David Yellin, Muhammad Kurd ‘Ali and the Great Library of Damascus during the First World War

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Abstract

This article tells the story of an ambitious attempt to establish a general orientalist library in Damascus during the First World War. The entrepreneur of this project was David Yellin, a Jewish intellectual from Jerusalem who was deported to Damascus in 1917 by Ahmed Cemal Pasha. The library was not completed, but its plan and the description of the process in David Yellin’s letters supply us with a glimpse into a network whose story was never told. Yellin’s collaboration with Damascene intellectuals such as Muhammad Kurd ʻAli was part of Cemal Pasha’s amalgamation of networks in Greater Syria. As demonstrated, the library was part of the Ottoman efforts to prevent the trafficking of cultural treasures from the Middle East to Europe. Yellin, a Zionist, a Hebrew and Arab linguist, and a member of the CUP, tried to take it even to a higher level: constructing a centre of orientalist education to flip knowledge transfer from West-East to East-West. This article draws centrally upon the plan of the library, David Yellin’s letters, and other relevant documents from the Ottoman Archive, Damascene journals, and memoirs of professionals who served in Damascus in the First World War.

Original languageEnglish
JournalBritish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
DOIs
StateAccepted/In press - 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Geography, Planning and Development
  • History
  • Earth-Surface Processes

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