HALİL İBRAHİM BOZATLI / 3rd grades / 17011011036

HIST 303 – MODERNISATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST I

MID-TERM EXAM
Q1: What is global history? What are the major approaches in global history
perspective? How can it contribute to contemporary problems of humanity?
Discuss with reference to your readings.
Historical transfer or historical research methods have evolved and developed over
time with theories created by different intellectuals, some institutions, and the
atmosphere in which they live. The global understanding of history offers a more
holistic, multi-disciplinary perspective with the change of people's perspectives. In
this respect, it is necessary to look at different major approaches and explain how this
understanding contributes to the contemporary problems of humanity. In this essay,
we will focus on those questions.
History activity is actually the activity of structuring the past. For this purpose, global
history looks at the common points of societies in different places and looks at their
differences or interactions. One of the major approaches to global history may be the
comparative history approach pioneered by Fernand Braudel. Because, Before the
Anneles school, to which Fernand Braudel was a member, in the past, a narrow-scale
understanding of history based on narratives and a certain small-scale understanding
of history was dominant, such as Turkish history, Arab history, French history, or
British history. Comparative history has been a helpful approach to the perspective of
global history by including different cultural communities and different experiences.
As we said, before Braudel, history was indexed to certain nations and dynamics. The
comparative approach tells us that it is necessary to look at the previously known and
its surroundings, its lower layers, to compare them in every way and look at the
results. In this section, we can see that Turkey and Afghanistan started to modernize
at the same time, but with different results. Examining this can be possible with a
global understanding of history with a comparative view. Another approach is
cumulative history. With this approach, we provide the global connection necessary
for a global perspective. Marshall Hodgson sees it as impossible for us to understand
east and west without a cumulative approach. With Janet Abu-lughod's approach,
offers an approach that helps us to understand the history of a region from a global
point of view. To summarize the approach of most, connection and comparison tools
are important to evaluate history with a global view. As a tool of change, Connection
enables global historiography by understanding revolutions, collapses, or overloads.
Interaction is also important in this part. For example, epidemics, plunder, or wars
experienced by people are not events to be evaluated on their own. In this respect, we
can say that connecting different cultures to each other is a railway, aircraft, and
communication. Another tool of the Global history perspective can be the aspect of
Micro-Spatial history. Micro-Spatial history includes both connected and comparative
history. His tools are to connect the micro to the global and to look at general
questions with a kind of microscope. It connects different experiences.
The global history perspective, which has been used much more effectively in the
20th century after the approaches, allowed us to see foreigners such as slaves,
colonized and other actors in the marginalized for a long time ignored by the
discipline in the west. Modernity and globalization may also have helped this view.
However, this point of view may have resulted in an oriental point of view towards
the east, either from old traditions or from being european-oriented in the current
system. It may have formed a wholesale view of other societies from a Eurocentric
point of view. It may have helped humanity's contemporary problems in this respect.
Sonuç olarak bu yaklaşımlarla meydana gelen global tarih anlayışı
20.yüzyılda tarihçilerin önemli bir aracı olmuştur. Bu tarih anlayışı, uzun
süre görmezen gelinen ve dışlanan aktörlerin farkına varmamızı sağlamıştır.

Q2: Explain the meanings of the following concepts with reference to their
reception and interpretation in the Middle East. Make reference to the ideas
of major intellectuals/political acitivists of the nineteenth century.
“Freedom”
“Equality”
“Nation”
“civilization”
“citizenship”

In the Middle East, different concepts were imposed from the west over time. With
the development of Western civilization, new concepts have been found and served
them to the world. In the Middle East, especially in Arab societies, civilizations took
shape with the development of these concepts. I will try to explain concepts such as
freedom, equality, nation, civilization and citizenship in this context.

The concept of freedom settled in the middle east with the modern political thoughts
of the Mediterranean countries. This concept gained meaning as 'hurriyya'. Freedom
of religion had a significant impact on this concept. The concept of freedom was
closely related to the concept of equality. Equality gained meaning in the middle east
as 'taswiyya'. This concept caused conflicts over the concept of citizen. The concept
of Equality emerges as an important concept in the modernization of Egypt and the
Ottoman Empire. The reforms Mehmet Ali Pasha made in Egypt and what the
Ottomans tried to do during the Tanzimat period were on this concept. Al-jabarti
opposed this concept of equality and did not accept absolute equality. He simply
emphasized that believers are equal in the sight of Allah. The concept of freedom was
more warmly received in Egypt. However, according to Nikula al Turk, this concept
of freedom overturned the dominant religious identity and the hierarchical system in
society. The concept of civilization was depicted as 'tamaddun' in the middle east.
Bustani described the history of civilization, secular and religious, in two terms. One
is primitive, the other is scientific society. Yaqub al nawfal, on the other hand, saw
the concepts of freedom, reason, science, and tamaddun (being civilized) as
inseparable. The Ottomans, on the other hand, were still discussing these concepts in
the 17th and 18th centuries. The concept of Nation, on the other hand, revealed an
identity that people did not need before. In this concept, it came out as 'Umma' in the
middle east. As a means of this, the concept of citizenship was called 'jins'. It was a
concept based on ethnicity and race.
Finally, in the Middle East these concepts, political ideas such as freedom, equality,
citizenship, patriotism, popular sovereignty, and reason, were perceived as integral
components of the paradigm of progress. Tahtawi visited Paris and contributed to the
development of modern concepts of Mehmet Ali in Egypt.