 May 1884, 229.

⁵³ Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (1908), Philadelphia, LXXIX., May 27 to 2 June, 64.

⁵⁴ BOA. MF. MKT. 496/33.

⁵⁵ BOA. DH. MKT. 31/9.

⁵⁶ Ali Çapar, “The History of Nusayris (‘Alawis) in Ottoman Syria, 1831–1876” (Master’s thesis, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, 2013), 93–5.

⁵⁷ Kiremit, “Değişim Sürecinde Bir Osmanlı Sancağı,” 279; Zeynep Türkyılmaz, “Anxieties of Conversion: Missionaries, State and Heterodox Communities in the Late Ottoman Empire,” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2009), 209–15.

⁵⁸ Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, USA, LXI, New York, NY, 4 June 1890, 300.

⁵⁹ Andrew J. McFarland, Eight Decades in Syria (Topeka, KS: Board of Foreign Mission of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, 1937), 36.

⁶⁰ R.M. Sommerville, “Report of Foreign Mission Board, 1889–1890,” Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, USA, LXI, New York, NY, 4 June 1890, 299.

⁶¹ Ibid.

⁶² Henry Easson, “Report of the Latakiyeh Mission,” Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, USA, LXIII, Mansfield, Ohio, 1 June 1892, 299.

⁶³ Ibid., 299–300.

⁶⁴ Ibid., 296.

⁶⁵ Ibid.

⁶⁶ “Report of Foreign Mission Board,” Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, USA, LXIII, Mansfield, Ohio, 1 June 1892, 286.

⁶⁷ “Report of the Syrian Mission,” Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. LXV, Philadephia, PA., 30 May 1894, 292.

⁶⁸ Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (1908), Philadelphia, LXXIX., May 27 to 2 June, 64.

⁶⁹ R.M. Sommerville, “Report of Foreign Mission Board,” Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. Sparta, Illinois, LXXV, May 25–31, 1904, 55.

⁷⁰ Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. Belle Center, Ohio, LXXVII, May 30 to 5 June 1906, 37.

⁷¹ Nazan Çiçek, “The Role of Mass Education in Nation-Building in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, 1870–1930,” in Mass Education and the Limits of State Building, c.1870–1930, ed. Laurence Brockliss and Nicola Sheldon (Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), 233.

⁷² Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876–1909 (New York: IB Tauris, 1991), 107.

⁷³ Yaslıçimen, “Saving the Minds and Loyalties,” 89.

⁷⁴ BOA, DH. MKT. 1741/10.

⁷⁵ BOA, Y.PRK.UM. 19/70.

⁷⁶ Yaslıçimen, “Saving the Minds and Loyalties,” 91.

⁷⁷ BOA. MF. MKT. 496/33.See note 54 above.

⁷⁸ Ibid.

⁷⁹ Çiçek, “The Role of Mass Education,” 229.

⁸⁰ Fortna, Imperial Classroom, 137.

⁸¹ BOA. Y. PRK. AZN. 4/57.

⁸² BOA. DH. TMIK. S. 26/31; BOA. MF. MKT. 246/56.

⁸³ BOA. MF. MKT. 246/56.

⁸⁴ Kiremit, “Değişim Sürecinde Bir Osmanlı Sancağı,” 309–10; BOA. MF. MKT 808/75.

⁸⁵ BOA. MF.MKT. 374/12; BOA. DH.TMIK. S. 26/31; BOA. BEO. 294/21,989.

⁸⁶ BOA. MF.MKT. 374/12; BOA. Y.EE 132/38; Winter, A History of ‘Alawis, 227.

⁸⁷ BOA. MF.MKT. 374/12.

⁸⁸ Kiremit, “Değişim Sürecinde Bir Osmanlı Sancağı,” 309.

⁸⁹ For the conquest and colonisation of the heterodox groups’ mind during the Hamidian Era, see Edip Gölbaşı, “Turning the ‘Heretics’ into Loyal Muslim Subjects: Imperial Anxieties, the Politics of Religious Conversion, and the Yezidis in the Hamidian Era,” The Muslim World 103, no. 1 (2013): 3–23.

⁹⁰ Fortna, “Islamic Morality,” 378–9.

⁹¹ Çiçek, “The Role of Mass Education,” 234.

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Ali Çapar

Ali Çapar is a historian of the Ottoman Empire, with a particular interest in religious/confessional identity, child marriages and the concept of childhood in the Ottoman Empire. He has been working as Assistant Professor at the Cankiri Karatekin University in Turkey since 2018. Dr Capar conducted extensive research on the concept of children and childhood in the last few years. Besides examining the primary sources related to the discipline of history, he examined primary sources affiliated with the disciplines of literature, sociology, art history, and law. Some selected publications are “Creating the Image of ‘The Greatest Sultan’: Indoctrination of Children through Children’s Periodicals under the Hamidian Regime (1876–1908),” Middle Eastern Studies 57, no. 2 (2021): 249–64; “Osmanlı Devletinde Çocukluk: Kaynaklar, Metot, Tarihsel ve Disiplinlerarası Perspektifler (Childhood in the Ottoman Empire: Sources, Method, Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives),” Tarihyazımı 3, no. 1 (2021): 44–68