Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria 1474436714, 9781474436717

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Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria DEANNA FERREE WOMACK

ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES: NARRATIVES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST AND MEDITERRANEAN

PROTESTANTS, GENDER AND THE ARAB RENAISSANCE IN LATE OTTOMAN SYRIA

Alternative Histories: Narratives from the Middle East and Mediterranean Series Editor: Sargon Donabed This series provides a forum for exchange on a myriad of alternative histories of marginalized communities and individuals in the Near and Middle East and Mediterranean, and those of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean heritage. It also highlights thematic issues relating to various native peoples and their narratives and—with particular contemporary relevance—explores encounters with the notion of “other” within societies. Often moving beyond the conventional state-centered and dominant monolithic approach, or reinterpreting previously accepted stories, books in the series examine and explain themes from inter-communal relations, environment, health and society, and explore ethnic, communal, racial, linguistic and religious developments, in addition to geopolitics. Editorial Advisory Board Professor Ali Banuazizi Dr Aryo Makko Professor Laura Robson Professor Paul Rowe Professor Hannibal Travis Books in the series (published and forthcoming) Bloodletting: An Account of the Assyrian Genocide, Sayfo ‘Abd al-Masih Nu‘man of Qarabash Translated and annotated by Michael Abdalla and Łukasz Kiczko Tunisia’s Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority Marta Dominguez Diaz Museums and the Art of Minorities: Cultural Representation in the Middle East and North Africa Edited by Virginie Rey Shia Minorities in the Contemporary World: Migration, Transnationalism and Multilocality Edited by Oliver Scharbrodt and Yafa Shanneik Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria Deanna Ferree Womack

edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/ahnme

PROTESTANTS, GENDER AND THE ARAB RENAISSANCE IN LATE OTTOMAN SYRIA Deanna Ferree Womack

Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Deanna Ferree Womack, 2019 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun—Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/15 Adobe Garamond by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 3671 7 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 3673 1 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 3674 8 (epub) The right of Deanna Ferree Womack to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).

CONTENTS

List of Figures vii Acknowledgments ix Notes on Transliteration xii List of Abbreviations xiii Glossary of Arabic Terms xiv Introduction 1 1 Evangelical Awakening: Becoming Protestant in the Arab Renaissance 24 2 “Publishing” the Gospel, Reading the Nahda: Protestant Print Culture in Late Ottoman Syria 85 3 A Feminist Awakening? Evangelical Women and the Arab Renaissance 143 4 Ministers and Nahdawi Masculinity: The Beirut Church Controversy 213 5 Syrian Women with a Mission: Preaching the Bible and Building the Protestant Church 274 Conclusion 328

vi  |  PR OTESTA NTS, G ENDER A ND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE Appendix A Syrian Protestant Genealogies 339 Appendix B American Missionary Families and Dates of Service, 1823–1915 346 Appendix C Founding Members of the Evangelical Independent 354 Church of Beirut, March 18, 1894 Appendix D Biblewomen Employed by the British Syrian Mission, 1860–1914 356 Appendix E Statistical Comparison: Biblewomen of the British and 358 American Missions Appendix F Publications of Syrian Women at the American Mission Press, Beirut 362 Bibliography 364 394 Index of Names Index of Subjects 399

FIGURES

  1 Map of key sites for the American Syria Mission and British Syrian Mission in Ottoman Syria xvi   2 Map of Ottoman regions including Syria xvii   3 Butrus al-Bustani 27   4 The Rev. Saliba Jarwan and Luciya Shakir Jarwan 43   5 Salim Kassab 43   6 Kamil ‘Itani 43   7 Layyah A. Barakat 61   8 Arabic Terms for Conversion 65   9 The American Mission Press and the Evangelical Church of Beirut 83 10 The American Mission Press in Beirut and Syrian workers, 1908 84 11 Henry Harris Jessup, managing editor of al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya from 1889 to 1902 93 12 Ibrahim ‘Issa al-Hurani, editor of al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya from 93 1880 to 1916 13 Yusif Dib ‘Atiya 100 14 Hanna Kasbani Kurani 152 15 Rahil ‘Ata’ al-Bustani, mother of Alice al-Bustani 152

viii  |  PROTESTA NTS, G ENDER A ND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE 16 Theological Seminary graduates in Syria, c. 1902 17 Harriette Mollison Eddy Hoskins 18 Franklin Evans Hoskins 19 Harriette Eddy Hoskins with a Syrian woman 20 The Evangelical Church of Beirut and American School for Girls 21 Ordained Syrian Protestant ministers, 1853–1908 22 Members of the Sidon Presbytery 23 Members of the Tripoli Presbytery 24 The Evangelical Benevolent Society in Beirut, 1876 25 Henry Harris Jessup 26 Dr. Cornelius Van Dyck 27 Khalil Khattar Sarkis 28 Louisa al-Bustani Sarkis 29 British Syrian Mission director, Biblewomen and male employees 30 Syrian Biblewomen, ministers and licentiates, 1870–1910 31 Elizabeth Bowen Thompson 32 Augusta Mott 33 British Syrian Mission Biblewomen 34 Dr. Mary Pierson Eddy 35 Bernice Hunting

217 220 220 221 224 226 228 228 231 232 232 233 233 239 275 281 281 285 300 308

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My work on this book featuring Syrian Protestant authors has reminded me time and again that research, writing, editing and publication are always done in community. This was true during the Arab renaissance when a typesetter prepared each printed character, and it is no less true today. I therefore offer my heartfelt gratitude to the countless individuals, schools, libraries, academic associations, churches and historical societies that helped this book come to fruition. Richard Fox Young at Princeton Theological Seminary guided my doctoral research, upon which the current monograph is based. He is a model educator and historian who introduced me to the significant interconnections between World Christianity and the History of Religions. I have also learned much from Heather J. Sharkey, whose scholarship on missions in the Middle East and on Muslim–Christian–Jewish relations I find thoughtprovoking and worthy of emulation. Sharkey provided incisive feedback on the entire dissertation manuscript and, more recently, on portions of this book. My initial archival research was made possible by an International Dissertation Research Grant from the American Academy of Religions, by the David M. Stowe Fund for Mission Research at Yale University ix

x  |  PROTESTA NTS, G ENDER A ND TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Divinity School and by a Preserving Protestant Heritage in the Middle East Researcher Grant from the Near East School of Theology (NEST) in Beirut. Support from my current institution, Candler School of Theology at Emory University, and a Scholarly Writing and Publishing Grant from Emory enabled me to continue and expand upon this research. I am deeply indebted to the librarians and archivists who facilitated my historical investigations, including Lisa Jacobson and the staff at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia; Martha Smalley and Joan Duffy at the Yale Divinity School Library; Dina Banna and Stefan Seeger at the Orient-Institut Beirut; Ida Glaser at the Centre for Muslim–Christian Studies, Oxford; and Hilda Nassar, Yevnige Yacoubian and Liza Titizian at the NEST Library and Special Collections. My research began when Christine B. Lindner, now at Murray State University, was manager of NEST’s project for Preserving Protestant Heritage in the Middle East, and her assistance was invaluable. The records of the American Syria Mission and the rare Arabic books and pamphlets of the American Mission Press that she catalogued were essential to my project and will be of service to researchers in this field for years to come. I am also thankful for the insight and resources shared by NEST President George Sabra, NEST President Emeritus Mary Mikhail, the Rev. Dr. Habib Badr, the Rev. Adeeb Awad, the Rev. Najla Kassab, Rima Nasrallah Van Sanne, Anthony S. Glockler, Emrah Şahin, Michel Andraos and Laura Bier. Among the scholars of the Syria Mission upon whose important work this study builds, I have had the good fortune to come to know Christine Lindner, Ellen L. Fleischmann, Uta Zeuge-Buberl and David D. Grafton, all of whom have graciously shared materials, read portions of this manuscript, and offered expertise and encouragement. I could not have completed this project without the assistance of Christine Lindner, in particular, who possesses an extensive knowledge of the Syrian Protestant community, has answered my endless questions thoughtfully and with enthusiasm, and in her own work has provided a model for studying women and gender in Arab Protestant history. For engaging conversations and feedback from the perspective of World Christianity, my deepest appreciation is due to David Kirkpatrick and Christie Chui-Shan Chow, and to my colleagues at Candler, Arun Jones, Jehu Hanciles and Kwok Pui-Lan, all of whom read and responded to chapters.

a ck nowledg ments   |  xi As a doctoral student, I relied on the Arabic expertise of Yvonne Roman, who assisted in my translations and helped to decipher old and illegible Arabic handwriting. She also generously shared her knowledge of the Arabic Bible and her insights on Middle Eastern history and culture. I am also thankful for the work of three student research assistants at Emory: Hannah Trawick and Tala AlRaheb aided me in the preparation of this manuscript, and Rahimjon Abdugafurov proofread my Arabic transliterations and provided translations for some of the texts examined in my third chapter. Ulrike Guthrie was instrumental to the process of turning my dissertation into this book and was a joy to work with. Her editing, coaching and encouragement improved my writing and the book itself. To Nicola Ramsey and Kirsty Woods at Edinburgh University Press and to Sargon Donabed, the series editor, I also owe my sincerest thanks. Finally, words cannot express how grateful I am for the support of my family. My father and sisters have cheered me on at every stage, and my daughters Lily and Willa have kept me grounded in the present as they watched this book take shape over the course of their childhood. I dedicate this work to them in memory of their grandmother, Melody, and to Mike, my best friend and partner in life.

NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION

Except for individual names and cities with common English spellings or Syro-Lebanese colloquial renderings, this book follows the simplified transliteration system of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies without diacritical marks but preserving ‘ayn and using the medial and final hamza. In certain cases “s” is added to the end of singular Arabic terms instead of using the transliterated plural form (e.g., ta’ifas, not tawa’if  ). All Arabic translations are mine unless otherwise noted.

xii

ABBREVIATIONS

ABCFM AMP AUB BFBS BFM

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions American Mission Press in Beirut, Lebanon American University of Beirut, Lebanon (formerly SPC) British and Foreign Bible Society Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, based in New York City BSM British Syrian Mission CMS Church Missionary Society LBDFM London Bible and Domestic Female Mission LEM Lebanon Evangelical Mission (successor to the BSM) NEST Near East School of Theology, Beirut NRSV New Revised Standard Version of the Bible PCUSA Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, based in New York City Syrian Protestant College, Beirut (later AUB) SPC UPCNA United Presbyterian Church in North America

xiii

GLOSSARY OF ARABIC TERMS

Adab

belles lettres, humanities, literature; culture or refinement; culturally prescribed manners and behaviors Akhlaq manners, practice of morals, ethics Injil New Testament or gospel (injili, fem. injiliyya means Evangelical or Protestant) Jabal Lubnan Mount Lebanon Kanisa Church, as in al-kanisa al-injiliyya (Evangelical Church) Madrasa school Masihi (fem. masihiyya, Christian. Masih means Messiah or Christ  pl. masihiyyun) Matba‘a printing press Mu‘allim(a) teacher Mubashir (pl. mubashirun) male evangelist or preacher Mubashira (pl. mubashirat) female evangelistic preacher, Biblewoman Nahda renaissance or awakening (adj. nahdawi) system or organization; used to refer to the Nizam governing system of churches in Syria xiv

g lossa ry of a rabi c ter ms   |  xv Shammas Shaykh(a)

Suriyya Ta’ifa (pl. tawa’if ) Tarbiya Tanzimat (Ottoman   Turkish) Tawra

Umm Waqf (pl. awqaf  ) Watan

deacon; a Christian office in Protestant, Greek Orthodox and Catholic churches an honorific title, occasionally appearing in the feminine, that designates a chief, venerable scholar or head of a religious order; used for Presbyterian church elders in Syria Syria religious sect, usually formally recognized by the Ottoman administration upbringing or the raising of children reorganization; term used for the Ottoman government’s modernizing reforms from 1839 to 1876 Torah or first five books of Moses in the Hebrew Bible; also used in reference to the Hebrew Bible or Christian Old Testament more generally mother; rendered as “Im” in colloquial SyroLebanese Arabic religious or charitable endowment, often of a building or land homeland (adj. wataniyya signifies nationalism, patriotism, indigenous autonomy)

Wadi Shahrur

Borders of the modern Republic of Lebanon

Figure 1  Map of key sites for the American Syria Mission and British Syrian Mission in Ottoman Syria

Source: United Free Church of Scotland, Foreign Mission Atlas (Edinburgh: Foreign Mission Office, 1912).

Figure 2  Map of Ottoman regions including Syria

For Mike, Lilyan and Willa

In memory of Melody Ann Ferree

INTRODUCTION

T

his book not only picks up where most works on the American Syria Mission have left off—in 1860, when civil war rent the fabric of Ottoman Syrian society and massacres in Mount Lebanon and Damascus threw the fledgling Protestant community into chaos—it also focuses on gender and the activities of women in the Syrian Protestant community that other books have omitted.1 In the pivotal decades that followed this sectarian violence between Christians, Druzes and Muslims, women survivors sought to resurrect the Syrian Evangelical Church. They pioneered the Syrian Biblewomen’s movement, while American and British missionary women in late nineteenth-century Syria came to outnumber missionary men. During this same period, Syrian Protestant women and men used the American Mission Press in Beirut (AMP) to advance the Arab renaissance (al-nahda al‘arabiyya), a religiously diverse revival central to the story of Protestantism in late Ottoman Syria (present-day Lebanon and Syria). The era now known as the Nahda has been characterized variously as an “Arab awakening,” or “the liberal age” of Arabic thought or an “Arabic print revolution.”2 The last designation relates to one facet of the multicausal renaissance in the Ottoman Arab provinces, which included both a cultural movement that unfolded throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth 1

2  |  PROTESTA NTS, G ENDER A ND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE centuries and a political movement that arose toward the end of the nineteenth century.3 As Ami Ayalon described the Nahda: Among its prominent marks were an increase in literary and linguistic creativity and an excited journalistic enterprise. Opening up new intellectual vistas, this enterprise engaged members of the society’s educated classes in a vivid written discourse on questions of modernity and cultural identity and encouraged the spread of learning and literacy. “Nahda” is also used in a different, essentially political sense, to denote the vocal quest for national liberation, political rights, and individual freedom that ensued, or rather emanated from, the cultural ferment of that period.4

The Ottoman administration’s modernizing reforms (Tanzimat) and encounters with Western ideas and technologies influenced the emerging intelligentsia and rising middle class in Ottoman Beirut in the nineteenth century, while seventeenth- and eighteenth-century revivals among Maronites and Melkites positioned Christians in Syria well to take advantage of these changing tides. Yet Muslim intellectuals in Cairo and Istanbul had engaged in significant Arabic production before the mid-nineteenth-century flowering of Arab Christian literary activity.5 The cultural and political ferment of the Nahda, therefore, was not limited to one geographical region, time period or originating cause. For Syrian Protestants, Beirut became a hub for the Nahda, and thus its transformation in the nineteenth century from a provincial town into a bustling port city provides the backdrop for this book. By the 1870s, Beirut had emerged as a new cultural and literary center, which gave rise to dozens of missionary, ecclesiastical and private printing presses; to the increased production and consumption of Arabic books and periodicals; and to the foundation of scholarly societies, literary salons and modern educational institutions. Beirut was the capital for a series of shifting Ottoman administrative districts and an imperial center for urban development, industrialization and commerce known for its enterprising mercantile bourgeoisie.6 Changing conceptions of what it meant to be modern as well as new local understandings of political and sectarian identity also spread outward from the city into rural areas through literary networks and through the communication systems of various ta’ifas (religious sects). In attending to the cultural currents

i ntroducti on   |  3 of the Nahda, including these religious movements in Ottoman Syria, this book examines the intertwined histories of Protestant missionaries and local residents until 1915, when famine and other effects of the First World War shifted missionary attention to humanitarian relief.7 Most studies locate the growth of Syrian Protestantism and the rise of the modern Arabic press on a timeline of American missionary activities beginning in 1819, when the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) appointed Levi Parsons and Pliny Fisk to begin the first American mission in the Mediterranean.8 Following Parsons’ death, Fisk and four new missionary recruits settled in Beirut in 1823, and the rest is history, or so the familiar account goes.9 The American Syria Mission established the first Syrian Evangelical Church in Beirut in 1848; in 1865, missionary Cornelius Van Dyck completed his translation of the Arabic Bible, printed in the now famous American Arabic font at the AMP;10 and in 1866, American educational efforts culminated in the founding of the Syrian Protestant College (SPC; now the American University of Beirut). By 1870, when the ABCFM transferred the mission to the control of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (BFM), the Americans had established an enduring presence in the Middle East, the story goes.11 Although the population of Syrian Protestants remained small, Protestant schools educated numerous Syrian intellectuals, and, according to missionary reports, the work of the mission press sparked the literary renaissance that spread from Beirut to Cairo and thence throughout the wider Arab world.12 This overview, and indeed much of the existing literature, presents the modern encounter between Protestant missionaries and Ottoman Arabs as a tale of cause and effect in an essentially American missionary project, establishing a pattern that has characterized American representations of their own involvements in Syria and Lebanon up to the present. Similar stories of Western agents as the primary actors on a foreign stage have emerged from multiple studies of the modern missionary movement, whether the action took place in the Middle East or in other regions of the world.13 Yet what Western Christians have often put forth as universal history is, as one scholar of World Christianity explained, “little more than a tribal history, an ethnocentric telling of the larger global story.”14 Such narrow histories overlook the

4  |  PROTESTA NTS, G ENDER A ND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE agency of local Christians and other non-Western residents, and also tend to exclude women’s contributions to religion and society. In the traditional mode of mission history—reflected in the twentieth-century work of scholars like Kenneth Scott Latourette—American and European men are the main characters in this unfolding saga of Western Christian expansion.15 In contrast, a polyphonic tune emerges when we identify this dominant narrative as just one strand of the story and set it alongside others. In the case of the American Syria Mission, this means reading women’s perspectives along with those of men and examining missionary publications as well as the writings of Syrian Protestant intellectuals, mission school graduates, Catholic and Greek Orthodox clergy and Islamic reformists. By recognizing Syrians as agents in their own history and identifying the gendered dimensions of the missionary encounter, this book pushes beyond male-oriented narratives about American Protestants and the American Syria Mission. In the following pages readers will meet Nijma ‘Atiq and Umm Shakir Dabaghi, both widows who became Biblewomen in Beirut after escaping the Druze–Christian violence in Hasbayya (Mount Lebanon). As members of the Syrian Evangelical Church of Beirut, these women worshipped along with the British mission employee Salim Kassab, who moved from Damascus soon after a Muslim neighbor rescued him from the violence of 1860, a story he published along with his personal conversion narrative. ‘Atiq and Dabaghi also attended church with figures of the Nahda whose Protestant activities are featured in this book: Ibrahim al-Hurani, a poet and editor, transformed the AMP into a nahdawi printing establishment and engaged in lively press debates with the Syrian Jesuit priest Sulayman Ghanim. Farida ‘Atiya and Hanna Kurani, both pioneers of the Arab women’s awakening, published their first books at the AMP and also translated texts for the press. Khalil Sarkis, an independent press owner and newspaper editor, negotiated with American missionaries during the Beirut Church schism of the 1890s, and Yusif ‘Atiya, who pastored the church following this controversy, wrote tracts that drew the attention of Muhammad bin Tahir al-Tannir, an associate of Muslim reformist Rashid Rida.16 The thick and nuanced history of such Syrian Protestants and their interlocutors presented here is rooted in the global context of modern missions

i ntroducti on   |  5 and Western imperialism, embedded in the Ottoman Arab movements of the Nahda and attentive to the gendered power dynamics of these intersecting histories. A Revised History of the American Syria Mission Since the late 1990s, a number of books, essays, dissertations and conference panels have focused on Western Christian missions to Arabs, Turks, Armenians, Persians, Assyrians and other Middle Eastern populations.17 Yet because of a general neglect of Christianity as a subject of study within Middle Eastern Studies and because scholars of World Christianity rarely focus on the Middle East, few books exist on the origins of Protestantism in contemporary Syria and Lebanon or on Syrian Protestants’ understandings and practices of faith.18 Melanie Trexler’s work on twentieth-century relations between Lebanese Baptists and Baptist missionaries from the United States is one recent exception, along with Ussama Makdisi’s groundbreaking study of two Maronite converts to Protestantism during the Syria Mission’s early years.19 Yet Abdul Latif Tibawi’s American Interests in Syria (1966) remains the standard source on the American Syria Mission for the late nineteenth century, and the book’s limitations have shaped the trajectory of recent scholarship in a number of directions.20 First, Tibawi told an American story drawn from the writings of missionaries, and scholars have only recently begun to fill in the missing narrative on Syrian Protestantism.21 Second, in comparison with his comprehensive examination of ABCFM archives, Tibawi gained only partial access to Presbyterian records. He offered an abbreviated version of the post-1870 mission under the Presbyterian BFM and ended in 1901, neglecting the work that continued until the First World War disrupted the missionary enterprise.22 Expanding upon Tibawi’s research on the ABCFM, major histories of the Syria Mission center upon the beginnings of missionary work in the region from the 1820s to the 1860s.23 Third, a significant portion of Tibawi’s chapters on the post-1860 period concerned the SPC, which he characterized as the crowning achievement of the American missionaries even though the school operated independently of the Syria Mission.24 Following Tibawi’s emphasis on education, histories of SPC and its twentieth-century predecessor the American University of Beirut

6  |  PROTESTA NTS, G ENDER A ND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE (AUB) outnumber studies on the wider Protestant missionary endeavor in the region.25 As a result, historians have neglected the contributions that the American Syria Mission, the British Syrian Mission and Syrian Protestant teachers made toward women’s education and literary endeavors in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The SPC, which never admitted female students, has been credited for such achievements.26 This relates to a fourth assumption based on Tibawi’s book: either that women played a negligible role in the Syrian Evangelical Church or that source materials on their activities have not survived. Even with exceptional work by Ellen Fleischmann and Christine B. Lindner on gender and missions in Syria, the contributions of Syrian Protestant women in the Nahda remain to be fully explored.27 Since transregional comparisons of Middle Eastern Protestant women’s histories are also lacking, my work to unearth and interpret the writings of nahdawi women in Syria may prompt scholars to search further for local women’s publications from other mission fields such as Persia, for example, where Assyrian Evangelical girls were educated in Presbyterian schools and missionaries established vernacular presses.28 Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria offers a revised history of the missionary encounter in Ottoman Syria from 1860 to 1915, a time of relative peace and of rapid socio-cultural change before the First World War altered the face of the Middle East.29 This book is distinct in its intention to bring Middle Eastern history into dialogue with the interdisciplinary field of World Christianity, which breaks the Lattoreatean pattern of identifying Western missionaries as the transmitters of Christianity and instead emphasizes the agency of Africans, Asians and Latin Americans in contextualizing the Christian faith and initiating local churches.30 While missionaries in the modern period often “employed a Western template to replicate” their own Protestant or Catholic traditions around the globe, church historians, contextual and liberation theologians, demographers and social scientists in World Christianity avoid identifying the West as a “single command center” for global Christian movements.31 Adding Arab Protestantism to conversations in World Christianity that rarely focus on the Middle East or North Africa, I also build upon studies that identify missionaries as agents of colonial expansion in the Middle East and show local residents contesting Western Christian hegemony.32 Paul Sedra,

i ntroducti on   |  7 for example, documented Egyptian peasants’ resistance to mission schools and featured the Armenian Christian Joseph Hekekian challenging British pastors’ disparaging views of Islamic society. Beth Baron, in a study also of Egypt, captured the tale of Muslim reformists who championed the cause of an orphan girl beaten at a missionary school.33 Others have noted how Middle Easterners appropriated European cultural resources and exerted a transformative influence upon their missionary counterparts.34 Following postcolonial theorists like Edward Said—who had family ties to the early Syrian Protestant community—these Middle Eastern histories produced outside the realm of World Christianity are important, for they often do a better job accounting for the paternalism and imperialism of the missionary enterprise.35 Yet according to Joel Cabrita and David Maxwell, the impulse within World Christianity to write a “non-imperial church history” by concentrating on isolated local appropriations of Christianity “risks obscuring the historical and ongoing contribution of ‘imperial’ powers—­ formerly in Western Europe, now, perhaps, in the United States—to shaping Christian practice worldwide.”36 To tell a more comprehensive story of the missionary encounter in Ottoman Syria and of Syrian Protestantism, I seek a balance between those existing studies that tell, either appreciatively or critically, a missionary story overseas and those that romanticize local resistance by writing “from a so-called native perspective.”37 This book avoids false dichotomies between East and West, between missionary action and “native” resistance and between Syrians’ cultural and religious identities by presenting a story of mutual encounter between missionaries and Ottoman residents who became “enmeshed in each other’s history,” rather than placing either American Protestants or Syrians at the center.38 As Daniel Rodgers’ work exemplified and Heather Sharkey applied to Middle Eastern missions, this approach interprets the missionary encounter as “intensely local, global, and transnational at once.”39 During the Syrian missionary encounter, such geographical entanglements included the flow of missionaries back and forth between the United States and the Ottoman Empire; the movement of Syrians to Europe and the Americas; the sending of Syrian money, goods, correspondence and printed media across these regions; and the exchange of news and friendly Christian sentiment between Syrian Protestants and new Protestant Churches in Africa and East Asia.

8  |  PROTESTA NTS, G ENDER A ND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE Within this setting, Protestant missionaries and Syrians from diverse religious communities encountered, challenged and changed one another in profound ways, leaving their lives inextricably entwined. I employ the term “enmeshed history” not only as an interpretive framework but also as a method for seeking out and reading source materials. This means incorporating the voices of multiple participants in the missionary encounter, and particularly those of Syrian Protestants whose beliefs, motivations and activities most mission studies and Middle Eastern histories neglect. This approach also informs my treatment of two forms of patriarchy embedded in the Syrian missionary encounter. Paternalistic power (the hierarchy of a father over children) manifested itself in the efforts of Western missionary men to exercise tutelage over Syrian men. Masculinist power (structural gender inequality) relegated American women to overseeing girls’ schools or missionary households and (as upheld by missionary men and women alike) excluded Syrian women from positions of institutional authority in the Protestant community.40 Existing books on the American mission and Syrian Protestantism that rely upon male narratives, whether American or Syrian, have reproduced this patriarchy in the sense that women’s voices, and especially those of Syrian women, remain marginalized. In contrast, my enmeshed approach considers women’s perspectives alongside those of men and reads rare Arabic manuscripts of the Nahda, unpublished Syrian Protestant letters and diaries, and missionary texts together to offer a more holistic history of the American–Syrian relationship and the ways that Syrian Protestants shaped their own history. The Enmeshed Story of Nahdawi Protestantism Syrian and American Protestants alike upheld the nahdawi concept of the printed word as a cultural force, and saw it also as a key component in evangelical conversions. By comparing their articulations of evangelical identity, I demonstrate how religious change played out in the context of the Nahda emanating from Beirut into the wider sectarian landscape of post-1860 Syria. I begin my exploration of Syrian Protestant identity with this focus, following the approach of anthropologists of World Christianity, who stress the importance of first “attending carefully to the meanings people use in constructing their actions.”41 This sentiment matches the compelling case that

i ntroducti on   |  9 Middle Eastern historian Akram Khater made for taking religious ­experience seriously: We need to write histories of religion that are not dedicated solely to telling the stories of religious institutions and intellectuals or to describing religion as a social and political force. Rather, and difficult though it may be, we must narrate tales of faith and belief, those intangible yet powerful elements of the human experience. We must allow a role for the supernatural in human history by accepting that it moved individuals and communities in small and great ways—even if it does not move us in a similar manner.42

Khater’s analysis in his study of an eighteenth-century Maronite movement applies equally to my research on Syrian Protestantism. In the Middle East, as Heather Sharkey noted, religious affinities blended with identity markers like gender, ethnicity, language and profession, and religion was not always the key determinant for the ways in which individuals and communities behaved.43 Yet Sharkey and Khater are among the few historians who have given serious attention to Middle Eastern Christian religiosity, even when addressing missionaries as religious agents in the region. To consider only the socio-cultural, political or economic consequences of the missionary enterprise would discount the religious identity of Syrian Evangelical Church members and the role they played as theologically committed Protestants in the religious and social transformations of the late Ottoman period. This has been the approach to Arabic-speaking Protestant figures in histories of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ottoman Syria, beginning with the foundational works of George Antonius and Albert Hourani.44 Yet through their published works and their activities during the Nahda the early generations of Syrian Protestants told a different story. In 1870, the Protestant intellectual Butrus al-Bustani established his pioneering journal in Beirut, al-Jinan (The Gardens).45 Al-Bustani, who worked as a translator for the AMP, is arguably the most well known of many Syrian Evangelical Church members who contributed to the Arab renaissance. He is named, as well, alongside the secular Christian intellectuals and Muslim reformists featured in most studies of the Nahda. Yet, for Syrian Protestants, al-Bustani was also an evangelical exemplar. His widely disseminated biography of the first Syrian Protestant, As‘ad al-Shidyaq, provided

10  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE a model testimony of faith that prominent converts Saliba Jarwan, Salim Kassab, Nassim al-Hilu and Kamil ‘Itani followed when telling their own narratives. Such figures adopted Protestantism in the mid- to late nineteenth century and also embraced the nahdawi aspirations that al-Bustani embodied: a commitment to science, modern education, Arabic literary production, public intellectual discourse and social progress in Syria.46 These pursuits were compatible with Protestant religiosity (or active belief and committed practice), along with traditions of Bible reading and evangelistic printing (Chapter 1). In affirming this, Syrian Protestants formed a link between their missionary partners and the intellectual and religious leaders of other ta’ifas in late Ottoman Syria. American missionaries established the AMP in Beirut to spread their interpretation of Christianity and promote evangelical conversions, but as the nineteenth century advanced the press quickly become a site of American– Syrian collaboration and a means for Syrian Protestants to participate fully in the socio-cultural and religious discourses of the Nahda. The Syrian men who wrote for the AMP from the 1870s onward were well versed in the discourses published at independent Syrian presses and in literary-scientific periodicals that we might designate as “secular” for their lack of religious affiliation. Nahdawi Protestants—like the Beirut Church deacon and AMP employee Ibrahim al-Hurani—contributed to these cultural currents through Arabic poetry, scientific studies and commentaries on modern society published at the mission press. They also engaged in nahdawi production in their writings on Islam and through press debates with Jesuit missionaries and with Catholic and Greek Orthodox Syrians. Together such authors made the religious presses of Beirut a locus of dynamic encounters and passionate contestations that attracted readers and new nahdawi writers from outside Beirut, extending the Nahda to the homes, schools, churches and public meeting spaces of rural Syria. This expands the usual interpretation of the Nahda as a secular movement and uncovers its religious ­dimensions (Chapter 2). Likewise, expanding it is my foregrounding of Syrian women’s voices. For to borrow a phrase from Chandra Mohanty, “under Western eyes” too often Middle Eastern women have been rendered a homogeneous group bound by shared oppression.47 Missionary men spoke about them, and

i ntroducti on   |  11 missionary women spoke for them, endeavoring to save their Syrian sisters while advancing their own positions in a religious enterprise controlled by men. Yet Syrian women spoke too, and often. They found in the AMP an avenue for influencing a wider audience through a medium—printed Arabic—that few missionary women in Syria had the Arabic skill, interest or support to employ. Although it was uncommon for Syrian Protestant women to participate in published theological controversies, the nahdawi authors Hanna Kurani, Farida ‘Atiya and Julia Tu‘ma were among those who joined Protestant men at the AMP in printing speeches, articles, books and poetry that extolled the riches of ancient Arab-Islamic civilization and praised the modernization efforts of the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul, ‘Abd al-Hamid II (1841–1919). Women first signed their names to sermonic texts and articles on education and child-rearing for the mission periodical al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (The Weekly Bulletin) in the 1880s, and they began publishing books and novels at the AMP in the 1890s. These largely neglected texts put nahdawi Protestant women at the forefront of the Arab women’s awakening, which gained momentum in the early twentieth century (Chapter 3). In contrast to this accomplishment in the masculine domain of literary production, the absence of women’s official roles was apparent in the church, the third component of the Syria Mission along with its press and schools. Gendered expressions of institutional Protestantism came to the fore through the various means of communication that Syrian Protestant men employed to assert their agency and masculinity in situations where women were not present. Long-time members of the Evangelical Church of Beirut like Khalil Sarkis aired grievances with the mission over issues of ordination and church governance in the 1890s and clashed with one another in the process, resulting in a church schism. This conflict and the antimissionary pamphlet it produced displayed the asymmetrical power dynamics within the Syria Mission and the relationship of intra-Protestant controversies to the Nahda (Chapter 4). While Syrian Protestant men contended with the male leaders of the American mission, their counterparts in the Biblewomen’s movement found few openings for employment as Bible readers and preachers within the American Syria Mission. Therefore, subtly asserting their agency in the face of missionary authority, many turned to the female-led British Syrian Mission

12  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE to support their preaching vocations. The stories of these Syrian women evangelists, among them the aforementioned Nijma ‘Atiq and Umm Shakir Dabaghi, who advanced their own spiritual authority in the Protestant community outside traditional clerical structures, are more elusive than any other told in this volume (Chapter 5). Yet, to apply Richard Fox Young’s maxim regarding global Christianity: “What happens on the margins beyond the established churches (schools, etc.) of Euro-American origin is also worth watching.”48 Although omitted from most studies on the Syria Mission and on the Nahda, the voices of Syrian Protestant women are critical because their efforts—outside the boundaries of the church and beyond the male missionary gaze—built and sustained the Syrian Evangelical Church. Thus, another layer emerges in the missionary encounter in Ottoman Syria, which brought together American Protestants, members of other Western missionary ­societies and Syrians of all religious backgrounds. Terminology and Geography In closing, I offer a few words about the terminology I use in this book. The term Syrian, when applied to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, does not indicate a modern sense of national identity or nationstate boundaries. Rather, Syrian was the common identifying term for residents of Greater Syria (bilad al-sham), a region that included the historical Ottoman provinces of Aleppo, Damascus, Tripoli and Sidon. The province of Suriyya came into being in 1865 after administrative restructuring, but the concept of Syria was not limited to this official territory. Like the loose term bilad al-sham (meaning “the land on the left” when facing east from Mecca), ­nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Syria included the region north of the Arabian Desert and east of the Mediterranean. As the term “Greater Syria” remains in use today, I specify Ottoman Syria as my historical region of study. The residents of this area referred to themselves simply as Syrians. The American Syria Mission operated in what became known after the First World War as Lebanon and Syria, and thus the Syrian Evangelical Church (al-kanisa al-injiliyya) emerged in the region, including Sidon, Beirut, Tripoli and Hums, where the residents’ self-identification as Syrian was particularly strong by the late nineteenth century.49 Lebanese Congregational and Presbyterian churches today trace their roots to these earliest Syrian

i ntroducti on   |  13 Evangelical churches, while the current Presbyterian congregations in Syria emerged through the work of the American Syria Mission in the Hums region, the Irish Presbyterian mission in Damascus and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America mission in Latakia, northwest of Hums.50 The British Syrian Mission (BSM), a non-ecclesial women’s mission, operated girls’ schools and employed Biblewomen in and around Beirut, Tyre, Zahle, Mount Lebanon and Damascus, and complemented the Presbyterian missions in these areas. This book concentrates on the American Syria Mission’s field of work, including areas of overlap with the BSM, and on the early generations of Syrian Protestants associated with these two missions. In Arabic church titles, injiliyya (evangelical) is the adjectival designation for any congregation with roots in the Protestant Reformation. When referring to individuals, I use the designations evangelical and Protestant interchangeably, following the church members of the time who referred to themselves as both injili and brutistanti. The Arabic-speaking Syrian Evangelical Church in Ottoman Syria should not be confused with the Aramaic-speaking Protestant Church in Persia, which American Presbyterian missionaries there also called the Syrian Evangelical Church.51 Today this church is known as the Assyrian Evangelical Church, and most of its founding members in the nineteenth century were ethnic Assyrians associated with the Assyrian Church of the East (the Eastern Aramaic or Syriac Christian tradition erroneously called Nestorian).52 The Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church (Assyrian Catholic) were not prominent in Ottoman Syria, although missionaries in Syria noted occasional encounters with Assyrians of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch (the Western Syriac tradition designated ­mistakenly as monophysite or pejoratively as Jacobite).53 When it came to theology, liturgical language and even ethnicity, Christians in Syria were not a homogeneous group. The largest communities were Maronite Catholic (liturgically Syriac), Greek Orthodox (liturgically Greek) and Melkite (a liturgically Greek Catholic tradition).54 Syrian converts to Protestantism usually hailed from one of these ethnically Arab communities but more often spoke of themselves as Syrians rather than as Arabs, the latter term gaining popularity with Arab nationalist movements of the twentieth century. Other members of the Syrian Evangelical Church came from the Armenian Apostolic Church (liturgically and ethnically Armenian)

14  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE and had resided in Syria for generations. These Armenian Protestants in Syria spoke vernacular Arabic and commonly self-identified as Syrian. Before the First World War and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, these Protestants were part of a multiethnic, multilingual and religiously diverse population of Syrians at the height of the Nahda who called Ottoman Syria home. Notes   1. On the 1860 civil war, see my introduction to Chapter 1 below, and Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).   2. These designations appeared in two classic studies and one more recent: George Antonius, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement (Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, 1939); Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Ami Ayalon, The Arabic Print Revolution: Cultural Production and Mass Readership (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). See also Hannah Scott Deuchar, “‘Nahda’: Mapping a Keyword in Cultural Discourse,” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 37 (2017): 50–84.   3. Fruma Zachs and Sharon Halevi, Gendering Culture in Greater Syria (London: I. B. Tauris, 2015), 4–5 and 164, n. 8.  4. Ayalon, Arabic Print Revolution, 18.  5. Ibid. 19, 21–9; Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 164; Akram Fouad Khater, Embracing the Divine: Passion and Politics in the Christian Middle East (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2011), 4–6, 39–40; Abdul Latif Tibawi, “Some Misconceptions about the Nahda,” in Abdul Latif Tibawi (ed.), Arabic and Islamic Themes: Historical, Educational, and Literary Studies (London: Luzac, 1976), 304, 308–12; Abdulrazzak Patel, The Arab Nahdah: The Making of the Intellectual and Humanist Movement (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 13–16; Stephen Sheehi, “Towards a Critical Theory of al-Nahdah: Epistemology, Ideology and Capital,” Journal of Arabic Literature 43 (2012): 271–2.   6. Toufoul Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home: The Modern Middle Class in Ottoman Beirut (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017), 11–15; Jens Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital (Oxford:

i ntroducti on   |  15 Oxford University Press, 2005); Fruma Zachs, Making of a Syrian Identity: Intellectuals and Merchants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (Leiden: Brill, 2005).   7. The Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in November 1914. The American Syria Mission maintained its usual operations throughout 1915 and documented the locust plague that exacerbated the existing food scarcity. Missionaries appealed to the BFM for special relief funds by early 1916. Franklin E. Hoskins to Friends, April 23, 1915: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University Library, Harold B. Hoskins Papers, MC221-8-17; F. Hoskins to Stanley White, January 13, 1916: Syria Mission Papers of the Presbyterian Historical Society (hereafter PHS) Record Group 115-7-21. See also Ellen L. Fleischmann, “Living in an ‘Isle of Safety’: The Sidon Female Seminary in World War I,” Jerusalem Quarterly 56/7 (2013/14): 40–51; Linda Schilcher, “The Famine of 1915–1918 in Greater Syria,” in J. P. Spagnolo (ed.), Problems of the Modern Middle East in Historical Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 229–58; Zachary J. Foster, “The 1915 Locust Attack in Syria and Palestine and its Role in the Famine During the First World War,” Middle Eastern Studies 51(3) (2015): 1–25.   8. Mehmet Ali Doğan, “From New England into New Lands: The Beginning of a Long Story,” in Mehmet Ali Doğan and Heather J. Sharkey (eds.), American Missionaries and the Middle East: Foundational Encounters (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2011), 14. Fisk and Parsons were graduates of Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, where in 1810 in the spirit of New England revivalism a group of students established the first missionary society in the United States, the ABCFM.  9. Abdul Latif Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 1800–1901: A Study of Educational, Literary and Religious Work (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966), 101. 10. The Arabic Bible translation of 1865 was a collective work of Van Dyck, Eli Smith, Butrus al-Bustani, Nasif al-Yaziji, Yusif al-Asir and others. David D. Grafton, “A Critical Investigation into the Manuscripts of the ‘So-Called’ Van Dyck Bible,” Cairo Journal of Theology 2 (2015): 56–64; David D. Grafton, The Contested Origins of the 1865 Arabic Bible: Contributions to the Nineteenth Century Nahda (Leiden: Brill, 2016). 11. Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (hereafter BFM) (New York: 1871): 36; “Transfer of the Syria Mission,” Missionary Herald 66 (1870): 390–5; Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 191–2. A nondenominational society, the ABCFM oversaw the mission from 1819 to 1870

16  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE and sent Congregationalist, Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed missionaries to Syria. The BFM received the former ABCFM missionaries on October 3, 1870. Since 1839, the Board of Foreign Missions had been operated by the New School Presbyterians alone. Robert Speer, Presbyterian Foreign Missions: An Account of the Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1901), 16. 12. BFM (1893), 230. 13. Robert Woodberry, for example, argued that the missionary activities of “conversionary Protestants” led to the rise and global spread of liberal democracy. Robert D. Woodberry, “The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy,” American Political Science Review 106(2) (2012): 244–74. 14. Dale T. Irvin, “World Christianity: An Introduction,” Journal of World Christianity 1(1) (2008): 12. 15. Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, 7 vols. (New York: Harper, 1937–45). On Latourette’s enduring influence, see Andrew Walls, A History of the Expansion of Christianity Reconsidered: The Legacy of George E. Day (New Haven, CT: Yale Divinity School Library, 1996). 16. Appendices A, B, D and E offer family trees and dates of life, death and mission service for the Syrian Protestants mentioned throughout the book and for the members of the American Syria Mission. Key texts published at the AMP by Syrian Protestant women are identified in Appendix F. 17. Heleen Murre-van den Berg, “The Study of Western Missions in the Middle East (1820–1920): An Annotated Bibliography,” in Norbert Friedrich, Uwe Kaminsky and Roland Löffler (eds.), The Social Dimension of Christian Missions in the Middle East: Historical Studies of the 19th and 20th Centuries (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2010), 35–53. See more recently Mehemet Ali Doğan and Heather J. Sharkey (eds.), American Missionaries and the Middle East: Foundational Encounters (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2011); Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva Specter Simon, Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of Christian Missions in the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012); Beth Baron, The Orphan Scandal: Christian Missionaries and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014); Barbara Reeves-Ellington, Domestic Frontiers: Gender, Reform, and American Interventions in the Ottoman Balkans and the Near East (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013); Adam H. Becker, Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press,

i ntroducti on   |  17 2015); Emrah Şahin, Faithful Encounters: Authorities and American Missionaries in the Ottoman Empire (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018). 18. Khater emphasized the dearth of scholarship on Christianity in the Middle East in the modern period. Khater, Embracing the Divine, 4. 19. Melanie E. Trexler, Evangelizing Lebanon: Baptists, Missions, and the Question of Cultures (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016); Ussama Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008). 20. Murre-van den Berg, “The Study of Western Missions in the Middle East,” 38–9. 21. Tibawi included some letters written by Syrian converts, Arabic publications by missionaries and Arabic texts by Syrians printed at the AMP. He rarely used Syrian sources from outside the ABCFM or BFM archives. On the Protestant community in Syria and Lebanon, see Habib Badr, “The Protestant Evangelical Community in the Middle East: Impact on Cultural and Societal Developments,” International Review of Mission 89(352) (2000): 60–9; Wanis Sema’an, Aliens at Home: A Socio-Religious Analysis of the Protestant Church in Lebanon and its Backgrounds (Beirut: Longman-Libraire du Liban, 1986); George F. Sabra, Truth and Service: A History of the Near East School of Theology (Beirut: Antoine, 2009); Maria B. Abunnasr, “The Making of Ras Beirut: A Landscape of Memory for Narratives of Exceptionalism, 1870–1975,” PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts, 2013, 132–83. 22. At the time of Tibawi’s research the letters and reports from the Syria Mission were available only on microfilm, and all the communications from the Presbyterian Board to the American missionaries had been declared “missing.” See Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 14 n. 1. Since then, the Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS) in Philadelphia has processed sixty-nine boxes of records, original reports and correspondence sent from Lebanon. Processing was completed in 1972 for PHS Record Groups 115 and 90 and in 2015 for Record Group 492. 23. This is true for the following: Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven; Samir Khalaf, Protestant Missionaries in the Levant: Ungodly Puritans, 1820–1860 (New York: Routledge, 2012); Hans-Lukas Kieser, Nearest East: American Millennialism and Mission to the Middle East (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2010); Christine Leigh Heyrman, American Apostles: When Evangelicals Entered the World of Islam (New York: Hill & Wang, 2015); Habib Badr, “Mission

18  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE to ‘Nominal Christians’: The Policy and Practice of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and its Missionaries Concerning Eastern Churches which led to the Organization of a Protestant Church in Beirut (1819– 1848),” PhD dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1992; Christine B. Lindner, “Negotiating the Field: American Protestant Missionaries in Ottoman Syria, 1823 to 1860,” PhD dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 2009; Uta Zeuge-Buberl, The Mission of the American Board in Syria: Implications of a transcultural Dialogue, trans. Elizabeth Janik (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2017); Grafton, Contested Origins; Hala Auji, Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (Leiden: Brill, 2016). 24. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 306. SPC’s first president, Daniel Bliss, was an ABCFM missionary in Syria who left this position in order to found the college with a separate board of directors. See Daniel Bliss, The Reminiscences of Daniel Bliss, ed. Frederick Jones Bliss (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1920). 25. Works of this nature include Rao Humpherys Lindsay, Nineteenth-Century American Schools in the Levant: A Study of Purposes (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1965); Faith M. Hanna, An American Mission: The Role of the American University of Beirut (Boston, MA: Alphabet Press, 1979); Betty S. Anderson, The American University of Beirut: Arab Nationalism and Liberal Education (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2011); Aleksandra MajstoracKobiljski, “Learning to be Modern: American Missionary Colleges in Beirut and Kyoto 1860–1920,” PhD dissertation, City University of New York, 2010. However, Hauser, Lindner and Möller moved beyond this educational focus on AUB and on American missions by examining the multiplicity of local and foreign schools in Syria and Lebanon. Julia Hauser, Christine B. Lindner and Esther Möller (eds.), Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19–20th Centuries) (Würzburg: Ergon, 2016). 26. Hanssen and Weiss, for example, stated that the nahdawi Jewish author Esther Azhari Muyal graduated from SPC. Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss, “The Means and Ends of the Liberal Experiment,” in Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss (eds.), Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Nahda (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 170. In the 1920s, after SPC was renamed the American University of Beirut, the institution began admitting women. Aleksandra Majstorac-Kobiljski, “Women Students at the American University of Beirut from the 1920s to the 1940s,” in Inger Marie Okkenhaug and Ingvild Flaskerud (eds.), Gender, Religion, and Change in the Middle East: Two Hundred Years of History (Oxford: Berg, 2005), 67–84. On

i ntroducti on   |  19 Muyal, who was educated at American Syria Mission and British Syrian Mission schools for girls, see Marilène Karam, “Esther Azhari Muyal (1873–1948): Aspects of a Modern Education in Bilad al-Sham,” in Julia Hauser, Christine B. Lindner and Esther Möller (eds.), Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19–20th Centuries) (Würzburg: Ergon, 2016), 255–64. 27. See the following examples and consult Chapter 3, below, for other work by these authors: Ellen L. Fleischmann, “The Impact of American Protestant Missions in Lebanon on the Construction of Female Identity, c. 1860–1950,” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 13(4) (2002): 411–26; Lindner, “Negotiating the Field”; Deanna Ferree Womack and Christine B. Lindner, “‘Pick up the Pearls of Knowledge and Adorn Ourselves with the Jewelry of Literature’: An Analysis of Three Arab Women Writers in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya,” Living Stones Yearbook (2014): 125–57. 28. The BFM supported vernacular printing in Persia, just as it did in Syria, a phenomenon that Adam Becker explored along with the education of Assyrian girls at Presbyterian schools, but without mention of educated Assyrian women writing for the mission press. Becker, Revival and Awakening, 102–6, 149–62. 29. Engin Deniz Akarli, The Long Peace: Ottoman Lebanon, 1861–1920 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), 1–5, 189. 30. Charles E. Farhadian, “Introduction,” in Charles E. Farhadian (ed.), Introducing World Christianity (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 2–3; Hyung Jin Park, “Journey of the Gospel: A Study in the Emergence of World Christianity and the Shift of Christian Historiography in the Last Half of the Twentieth Century,” PhD dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2009, 139–40; Joel Cabrita, David Maxwell and Emma Wild-Wood (eds.), Relocating World Christianity: Interdisciplinary Studies and Local Expressions of the Christian Faith (Leiden: Brill, 2017). See also Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989); Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996); Dana L. Robert, “Shifting Southward: Global Christianity since 1945,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 24(2) (2000): 50–8. 31. Richard Fox Young, “East Asia,” in Hugh McLeod (ed.), The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 9: World Christianities, c. 1914–c. 2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 451. 32. Of over five hundred members listed in the directory of the Yale–Edinburgh

20  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE Group on the History of Missions and World Christianity, fewer than thirty designated a research interest in the Middle East. Martha Smalley, “Yale–Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity Membership Directory,” unpublished directory, January 5, 2016. The inclusion of the Middle East in Charles Farhadian’s text on World Christianity was an encouraging step forward. See Heather J. Sharkey, “Middle Eastern and North African Christianity: Persisting in the Lands of Islam,” in Charles E. Farhadian (ed.), Introducing World Christianity (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 7–20. 33. Paul Sedra, From Mission to Modernity: Evangelicals, Reformers and Education in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2011), 63–83, 129–51; Baron, The Orphan Scandal. 34. Heather J. Sharkey, “Introduction: The Unexpected Consequences of Christian Missionary Encounters,” in Heather J. Sharkey (ed.), Cultural Conversions: Unexpected Consequences of Christian Missionary Encounters in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2013), 2, 7. 35. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978), 100, 294, 372 n. 110. Said critiqued the Orientalist underpinnings of the missionary enterprise, but unlike some postcolonial critics he recognized the humanitarian benefits that mission institutions afforded to his family and others in the region. Said was related to the nahdawi author Salma Badr (see Chapter 3, below) and the first Syrian pastor of the Evangelical Church of Beirut, Yusif Badr (see Chapter 4, below). Studies employing Said’s theories include: Timothy Marr, The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 82–113; Michael Marten, Attempting to Bring the Gospel Home: Scottish Missions to Palestine, 1839–1917 (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2006); Jeremy Salt, Imperialism, Evangelism, and the Ottoman Armenians 1878–1896 (London: Frank Cass, 1993); Sedra, From Mission to Modernity. 36. Joel Cabrita and David Maxwell, “Introduction: Relocating World Christianity,” in Joel Cabrita, David Maxwell and Emma Wild-Wood (eds.), Relocating World Christianity: Interdisciplinary Studies and Local Expressions of the Christian Faith (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 23. According to the authors, this risk exists precisely because scholars of World Christianity recognize and wish to rectify earlier accounts of triumphal missionary history by moving the focus away from these Western agents. 37. Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 8. 38. Heather Sharkey built upon Daniel Rodgers’ contention that “nations lie

i ntroducti on   |  21 enmeshed in each other’s history.” Heather J. Sharkey, “American Missionaries and the Middle East,” in Mehmet Ali Doğan and Heather J. Sharkey (eds.), American Missionaries and the Middle East: Foundational Encounters (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2011), x. See also Daniel T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 1–2. 39. Sharkey, “American Missionaries and the Middle East,” x; Heather J. Sharkey, American Evangelicals in Egypt: Missionary Encounters in an Age of Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 2. 40. Østein Gullvåg, “Social Theories for Researching Men and Masculinities,” in Jeff Hearn and R. W. Connell (eds.), Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), 19–20. 41. Joel Robbins, “On the Paradoxes of Global Pentecostalism and the Perils of Continuity Thinking,” Religion 33(3) (2003): 229–30. 42. Khater, Embracing the Divine, 13. See also Sharkey’s assessment of faith as a driving force for historical change. Sharkey, American Evangelicals in Egypt, 15. 43. Heather J. Sharkey, A History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 17. 44. Antonius, The Arab Awakening, 36, 92; Hourani, Arabic Thought, 96; Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1991), 307. 45. Abdul Latif Tibawi, “The American Missionaries in Beirut and Butrus alBustani,” in Albert Hourani (ed.), Middle Eastern Affairs 3, St. Anthony’s Papers No. 16 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1963), 178–82. 46. Nahdawi is the adjectival form of the word Nahda. I use the term nahdawis to signify those who participated as producers or consumers of the Arab renaissance in its many forms. 47. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” boundary 2 12(3) (1984): 333–58. 48. Young, “East Asia,” 451–52. 49. Western intellectual and missionary influence helped to reintroduce the concept of Syria (the ancient term used by the Romans and Byzantines) in the first half of the nineteenth century. Arnon Groiss, “Communalism as a Factor in the Rise of the Syria Idea in the 1800s and the early 1900s,” in Adel Beshara (ed.), The Origins of Syrian Nationhood (New York: Routledge, 2011), 32–63; Fruma Zachs, “Toward a Proto-Nationalist Concept of Syria? Revisiting the American Presbyterian Missionaries in the Nineteenth-Century Levant,” Die Welt des Islams 41(2) (2001): 145–73.

22  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE 50. Arthur J. Brown, The Report of a Visitation of the Syria Mission of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, March 20–April 26, 1902 (New York: Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 1902), 22; Marjorie Allen Sanderson, A Syrian Mosaic (Pittsburgh, PA: Board of Education and Publication of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, 1976). Today’s Armenian Evangelical churches in Syria and Lebanon are Congregational and thus denominationally tied to the National Evangelical Church of Beirut and other Arab Congregational churches in Lebanon. Following the Armenian genocide and deportations during the First World War, members of Armenian Evangelical churches (established by the ABCFM in Anatolia) took refuge in Syria and Lebanon and established independent Congregational churches. For a history of the Union of Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East, see Paul A. Haidostian, “Church Communion in the Middle East: An Armenian Evangelical Perspective,” Reformed World 56(2) (2006): 209–19. 51. Becker followed the missionaries’ usage when referring to the Syrian Evangelical Church founded in nineteenth-century Iran. Becker, Revival and Awakening. 52. For more on the Assyrians, see Sargon George Donabed, Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the 20th Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015); Heleen Murre-van den Berg, Scribes and Scriptures: The Church of the East in the Eastern Ottoman Provinces (1500–1850) (Louvain: Peeters, 2015). 53. Such reports came from missionaries along the northern border of the American Syria Mission’s field, which included the towns of Hums, Hama and Maharda in present-day Syria. BFM (1895), 212. Henry Jessup also reported on members of the “Jacobite Catholic Church” from Rashaya al-Wadi (east of Damascus) who petitioned the Syria Mission for a school. Henry Harris Jessup, FiftyThree Years in Syria, vol. 1 (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1910), 266. On these three ethnically Assyrian denominations, see Sargon Donabed, “Neither ‘Syriac-Speaking’ nor ‘Syrian Orthodox Christians’: Harput Assyrians in the United States as a Model for Ethnic Self-Categorization and Expression,” in Herman Teule et al. (eds.), Syriac in its Multi-Cultural Context (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 359–69. Before the 1950s, the Syriac Orthodox Church used the English nomenclature Assyrian Apostolic Church of Antioch and Assyrian Orthodox Church. 54. Groiss, “Communalism,” 33–4. Sunni Muslims constituted about 65 percent of the Ottoman Syrian population, and the remaining 45 percent were Christian, Alawite, Druze, Shi‘a and Jewish. Christians together made up about 60 percent

i ntroducti on   |  23 of this “minority” group. Population statistics for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries vary, but Groiss offered the following rough approximation: onethird of the Christian population in Syria was Maronite; one-third was Greek Orthodox; one-sixth was Melkite (Greek Catholic); and the remainder were Protestant, Roman Catholic (Latin), Syriac Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Eastern Catholic (the so-called “uniates” who broke from Armenian Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and other ancient Christian traditions and united with the Catholic Communion, while retaining their original liturgical languages).

1 EVANGELICAL AWAKENING: BECOMING PROTESTANT IN THE ARAB RENAISSANCE

L

ate nineteenth-century Ottoman Syria was a society in flux. Shifting ­conceptions of religious and cultural identity spurred on the sectarian conflicts of 1860 in Mount Lebanon and Damascus. Across Mount Lebanon, an administrative district named for the Jabal Lubnan range, the hitherto multicommunal society dissolved into war between Druzes and Maronites, the principal inhabitants of this rural region. While both churches and Druze sanctuaries were destroyed, the Druzes prevailed, rid entire villages of Christians and massacred many of the men, including Greek Orthodox and Protestants, in places like Dayr al-Qamar and Hasbayya. The urban riots soon afterward in Damascus, where Muslims protesting European influence killed thousands of Christians, similarly demonstrated new political redefinitions along religious lines. For these were not primordial expressions of tribalism.1 In the aftermath of this violence—a formative moment that countless Syrians recalled in their memoirs—some solidified sectarian allegiances, others constructed new identities by becoming Protestant, and still others sought to heal the newly-formed rifts between neighbors. In the “long peace” that followed and lasted until the First World War, new printing technologies offered one means for transcending these intercommunal conflicts and hastening the development of a modern Syrian 24

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  25 society. During this time, Beirut rose as a discernable cultural center where such hopes for Syria’s spiritual or material progress converged.2 American missionaries and Syrian intellectuals alike employed the city’s nascent Arabic press to advance competing religious, secular, social and political projects, in their minds to save the people of Syria from communalism and other ills. The writings of Syrian Protestants, who were disproportionately involved in this literary production, often bridged the ideals of the American Syria Mission and those of the Arab renaissance. As Syrians who had embraced the evangelical faith, they occupied a liminal space outside established sectarian structures. Although the modern phenomenon of sectarianism had made religious heritage into a marker of political division in Syria, these Syrian Protestants used the presses and public forums of the Nahda to cross social boundaries in their engagements with Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Muslim, Druze and Jewish communities. Later chapters of this book examine the work of Syrian Protestant women and men who made use of the American Mission Press (AMP or al-Matba‘a al-Amirkaniyya) in Beirut to contribute to the cultural currents of the Nahda from the late nineteenth century onward.3 Here I begin with basic questions about Syrian evangelical identity: how did one become Protestant in the sectarian landscape of late Ottoman Syria? What did evangelical faith mean during the Arab renaissance? Are religious convictions and conversion experiences compatible with or antithetical to nahdawi identity? Most basically, what do I mean by conversion in this context? Conversion, in this study, refers to an act or experience of religious change. Definitions of this complex phenomenon abound, and many of them are useful.4 In investigating the first three questions above, however, I seek to discern how the participants in the missionary encounter—and especially Syrian converts themselves—understood, described and performed the processes of religious change that we often call conversion. Answers have usually come to us second-hand in the form of Protestant missionary accounts about Arabs and Armenians in Syria who accepted Protestantism and joined the Syrian Evangelical Church. For an organization like the American Syria Mission with roots in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century New England revivalism, such conversion accounts in annual reports, mission magazines and private

26  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE correspondence demonstrated the fruits of missionary labors. Longer biographies of Syrian converts fulfilled the same purpose, and when published in Arabic could also be used as evangelistic literature or to strengthen the faith of new Protestants. Such materials preserved the voices and experiences of Syrian Protestants in the late Ottoman period, but missionaries and mission supporters of the time made use of these texts mainly to measure the success of their conversionary endeavors. They gave American actors credit for gaining adherents, foreclosing alternative interpretations that converts themselves might have offered. In conversation with recent work in Conversion Studies, some historians of the Middle East have looked beyond the numbers recorded in mission reports to understand the experiences of converts.5 Yet most histories of Christian missions in Ottoman Syria overlook or disregard Syrian Protestants’ conceptions of their own spiritual identities and address the subject of conversion in a cursory way.6 Asserting that the evangelistic efforts of the Syria Mission largely failed, such studies focus instead on the American mission’s impact upon the socio-cultural transitions in Syria after 1860. Abdul Latif Tibawi, for example, noted the slow growth of the Syrian Evangelical Church, which he believed to be far less important than the American missionaries’ educational activities.7 In a more recent study, Samir Khalaf attributed the educational advancement and liberalism in modern Lebanon to the “ungodly” Protestant virtues that Ottoman Syrians appropriated from missionaries, without also adopting the Americans’ religious doctrines.8 Ussama Makdisi’s Artillery of Heaven was an important exception. With its research on the first Syrian to embrace Protestantism, As‘ad al-Shidyaq (d. 1829), the book paved the way for further study of Protestant conversions in Syria. Makdisi also recognized the evangelical commitments of al-Shidyaq’s biographer, the renowned nahdawi Protestant Butrus al-Bustani, revealing the relevance of such figures’ conversion experiences for wider scholarship on the Nahda.9 Yet the growing field of Nahda Studies tends to set aside questions of religious belief and faith practice. Initiated in the North American academy, the field emphasizes the cultural and political dimensions of the Arab renaissance, and this is particularly true when nahdawi Christians are involved.10 In Nahda Studies, the term “Christian” usually marks an Arab intellectual’s social demographic in a region where all residents were

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  27

Figure 3 Butrus al-Bustani Source: Special collections, Yale Divinity School Library, Henry Harris Jessup Papers, RG 117, Box 10, folder 51.

associated with a religious sect (ta’ifa). That is to say, religious affiliations are noted but active practices of religiosity are not usually considered as facets of nahdawi identity.11 Such studies recognize that committed Syrian Protestants like al-Bustani contributed to the formation of modern Arab identity. Yet they do not raise the question of what evangelical faith or Protestant conversion meant in relationship to the Nahda. We can take as an example Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age, a remarkable volume edited by Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss that will likely define Nahda Studies for years to come. This intellectual history expanded the definition of modern Arabic thought by including nahdawis from Shi‘a, Sufi and Jewish communities that Albert Hourani overlooked when he published his classic Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age in 1962.12 The authors

28  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE also recognized Sunni proponents of islah (reform) and ijtihad (independent religious reasoning) like Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida as advancing the Nahda precisely because they were dedicated to the renewal of Islam.13 Whereas religious conservatives of the time characterized such reformers as “the ‘Protestants’ of Islam, bent on corrupting Islam like Protestants corrupted Christianity,” Hanssen and Weiss’ volume exposed the chimera of a religious–secular divide among Muslim scholars during the Arab renaissance.14 The authors gave less attention, however, to the false notion of a dichotomy between religiously committed and secular-leaning Christians in the Nahda. For Hanssen and Weiss, as for many other scholars, the counterparts to the Muslim reformers were “Christian secularists.”15 Only some of these nahdawi Christians were avowed atheists, however. And whether we define “secularism” as a complete lack of religiosity or we follow the understanding of many Ottoman Arabs and Turks that the term meant public pursuits divorced from any personal religious conviction, most Protestant writers of the Nahda were not secularists.16 Because Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age rarely spoke of Protestants, the book did not challenge the common assumption that nineteenth-century pioneers of the Arab renaissance like al-Bustani adopted evangelical faith essentially as a means of securing freedom from religious hierarchies in Syria.17 This understanding of “conversion” as a means for achieving a secular identity was enshrined in the work of Hourani, who hailed from a Lebanese Protestant family but had little interest in Protestantism as a religious tradition.18 In his view, exposure to secular European thought and anticlerical sentiment prompted a number of Christian nahdawis to break away from Maronite and Greek Orthodox communities in order to enjoy the relative freedom of the new missionaryestablished Protestant community. Thus, he included Butrus al-Bustani, Butrus’ son Salim al-Bustani, Yaqub Sarruf and Faris Nimr in his chapter of Arabic Thought on “Christian Secularists,” and did not acknowledge these Protestants’ religious convictions or the ways in which their participation in the religious life of the Syrian Evangelical Church related to their activities in the Nahda.19 We should not similarly discount the religiosity of the nahdawi Protestants or their own understandings of conversion in Ottoman Syria. Stephen Sheehi

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  29 cautioned as much when he said of al-Bustani: “Considering his active and leading role in the native Protestant Church, the sincerity of his conversion should not be in doubt or questioned as motivated exclusively by desire for work, social mobility, or privilege.”20 Other nuanced views of conversion have emerged in recent scholarship, such as Maria Abunnasr’s study of Ras Beirut, which recognized that Protestants joined the evangelical community for both practical and religious reasons.21 Yet because so little research has been done on the religious lives of nahdawi Protestants, the conception of Arab Protestant intellectuals as members of a secular, social class in Lebanon has persisted. Studies of al-Bustani have solidified this view by highlighting his break with the American missionaries, his move toward “secular” pursuits in education and literary production, and his turn toward Syrian nationalism and Ottomanism.22 Al-Bustani’s pursuits were secular in the sense that they were not endorsed by religious authorities, not because he conceived of them as a-religious or anti-religious. For al-Bustani, and for Syrian Protestants whose stories are less known within Nahda Studies, evangelical religiosity was compatible with Ottoman Syrian patriotism, intercommunal solidarity and resistance to missionary dominance. Indeed, as Syrian converts embraced the doctrine of freedom in the Reformed Tradition (the theological tradition that linked Congregationalists and Presbyterians in Syria), they felt empowered to challenge the religious authority of Eastern church patriarchs and Protestant missionary men.23 This concept of freedom was key for al-Bustani, whose aforementioned biography of As‘ad al-Shidyaq provided a model for subsequent Syrian Protestant conversion narratives. In this chapter I use such narratives from the Nahda—found in missionary archives, Arabic publications of the AMP and memoirs—to examine the ways in which Syrian Protestants spoke of their identities within the sectarian landscape of Ottoman Syria. In the following section, I propose a framework for interpreting historical accounts of religious change that incorporates work in Conversion Studies. In the second section, I consider American missionary discourses on religious change, and in the third, I analyze conversion stories in the book-length memoirs of five nineteenth-century Syrian Protestant men. Women converts were often the subject of missionary reports, but the existence of few Syrian women’s conversion stories of a comparable length

30  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE presents a challenge for studying the gendered dimensions of Protestant identity formation in Syria. In this chapter, therefore, I draw brief comparisons and contrasts between the conversion narratives men wrote in Syria and the unique story of Layyah Barakat, a Syrian Protestant immigrant whose published memoirs reflected her very different experience of living for decades among Christians in the United States.24 I return in later chapters to shorter accounts of Syrian women’s conversions.25 My initial exploration into the meaning of evangelical faith, however, begins by recognizing American missionary and Syrian Protestant structures of patriarchy that valued and promoted the testimonies of elite, educated men. This context is essential for understanding Syrian women’s cultural engagements, religious activities and spiritual leadership during the Nahda, subjects that I address in Chapters 3 and 5. Studying Processes of Conversion Like ethnographies that pay careful attention to the ways people recount and give meaning to their experiences and actions, my historical study seeks out and “listens” to the writings of Syrian Protestants, with an awareness that the authors cannot be physically present to make themselves heard.26 Attending to the ways converts understood their own transformative religious experiences is particularly necessary when studying communities that have been marginalized by the Western epistemologies of scholars, missionaries and colonial authorities.27 As a guide for listening to, comparing and interpreting Syrian narratives and American missionary discourses on religious change, I use the stage model that psychologist of religion Lewis Rambo introduced in his book Understanding Religious Conversion. Rather than following theories of modern psychology alone, the flexible framework Rambo later reiterated with Charles Farhadian incorporated the work of sociologists and anthropologists to define conversion as a much broader and ongoing “process of religious change that takes place in a dynamic force field of people, events, ideologies, institutions, expectations and experiences.”28 They suggested that conversion experiences often involved seven stages, proceeding in no particular order:

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  31 Context is the overall environment in which change takes place. Contextual factors either facilitate or constrain change. The crisis stage is generally a rupture in the taken-for-granted world that triggers the quest stage in which persons actively seek new ways of confronting their predicament. Encounter is the contact between questing persons and the advocate of a new alternative. Interaction is an intensification of the process in which the advocates and potential converts “negotiate” changes in thoughts, feelings and actions. Commitment is a phase in which persons decide to devote their life to a new spiritual orientation. Consequences involve cumulative effects of various experiences, actions and beliefs that either facilitate or hinder converting.29

Consonant with contemporary scholarship in the field of Conversion Studies, this approach challenged influential psychologists like William James (d. 1910) and Arthur Darby Nock (d. 1963), who recognized that religious change might occur as a slow journey but whose fascination with dramatic changes perpetuated popular conceptions of conversion as a sudden, emotional experience.30 Such interpretations failed to acknowledge the events leading up to or the results flowing out of the convert’s act of commitment.31 Instead, by viewing conversion as a multilayered process, Rambo’s stage model allowed for the possibility of sudden, life-altering events, but it located such momentous occasions within the wider context of a convert’s life story. Recent studies on missions and World Christianity, particularly by anthropologists of African Christianity, have similarly aimed for more holistic and nuanced understandings of religious transformation.32 Anthropologists have often employed the metaphor of “new wine in old wineskins” to convey that converts from traditional religions to Christianity never completely set aside their former modes of thought.33 African theologians have put a positive spin on this perspective by stressing “continuity between African traditional religion(s) and Christianity to counter missionary overemphasis on discontinuity.”34 In this way, “continuity thinking” may be employed in postcolonial settings to challenge missionary triumphalism or to refute accusations that converts merely adopted Western culture. However, theories of religious discontinuity similarly uphold “native” agency by allowing converts a role in interpreting their own conversion experiences. Joel

32  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE Robbins argued forcefully for a “theory of truly radical cultural change,” insisting that Western academics deny such agency by assuming that people cannot change or understand the world apart from their received categories.35 Birgit Meyer contributed to this new line of thought in anthropology with her work on African Pentecostalism in the 1990s. She argued that Pentecostals in Ghana maintained continuity with their roots by acknowledging the existence of ancestral spirits. At the same time, they broke with tradition by rejecting these powers as demonic. Through listening to her informants engage in “a dialectics of remembering and forgetting,” Meyer found that they stressed rupture because of the prospect that a sinful past might impede their progress toward becoming “‘free’ modern subjects.”36 Another anthropologist of African Christianity Matthew Engelke agreed with Meyer that converts must look back in order to look forward, but he posited that members of African independent churches rejected the past and also replaced it with positive, constructed memories of a Judeo-Christian history.37 Because this inscribed sense of biblical heritage was linked to the converts’ imaginings of a more local African past, Engelke described such rejection, breaks or rupture as a realignment of old and new. This realigned memory resulted in a hybrid religious system that drew from and competed with both African traditional religions and modern missionary Christianity.38 According to Engelke, studies of conversion “stand to gain from the language of breaks not because it replaces the language of continuity but because it complicates it,” and this general conclusion is shared by Meyer, Robbins and a growing number of other anthropologists of Christianity.39 Despite the considerable differences between nineteenth-century Syrian Protestantism and contemporary African independent and Pentecostal Christianity, such discussions on continuity and breaks are particularly relevant for my study of conversion in Ottoman Syria. The majority of Syrians who became members of the Evangelical Church were born into Maronite, Greek Orthodox, Armenian or other Eastern Christian communities. Characterizing such individuals as “nominal Christians,” American missionaries recognized their baptisms in non-Protestant churches as legitimate, but nevertheless defined them as “converts.”40 It is important to discern, however, whether or not Syrian Protestants felt their embrace of evangelical faith entailed a complete

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  33 break from their previous churches or from their former religious traditions in the case of Muslim converts who were baptized upon joining the Evangelical Church. Rather than seeking a definitive explanation of how and why conversion to Protestantism occurred in Ottoman Syria, I aim to discern how American missionaries and Syrian Evangelical Church members communicated the processes of Protestant identity formation.41 As Bruce Hindmarsh put it, when dealing with conversion narratives, it is important “to distinguish clearly the life lived in the past by the convert and the life lived in the present by the narrator.”42 Thus, although this investigation will yield some historical facts about conversions in the late Ottoman period, American and Syrian accounts reveal much more about the authors’ perceptions of what occurred and what they wanted their audiences to understand. The stories that elite Protestant men—whether American or Syrian— told about conversion are not representative of all Syrian Protestant conversion experiences, but these writings shed light on the dominant patterns of storytelling that most Syrian Protestants encountered in their churches, at Protestant schools and in the publications of the AMP. Arabic memoirs and biographies of Protestant exemplars and translations of fictional accounts like The Pilgrim’s Progress, suggested a standard form for Protestant testimonies and shaped a collective sense of evangelical identity, regardless of the gender or social class of readers and listeners.43 In the following exploration of what missionaries and elite male converts wrote about conversion, we shall see the sort of ideas that others in the Syrian Protestant community absorbed and adapted into their own understandings of faith. American Protestant Discourses on Religious Change The New Englanders who initiated the American Protestant missionary movement and established the Syria Mission believed that all of humanity stood in need of God’s converting grace. In theory, therefore, the missionaries’ universal message was a great equalizer, cutting across national, ethnic and linguistic boundaries, and trying to convince pagans, Muslims, Jews and Christians of their innate sinfulness. The Puritan Jonathan Edwards (1703– 1758), whose influence may be traced from the first Great Awakening to the early nineteenth-century missionary movement, preached of the boundless

34  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE corruption of the human heart and its need for regeneration.44 Addressing worshippers in New England in 1741, Edwards insisted that his listeners could not consider themselves truly converted unless they had experienced a “great Change of Heart” through the power of the Holy Spirit and had thus become “born again, and made new Creatures, and raised from being dead in Sin” to new life.45 Such thinking was reinforced by Edwards’ publication of David Brainerd’s (1718­–47) memoirs of missionary work among the Delaware Indians, a text that inspired generations of young missionaries to take up both Brainerd’s concern for “the Heathen” and the “archetypal heart religion” he demonstrated in his personal account of conversion, a trope that included inner, spiritual struggles.46 Through the influence of Edwards’ disciples, particularly the Congregationalist theologian Samuel Hopkins (1721–1803), such conceptions of religious change predominated in missionary circles after 1800.47 Thus, the Congregationalists, Presbyterians and other New England Protestants who inherited the eighteenth-century awakenings “revitalized the sense that the missionary must, above all, spur that ‘turning of the heart’ that defines conversion.”48 Like Brainerd, who was moved to missionary action after a conversion experience that “stirred his soul to its profoundest depths,” the first missionaries the ABCFM sent to Syria experienced spiritual revival themselves before embarking on missionary service.49 Levi Parsons (1792–1822), celebrated as the first American missionary to enter Jerusalem and the first missionary to Syria to die in the field, became an exemplar of such converting grace after the ABCFM published his biography in 1824. His life “followed the pattern prescribed by the Second Great Awakening and typified in the life of virtually every young man who was set on a missionary career”: teenage conversion during a season of revivals, public profession of faith and uniting with a local church.50 Yet later Parson doubted the genuineness of his conversion until he was “reconverted” at another revival during his years at Middlebury College. “After two weeks of anguish over his soul’s state … release came and heaven opened to his ‘ravished eye.’”51 Thus, spiritual revival and Christian piety became the hallmark for Parsons, as for the other ABCFM missionaries of his generation like Pliny Fisk (1792–1825), who served with Parsons in Syria. In the mission field, these early missionaries looked for such evidence in those whom they “tried to revive and convert as they had been.”52

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  35 For New England Protestants, a Calvinist conception of total depravity and the need for regeneration in Christ was a universal message applicable in all human contexts. In fact, the harshness of nineteenth-century Protestant missionary discourses on the spiritual degeneracy of non-­Christian peoples was matched, if not surpassed, by eighteenth-century Puritan preachers’ condemnation of the sinfulness and corruption within their own congregations.53 Despite the ample presence of unregenerate Protestants in North America, the ABCFM sent its first missionaries overseas because of a sense of urgency to reach “heathens” who, “possessed by mental stagnation and moral degradation,” lived in complete ignorance of the gospel.54 The unevangelized populations in the Middle East, however, were not pagans, but Jews, Muslims and ancient Christian communities. After sending its first missionaries to the Indian subcontinent, in 1819 the executive body of the ABCFM, the Prudential Committee, therefore adjusted its language somewhat, announcing its decision to commission Parsons and Fisk for missionary service in “the Land of ancient Promise, and of present Hope.”55 The committee made the following justification for the expansion of its overseas missionary force: In Palestine, Syria, the Provinces of Asia Minor, Armenia, Georgia and Persia, though Mohammedan countries, there are many thousands of Jews, and many thousands of Christians, at least in name. But the whole mingled population is in a state of deplorable ignorance and degradation––destitute of the means of divine knowledge, and bewildered with vain imaginations and strong delusions.56

In the millennialist imaginations of New England Protestants, the conversion of Jews in Palestine was of primary concern, and many viewed the initiation of a mission in that region as a move toward fulfilling the Apostle Paul’s prophecies in Romans 9–11 concerning the restoration of the Jews.57 To such American Protestants, the prospect of missions to Muslims heightened millennial expectations as well, since Muslim conversions would speed the decline of the Ottoman sultan, who—along with the Pope in Rome—symbolized the Antichrist to them.58 Of the existing Christian communities in Ottoman Syria, the ABCFM expressed the hope of finding some “who are alive in Christ Jesus; and who, were proper means employed for their excitement,

36  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE improvement and help, might be roused from their slumbers, become active in doing good, and shine as lights in those darkened regions.”59 Imbibing the legacy of the Protestant Reformation and the Puritan conviction that even those Americans born into Protestant communities must be spiritually awakened, missionaries Jonas King, William and Abigail Goodell, Isaac and Ann Bird, and Eli and Sarah Smith followed Parsons and Fisk to Syria and endeavored to spark a revival within Syria’s Maronite, Melkite, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox Christians, who would then reform the corrupt practices of their own church hierarchies.60 The test of their spiritual awakening would be, according to the Prudential Committee, the willingness of these Christians to “receive the Bible into their houses, and do something towards imparting the heavenly treasure, as opportunities should be afforded, to the Jews, Mohammedans and Pagans.”61 As the ABCFM mission in Syria evolved from the 1820s to the 1860s, missionaries increasingly focused their efforts upon Christians in the region. The missionaries formed their own church in 1826, which later became known as the Anglo-American Church. The aforementioned As‘ad al-Shidyaq, who embraced the evangelical faith in 1825, never joined this missionary congregation, but two Armenians were admitted to membership and received communion in 1827.62 At that time Muslim and Jewish communities were closed to missionary activities, as conversion from Islam was a punishable offense in the Ottoman Empire and Jewish leaders strongly and successfully discouraged association with missionaries.63 Following al-Shidyaq’s death in 1829, the Maronite hierarchy similarly threatened to excommunicate any of its members who associated with the Americans. Maronites and members of other Christian communities nevertheless joined the church in small numbers. Although the missionaries’ hopes for revival and immediate transformation of Christianity in Syria had lessened since the 1820s, most still maintained the same strict standards of Puritan piety and viewed many of these Syrian Protestants as lacking in visible signs of salvation.64 The ABCFM Secretary, Rufus Anderson, insisted, and most Syria missionaries ultimately agreed, that converts could not be admitted as church members or baptized except after public profession of faith in Christ and demonstration of true Christian piety. It would not do, he claimed, to accept everyone who desired to join the church without close scrutiny of their motives.65 Yet in the wake of

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  37 glowing praises for the ABCFM’s first Armenian Evangelical Church formed in Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1846, the Syria Mission organized its first so-called “native” church in Beirut in 1848 with fifteen Syrian men and four women as founding members.66 In Chapter 4, I return to the story of this Evangelical Church of Beirut and its development in the late nineteenth and early ­twentieth centuries. Despite the brief lapse in Puritan strictness that allowed for what Habib Badr termed a “staged” entry of ten new converts into the new Beirut Church in preparation for its official establishment, admission standards remained stringent for this church and other Syrian congregations that emerged throughout the field over the next two decades.67 These years between the establishment of the Evangelical Church of Beirut and the transfer in 1870 of the American Syria Mission from the ABCFM to the Board of Foreign Missions (BFM) of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America witnessed the civil war of 1860, as well as the growth of new Protestant churches in the region. The emergence of Protestant communities in Hasbayya, ‘Alma and Qana may be traced to the ongoing work of American missionaries and the earliest Syrian men and women converts, like the aforementioned Butrus al-Bustani and his wife Rahil ‘Ata’ who both expressed interest in evangelizing in Hasbayya.68 The initiative of local residents was also key for these three villages, which were all sites of communal conversions to Protestantism from the 1840s to the 1850s. As Christine Lindner has shown, decisions to embrace Protestantism en masse resulted from a variety of factors, including disagreements with Greek Orthodox Church leaders and political-economic troubles. Skeptical of material motives, American missionaries insisted that only those who exhibited signs of a “true revival spirit” could be admitted to the Evangelical Church. It was not until later, therefore, that Protestant churches were established in Hasbayya (1851) and ‘Alma (1858) in communion with the Evangelical Church of Beirut.69 When sectarian violence erupted in 1860, the massacres of Christians in Mount Lebanon disrupted the daily operations of these new Protestant communities, particularly in Hasbayya, where a number of Protestants lost their lives. The majority of those killed in the fighting were male, while thousands of widowed women and orphaned children took refuge in Beirut.70 With leadership from Protestants in Beirut, including

38  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE women, the following decade was a time of recovery. The story of efforts by some of these women will be told in Chapter 5. By 1870, when the Syria Mission came under BFM oversight, the spirit of American Protestant revivalism had worn off, and missionary writers gave far less attention to recounting their own spiritual journeys than to explaining the condition of the many Syrians whom they viewed as living in darkness and degradation. As the BFM’s 1891 report on Syria demonstrated, however, the mission’s stated goals remained similar to those of the ABCFM in the early half of the century: The Syria Mission represents the Presbyterian Church of America in her efforts to restore Christianity to the home of its birth; to carry the Gospel to the Arabic-speaking races; to give to oriental Christians a spiritual faith and one Mediator, and to open to Mohammedans the door of salvation through a crucified Saviour.71

American missionaries in late nineteenth-century Syria did not look for the sort of spontaneous conversions the early missionary pioneers experienced, but like their contemporaries in the United States who were influenced by understandings of free will in “New School” Presbyterian theology, they insisted that Syrians would choose Christ if only they had access to the truth through preaching or through reading the Bible. As the words of the BFM report above indicated, Calvinist views of salvation as God’s work alone did not discourage the Syria missionaries’ convictions that evangelistic work was necessary to prompt conversions.72 In the Ottoman Syrian context, however, strict views of election were not the primary concern. Rather, Presbyterian missionaries there became fervent advocates for individual freedom of conscience in response to Eastern Church hierarchies and Islamic authorities who endeavored to keep their adherents out of Protestant snares. Trusting in the power of God’s word and in human rationality and free will to respond, the Americans attempted to bring Syrians into their own fold. Nevertheless, missionaries of the BFM continued the Syria Mission’s rigorous application process for Evangelical Church membership. Missionaries and Syrian Protestant clergy examined inquirers to ensure that their congregants were truly converted evangelicals and not motivated by material gains.

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  39 The Syria Mission’s annual reports kept a running tally of new members who united with churches in Beirut, Sidon, Tripoli, Zahle, ‘Abay (Abeih) and the mission’s many outstations.73 Numbers, however, were insufficient to demonstrate the mission’s progress, particularly since Syrian Evangelical Church membership rose incrementally from 294 communicants in 1871 to 3,120 in 1914.74 Even if this figure were doubled or tripled to account for losses in church membership due to emigration and the number of professed Protestants who never joined churches, the Syrian Protestant population would still pale in comparison to the Protestant churches growing in other regions like China, which reported 26,931 members in the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Mission’s churches in 1914.75 Recognizing this, missionaries sought other measures for determining religious change beyond church membership, and BFM reports between 1871 and 1915 revealed that the Syria Mission had, at least implicitly, formed its own model for identifying and evaluating the successes of its evangelistic activities. From these reports, five general themes of discussion conveyed American missionaries’ conceptions of Protestant conversion as a gradual and intentional process, not unlike Rambo’s stages of context, crisis, encounter, quest, interaction, commitment and consequences: 1. Confirmed converts had professed their faith in Christ and united with the Syrian Evangelical Church after a formal examination process that was required even for those born to Protestant families.76 This was accompanied by baptism for Syrians from Muslim, Druze or Jewish communities.77 In Rambo’s terms, these converts had confirmed their commitment to Protestantism and as a consequence were living out their evangelical faith in Syrian society, often as paid or voluntary evangelists.78 2. Likely converts either called themselves Protestants or behaved like Protestants but had not made this commitment public through joining a church. Individuals in this liminal category included a Muslim man who had been “ten years a Christian by conviction,”79 candidates for church membership who were placed on probation until they could give sufficient evidence of conversion,80 and mission school pupils who had made a “good beginning” by declaring themselves Protestants81 or who had demonstrated “a change of heart.”82 These individuals often claimed

40  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE that they were already committed Protestants, but in the missionaries’ view they remained in the final stages of interaction and on the verge of a commitment. 3. Hopeful converts, who were described as “Practically Protestants”83 and “not far from the kingdom of heaven,”84 demonstrated signs of religious interest through seriousness in Bible study or by attending Protestant services. After continued engagement with Protestant evangelists, missionaries predicted that these hopeful candidates would be “indoctrinated” and induced to convert.85 This understanding of Syrians on their way to becoming Protestant after showing initial signs of spiritual interest resembled Rambo’s stages of religious quest and ongoing interaction with the advocates of a particular religion. 4. Enlightened individuals demonstrated “evidence of advance in character building.”86 They had not moved toward a serious religious quest, but they had encountered missionaries and their worldviews had been changed, often through missionary education and access to modern science.87 The resulting disjunction between old cultural traditions and Western modernity, missionaries noted, could potentially provoke a spiritual crisis, leading the individual to turn from “ignorance and superstition” to embrace true Christianity.88 5. Finally, missionaries considered the entire population of unconverted Syrians as prospective Protestants. Through continued efforts of education and evangelization, they believed all of Syrian society would eventually embrace the gospel. Even as missionaries lamented that Syria was still in the grip of darkness, they assured readers, “There are not a few indications that a most radical change is gradually coming over Syrian society. The various agencies at work … the Bible, the preaching of the Word, the press, the wide-extended system of education, are slowly but surely sapping the foundations of ancient systems of error and superstition.”89 This was the context within which missionaries would initiate an encounter with potential Syrian converts. Like Rambo’s model, these categories were not rigid, and the distinctions became even more blurred over time. By the early twentieth century, for example, some missionaries exhibited a more tolerant, ecumenical attitude

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  41 toward other Christian communities in Syria, and their annual reports suggested the possibility of a hybrid evangelical–Catholic or evangelical– Orthodox identity, which would not require formal entry into the Syrian Evangelical Church.90 While critical assessments of Catholic and Orthodox practices were not entirely lacking in mission reports between the late 1890s and 1915, such positive sentiments reflected the gradually changing views within the Protestant missionary movement itself, running concurrent with the growth of Christian ecumenism during that period. Such open dispositions were lacking in the early years of the Syria Mission when ABCFM Secretary Rufus Anderson favored firing a Syrian pastor, John Wortabet, who suggested that the Christians of Syria might possess knowledge of Jesus Christ without becoming Protestant.91 Yet the idea that religious conversion could occur apart from Evangelical Church membership rested upon a central pillar of the Reformed Tradition: salvation depends upon the word of God, whether preached or read from scripture.92 Although the Syria Mission continued to support evangelistic preaching, its missionaries placed increasing emphasis on the printing and distribution of the Arabic Bible as the nineteenth century progressed.93 The BFM annual reports consistently mentioned converts who made a commitment to Christ through reading the Bible, often apart from significant interaction with an advocate of Protestantism. When appropriated by Syrian converts, this view of the power of God’s word allowed members of the new Protestant community to assert their equality in faith and evangelistic calling with their missionary counterparts.94 This was the case for the five Syrian men whose conversion stories I examine below. Converted by the Word: Syrian Protestant Narratives As converts to Protestantism in nineteenth-century Ottoman Syria, As‘ad al-Shidyaq, Saliba Jarwan, Salim Kassab, Nassim al-Hilu and Kamil ‘Itani shared a number of common experiences: all five men converted at a young age after coming into contact with American missionaries and, following their conversions, each of these men worked for Protestant missions in the region. Their dates of conversion range from the 1820s to the 1890s and their stories appear in book-length memoirs or biographies. Only one of these converts, As‘ad al-Shidyaq (1798–1829), has been the subject of major

42  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE scholarly study.95 Al-Shidyaq was the first Syrian to embrace Protestantism in the 1820s, and his “martyrdom” in the confines of a Maronite monastery made him a household name among Syria Mission supporters. His familiar story influenced the Protestant understandings of later converts who did not gain as much attention from the missionary press and have been overlooked in studies on the mission’s history. Saliba Jarwan (1836–1911) came from a Melkite (Greek Catholic) family, embraced Protestantism in 1854, and in 1864 became the first ordained minister to be installed as full pastor in a Syrian Evangelical Church.96 Jarwan wrote his memoirs by hand in Arabic after his retirement in 1905, likely at the request of the Syria Mission. The missionaries added the memoir to their library in Beirut but never published it.97 Jarwan’s younger contemporary, Salim Kassab (1841–1907) converted from the Greek Orthodox Church in the years leading up to the 1860 massacre in Damascus, where his family originated. He wrote his autobiography in English for publication by his employer, the British Syrian Mission, which published it in 1906. The BSM printed the text as a stand-alone book and also in a volume that contained the reminiscences of H. B. Macartney, an Australian pastor affiliated with the BSM who edited Kassab’s story.98 This memoir was one of a number of publications Kassab authored, mostly in Arabic, for which he has been recognized as a writer of the Nahda.99 Like Kassab, Nassim al-Hilu (1867–1956) came from a Greek Orthodox background. He embraced the evangelical faith in the mid-1880s as a student in a Protestant village school, and after receiving theological training from the American mission, he became the first Syrian principal of his alma mater, the American Boys’ Academy in Sidon (later the Gerard Institute). Al-Hilu wrote his memoirs in Arabic at the request of American missionary Robert Byerly. He used his personal diaries and notes dating back to his early school years and completed this project in 1946. The four hand-written volumes were published, but only in part, in 1950. The al-Hilu family published a full, revised version in 2010.100 The final conversion narrative under consideration features one of the American Syria Mission’s few baptized Muslim converts. Kamil ‘Itani (d. 1892), the son of a devout Muslim shaykh in Beirut, converted to Protestantism in 1890. ‘Itani died soon afterward in Basra (present-day

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  43

Figure 4  The Rev. Saliba Jarwan and Luciya Shakir Jarwan

Figure 5  Salim Kassab, with Arab garb over Western attire Source: Daughters of Syria, special Jubilee number (1910): 4.

Courtesy of the Near East School of Theology in Beirut, Special Collections.

Figure 6  Kamil ‘Itani Source: Jessup, The Setting of the Crescent and the Rising of the Cross or Kamil Abdul Messiah, 3.

44  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE southern Iraq), where he had joined the Arabian Mission. Henry Harris Jessup (1832–1910), a long-time American missionary in Syria, translated ‘Itani’s letters and journal entries into English and published them along with his own recollections of ‘Itani’s conversion, missionary service and death, under the title The Setting of the Crescent and the Rising of the Cross (1898).101 Besides al-Shidyaq’s biography, this was the only other conversion narrative from Syria to gain significant attention in nineteenth- and twentieth-century missionary circles.102 The life stories of al-Shidyaq, Jarwan, Kassab, al-Hilu and ‘Itani testified to the enmeshed nature of the missionary encounter in Syria not only because of these converts’ ongoing interactions with American and British Protestants, but also because each story was published by, mediated through or written at the request of missionaries. Since missionaries edited the conversion accounts they published for English-speaking audiences, the three (undoctored) Arabic narratives in this study are particularly valuable for comparing Syrian and American Protestant perspectives on conversion.103 As highly educated, male mission employees, from a missionary perspective these five converts were Syrian Protestant exemplars. Their life experiences matched those of many converts who attended mission schools and worked for missionaries as t­ eachers and evangelists. Yet the stories of these prominent figures were not representative of all Syrian converts’ life experiences. Indeed, these highly subjective narratives reflected the self-understanding that converts—in this case educated elite men during the Nahda—worked out through a process of reconstructing and presenting their biographical memories to a particular audience.104 Such narratives often followed the standard formula for conversion testimonies set by the new reference group, demonstrating the convert’s socialization into a particular religious community, and acquisition of that group’s language and worldview.105 The five conversion stories explored below are therefore best approached as sources for understanding the conceptions of religious change and Protestant identity formation that each author sought to convey to prospective readers. To accomplish this, I engage Lewis Rambo’s seven stages as an aid in comparing Syrian perspectives on the missionary encounter that have been neglected by both American missionaries and contemporary scholars.

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  45 The Ottoman Syrian Context At the macro level, all five converts in this study shared a similar context as Arabic-speaking residents of Ottoman Syria who embraced Protestantism in the nineteenth century. These converts’ different religious backgrounds reflected the diverse Syrian sects residing under the authority of the Ottoman administration in Istanbul. Syrian Protestant church records document that the majority of new Protestant members, like Salim Kassab and Nassim al-Hilu, came from Greek Orthodox families, but converted Maronites, Melkites, Druzes and Armenians also joined Syrian Evangelical churches.106 By the 1890s, when Kamil ‘Itani converted, higher numbers of Muslims had begun attending missionary schools, but few had publicly professed the Protestant faith or sought church membership. According to missionaries, Muslims who were baptized by American missionaries and joined the Protestant churches were usually forced to leave Syria for their own protection from disgruntled family members and neighbors.107 For Syrians in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the patriarchs of religious communities mediated between the Ottoman imperial system and familial, tribal or village contexts. For administrative purposes, the Ottoman rulers divided their non-Muslim subjects into three millets (Turkish for nations; milla pl. millat in Arabic) and made the heads of the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Jewish millets the official representatives for these communities before the sultan in Istanbul. Initially, the Greek Orthodox patriarch represented all of the empire’s Christian communities except for the Armenians, who had their own representative. At the local level, Christians—as well as Muslims and Jews—in Syria identified closely with their own ta’ifa (religious sect), and this status served as the basic form of identification in Ottoman court records.108 While Muslim or Druze conversions to Christianity or shifts from one Christian ta’ifa to another were not unheard of in the early nineteenth century, it is important to note that leaving one’s sect meant the loss of “the crucial patronage of the church, the employment opportunities it offered, the marital alliances it sanctioned, the dowries it blessed, and the social standing it legitimated.”109 As the nineteenth century progressed, European nations began to vie for political power in the region and to seek patronage status over different sectors

46  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE of the Ottoman Christian population. France cultivated ties with Maronites and other Catholic communities, Russia supported Greek Orthodox schools and churches, and, amid British diplomatic entreaties and concessions made to other Ottoman Christian communities, the Ottoman government recognized a Protestant millet in 1850.110 This increasing Western Christian presence, especially in the form of missionary schools, offered Syrians a new means of contact with the Western world and facilitated the possibility of conversions to Protestantism, at least for members of the region’s various Christian ta’ifas. The first to tread this path was the convert As‘ad al-Shidyaq, whose story of martyrdom in a Maronite monastery was broadcast to American readers in Syria Mission reports of the 1820s–1830s and repeated in the writings of later missionaries and mission supporters. In 1860, the Nahda pioneer Butrus al-Bustani retold the story in Arabic in a more comprehensive and less triumphal manner, as Makdisi has documented.111 Al-Bustani’s account, published at the AMP as Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq (The Story of As‘ad al-Shidyaq), played a significant role in the popular memory of Syrian Protestants who read it as a model for Protestant conversion. As the one Syrian biography the AMP published in Arabic and circulated into the twentieth century, al-Bustani’s story set the standard for conversion narratives to follow.112 Whether the 1860 text reflected al-Shidyaq’s views, conveyed al-Bustani’s understandings of Protestantism as played out in his own conversion, or both, Qissat As‘ad alShidyaq shaped the Syrian Protestant ethos of the nineteenth century.113 My examination below therefore includes this Arabic narrative as a window into al-Bustani’s conceptions of religious change and as a central point of reference for exploring the four later conversion stories. To use Rambo’s terms, Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq shaped the context within which Jarwan, Kassab, al-Hilu and ‘Itani’s stories were written, read and remembered. Stages of Crisis and Encounter During the crisis stage, the conversion process is triggered when internal forces of disruption “call into question a person’s or a group’s taken-forgranted world.” This spurs the potential converts toward a religious quest.114 An encounter with another religious worldview may initiate a spiritual crisis or, alternately, following a crisis, an individual may seek a new spiritual

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  47 option by making contact with a religious advocate. As‘ad al-Shidyaq and Salim Kassab’s stories followed the former pattern, while Kamil ‘Itani experienced a series of encounters in the midst of a spiritual crisis. For Saliba Jarwan and Nassim al-Hilu, in fact, the crisis stage appeared to have little or no relation to a religious quest. These five case studies reflect Rambo’s note that each of the seven stages of conversion “will impact the converting person or group with different degrees of intensity.”115 For As‘ad al-Shidyaq, the initial encounter with American missionaries came after a series of short-lived jobs and the death of his father. The relatively high salary available to mission employees was likely a factor in his decision in 1825 to seek employment with the Americans, who hired him as an Arabic teacher and translator. Although personal loss and unstable employment preceded this encounter, al-Shidyaq’s spiritual crisis came later, when he copied the evangelistic “Farewell Letter” that his missionary employer, Jonas King (1792–1869), was preparing to distribute upon his departure from the mission field in 1825. According to al-Bustani’s Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq, when the young Maronite read “Jonas King’s objections that the Roman [Catholic] Church prevents its children from reading the Bible, and when he reflected upon the strength of this objection, he was very much affected by it.”116 Al-Bustani continued, “At that time the subconscious veil which had obstructed his sight was lifted, and he began to feel the strength of [King’s] other objections and the evidence that had been presented to him using the Bible to refute the views of the Roman Church and its teachings.”117 After this cognitive-affective encounter with King’s text, al-Shidyaq began to doubt the Maronite doctrines that he had so vehemently defended in previous discussions with missionaries, and he moved quickly into a new religious quest. Saliba Jarwan and Nassim al-Hilu both encountered the Protestant faith after experiencing personal crisis, but it is not clear whether the death of Jarwan’s father and brother and al-Hilu’s loss of both parents triggered a spiritual crisis for either young man. Jarwan’s brother died in Sidon in 1850 under the care of Dr. Cornelius Van Dyck (1818–95), and this brought the teenage Jarwan into a relationship with the American missionary doctor and his colleague, William M. Thomson (1806–94). Jarwan did not indicate in his memoir that this personal loss stimulated a search for salvation. In

48  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE retrospect, however, the long-time pastor considered his first meeting with these two American missionaries as a blessing from God, which transformed him into “one of the fruits” of their missionary labor.118 The missionaries invited Jarwan to stay in their home, promising to teach him how to read, and Jarwan gladly accepted.119 Like Jarwan, al-Hilu did not recount an intense spiritual crisis either before or after his first encounter with Protestantism in a missionary school in Mashta, a village northeast of Tripoli, located in present-day Syria. Al-Hilu’s encounter with the converted Druze teacher, Qasim, was the beginning of his “relationship with the American schools.”120 While recognizing the school’s significance, al-Hilu minimized the religious influence of his first Protestant teacher, Qasim, who introduced him to many academic subjects but did not organize Sunday worship or Sunday school.121 As for Qasim’s successor, Mu‘allim Dib, al-Hilu claimed that the students gained little direct benefit from his spiritual lessons, as the teacher was often drunk, but they did acquire something from the Protestant literature that they read on their own during that time.122 This literature came from the American missionaries who visited the school occasionally to hold religious services and celebrate the Lord’s Supper. During one such encounter, al-Hilu received a copy of the Arabic Bible as a prize from Henry Jessup after memorizing the Westminster Catechism. Al-Hilu recounted that when Jessup visited, the students would swarm around him to receive copies of al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya, the AMP’s weekly Arabic periodical, which al-Hilu continued reading throughout his life.123 Salim Kassab’s conversion process matched with As‘ad al-Shidyaq’s experience of a profoundly intellectual crisis of faith that caused him to doubt the church of his birth. Kassab emphasized his family’s ties to the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Damascus, which selected him to train for the priesthood in a Russian high school.124 Whether through previous contact with missionaries in Damascus or from his Orthodox instructor who edited Arabic proof sheets for the AMP, as a high school student Kassab had some understanding of basic Protestant teachings.125 His spiritual crisis came after his instructor staged a classroom debate and assigned him the part of the Protestant opponent against another student who defended Greek Orthodoxy. Kassab recalled:

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  49 I had a fortnight to prepare, but, being ignorant of the evangelical position, I had first of all to enquire what it was, and next to search the Bible in order to defend it. Having at home a very old and rare edition, I read it through, marked certain texts and opened the debate on “Salvation by faith alone,” as against the Greek belief, “By faith and works together.” I quoted from Romans and Galatians: my opponent from St. James and the Fathers. My reasons seeming to prevail, the Professor decided that faith was the source, and that works formed the forth-flowing current or, to change the figure, that faith was the root, and that good works were the branches and the fruits. “Both,” he said, “are necessary for Christian life.” I replied, “Yes, sir, but both are not necessary for immediate salvation.”126

As the debate proceeded, the young Kassab became “inwardly persuaded” by his own arguments.127 Sensing danger, the instructor concluded the debate, but Kassab could not so easily set the subject aside.128 By playing the part of a Protestant, understood as one who studies and argues on the basis of scripture, Kassab had begun to evangelize himself. The conversion story of Kamil ‘Itani followed a different pattern than the other four. ‘Itani expressed a clear sense of having experienced a spiritual crisis even before his formative encounter with Protestant missionaries, and it is possible that this crisis was provoked through his previous contacts with a Maronite priest, who advised him to study French in the Jesuit college in Beirut (the Université Saint-Joseph).129 He did so and also began studying the Bible, but his father found and destroyed his copy of the New Testament. The Jesuit instructor suggested that the young man take another copy of the gospels and tell his father he was studying it in order to refute Christian claims, but ‘Itani refused to deceive his father and instead left the school and sought out the American missionaries. When he met Henry Jessup, ‘Itani had not yet found a resolution to his inner spiritual turmoil, which he described later to his father in these words: You know, dear father, that I had neglected all religion and cared nothing about it. I gave no thought to this life nor to the resurrection and devoted none of my time to the worship of God, but was wandering in the sea of evil, engrossed with the world and its pleasures. My conscience

50  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE reproved me for my sins, and I felt conscious that a heavy burden of sin was ­accumulating upon me.130

‘Itani then spoke of seeking and receiving God’s forgiveness, conveying that his religious crisis was prompted by a feeling of personal sin rather than by doubts about the Islamic tradition. Jessup, however, indicated that during their first meeting, the Muslim inquirer said, “I am not at rest. I find nothing in the Koran to show me how God can be a just God and yet pardon a sinner.”131 This reveals a discrepancy between the young Syrian’s emphasis on a spiritual quest that did not necessarily pit Christianity against Islam and Jessup’s interpretation of ‘Itani’s conversion as a sign of the rising of the cross of Christianity over the Muslim crescent. Quest, Interaction and Reading the Word If the quest stage encompasses the way people respond to crisis and reorient their lives, then As‘ad al-Shidyaq’s “response style” provided the model that American missionaries hoped all of their potential converts would follow.132 After his mind-altering encounter with King’s “Farewell Speech,” al-Shidyaq sought a deeper understanding of Protestant doctrine. He immediately set aside the objections he had intended to write in response to King’s attack on Catholicism, and he began reading the Bible.133 Motivated purely by the desire for truth, according to al-Bustani’s account, his spiritual quest led him into a deeper interaction with Protestantism. Al-Bustani emphasized al-Shidyaq’s emerging sense of evangelical identity as he developed a closer relationship with American Protestants and learned their religious practices.134 Following King’s departure, the young Maronite continued working for the mission, and he joined them for worship and prayer meetings. Al-Shidyaq also began to adopt typical Protestant missionary rhetoric against Catholicism as he engaged in doctrinal debates with his family, neighbors and Maronite clergy. Upholding Protestant principles regarding the ultimate authority of the Bible (rather than the Maronite Patriarch, the Pope or the church fathers), al-Shidyaq used scripture to argue against the intercession of the saints and the Virgin Mary, the use of religious relics and the idea of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.135 This constant recourse to biblical proofs ran parallel to the new convert’s complete immersion in the

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  51 study of the Bible and other religious literature. When his brother destroyed his books, al-Shidyaq immediately secured another copy of the Bible and continued reading. Devotion to such independent religious study, more than anything else, defined the young Maronite’s religious quest, which, according to al-Bustani, “indicates to us As‘ad’s love of God’s Word and his inability to continue without the presence of the Bible in his possession.”136 Based, perhaps, on his own experience of conversion through personal Bible study, al-Bustani insisted that al-Shidyaq conducted his religious quest independent of missionary oversight.137 Nevertheless, by asserting his freedom to read and interpret scripture and to follow his conscience, al-Shidyaq also adopted a form of conduct consistent with Protestant theology, with its emphasis on the authority and transformative power of the word of God. For Jarwan, Kassab, al-Hilu and ‘Itani, the stages of quest and interaction similarly centered upon the study of the Bible and other religious literature. This common practice of reading scripture was a major unifying factor in these five conversion narratives, although these men approached Protestantism with contrasting response styles and motivations, and maintained different levels of interaction with missionaries during their initial stages of conversion. All five converts appropriated missionary articulations of evangelical faith as they began self-identifying as Protestant Biblereaders to distinguish themselves from their former religious communities, in which, it should be noted, the reading of the Bible was not a completely foreign practice.138 For ‘Itani and Kassab, like al-Shidyaq, Bible study was an immediate and active response in the aftermath of a spiritual crisis. ‘Itani’s religious quest had already begun when he first met Jessup at the American mission and presented him with a note, which read, “For thirty days I have been to the Jesuit College seeking the salvation of my soul and to follow the Christian faith.”139 ‘Itani moved on to a more intense phase of interaction with Christianity as he proceeded to ask theological questions “as if hungering and thirsting for the truth.”140 Jessup then gave ‘Itani a Bible, concordance, Bible handbook and the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and made his private study available for the young Syrian’s use every morning. In this way, ‘Itani studied, memorized the catechism and Bible verses, and prepared questions to discuss with Jessup without him having to take a Bible home and arouse his father’s

52  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE anger.141 After a month of study with Jessup, ‘Itani received permission from his father to enroll in the American Boarding School for Boys in Suq alGharb, where he received further Bible instruction and became a leader in the boys’ ­religious meetings. Whereas ‘Itani’s immersion in biblical and theological study proceeded along with instruction and guidance from American missionaries, for both Kassab and al-Hilu closer contact with missionaries came only after a period of independent study and an initial commitment to the evangelical faith. The crisis-inducing debate at his Russian Orthodox school led Kassab on a quest to study scripture in order to “obtain clearer light.” He soon became more firmly convinced of the truth to Protestant claims. He explained: Finding that the tenets and ceremonies of the Greek Church were not in harmony with divine revelation, and my conscience beginning to accuse me, I left towards the end of term, to the evident grief of the professor and of the Patriarch. My father too was troubled, but I stood firm.142

With the decision to leave his school, Kassab framed his concerns as doctrinal and intellectual. For al-Hilu, in contrast, the study of the Bible was not an active response to a spiritual crisis or to any initial concerns about Orthodox doctrines. Al-Hilu recalled his hunger for knowledge of all academic subjects, but especially for Bible study and matters of religion. He wrote of the ­experience he shared with his close friends: I must make clear the personal impact upon us from the presence of an Evangelical School in our town of Mashta. My cousin and companion Arif Antonius al-Hilu and I read the Bible and other religious books on our own, and two other friends from outside the school joined us, Mitri al-Saigh and Hanna Satuf al-Hilu.143

Sharing in a common quest for religious knowledge, the four youths began meeting together in private for devotional study. This practice led to debates with some of their family members over the merits of the new evangelical teachings in comparison to Greek Orthodoxy. When their interests became known publicly, the priest and others in the Orthodox village objected, and to read the Bible undisturbed the boys were sometimes forced to slip outside

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  53 the village and hide amongst the rocks. Besides studying scripture, the four would read any other religious literature they could find. This included The Pilgrim’s Progress, which al-Hilu described as “apart from the Holy Bible, the most deeply illuminating book for the Christian life.”144 The Protestant schoolteacher played no part in their private study, al-Hilu claimed, and thus reading the Bible and other evangelistic literature became a way of engagement with Protestantism, apart from any sustained contact with or participation in a Protestant community.145 Like al-Hilu, Jarwan adopted the practice of personal Bible study gradually, as part of his quest for literacy and education. Jarwan’s movement toward Protestantism, however, came not only through his instruction in Protestant schools, but also through an intense and ongoing interaction with American missionaries. For much of his life until his ordination Jarwan lived in mission institutions, including the missionary home in Sidon, the American boarding school in Beirut and the Protestant high school in ‘Abay.146 His engagement with missionaries began as they taught him to read from a book printed at the AMP in Malta, before the press moved to Beirut. Jarwan valued this book so highly that he took it with him when he had the opportunity to accompany the missionary doctor Cornelius Van Dyck to a neighboring town.147 After mastering this book, he turned to reading the Bible that he had found in the missionaries’ home. He recalled how the text of Matthew 6:33, “But strive first for the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (NRSV), prompted him to think about his life in spiritual terms. At the same time, Jarwan regularly joined his missionary teachers and a small number of other Syrians for prayer meetings and Sunday worship in Sidon. Thus, Jarwan gradually became initiated into the Protestant community.148 Stages of Commitment and Consequences: The Question of Continuity During the stage of religious commitment, the convert’s sense of surrender to a new religious option “often gives rise to feelings of relief and liberation.” At the same time, the convert may be expected to display this commitment publicly before being received into the new religious group.149 This distinction between a convert’s sense of commitment and the wider religious community’s recognition of that conversion played out clearly

54  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE in the missionary encounter. In Syria Mission reports, for example, public profession of faith and church membership were the ultimate measures of evangelical conversion. Moving beyond such missionary judgments, it is important to consider how Syrians described their own commitments to Protestantism and to determine whether, as a consequence of conversion, Syrian Protestants rejected their religious roots when they identified themselves with the Protestant ta’ifa. For the five converts in this study, conversion involved an inward experience of transformation, an outward display of that initial change and continuing expressions of faith as practiced within Syrian society. In As‘ad al-Shidyaq’s biography, the turning point in his life came when “the light of the gospel shone upon him.”150 In al-Bustani’s view, this occurred as al-Shidyaq read Jonas King’s objections to Catholicism, when the “veil over [As‘ad’s] eyes was lifted.” At that moment, with a newly awakened conscience, “he determined to shake off the yoke of obedience” to the Maronite Church.151 Months after this event, al-Shidyaq’s missionary interlocutors doubted that he was truly converted, although the young man assured them that he had been born again.152 Because al-Shidyaq answered the Maronite patriarch’s summons in March 1826 and became confined to the monastery in Qannubin until his death in 1829, he never joined the Protestant church.153 Yet in the wake of al-Shidyaq’s imprisonment, and his repeated refusal to recant his evangelical faith and swear loyalty to Maronite doctrine, the Americans finally recognized the legitimacy of his conversion.154 In al-Bustani’s view, however, al-Shidyaq’s change of heart came much earlier through the act of reading the gospel truth, and thus al-Shidyaq’s quest to deepen his understanding of God’s word, his increased interaction with American Protestants and his efforts to evangelize other Maronites were all consequences of his commitment. In the brief period between his conversion and imprisonment, al-Shidyaq occupied a liminal space between the Protestant missionaries and the Maronites of Lebanon, without completely identifying with either community. He sought refuge from his family members and the Maronite clergy in the home of missionary Isaac Bird (1793–1876), to whom al-Shidyaq confided his loneliness, saying, “There is nobody like me, and I please nobody. I am not quite in harmony with the English in my views, and therefore do not please you. My

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  55 own countrymen are in so much error I cannot please them.”155 Although he expressed his sense of liberation from Maronite religious authority, as Makdisi argued, al-Shidyaq did not reject his Maronite identity but asserted that he could be “both evangelical and Maronite.”156 Al-Shidyaq’s efforts to bring other Maronites toward the evangelical faith, therefore, may be interpreted both as evidence of the evangelistic spirit he absorbed from the missionaries and as a personal effort to create a new religious community to which he might fully belong. Over half a century later, Kamil ‘Itani’s conversion led him to undertake a similar endeavor among Muslims. ‘Itani did not leave a written account of his moment of commitment, but Jessup recounted that after a month of missionary instruction, ‘Itani “decided deliberately to profess Christianity and devote his life to preaching Christ to the Mohammedans.”157 While seeking further religious instruction in Suq al-Gharb, ‘Itani met James Cantine (1861–1940), an American studying Arabic at the boys’ school in preparation for work in Arabia with the Dutch Reformed missionary Samuel Zwemer (1867–1952).158 This encounter led to ‘Itani’s recruitment for the Arabian Mission, but first he demonstrated his new faith commitment by spending a summer preaching to the Bedouin in Syria.159 After this journey and another term at Suq al-Gharb, he wrote to Jessup requesting that he be baptized. Jessup explained, “Up to this time he had been on probation, and it was thought better to give him time to take the step deliberately.” Jessup baptized ‘Itani on January 15, 1891, and the following month he left for the Arabian Mission.160 He died in Basra on June 24, 1892, and his missionary associates suspected that local Muslim residents or Turkish officials poisoned him because they viewed him as an apostate.161 Until that point he had labored as an evangelist, seeking to convince fellow Muslims to follow his own move toward the evangelical faith. While ‘Itani’s public acknowledgment of his Muslim background likely appeared as a serious affront in a region where apostasy was traditionally punishable by death, he spoke to Muslims as if he were one of them. He explained, for example, to a group of teachers in Muscat: My father, my grandfather, and my great grandfather were all of them Moslems. My father performed the pilgrimage to Mecca three times and

56  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE my brothers have all been on the pilgrimage, and I am not a kafir. The difference between me and them is that I read the Tourah and the Injeel and believe in all that they say, and walk according to their divine commandment. For the Koran commands me to read them with reverence and regard, and confirms their inspiration, and if I do not read them I violate the command of God.162

Emphasizing his Muslim background, this explanation was an invitation for the audience to join in ‘Itani’s new understanding of religious truth. At the same time, he revealed that the distinguishing mark of his new identity was his habit of studying the Bible. In correspondence with American missionaries and mission supporters, however, he articulated a deeper sense of identity transformation as he emphasized ties with fellow Christians and signed his name Kamil ‘Abd al-Masih (servant of Christ). One Arabic letter to supporters in the United States read, “Accept my humble greetings and give me at all times your good and holy wishes and the blessing of your ardent prayers, so that you may accept me as your own child.”163 For his part, Saliba Jarwan’s quest for literacy, his increasing attention to the Bible and his studies at the American mission’s school in ‘Abay brought him to a profound sense of conversion four years after his first encounter with missionaries in Sidon. At this time, his interest in religious subjects increased, and his mind became “spiritually alert.” In what resembled a testimonial from the Great Awakenings, Jarwan recalled: The students of the school gathered one day and we entered a room to pray. Then the glory and beauty of the person of Christ appeared to my soul as it had never appeared to me before. During that time of prayer an internal announcement came through my emotions and an external announcement came as I witnessed Christ with my own eyes (ka-anni mushahid al-masih). My thoughts were occupied with spiritual matters, my mind was enlightened, so to speak, my memory became a storehouse for preserving verses of scripture. Every religious subject, every sermon, and every spiritual interpretation I heard remained so fixed in my mind that, if I had wanted to, I could have written each one down long afterward.164

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  57 As a direct consequence of his commitment to Christ, Jarwan soon “entered the fellowship of the church” and began accompanying missionaries to the neighboring villages and assisting with prayer meetings.165 After graduating from ‘Abay Seminary, he continued this service as an evangelist and teacher and then, after a period of further theological training, in 1864 the American mission ordained Jarwan as a pastor.166 With continual references to his missionary partners, Jarwan’s memoir documented his forty-eight years of service with the mission, which he believed had brought “religious reformation” and the “light of knowledge” to Syrian society. Before the arrival of these reformers, he asserted, the people of Syria had lived in the darkness of ignorance.167 Jarwan recounted how he endeavored to convince Catholics and Greek Orthodox Christians to abandon superstitious practices, but apart from identifying his parents as Greek Catholic, he made no reference to his early life in that religious community. Instead, Jarwan indicated that he adopted the American missionaries as his own community. As the second ordained Syrian Evangelical minister and the first to be fully installed as a church pastor, he confidently claimed Cornelius Van Dyck and William Thomson as his “contemporaries,” with whom he lived and worked.168 Unlike Jarwan’s autobiography, Kassab and al-Hilu’s memoirs emphasized their Christian roots. Yet both these men also followed Jarwan in adopting the Protestant community in Syria as their own, and both worked for the spiritual and intellectual benefit of all Syrians outside their former Greek Orthodox ta’ifa. Having already withdrawn from the Russian school, Kassab began to work for American missionaries as an Arabic teacher. This employment, he explained, “proved most providential, for it helped to remove many lingering doubts and fears, and paved the way for the future.” Kassab continued: The Holy Spirit led me at this time to give myself wholly to Christ, and I used to retire to secluded places to pour out my heart before God, and to seek for grace and guidance, after which I left the Greek Church altogether, worshipped with the missionaries in their private houses, and had, of course, to endure persecution. My father however was lenient, and I prayed earnestly for him. After years of supplication he saw the truth and embraced the Saviour.169

58  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE While Kassab joined the Evangelical Church of Beirut after moving from Damascus,170 the British missionaries with whom he worked and worshipped also became his reference group. In 1860, he began working as an Arabic tutor for Elizabeth Bowen Thompson, an English woman who arrived in Syria in the wake of the 1860 civil war to offer assistance to war widows and orphans and who soon established the British Syrian Mission school system (see Chapter 5). By the time the BSM published his memoirs in 1906, Kassab had served as the superintendent (or “inspector)” for these schools for decades. His lifelong work in the British schools was not only a consequence of his conversion, but also the fulfillment of a commitment made to his beloved employer, who died in 1869. In his emotional last meeting with her, Elizabeth Thompson asked Kassab to promise his faithfulness to the BSM after her death. He recounted this formative experience: These words were spoken with tears so feelingly that my tears fell also, and I gave her my pledge. Last of all she said, “Help me to rise.” I hesitated, fearing an overstrain, but she would kneel down, and poured out such a prayer as I shall never forget—for me, for the land, for the cause. She commended me to the Grace of God with a warmth that moves me to this moment … I was deeply affected, and was scarcely able to say farewell.171

On his first trip to the BSM headquarters in London, Kassab visited the grave where Thompson was buried to “pay the last tribute of affection to the Mother and Benefactress of my country.”172 Acting as a surrogate mother to Kassab, Thompson bequeathed her legacy to the young Syrian on her deathbed. And, indeed, until his own death in 1907, Kassab remained in the service of the BSM, fulfilling his vow to the English woman whose vision for Syria, and for the welfare of Syrian women, he had embraced in the early years after his conversion.173 Like Kassab and Jarwan, Nassim al-Hilu labored for half a century alongside Protestant missionaries in Syria, but because he came of age a generation later, the formative figures in his educational and spiritual development included Syrian Protestant teachers, evangelists and pastors.174 Nevertheless, al-Hilu presented his entry into the Protestant faith as an experience he shared with his three friends in Mashta, apart from any direct guidance from American or Syrian Protestants. He explained, “The four of us continued our

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  59 practice of studying and searching [the Bible] until we were convinced of the merit of the simple evangelical truth and that the Holy Bible is the only source for religious doctrine.”175 The four youths then endeavored to make contact with American missionaries in order to partake in the Lord’s Supper, traveling on foot from Mashta to the mission station in Tripoli.176 When they arrived, the Americans had already retired to the cooler climate of the mountains for the summer, but through later contacts with these missionaries, al-Hilu secured his entrance into the American boarding school in Sidon, where he graduated in 1889. During his school years in Sidon, a classmate asked whether he became Protestant from listening to the evangelical teachings of the vice principal, Yuwakim Mas‘ud al-Rasi, and al-Hilu replied, “No, although we were interested [in al-Rasi’s teaching] and benefitted from it.” He explained to his readers what the classmate had not understood, asserting, “I was Protestant before listening to the sermons and instruction of my teacher.”177 He did not join the Syrian Evangelical Church, however, until he moved to Hums after graduation to teach in the mission school there. While it saddened and angered al-Hilu’s uncle in Mashta to learn that his nephew made this decision “out of love” for the Evangelical Church and not simply to secure his salary, the younger man declared that he had chosen the evangelical faith over Greek Orthodox doctrines years before.178 Al-Hilu reiterated that he embraced Protestantism on his own, but he looked to missionaries for advice in making two subsequent decisions that set his future course of educational and evangelistic service at the Sidon school. In al-Hilu’s early years as a mission schoolteacher, he consulted with Frederick March (1847–1935) about the opportunity to relocate to the United States to join a relative in business. In a dramatic scene along the Tripoli coast, the Syrian teacher depicted himself standing with one foot on land and one foot in the sea and then determining that if he were to leave his homeland he would no longer be Nassim al-Hilu but another man.179 With a new sense of consecration for service in Syria, al-Hilu revived his former mission school in Mashta before deciding in 1894 to attend the mission’s theological training program for teachers. Reflecting the influence that missionary women could have on young converts, he made this decision at the encouragement of Tripoli missionary Harriet La Grange (1845–1927).180 Al-Hilu concluded, “At that time I wrote to the missionaries that, with reliance upon God, I was

60  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE determined to enter the theological school at the appointed time to prepare for the service to which God had commissioned me.”181 This commission, as al-Hilu understood it, was to serve the Lord, the Evangelical Church and his Syrian homeland. Whereas al-Shidyaq and ‘Itani committed themselves to an evangelical faith and died soon afterward, without detaching their sense of identity from their original religious community, over time Jarwan, Kassab and al-Hilu broke ties with their former churches and became fully part of the American missionary and Syrian Protestant communities. Conversion also led each of these three men to express a sense of calling to bring the word of God and the benefits of modern education to all the people of Syria. All three served in some capacity as preachers, teachers and writers of evangelical literature. By preaching the gospel, they aimed to build the Syrian Evangelical Church; by providing modern education, they sought the spiritual and social progress of Syria; and by engaging in the literary production of periodicals, pamphlets and books, they endeavored to reach thousands of unknown Arab readers through the power of the word, which had so radically transformed their own lives.182 Conversion, Protestant Identity and Independent Agency When reporting on its efforts to “restore Christianity” in the Middle East, “carry the Gospel” to Arabs and give Christians and Muslims in Syria a “spiritual faith” in Christ, reports of the American Syria Mission highlighted the faith commitments of Syrian converts who professed their belief in Christ, joined the Evangelical Church and participated in the Americans’ own evangelistic mission.183 Though American missionaries emphasized the elements of commitment and the lasting consequences of Protestant conversion, they nevertheless conceived of this process of change as occurring over time. Their annual reports represented all Syrians as potential converts moving on a path toward the kingdom of heaven. With the strict standards of regeneration inherited from their Puritan predecessors, in the missionaries’ minds the path toward change for prospective Protestants could be long, lonely and treacherous, much like Christian’s journey in the missionary favorite The Pilgrim’s Progress.184 Such missionary views of conversion matched more or less with the

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  61

Figure 7  Layyah A. Barakat Source: Barakat, A Message from Mount Lebanon, frontispiece.

62  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE five conversion stories in this chapter and also with the memoirs of Layyah al-Khazin Barakat (c. 1858–1940)—one book-length account by a Syrian Protestant woman that was comparable to these male narratives. Born in ‘Abay to a Maronite family, Barakat attended the Syria Mission’s school for girls there and a German school of the Kaiserswerth Deaconesses in Beirut before fully embracing the Protestant faith as a student at the Beirut Female Seminary. For Barakat, like Kassab and other Protestant converts, the conflicts of 1860 were a turning point, for she lost her father to the violence and fled with her mother to the American missionaries in Beirut. Later, when family members confined her at home to prevent further contact with the Americans, Barakat escaped and followed the pattern of al-Shidyaq and even al-Bustani himself in seeking refuge at a missionary home. Barakat shared this religious journey in A Message from Mount Lebanon (1912), written for the Americans among whom she lived and worked as an advocate for foreign missions and other Christian causes after her immigration in 1882.185 This work, including service as a “national evangelist” for the National Christian Woman’s Temperance Union, was an enduring consequence of her conversion.186 I integrate portions of Barakat’s conversion narrative into my analysis of al-Shidyaq, Jarwan, Kassab, ‘Itani and al-Hilu’s stories as this final section examines Syrian Protestant terminology for conversion and their conceptions of agency in religious change. Barakat’s account should not be seen as representative of all Syrian Protestant women’s experiences, but it helps to demonstrate how common theological and evangelistic orientations united American and Syrian Protestants even when understandings of conversion diverged. The Terminology of Conversion Throughout this chapter I have referred to “conversion” and “converts” as convenient English terms to indicate an act or process of religious change. I also employed this language because American missionaries consistently used the same terms in their reports and correspondence, and Layyah Barakat adopted the term from her American contemporaries as she referred to the number of “converts from the Maronite church” in ‘Abay.187 Yet none of the men featured in this chapter called themselves converts, because in Arabic there is no equivalent for the noun “convert” or for the verb “to convert”

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  63 when it is used in a religious sense. The commonplace verbs taghayyara (to change), tahawwala (to transform into), sara (to become something) or dakhala (to enter or join) carry no explicitly religious connotation. Because the Arabic language developed along with the emergence and expansion of Islam, the word used for conversion to Islam, aslama (to submit), does not apply to conversions to Christianity. The active participle, meaning “one who submits,” is muslim (a Muslim).188 The term tawba (repentance; taba, to repent) might convey a step in the conversion process for either Christians or Muslims, but the corresponding active participle, ta’ib (a repentant person), offers no indication of that individual’s specific attachment to Christianity, Islam or any other religious tradition. What term, then, might an Arabic-speaking Syrian convert to Protestantism use to convey his or her sense of identity? The Arabic term mutanassir, as used today and in Ottoman Syria, signifies one who has converted to Christianity or become Christianized. The related word, nasrani, is one of the Arabic terms meaning Christian (see Figure 8). Barakat introduced this ancient term to her American audience as a reference to “followers of [Jesus] the Nazarene.” While the related noun mutanassir may carry a negative connotation when used by Muslims to refer to those who have left the fold of Islam, Nassim al-Hilu used mutanassir to describe his first Protestant teacher, a Druze convert.189 The term only fits, however, for an individual like Kamil ‘Itani who was not born into a Christian ta’ifa. Al-Shidyaq, Jarwan, Kassab, al-Hilu and Barakat were already Christians (masihiyyun or nasara in the plural). To indicate their self-understandings as Protestant converts, these four simply described the conversion experience. For al-Shidyaq, in al-Bustani’s interpretation, the moment of change came when the light of the gospel (nur al-injil) shone upon him. Al-Hilu said that he “became Protestant” (sirtu injili).190 Jarwan became a witness of Christ’s glory, and Kassab recounted that he gave himself “wholly to Christ” and that his father also “embraced the Saviour.”191 ‘Itani indicated his new identity by changing his name to ‘Abd al-Masih (servant of Christ). Like al-Shidyaq and al-Hilu, ‘Itani also distinguished himself by his commitment to reading of the tawra (Old Testament) and injil (New Testament or gospel). As for Barakat, her English narrative employed the term “convert” sparingly. She described the missionaries’ “loving, practical, devoted Christianity which won over [her]

64  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE brother” and conveyed her own experience in the quiet of her boarding school room when a desire awakened in her to know Jesus Christ. While meeting with Female Seminary principal Eliza Everett, Barakat determined to “surrender” her life to him.192 At a practical level, this various terminology reflects the effort of converts to express a new sense of identity in a language that allowed for conversion to Islam (aslama) and conversion to Christianity (tanassara) generally, but not conversion to Protestantism specifically. At a deeper level, however, when these converts drew upon the word injil and indicated their devotion to Jesus Christ, they tied their identities to two significant tenets of evangelical Protestantism. They recognized that God’s word must be studied and preached, and they also affirmed the centrality of devotion to Christ, the Word incarnate. Barakat’s testimony was consistent with this as well. These expressions of identity were, in fact, more deeply meaningful than the simple English term “convert,” which appeared repeatedly in mission reports. Kassab’s memoir stood out in this regard. Although he wrote in English for a British audience, he did not adopt the missionary usage of the term “convert.” Rather, he spoke of his religious transformation as a commitment to Christ.193 Although others might have used the term mutanassir to indicate his shift in affiliation, ‘Itani described himself as a gospel-reading Muslim servant of Christ and avoided severing himself completely from his Muslim roots.194 Since the term mutanassir likewise failed to convey al-Shidyaq, Jarwan, Kassab or al-Hilu’s sense of identity after conversion, it is necessary to consider what it meant for them and for their female contemporary Layyah Barakat to become Protestant. Over the course of time Jarwan, al-Hilu and Kassab adopted the Syrian Evangelical Church as their new reference group and ceased to participate in religious rituals with their former ta’ifa.195 Nevertheless, none of these men talked about embracing “true Christianity,” a phrase missionaries often used. Equally significant is the fact that the English expression “to become Protestant” carries a different connotation than the Arabic sara injili (to become Protestant). The root of injiliyya, after all, is not “protest” but “gospel.” Thus, when a convert like Nassim al-Hilu said sirtu injili (I became Protestant), he did not mean primarily that he joined a new ta’ifa, but rather that he conceived of himself as a gospel-reading

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  65 Figure 8  Table of Arabic Terms for Conversion Islam

Christianity (from Islam)

Christianity

Protestantism

The religion (din) of…

al-islam

Nasraniyya

al-din al-masihi/ al-masihiyya

al-ta’ifa al-injiliyya or al-injiliyya

To convert to …

Aslama

Tanassara

*sara masihi

**sara injili

nasrani(yya), pl. nasara

masihi(yya)

injili(yya)

nasiriof Nazareth, Nazarene

masih – Messiah, Christ

injil – gospel

A convert to … An adherent of …

muslim(a)

Root words

islam – submission (to God’s will)

Variants

mutanassir(a)

nasraniyya and masihiyya are roughly equivalent, as are nasrani and masihi

brutistant – used for injiliyya

* to become Christian. There is no form of the verb masaha that conveys this meaning. The converts in my study did not say sirtu masihi, though converts from non-Christian communities might have used these terms. ** to become Protestant/Evangelical. There is no Arabic verb related to the word injil.

Christian even if his community status changed as a result of this internal transformation. Agents of Religious Change By identifying themselves as Christians who read the Bible and preached the gospel, al-Shidyaq, Jarwan, Kassab, al-Hilu and ‘Itani affirmed their conversions in a way that reflected their understanding of what it meant to be Protestant, namely, Bible readers. Al-Hilu and Kassab specifically emphasized that they were converted by the word of God and not through active contact with missionaries. Of all the narratives considered here, Barakat’s gave the most attention to the role of missionaries, as she offered high praise to Sarah and William Bird in ‘Abay and described Eliza Everett in Beirut as “begging” her to turn to Christ. Yet she also balanced such statements with the claim that American Christianity was “simply the fruit of foreign missionary work” done by her own Syrian ancestors who brought the light of the gospel out from the land of the Bible. Barakat also emphasized her love of Bible reading,

66  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE a central activity through which her “eyes began to be opened, and the Good Shepherd began to lead His wandering sheep in His own way.”196 For all of these converts, then, the Bible possessed “living energy” and thus was, itself, an agent of spiritual transformation.197 This view of the Bible’s converting power is not a departure from the theology of nineteenth-century Protestant missionaries, who believed that learning to read was the first step toward faith. As Matthew Engelke maintained in his study of African encounters with scripture, “It was a missionary’s goal to foster a love of the book through the promotion of literacy. The Bible would take care of most of the rest.”198 Acknowledging this belief in their annual reports, the American Presbyterian missionaries in Syria relinquished a measure of control over the processes of evangelical identity formation.199 In doing so, they opened up the possibility that Bible-reading Syrians might interpret the word of God differently. By the turn of the century, some of these missionaries went as far as to accept the possibility of Bible-studying evangelical Catholic and Orthodox Christians. In Africa, as Engelke has demonstrated, the Bible became not only an agent of conversion but also a source of power for African men and women, “who took the Bible and its promises into their own hands, divorcing themselves from missionaries while staying wed to the Word of God.”200 While literacy and Bible reading were equally empowering for Syrian Protestants, the sense of agency transmitted from the word of God to Syrian converts took a different form in the Ottoman Arab context. Prior to the First World War, the Evangelical churches of the American Syria Mission remained the major ecclesial expression of Syrian Protestantism. In many parts of Africa, an emerging movement of African independent churches ran parallel to and quickly outpaced the growth of missionary-initiated churches. Because of the particulars of the Ottoman context and the ancient presence of Christianity in the region, the same pattern did not occur in Syria.201 Nevertheless, as these conversion narratives indicated, Syrian Protestants took agency over their own sense of Protestant identity. They lived out their religious convictions in the midst of the Nahda, and in subtle and more subversive ways asserted their independence from American control while still maintaining ties to the mission and its Reformed Tradition.

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  67

Notes 1. Makdisi, Culture of Sectarianism, 2–5, 13. This study of the 1860 civil war described the prewar society in Mount Lebanon, where the primary social divisions were between ruling notables and peasants, not between the Druze and Christian ta’ifas that had intermingled for centuries. The influences of Ottoman and European discourses of reform contributed to the new sectarian loyalties Syrian residents crafted for themselves. As Layyah Barakat, a survivor of this violence, noted in her memoirs, “In the massacres they did not kill women; they were after men.” Layyah A. Barakat, A Message from Mount Lebanon (Philadelphia, PA: Sunday School Times Co., 1912), 26–7. 2. Akarli, The Long Peace, 1; Hourani, Arabic Thought, 97; Elizabeth M. Holt, Fictitious Capital: Silk, Cotton, and the Rise of the Arabic Novel (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017), 4, 24. 3. I use the English title and the acronym AMP to emphasize that this was not a purely American press, but rather a site for literary production by Syrians who linked themselves to the mission. The AMP and the Syria Mission were American–Syrian endeavors. 4. Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian (eds.), “Introduction,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 1–2. 5. Nadia Marzouki and Olivier Roy (eds.), Religious Conversions in the Mediterranean World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). In this same volume see especially Heather J. Sharkey, “Ambiguous Conversions: The Selective Adaptation of Religious Cultures in Colonial North Africa,” 77–97. 6. On scholarly avoidance of the “conversionist” aspects of missions in the region, see Murre-van den Berg, “The Study of Western Missions in the Middle East,” 44. 7. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, vii, 186, 238–9, 311. 8. Khalaf, Protestant Missionaries in the Levant, xx–xxi. 9. Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 103–37, 187–9, 197–9. 10. For groundbreaking work in Nahda Studies see Sheehi, “Towards a Critical Theory of al-Nahdah,” 272; Stephen Paul Sheehi, Foundations of Modern Arab Identity (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004). 11. See, for example, the following definitions of the Nahda: Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 4–5; Ayalon, Arabic Print Revolution, 18–19; Patel, The

68  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE Arab Nahdah, 16. Patel’s multifaceted explanation of the Nahda’s development focused on nahdawis as intellectuals and humanists, but not as religious. 12. Hanssen and Weiss, “The Means and Ends of the Liberal Experiment,” 168–72. 13. Amal Ghazal, “‘Illiberal’ Thought in the Liberal Age: Yusuf al-Nabhani (1849– 1932), Dream-Stories and Sufi Polemics against the Modern Era,” in Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss (eds.), Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Nahda (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 223–7. In this same volume, see also Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss, “Introduction: Language, Mind, Freedom, and Time: The Modern Arab Intellectual Tradition in Four Words,” 12, 22, 30, 33, 35. 14. The quotation appeared in Ghazal, “‘Illiberal’ Thought,” 226. On the religion–secular divide, see Hanssen and Weiss, “Language, Mind, Freedom, and Time,” 22 n. 133. 15. Hanssen and Weiss, “Language, Mind, Freedom, and Time,” 11. 16. On understandings of secularism (or ‘almaniyya) in the Middle East, see Azaam Tamimi, “The Origins of Arab Secularism,” in John L. Esposito and Azzam Tamimi (eds.), Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 13–29. On religious people making use of secular spaces in the Middle East, see Sharkey, History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, 245, 255. 17. Charles Habib Malik (1906–87), a Lebanese Protestant intellectual of a later generation, was the only Christian intellectual the book noted for his theological convictions and faith practices. Yet the book does not identify Malik specifically as a Protestant. Jens Hanssen, “Albert’s World: Historicism, Liberal Imperialism and the Struggle for Palestine,” in Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss (eds.), Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Nahda (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 70–3. 18. Albert’s father, Fadlu ‘Issa Hourani, was a member of the Evangelical Church of Beirut and graduated from SPC in 1890 before he emigrated to Manchester, England. “Beirut Church: Absent and Emigrants,” 1905: PHS 115-4-4; Catalogue of the Syrian Protestant College, 1901–1902, 97. As a freshman in SPC’s Literary Department, Fadlu contributed to “Short Essays by Syrian Boys in Beirut,” vols. 1 and 2, compiled by W. W. Martin, January/February 1885: Special Collections of Princeton Theological Seminary Library. 19. Hourani, Arabic Thought, 96; Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, 245–59, 307.

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  69 20. Sheehi, Foundations of Modern Arab Identity, 17. 21. Abunnasr, “The Making of Ras Beirut,” 12–13. 22. Sheehi, Foundations of Modern Arab Identity, 17–18; Tibawi, “The American Missionaries in Beirut and Butrus al-Bustani,” 16, 181; Butrus Abu-Manneh, “The Christians between Ottomanism and Syrian Nationalism: The Ideas of Butrus al-Bustani,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 11(3) (1980): 287–304; Stephen Paul Sheehi, “Inscribing the Arab Self: Butrus al-Bustani and Paradigms of Subjective Reform,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 27(1) (2000): 7–24; John W. Jandoora, “Butrus al-Bustani, Arab Consciousness, and Arabic Revival,” The Muslim World 74(2) (1984): 71–84; John W. Jandoora, “Butrus al-Bustani: Ideas, Endeavors, and Influence,” PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1981. 23. On Reformed theology and churches associated with this tradition, see John H. Leith, Introduction to the Reformed Tradition, rev. edn (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1981). 24. Barakat, Message from Mount Lebanon. 25. See the stories of Nijma ‘Atiq and Taqla Sabunji in Chapter 5 and the fictional conversion account of Hannah published by novelist Farida ‘Atiya (Chapter 3). 26. Robbins, “Paradoxes of Global Pentecostalism,” 229–30; Robert Wuthnow, “Taking Talk Seriously: Religious Discourse as Social Practice,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50(1) (2011): 1–21. 27. S. John Boopalan, “Harmony, Polyphony, Cacophony: Voices of Dissent and Unfamiliar Vocabulary,” in Peniel Jesudason Rufus Rajkumar, Joseph Prabhakar Dayam and I. P. Asheervadham (eds.), Mission At and From the Margins: Patterns, Protagonists and Perspectives (Oxford: Regnum, 2014), 12. 28. Lewis R. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995). The quotation comes from the co-authored article based on Rambo’s book, Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian, “Converting: Stages of Religious Change,” in Christopher Lamb and M. Darrol Bryant (eds.), Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies (New York: Cassell, 1999), 23. 29. Rambo and Farhadian, “Converting: Stages of Religious Change,” 23–4. These stages are not unidirectional and may be rearranged or even omitted according to circumstances. 30. Alan F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), 285–6. See William James, The Variety of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York:

70  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE Modern Library, [1902] 2002), 228–30; A. D. Nock, Conversion: The Old and New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (New York: Oxford University Press, 1933). 31. Rambo and Farhadian, “Introduction,” 6–7. 32. Matthew Engelke, “Past Pentecostalism: Notes on Rupture, Realignment and Everyday Life in Pentecostal and Africa Independent Churches,” Africa 80(2) (2010): 82–108. Studies by Richard Burden, Jonas Adelin Jørgensen, Franklin Rausch and Edwin Zehner in the following volume all draw upon Rambo’s book: Richard Fox Young and Jonathan A. Seitz (eds.), Asia in the Making of Christianity: Conversion, Agency, and Indigeneity, 1600s to the Present (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 55, 273, 275, 324, 327, 419. 33. Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, vol. 1 (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1991), 247; Matthew Engelke, “Discontinuity and the Discourse of Conversion,” Journal of Religion in Africa 34(1/2) (2004): 83, 105; Robbins, “Paradoxes of Global Pentecostalism,” 228. 34. David Maxwell, “Comments,” in Joel Robbins, “Continuity Thinking and the Problem of Christian Culture,” Current Anthropology 48(1) (2007): 25–6. 35. Robbins, “Paradoxes of Global Pentecostalism,” 230–1. 36. Birgit Meyer, “‘Make a Complete Break with the Past’: Memory and PostColonial Modernity in Ghanaian Pentecostalist Discourse,” Journal of Religion in Africa 28(3) (1998): 318, 339. 37. Engelke, “Past Pentecostalism,” 177, 182, 187. 38. Ibid., 185–7. 39. Engelke, “Discontinuity,” 106; Robbins, “Continuity Thinking and the Problem of Christian Culture,” 18–29. 40. Badr, “Mission to Nominal Christians.” Sharkey noted that American supporters came to believe the number of Egyptian converts from Islam was much higher than it actually was because missionaries cited statistics for baptisms and church attendance without differentiating between Muslims and Orthodox Copts. Sharkey, “Ambiguous Conversions,” 86. 41. I focus on understandings of Protestant formation rather than more general conceptions of Christian identity because most Syrians who joined the Protestant Church were born into existing Christian communities. 42. Bruce Hindmarsh, “Religious Conversion as Narrative and Autobiography,” in Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 344.

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  71 43. On Butrus al-Bustani’s translation of such works for the AMP, see Peter Hill, “Early Translations of English Fiction into Arabic: The Pilgrim’s Progress and Robinson Crusoe,” Journal of Semitic Studies 60(1) (2015): 177–212. 44. Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” in Mr. Edward’s Sermon on the Danger of the Unconverted (Boston, MA: S. Kneeland & T. Green, 1741), 8, 12. 45. Edwards, “Sinners,” 14–15. 46. William R. Hutchison, Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 27, 30. 47. Ibid., 38–41; Paul W. Harris, Nothing but Christ: Rufus Anderson and the Ideology of Protestant Foreign Missions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 24–7; Khalaf, Protestant Missionaries in the Levant, 11, 13–21. 48. Hutchison, Errand to the World, 26–7. 49. M. Sherwood (ed.), Memoirs of Rev. David Brainerd: Missionary to the Indians of North America. Based on the Life of Brainerd Prepared by Jonathan Edwards, D.D., and Afterwards Revised and Enlarged by Sereno E. Dwight, D.D. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884), 2. As the first American foreign mission society and a non-denominational body with Congregational origins, the ABCFM commissioned Congregationalist, Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed missionaries. The Board became explicitly Congregational after transferring its Syria, Persia and Gabon missions to the Presbyterian BFM. 50. Badr, “Nominal Christians,” 69. Badr noted the similarities between Parson’s biography and the biographies of his contemporaries in Syria, Pliny Fisk, Jonas King and William Goodell. 51. Ibid., 70. 52. Ibid., 70–1. On Fisk and Parsons, see Heyrman, American Apostles; John Hubers, I Am a Pilgrim, a Traveler, a Stranger: Exploring the Life and Mind of the First American Missionary to the Middle East, the Rev. Liny Fisk (1792–1825) (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2016). 53. See Edwards, “Sinners.” 54. Harris, Nothing but Christ, 10. 55. “Religious Intelligence: Report of the Prudential Committee,” Missionary Herald XV, No. 12, December 1819, 545. 56. “Religious Intelligence,” Missionary Herald XV, No. 12, December 1819, 545. 57. Badr, “Nominal Christians,” 48–9; “Religious Intelligence,” Missionary Herald XV, No. 12, December 1819, 546. 58. Badr, “Nominal Christians,” 48–9; Kieser, Nearest East, 40.

72  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE 59. “Religious Intelligence,” Missionary Herald XV, No. 12, December 1819, 546. 60. For these missionaries’ dates of service, see Appendix B, below. 61. “Religious Intelligence,” Missionary Herald XV, No. 12, December 1819, 545–6. 62. Badr, “Nominal Christians,” 100–3. The two men, Yaqub Gregory Wortabet and Dyonysius Carabet, left the Armenian Orthodox Church prior to the missionaries’ arrival in Syria. Later in the nineteenth century, after the foundation of the Evangelical Church of Beirut, this mission church became known as the Anglo-American Church, and its members included American and British missionaries. A Historical Sketch of the Anglo-American Congregation, Beyrout, Syria (Beirut: American Mission Press, 1873); Robert M. Copeland, The Sesquicentennial History of Community Church, Beirut, Lebanon, 1823–1973 (Beirut: Community Church of Beirut, 1974). 63. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 59, 109–10, 140, 289. 64. Badr, “Nominal Christians,” 265–6. 65. Ibid., 244. 66. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 120–1. 67. Badr, “Nominal Christians,” 285. 68. Al-Bustani worked in Hasbayya for a short time. Christine B. Lindner, “Rahil ‘Ata al-Bustani: Wife and Mother of the Nahda,” in Adel Beshara (ed.), Butrus al-Bustani: Spirit of the Age (Melbourne: IPhoenix, 2014), 56. Located south of Tyre, ‘Alma al-Sha‘b was known to missionaries simply as ‘Alma. 69. Christine B. Lindner, “‘In this Religion I Will Live, and in this Religion I Will Die’: Performativity and the Protestant Identity in Late Ottoman Syria,” CHRONOS: Revue d’Histoire de l’Université de Balamand 22 (2010): 34–5, 39–40. 70. See Makdisi, Culture of Sectarianism. 71. BFM (1891), 210. 72. On Old and New School Presbyterian disagreements over election, free will and processes of conversion, see George M. Marsden, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience: A Case Study of Thought and Theology in Nineteenth-Century America (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1970), 39–87; Bradley J. Longfield, Presbyterians and American Culture: A History (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 93–4; Ted A. Smith, The New Measures: A Theological History of Democratic Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 106–39. 73. In 1870, the five central stations were in Beirut, Sidon, Tripoli, ‘Abay and

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  73 Zahle. In 1900, the ‘Abay and Zahle stations were consolidated and renamed the “Lebanon Station.” BFM (1901), 328. 74. BFM (1871), 88; BFM (1914), 449. 75. BFM (1914), 449. 76. BFM (1879), 39; BFM (1882), 42, 45; BFM (1883), 47, 49, 52; BFM (1884), 58; BFM (1889), 72; BFM (1896), 241; BFM (1906), 408, 410, 422–3; BFM (1913), 436; BFM (1915), 421. 77. The mission’s first Muslim convert and his family were baptized in 1871. BFM (1872), 47. See other announcements of Muslim baptisms in BFM (1899), 267; BFM (1912), 450. Two Druzes in 1877 gave “such evidences of change of heart, that they have been baptized.” BFM (1878), 43. See also BFM (1900), 270. On the significance of baptism within the Syrian Protestant churches and other Christian traditions in Syria, see Lindner, “Negotiating the Field,” 257–62. 78. BFM (1872), 52; BFM (1884), 56; BFM (1886), 72; BFM (1892), 249; BFM (1893), 242; BFM (1899), 273, 278; BFM (1900), 270. 79. BFM (1899), 267. Another report from the Zahle Station stated that “instances are not wanting of Moslem children who appear to have become true believers.” BFM (1882), 47. 80. BFM (1882), 45; BFM (1889), 72; BFM (1892), 71; BFM (1898), 250; BFM (1899), 278; BFM (1906), 422. 81. BFM (1883), 53. 82. BFM (1883), 47. 83. BFM (1899), 276. This report of the Tripoli Station in 1899 described “four young men who, though nominally Greeks, are practically Protestants. They attend all our services, and spend most of their evenings with our teacher. They have organized a society of ten young men, who meet once a week for Bible-study.” 84. BFM (1884), 60. Declarations that prospective converts “have hope in Christ” or were “hopefully converted” were especially common in reports on mission school pupils. BFM (1877), 35, 36; BFM (1888), 71; BFM (1884), 59. 85. BFM (1900), 272. An entire congregation of self-declared Protestants in a Maronite village was described as a providential sign, although the report asserted that beyond their regular church attendance, the group had “not assumed a spiritual character.” See also BFM (1915), 419; BFM (1892), 253. 86. BFM (1906), 418. 87. BFM (1878), 42; BFM (1892), 258.

74  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE 88. BFM (1892), 258. 89. BFM (1883), 44. See also BFM (1892), 258. 90. Syrians who were “evangelical except in name” attempted to “live the lives of Christians while remaining in their old churches.” BFM (1892), 259. For other inclusive references to Greek Orthodox and Catholic Syrians, see BFM (1889), 271; BFM (1898), 248; BFM (1912), 453–4; BFM (1913), 436. 91. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 142; Deanna Ferree Womack, “Imperial Politics and Missionary Practices: Comparative Transformations in AngloAmerican and Russian Orthodox Missions in Syria–Palestine,” ARAM Periodical 25 (2013): 14. On John Wortabet (Yuhanna Wurtabat) and his relationship to the mission, see Zeuge-Buberl, Mission of the American Board in Syria, 199–229. 92. Longfield, Presbyterians and American Culture, 9. 93. See Grafton, Contested Origins. 94. Lamin Sanneh made a similar argument regarding the way that missionaries’ translation of the Bible into African and Asian languages transferred evangelistic agency to non-Western Christians. Sanneh, Translating the Message. 95. Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven; David Kerr, “Maronites and Missionaries: A Critical Appraisal of the Affair of As‘ad al-Shidyaq (1825–1829),” in David Thomas and Clare Amos (eds.), A Faithful Presence: Essays for Kenneth Cragg (London: Melisende, 2003), 219–36. 96. The first Syrian minister was John Wortabet, who was ordained in 1853 as an “evangelist” but nevertheless pastored the Evangelical Church in Hasbayya. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 133, 164. On Wortabet and the ordination practices of the American Syria Mission, see Chapter 4. Jarwan’s obituary appeared in Ibrahim al-Hurani, “Tarjamat al-marhum al-Qis Saliba Jarwan,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2346 (January 16, 1911): 13. 97. Saliba Jarwan, “Life of Qis Saliba,” unpublished manuscript in Arabic, c. 1905–1911, NEST Special Collections. The text was not titled in Arabic, but Franklin E. Hoskins, head of the Beirut Station, added the English title to the memoir after Jarwan’s death. Qis is the Arabic term for “Reverend.” 98. Selim (Salim) Kassab, “Our Inspector’s Story,” in H. B. Macartney (ed.), Two Stories from the Land of Promise (London: British Syrian Mission, 1906). This double volume was more widely circulated, but the BSM archives hold the individual text, Selim Kassab, Our Inspector’s Story (London: BSM, 1906).

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  75 Courtesy of the Centre for Muslim-Christian Studies, Oxford, England. See also Kassab’s obituary, “Tarjamat al-‘Allama al-Fadil al-Marhum Salim Kassab,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2141 (February 7, 1915): 41. 99. Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 25–7. For Kassab’s publications and translations, see Salim Kassab, “Ta’thir al-Walida,” al-Jinan 16 (1885): 138–42, 182–3; Salim Kassab, “al-Mar’a,” Lisan al-Hal 1653 (July 23, 1894), 2; Salim Kassab, “al-Mar’a,” Lisan al-Hal 1655 (July 25, 1894), 3–4; Salim Kassab, Kitab al-Durra al-Farida fi al-Durus al-Mufida (Beirut: al-Matba‘a al-Adabiyya, 1889); Illustrated Catalogue and Price List of Publications (Beirut: AMP, 1896) (hereafter AMP 1896). 100. Nassim al-Hilu, Sirati Mundhu Hadathati: wa-Hiyya Mudhakkirat Nassim al-Hilu (Beirut: The Torch Library, 1950); Nassim al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat al-Mu‘allim Nassim al-Hilu, 1867–1951: Awwal Ra’is ‘Arabi li-l-Madrasa al-Amirkiyya fi Sayda, Hamil Wisam al-Istihqaq al-Lubnani (Dar Kanaan li-lDarasat wa-l-Nashar: Damascus, 2010). 101. Henry Harris Jessup, The Setting of the Crescent and the Rising of the Cross or Kamil Abdul Messiah: A Syrian Convert from Islam to Christianity (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1898). Jessup rendered ‘Itani’s name as Aeitany. 102. The book circulated in the United States and Britain and was translated into German, Danish and Dutch. James S. Dennis, “Book Reviews,” The Moslem World 1(2) (1911): 194–5. The following studies referenced Kamil’s story: Sharkey, American Evangelicals in Egypt, 67; Thomas Kidd, American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 53. 103. Insight can still be gained on Kassab and ‘Itani’s own perspectives. Macartney edited Kassab’s story for publication, but Kassab approved the final product. See Macartney, “Our Visitor’s Story,” 3. Jessup introduced ‘Itani’s story but also included lengthy excerpts from ‘Itani’s letters and journal entries. 104. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion, 169. 105. Susan Harding, “Convicted by the Holy Spirit: The Rhetoric of Fundamental Baptist Conversion,” American Ethnologist 14(1) Frontiers of Evangelism (1987): 169; Robert W. Hefner, “Introduction: World Building and the Rationality of Conversion,” in Robert W. Hefner (ed.), Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), 25–6. 106. The Evangelical Church of Beirut record book recorded converts’ religious community of birth. Sijillat al-Kanisa al-Injiliyya al-Wataniyya fi Bayrut, sijill raqm

76  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE 9: Beirut (hereafter NECB 9). Courtesy of the National Evangelical Church of Beirut and NEST Special Collections. Jewish converts were uncommon. 107. The Syria Mission report in 1893, which covered Kamil’s death, mentioned two other Muslim converts to Christianity who passed through Beirut on their way to a safer location outside the Ottoman Empire. BFM (1893), 234. 108. Bruce Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: The Roots of Sectarianism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 61. Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Maronite and Melkite Christians, as well as Druze, Sunni, Shi‘a and Jewish communities all constituted their own ta’ifa. Each ta’ifa established its own rules and chose its leadership. 109. Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 119. 110. Ibid., 184. 111. Ibid., 180–1; Kerr, “Maronites and Missionaries,” 219–36. See also Julius Richter, A History of Protestant Missions in the Near East (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1910), 188–9; Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 35–6, 39–40, 83. 112. AMP 1896, 77, 97, 120. Along with classics like The Pilgrim’s Progress, Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq remained in the American Press list following the First World War. AMP, Price List of Publications of the American Press (Beirut: AMP, 1921), 35, 43. Reports from the British Syrian Mission noted that a book about al-Shidyaq was read in the 1860s by female students in Protestant schools, who knew him as the “first martyr” in Syria. “A Native Teacher Pleading for a Little Syrian Orphan,” The Missing Link Magazine (May 1, 1867): 154. 113. Butrus al-Bustani, Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq: Bakurat Suriyya (Beirut: AMP, 1860). All references in this book are to the reprinted edition of this book published by Yusuf Khuri (ed.), Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq: munazara wa-hiwar multahib hawla hurriyat al-damir (Beirut: Dar al-Hamra’, 1991). 114. Rambo and Farhadian, “Converting: Stages of Religious Change,” 24. 115. Ibid., 33. 116. al-Bustani, Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq, 69. 117. Ibid. 118. Jarwan, “Life of Qis Saliba,” 2. Jarwan’s brother worked for the British consul in Sidon. Van Dyck and Thomson made Sidon their permanent place of residence in 1851, after the mission put them in charge of the new church in nearby Hasbayya. Sidon became a new mission station in 1852. “Hasbeiya:

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  77 Journal of Mr. Thomson,” Missionary Herald 48 (February 1852): 33–8; “Syria: Stations,” Missionary Herald 49 (January 1853): 4–5. 119. Jarwan, “Life of Qis Saliba,” 4. 120. al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 27. 121. Ibid., 30. Qasim was careful not to anger the Greek Orthodox community in Mashta, so he did not organize religious services. 122. Ibid. 123. Ibid., 28. For a history of al-Nashra, see Chapter 2. 124. Kassab, “Our Inspector’s Story,” 1–2. Kassab’s grandfather was a Greek Orthodox priest, and his father, who had completed his education in Europe, taught French, Italian and Arabic at the Greek Patriarch’s school of languages. Kassab joined the Evangelical Church of Beirut in 1866, and in 1872, he married Fumiya, who also moved from Damascus to Beirut. “Member Entry 79” and “Marriage Entry 26,” NECB 9. 125. The Protestant mission in Damascus was initially a joint endeavor between the United Presbyterian Church in North America (UPCNA) and the Irish Presbyterian Church. The UPCNA pastor John Crawford, a long-time missionary in Damascus, arrived there in 1857, around the time of Kassab’s conversion. Archibald Stuart Crawford, Reminiscences of the Crawfords and the Wests in the Near East (Beirut: Librarie du Liban, n.d., c. 1976), 1–2. 126. Kassab, “Our Inspector’s Story,” 2–3. 127. Like al-Shidyaq’s debates against Maronite leaders, Kassab raised the typical Protestant arguments against the intercession of the saints and prayers for the dead. Ibid., 3. 128. Ibid., 3–4. 129. Jessup, The Setting of the Crescent, 15. The college he attended was likely the University of Saint Joseph in Beirut, founded in 1881 at the site of a previously existing Jesuit college. Rafael Herzstein, “The Foundation of the Saint-Joseph University of Beirut: The Teaching of the Maronites by the Second Jesuit Mission in the Levant,” Middle Eastern Studies 43(5) (2007): 749–59. 130. Jessup, The Setting of the Crescent, 75–6. The text of Kamil’s letter was dated March 26, 1891. 131. Ibid., 17. 132. Rambo and Farhadian, “Converting: Stages of Religious Change,” 27. 133. al-Bustani, Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq, 16. See also Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 112. 134. In the interaction stage, the convert begins creating a new identity through an

78  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE immersion experience. The convert develops personal relationships within the new religious community and learns its religious rituals, rhetoric, and expected roles and conduct. Rambo and Farhadian, “Converting: Stages of Religious Change,” 29–30. 135. al-Bustani, Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq, 39, 43, 47–58. 136. Ibid., 47. 137. Little is known of al-Bustani’s personal conversion experience but missionary Samuel Wolcott noted that by 1842 he had become a firm Protestant. Tibawi, “The American Missionaries in Beirut and Butrus al-Bustani,” 154. 138. The Jesuits in Syria undertook a new Arabic Bible translation in the nineteenth century, and they and other Roman Catholic missionaries emphasized education, literacy and personal conversion. The Greek Orthodox schools supported by Russian missionaries made use of Arabic Bibles printed at the AMP in Beirut. P. C. Sadgrove, “Ibrahim al-Yaziji,” in Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey (eds.), Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, vol. 2 (New York: Routledge, 1998), 812; Lindner, “Negotiating the Field,” 116; Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 227; Bernard Heyberger and Chantal Verdeil. “The Holy Land in Jesuit Eyes (Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries),” in Heleen Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Boston, MA: Brill, 2006), 19–42. 139. Jessup, The Setting of the Crescent, 15–16. Jessup translated the letter written by Kamil ‘Abd al-Masih. 140. Ibid., 19. 141. Ibid., 17, 20. 142. Kassab, “Our Inspector’s Story,” 4. 143. al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 30. 144. Ibid. The Arabic translation of The Pilgrim’s Progress was a favorite among Syrian Protestant converts, and it was among the books that Syrian Protestant Biblewomen distributed to the women they visited. “Damascus,” Daughters of Syria (hereafter DoS) (January 1901), 11; DoS (July 1899), 58; British Syrian Mission, Annual Report (1900), 105. On missions and The Pilgrim’s Progress, see Isabel Hofmeyr, The Portable Bunyan: A Transnational History of The Pilgrim’s Progress (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). 145. al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 30–1. 146. Jarwan, “Life of Qis Saliba,” 8–10. 147. Ibid., 4.

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  79 148. Ibid., 7. 149. Rambo and Farhadian, “Converting: Stages of Religious Change,” 31. 150. al-Bustani, Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq, 11. 151. Ibid., 16. 152. Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 110 153. Kerr, “Maronites and Missionaries,” 225. 154. Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 110. 155. Isaac Bird’s letter from January 1, 1826, recounting this conversation, is quoted in Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 110. Bird wrote the first published story of alShidyaq’s martyrdom, “The Martyr of Lebanon.” 156. Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 205. 157. Jessup, The Setting of the Crescent, 30. Study of the Bible played a central role in ‘Itani’s religious quest, but, unlike the other converts, he relied on the constant guidance of Jessup, since he feared taking another copy of the New Testament home with him and angering his father. 158. Ibid., 34. The letter was dated April 17, 1890. 159. Ibid., 42. 160. Ibid., 49. ‘Itani, as a Muslim, was the only one of the five converts discussed here whom the missionaries baptized. 161. S. M. Zwemer, “Letter from Busrah, Arabia, June 29, 1892,” The Arabian Mission, Quarterly Letters, No. 2 (April 1–July 1, 1892): 13–14; Jessup, The Setting of the Crescent, 138–9, 141. 162. Jessup, The Setting of the Crescent, 66. Journal entry from April 5, 1891. 163. Kamil ‘Abd al-Masih to the Arabian Mission, January 1892: Arabian Mission Incoming Correspondence, Reformed Church of America Archives, New Brunswick, New Jersey. 164. Jarwan, “Life of Qis Saliba,” 11. 165. Ibid., 11. Jarwan joined the church in ‘Abay in December of 1856. “Member entry 21,” Sijilat al-Kanisa al-Injiliyya al-Wataniyya fi Bayrut: sijill raqm 6: ‘Abay. Courtesy of NEST Special Collections. 166. Ibid., 28. 167. Ibid., 1–2. Jarwan dated the beginning of his ministry to his graduation from ‘Abay in 1857. 168. Ibid., 2. John Wortabet, the first Syrian minister was ordained as an evangelist. See my discussion of this ordination in Chapter 4. 169. Kassab, “Our Inspector’s Story,” 5. 170. Kassab joined the Beirut Church in 1866. “Member entry 79,” NECB 9.

80  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE 171. Kassab, “Our Inspector’s Story,” 70. 172. Ibid., 71. 173. Kassab wrote, “I was greatly troubled in conscience, and said to myself, ‘If a lady, who is a volunteer and a foreigner, does so much and cares so much for my nation, how much more ought I to spend and be spent in a cause so holy.’” Kassab, “Our Inspector’s Story,” 19. 174. In 1938, al-Hilu announced his retirement as principal of the Gerard Institute in Sidon, where he had worked for forty-three years. “Mr. Nassim Helu, Gerard Institute, Sidon,” Alumni Bulletin of the Near East School of Theology III, No. 2 (December 1938), 12. Courtesy of NEST Special Collections. 175. al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 33. 176. There they met the Protestant teacher, Iskander ‘Atiya, purchased books from the mission bookstore and received a copy of ‘Atiya’s recently published AMP pamphlet, The Benefits of Christianity to the Human Race. Al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 31. Iskander ‘Atiya was from Baynu and graduated from the SPC collegiate department in 1872. Catalogue of the Syrian Protestant College, Beirut, Syria, 36th Year, 1901–1902 (Beirut: AMP, 1902), 94. 177. al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 33. 178. Ibid., 52. 179. Ibid., 59. On other mission employees who were tempted to emigrate, see BFM (1892), 263, 265. 180. La Grange was the head of the American School for Girls in Tripoli. 181. al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 61. 182. The early twentieth-century AMP manager Charles Dana emphasized, for example, the “tremendous power of the printed page” in his history of the accomplishments of the mission press. Charles A. Dana, The American Press, Beirut, Syria: A Brief Review of 93 years of Service to More Than a Score of Denominational Missions (Beirut: AMP, 1915), 10. Jarwan, al-Hilu and Kassab all wrote for the AMP. See AMP 1896. 183. BFM (1891), 210. 184. Hill, “Early Translations,” 193–5. 185. Barakat, Message from Mount Lebanon, 25–9, 35–6, 41, 47–52, 67–70. While residing with her uncle in Beirut, Barakat escaped to the home of Henry Jessup. Butrus al-Bustani fled to the home of Eli Smith. Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 2, 484. Ellen Fleischmann addressed Barakat’s life story in “Des filles d’Orient à l’école de la Mission américaine,” Qantara 31 (2011): 37–8. See also Julia Hauser, German Religious Women in Late Ottoman Beirut:

evang eli cal awa k eni n g   |  81 Competing Missions (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 122; Linda K. Jacobs, Strangers in the West: The Syrian Colony of New York, 1880–1900 (New York: Kalimah Press, 2015), 330–1. 186. Fortieth Annual Report of the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Convention, vol. 40 (Woman’s Temperance Publishing Association, 1913), 22. As a national evangelist in Philadelphia during the previous year, Barakat held eighty gospel meetings and ten bible meetings, made 150 visits, distributed Bibles and literature, collected pledges and observed prayer days. Ibid., 227–8. Prior to immigration, she taught in the Beirut Female Seminary and a Protestant school in Egypt. Barakat, Message from Mount Lebanon, 73–95. 187. Barakat, Message from Mount Lebanon, 64. 188. J. Dudley Woodberry, “Conversion in Islam,” in H. Newton Maloney and Samuel Southard (eds.), Handbook of Religious Conversion (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1992), 22–41. 189. Barakat, A Message from Mount Lebanon, 25–6, 38; al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 27. See also J. M. Cowan (ed.), The Hans-Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edn (Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, 1994), 1138. The term nasrani (pl. nasara) is linked to a classical word for Christianity, nasraniyya, used in the Qur’an and therefore most often used by Muslims. This word is connected to Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth (an-nasira). Arab Christians generally referred to themselves not as nasrani but as masihi, derived from the Arabic word for Christ or Messiah (masih). On twentieth-century Muslim treatises that used the terms nasara and munassirin (Christianizers) in reference to missionaries and Arab Christian evangelists, see Heather J. Sharkey, “Arabic Antimissionary Treatises: Muslim Responses to Christian Evangelism in the Modern Middle East,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 28(3) (2004): 101. 190. al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 46. Although the Anglicized version of the word Protestant (brutistant) exists in Arabic, none of the converts in this study used it as a term of self-identification. 191. Jarwan, “Life of Qis Saliba,” 11; Kassab, “Our Inspector’s Story,” 5. 192. Barakat, Message from Mount Lebanon, 64, 69–70. 193. In Two Stories from the Land of Promise, which contained Kassab’s memoir and the story of H. B. Macartney’s visit to Syria, Macartney was the only one to use the term “conversion.” The word did not appear in Kassab’s text except in a chapter heading, likely added by Macartney. Kassab, “Our Inspector’s Story,” 1.

82  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE 194. Unlike the words muslim, masihi, nasrani or injili, the term mutanassir necessarily carries with it the sense of having converted from a non-Christian religion. 195. While the religious sect of birth was recorded when converts joined the Syrian Evangelical Church, in the second generation the ta’ifa of birth became injiliyya (Protestant). When Salim Kassab’s children Amin and Salma joined the Evangelical Church of Beirut in 1890, their ta’ifa was listed as injiliyya. “Member entries 429 and 430,” NECB 9. 196. Barakat, Message from Mount Lebanon, 22, 36–40, 61–2, 68–9, 70. 197. Matthew Engelke, A Problem of Presence: Beyond Scripture in an African Church (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007), 54. 198. Ibid., 54. 199. According to Engelke, the Bible as an object moved independently of the missionaries who “put it into circulation.” Ibid., 77. 200. Ibid., 63. See also Sanneh, Translating the Message. 201. In the Ottoman Empire, Christian religious structures were expected to have organizational legitimacy with regard to the state in ways that new churches in the African context did not.

Source: Illustrated Catalogue and Price List of Publications (Beirut: American Mission Press, 1896), 3.

Figure 9  The American Mission Press and the Evangelical Church of Beirut

Source: Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library, Henry Harris Jessup Papers, RG 117, Box 10, folder 55.

Figure 10  The American Mission Press in Beirut and Syrian workers, 1908

2 “PUBLISHING” THE GOSPEL, READING THE NAHDA: PROTESTANT PRINT CULTURE IN LATE OTTOMAN SYRIA

S

hortly before the First World War disrupted the Syria Mission’s operations, missionary Charles Dana penned the opening to his brief history of the American Mission Press (AMP) in Beirut with a quotation from Mark 13:10: “And the Gospel must first be published among all nations.”1 This phrase upheld the broader evangelistic purpose of the AMP while also conveying a belief in the power of the printed word that American Presbyterians shared with Syrian writers of the Arab renaissance. By the time of Dana’s publication, Syrian-owned printing houses had generated an outpouring of Arabic literary production, especially in Beirut and Cairo. The journals (majalla, pl. majallat) and newspapers (jarida, pl. jara’id) of these presses in the late Ottoman period provided a potent means for Arab intellectuals and their expanding readership to “imagine not only national identities but also social, economic, and political issues and policies.”2 Yet, as my treatment of Syrian conversion narratives revealed, new conceptions of religious identity were also worked out during the Arab renaissance. I turn now to expressions of nahdawi religious identity in Syrian publications at the AMP and in Protestants’ printed exchanges with Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Muslim interlocutors. The Syrian writings examined here substantiated that there is no single definition of what it meant to participate 85

86  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE in the Nahda, for it was a complex and multivalent socio-cultural, political, religious and multiconfessional movement.3 Central to the formation of the early Syrian Protestant community, this renaissance in the Ottoman Arab provinces gained momentum during the period of modern bureaucratic reforms, or Tanzimat (1839–1876), emanating from the imperial capital at Istanbul and coinciding with the introduction of capitalist production across the Empire.4 As participants in the Nahda, intellectuals in Syria identified the value of modern Western science and technology, but also drew upon Arab religious and cultural reservoirs. Within the Muslim community, reformist Salafis looked to the aslaf (sing. salaf  ), the earliest generation of Muslims who practiced their faith according to the Qur’an and the Sunna (the example of the Prophet Muhammad), and they applied these foundational teachings to modern life.5 Nahdawi Christians reached into the past as well, not to the early Islamic era but to the ‘Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad (750–1258). They recognized this historical period as a golden age for science and philosophy, during which Christian scholars in the caliphate translated the Greek classics that were later transmitted to the Latin West along with new scientific and philosophical texts.6 Butrus al-Bustani, for example, maintained that the Arabs of the Middle Ages were the means of preserving ancient sciences but that by the modern period science and culture in Syria had declined.7 Al-Bustani and other Christian intellectuals did not uphold a simple binary between East and West or advocate wholesale adoption of Western modernity. Rather, they described their embrace of modern thought as a means of retrieving the cultural richness of ancient Arab-Islamic civilization and using it to shape modern Syrian society.8 Such authors, as Sheehi explained it, made Arabic into a marker of ethnic identity as they “deemphasized Islam as a religious signifier and recoded it as a cultural and historical signifier shared by Jewish and Christian Arabs alike.”9 Syrian Protestants lifted up an ideal Arab-Islamic past even within the religious writings they published at the AMP. They employed Arabic as a language of Protestant spirituality and participated in the Nahda as a cultural and religious movement. This reality of nahdawi Protestant production at the AMP was obscured, in part, by Dana and the missionary men who preceded him in managing the press and boasting of its religious influence.10 Believing that vernacular

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, rea di n g th e nahda   |  87 translations of the Bible and supplementary literature were essential means toward Protestant revival, the missionaries considered their printing establishment as “one of the mighty evangelizing forces of Syria.”11 Missionary reports consistently foregrounded the American AMP managers’ efforts in publishing the gospel through Arabic books, tracts and periodicals; and these reports marginalized the work of Syrian writers, editors, translators and assistants in shaping Protestant print culture to their audience, noting only the names of Ibrahim al-Hurani and Jirjis Shamun in annual BFM reports between 1880 and 1915.12 Yet by the end of that period, the vast majority of the titles in the AMP catalogue were written or translated by Syrians.13 Due to its religious content and its ostensible Western nature, scholars have identified the press undeservedly and somewhat superficially as the mouthpiece of American missionaries and given it minimal attention. The AMP has been treated, however, in debates over the Americans’ claim to have initiated the Nahda by establishing the first Arabic press in Beirut (transferred from Malta in 1834) and by publishing one of the earliest modern Arabic periodicals, al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (The Weekly Bulletin, originating in 1863).14 In the first significant English language study on the Nahda, The Arab Awakening (1938), George Antonius framed this formative period in terms that resembled the American missionaries’ own assertions, without discounting the richness of Arabic cultural production. Recognizing the educational and literary work of both Catholic and Protestant missionaries in Syria, Antonius emphasized the connection between the American mission and the Syrian pioneers of the Arab renaissance. He credited intellectuals who worked for the Americans as teachers and translators—like Butrus al-Bustani and the poet Nasif al-Yaziji (d. 1871)—with initiating modern literary Arabic  and Arab nationalist thought.15 Among his early critics were Albert Hourani and Abdul Latif Tibawi, whose work in the mid-twentieth century moved discussions on socio-cultural and political developments in the Middle East away from a narrow focus on Western imperial or missionary activities.16 Both scholars argued that Antonius exaggerated the role of Arab Christians and missionaries and that he failed to address Muslim contributions.17 Such considerations have led contemporary scholars of the Nahda to acknowledge the missionary enterprise as just one of the many influences during this period, and to consider Arab Christian and Muslim scholars as

88  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE laying the foundations of modern Arab identity.18 While maintaining that the impact of the AMP in the 1820s–1860s should not be overlooked, David Grafton, Hala Auji, Uta Zeuge-Buberl and others who work on the Syria Mission recognize that Syrian translators and editors were instrumental in the mission’s earliest Arabic productions.19 This chapter takes a similar approach to the work of the AMP from the 1860s until the First World War. Then, at the height of the Nahda in Beirut, Syrians used this press to contribute to cultural discussions, scientific studies and literary arts, but also participated in nahdawi discourses through their religious writings. Ami Ayalon, who described the religious (albeit largely Islamic) genres of the Nahda as “pious printing,” observed that the scope and influence of such religious works remains unknown. Accounting for many printed items that were distributed to readers but left no historical trace, he estimated that a large portion of the overall print production consisted of religious material.20 Our knowledge is even more limited when it comes to women’s contributions to nahdawi religiosity—witness the male-dominated theological debates in this chapter. Syrian Protestant print culture was patriarchal: it was primarily produced by men whose textually-based and doctrinally-centered approaches to religion reinforced a masculine privilege and established these as the norms of nahdawi Protestant identity. While the AMP drew a mixed gender reading audience and its theological publications certainly impacted a female readership, the performance of religious identity is not always identical for men and women in the same community.21 The assertions of intellectually elite Protestant men explored below will be a particularly important reference point, then, when I address the gendered realities of Syrian Protestant ­experience more fully in the subsequent three chapters of the book. This chapter enlarges prevailing conceptions of the Arab renaissance as mainly the purview of Christian secularists and Islamic reformists. After an overview of Arabic literary production in the following section, the second section on Syrian Protestant print culture considers the writings of Ibrahim al-Hurani, who used the AMP to cultivate a nahdawi Protestant reading public. The third section explores the intra-Christian debates between Protestant, Greek Orthodox and Catholic presses in Beirut, which elicited written responses from readers in all three communities. Finally, the chapter examines Protestant publications on Islam and identifies Syrian Protestants

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, rea di n g th e nahda   |  89 as nahdawi Christian writers whose work was a central subject of discussion among Islamic reformist scholars. Producing and Consuming the Nahda Stephen Sheehi traced modern Arab subjectivities to the “paradigms of modernity that were generated and reconstituted by intellectuals, literati, and activists of all confessions during the nineteenth century.”22 Fruma Zachs similarly argued that Arabic newspapers and periodicals during the Nahda were “agents of identity” that incorporated the diverse and vibrant discourses of the time on subjects like “modernity, modernization, Westernization, liberalism, reforms and roles of women and men.”23 Arabic press production also served as “an informal training program” for future press owners, authors and editors.24 But it was not just the elite Syrian intellectuals who shaped the discourses of the Nahda. Arabic publications originating in Beirut and Cairo also exerted influence over a “broad cross-section” of middle-class readers.25 By the 1870s and 1880s, the publication of Arabic periodicals had contributed to an “emerging bourgeois readership” who were not passive consumers of Nahda journalism. Readers became producers as they sent questions, commentary and scholarly articles to editors, as they shared journal subscriptions with family members and friends, and as they read publications out loud in homes, cafes, churches or hotel lounges to those who were unable to read or purchase such materials.26 Schoolchildren and students at religious seminaries and institutions of higher education were among this burgeoning readership as well.27 While this mass print culture shaped new modes of middle-class modernity in urban centers like Beirut, by the turn of the century distribution networks reached to the remote villages of Syria and Egypt as well as Syrian immigrant communities in the Americas.28 Thanks to oral reading practices, even periodicals with modest subscription numbers had the potential to reach thousands of consumers, extending the reach of the Nahda beyond educated elite and middle-class readers, the majority of whom were men, to lower class and illiterate individuals. Jurji Zaydan, a Syro-Lebanese Christian secularist and founder of the prominent journal al-Hilal (The Crescent) in Cairo, estimated that in the early twentieth century more than 200,000 people in Egypt were reading newspapers, as each copy was “customarily read by ten or even

90  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE tens of people.”29 Readers in Palestine, Syria and Egypt accessed periodicals and books without buying them through schools, libraries, clubs, reading rooms and other public places like cafés and village gathering halls (diwan). Periodical subscribers also kept the bound annual volumes and continued to read them and lend them to others long after the original date of publication.30 Rather than individuals only reading Arabic periodicals privately, in the socio-cultural context of the Nahda, knowledge dissemination and arbitration often occurred communally—whether in public meeting houses, in the intimate space of the home or in the pages of the press itself. Demonstrating the collective nature of print production, a dynamic relationship emerged between journal owners, editors and writers and their readers, whose reception of articles and serialized novels influenced the content of future issues and determined the journal’s circulation numbers and profitability.31 Sheehi argued that the function of such Arabic publications was not to disseminate information to passive audiences but to produce “a new public venue for learning, debate, and even confrontation, which generated new normative modes of thought and sociocultural practice.”32 Thus, the periodical press became a forum in which readers-turned-writers could engage one another—Benedict Anderson’s concept of an “imagined ­community”—and, as Elizabeth Holt noted, through which they could connect with Arabic speakers throughout the Mediterranean.33 Beyond Syrians (or Arabs) who conceived of themselves as one people while reading the same newspapers, nahdawis used print media to achieve a level of ongoing discourse with one another that they could not sustain through literary societies and salons alone. Through their writing, they met in the virtual arena of the press and engaged in dialogue across the pages of different periodicals and, as Syrian intellectuals began to migrate to Egypt or the Americas, increasingly across regional and national boundaries.34 The transnational and multiconfessional character of Syrian press production was particularly apparent in the debates of the Nahda. These included printed exchanges between the Christian secularist Farah Antun and Muhammad ‘Abduh, the Grand Mufti of Egypt; between Jurji Zaydan and the Jesuit Father Luwis Shaykhu of al-Mashriq (in Beirut); and between Shi‘a feminist Zaynab Fawwaz in Egypt and the Protestant Hanna Kurani in Syria.35 Chapter 3 returns to this final example, which demonstrated how

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, rea di n g th e nahda   |  91 nahdawi women contributed to this vibrant ethos. In order to change the consciousness of their readership, Nahda journals required a committed reading public, and to that end periodicals featured disputants who employed severe intellectual criticisms and even personal attacks. Such tactics drew readers in and kept their attention for weeks or months at a time, but, significantly, orchestrated press confrontations also promoted the Nahda ideal of open inquiry and rigorous intellectual exchange.36 In cities like Beirut, which was home to multiple religious factions, these journals gave rise to a culture of cross-sectarian debate. Syrian Protestant Print Culture Protestant intellectuals in Beirut like Butrus al-Bustani, his son-in-law Khalil Sarkis (founder of the printing house al-Matba‘a al-Adabiyya and the newspaper Lisan al-Hal) and Faris Nimr and Yaqub Sarruf (co-founders of the journal al-Muqtataf or The Digest) are known for shaping a generation of such nahdawi readers, both men and women. Al-Muqtataf has received special attention as one of the first periodicals that regularly published the writing of women, most of whom were Protestant.37 For many in the Protestant community, however, the enterprise of the AMP was equally important for cultivating a reading public and training printers, editors, authors and translators. For example, we might recall the convert Nassim al-Hilu, who received copies of al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya from American missionaries, read them with his Greek Orthodox classmates in Mashta, visited the AMP to witness the printing machines in action and then began to contribute articles to the mission periodical as a reader-turned-author.38 Since al-Nashra was disseminated throughout Syria by American missionaries, by Syria Mission employees and by Biblewomen of the British Syrian Mission, many other Protestant pupils of al-Hilu’s generation grew up with the periodical.39 Al-Hilu also read the AMP translation of The Pilgrim’s Progress before embracing Protestantism (see Chapter 1). Other examples of Protestant print culture that students, intellectuals and Evangelical Church members encountered are preserved in the library of the AMP at the Near East School of Theology (NEST) in Beirut: educational textbooks, novels, children’s literature, tracts, pamphlets, lectures, sermons and books on ­scientific, religious and historical topics.40

92  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE Yet the Protestant engagement with broad socio-cultural currents in Syria is best demonstrated in the issues of al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya.41 Like the better known Arabic periodicals of late nineteenth-century Beirut, al-Nashra sought to shape and was shaped by a community of Syrian readers; and some of these became regular contributors of articles, translations, opinion pieces, obituaries and reports on community events. It was through such ongoing interaction between the producers and consumers of al-Nashra—many of them living outside urban areas—that the periodical quickly became more than a platform for missionary propaganda. Al-Nashra originated in 1863 when Cornelius Van Dyck founded it as a monthly mission magazine—the first of its kind in the Middle East—under the title Akhbar ‘an Intishar alInjil fi Amakin Mukhtalifa (News of the Propagation of the Gospel in Various Places).42 Like the ABCFM’s magazine for American mission supporters, the Missionary Herald, the Syria Mission’s Akhbar initially printed news of evangelical missionary activities across the globe. Under Van Dyck’s management until 1879, Ibrahim Sarkis, Rizqullah Berbari and As‘ad Shadudi were among the early Syrian assistants and contributors to the periodical, which the AMP renamed al-Nashra al-Shahriyya (The Monthly Bulletin) in 1868. The periodical became a weekly in 1871 under the name it would carry far into the twentieth century, al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya.43 By 1872, al-Nashra’s circulation had reached 1,200 copies per issue, though in most years the circulation ranged between 850 and 1,000 copies per issue.44 This places the periodical’s production numbers between that of al-Muqtataf (with a subscription rate of 3,000) and the 500 annual subscriptions filled by Khalil al-Khuri’s Hadiqat al-Akhbar (Garden of News), a newspaper established in Beirut in 1858.45 William W. Eddy replaced Van Dyck as managing editor of the journal in 1880, and other missionary men—Samuel Jessup, Henry Jessup, Franklin Hoskins and Frederick March—filled this position until publication stalled at the end of 1916 during the First World War. It launched again in 1921. From the 1880s onward, however, Syrian writers and editors prepared the majority of its content, with Ibrahim al-Hurani working as chief copy-editor from 1880 to 1916 and Niqula Ghabriyal joining him in this position in 1912. Syrian press workers like the veteran typesetter Shakir al-Najjar provided the manual labor of printing the paper.46 During the last two decades

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, rea di n g th e nahda   |  93

Figure 11  Henry Harris Jessup, managing editor of al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya from 1889 to 1902 Source: Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, frontispiece.

Figure 12  Ibrahim ‘Issa al-Hurani, editor of al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya from 1880 to 1916 Source: Evangelical Benevolent Society in Beirut, 1876. Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library, Henry Harris Jessup Papers, RG 117, Box 10, folder 51.

94  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE of the nineteenth century, the expansion of the periodical’s subject matter reflected the aim of reaching a wider audience and the reality that al-Nashra’s readers were increasingly supplying the content of its publication. Besides Bible lessons, sermons and reports on Protestant community activities, the columns featured current events, scientific and medical discoveries, speeches by prominent intellectuals, Arabic hymns and poetry, pieces on controversial topics like Darwinism, appeals for women’s rights and education, and reprints from Arab, American and European periodicals. Al-Nashra became an illustrated weekly in 1879, featuring full-page images of biblical scenes sent to Syria from the United States, famous historical and contemporary figures and the work of other Protestant missions around the world. Such treatments of foreign missions, in particular, instilled an awareness of global fellowship between Syrian Protestants and the Asian and African Christians whom they came to know through articles and photographs and for whom they endeavored to raise funds of support.47 By printing discussions on modern thought alongside religious subject matter, al-Nashra’s editors hoped to attract readers to the Protestant faith and perhaps also to generate more subscriptions. At the same time, however, these publications exhibited the Syrian Protestant community’s genuine interest in engaging with the cultural and social developments of that era, an interest that press owners and journalists throughout Syria and Egypt recognized by reprinting articles from al-Nashra and by contributing pieces in honor of the periodical’s “Golden Jubilee.”48 The Syrian Protestant community showed its familiarity with contemporary intellectual currents by responding through al-Nashra to articles published in prominent Protestant-owned periodicals like Lisan al-Hal, al-Jinan and al-Muqtataf. Al-Nashra also reprinted articles from papers of other Christian intellectuals like Zaydan’s al-Hilal and the Sunni Muslim periodical in Beirut, Thamarat al-Funun, along with o­ ccasional pieces by non-Protestant authors. Ibrahim ‘Issa al-Hurani: Nahdawi Protestant Pioneer As mission school graduates, many of whom had achieved the highest levels of education available at the Syria Mission’s high schools and seminaries or at SPC, these authors of al-Nashra were well equipped to engage such diverse topics. The most prominent among these writers for the AMP periodical

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, rea di n g th e nahda   |  95 was Ibrahim ‘Issa al-Hurani (1844–1916), and it was under his direction as chief copy-editor from 1880 until his death that al-Nashra transformed into a Syrian Protestant journal that engaged fully with nahdawi modes of thought and expanded the reach of the literary renaissance. Besides editing the periodical, al-Hurani also composed articles on diverse topics ranging from biblical interpretation to scientific theories, demonstrating his status as a nahdawi figure in whose writings the evangelical faith and cultural forms of the Nahda converged.49 Born in Aleppo in 1844 to a Greek Catholic family, al-Hurani’s study of the principles of Arabic grammar began with prominent Syrian priests in Hums.50 His family later moved to Damascus, and through the influence of Mikhail Mishaqa, a Greek Catholic friend and convert to Protestantism, al-Hurani began his higher education at the American missionary academy at ‘Abay in 1861 and embraced the evangelical faith.51 After graduating in 1864, he returned to Damascus and became highly proficient in English under the instruction of American missionary Mary Crawford.52 When al-Hurani moved to Beirut in 1870 to begin teaching rhetoric, logic and mathematics at SPC, he brought a letter of transfer from the Protestant Church in Damascus and soon became a fixture of the Evangelical Church of Beirut, where he would serve as a deacon (shammas).53 In 1878, the AMP hired al-Hurani as a proofreader, and in 1880 he assumed the editorship of al-Nashra. For more than thirty-five years he wrote prolifically for the mission periodical, and through the multiple volumes he composed for the press, proofread or translated, al-Hurani was instrumental in advancing the mission’s literary endeavors.54 Frederick March, al-Nashra’s manager at the time of al-Hurani’s death, described him as “the leading Arabic scholar of his day” who wrote with a clear Arabic style and had the ability to produce publication-ready articles efficiently.55 As al-Hurani used these talents to support the AMP’s mission to publish the gospel message in Arabic, he frequently supplied al-Nashra with theological essays and expositions on scripture.56 Beyond this work, al-Hurani’s wide-ranging expertise on secular subjects was apparent in his treatises on Arabic grammar and physics. However, his engagement in the high literary arts of the Nahda was best revealed in his status as the first writer of the twentieth century to publish Islamic-style rhymed Arabic prose-poetry

96  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE (shi‘r manthur). This was a skill he likely developed through engagement with both Christian and Muslim writers. Al-Hurani’s first series of prosepoetry appeared in al-Nashra in 1902 and preceded the earliest publications of shi‘r manthur by the renowned Maronite authors Khalil Jibran and Amin al-Rihani in 1903 and 1905, respectively.57 Thus, al-Hurani used al-Nashra to contribute to a new movement of modern Arabic poetry in Syria and across the Atlantic, where immigrants like Jibran and Rihani published in the nascent Arab-American press. The AMP was not al-Hurani’s only means of engaging in the Nahda, however; he also wrote for prominent journals, including al-Jinan, al-Muqtataf and al-Hilal. In 1900, he began editing al-Ra’is (The Head), the monthly journal of Luwis Khazin in Juniya, who described al-Hurani as “the most learned editor and renowned writer, whose pearls of articulation adorn the bride of meaning.”58 As an acclaimed Protestant scholar, al-Hurani contributed to the Arab renaissance not only in his writing, editing and public addresses, but also by influencing the many nahdawi intellectuals who were his pupils at SPC.59 Recognizing al-Hurani’s status as an “evangelical pioneer” during the Nahda, Kamal Yaziji, who published two books on al-Hurani in the 1960s, noted that his scholarly and religious activities were never completely separate from one another.60 In al-Hurani’s work, the Protestant faith and the secular literary forms of the Nahda blended together. This was most apparent in his poetry. One poem in the 1902 series, for example, diagnosed the causes of human suffering that were all in one way or another rooted in the sort of ignorance that nahdawi intellectuals sought to combat. In metered prose, al-Hurani opened with the statement, “Ignorance is the cause of calamity, the source of disease, and the graveyard of life. There is no happiness for those who are ignorant.”61 Moving into shorter poetic verse, he maintained, “Life without truth is living death.” He concluded the poem with words that make the religious undertones in his imagery more explicit: The one who feigns the truth    has proof of nothing except his own lie. He professes the unity of God (tawhid)    although he has loved the world more than his Lord. He claims to have great piety

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, rea di n g th e nahda   |  97    but his claim is a trifle amidst his sins. So gain knowledge and do not sin, and you will avoid distress.    The ignorant one is guilty of his own suffering. This is the way of God in creation.    Therefore, gain knowledge, receive the truth, and labor for it.62

In composing this poem, al-Hurani enacted his belief, expressed in another of his articles in al-Nashra, titled “Faith and Reason,” that intellectual and evangelical truth “are always in accord.” The latter, in his view, complemented and confirmed the former.63 Thus, there should be no ambiguity about whether al-Hurani’s language of truth/ignorance and life/ death carries a literal or more spiritual meaning. For the evangelical poet, it seems that gaining knowledge meant both scholarly study and learning to love the Lord. Laboring for the truth signified not just preaching the gospel, but also making modern science and literature freely available to others. Hurani maintained this same approach in his writings on natural theology, in which he argued that modern sciences and new technologies “helped to critically expand our knowledge of God’s infinite wisdom in his handiwork.”64 He developed this line of thought further in his critique of materialism during the Darwin Affair in Beirut, which was spurred by SPC Professor Edwin Lewis’ appreciative reference to Charles Darwin in his 1882 commencement address.65 Following Lewis’ forced resignation, divisions within the Protestant community in Beirut generated a noteworthy press debate when SPC faculty members Nimr and Sarruf printed Lewis’ speech in full in al-Muqtataf and defended the American professor’s statements. Al-Nashra remained silent on the issue until 1884, when al-Hurani’s article on “The Darwinian School” argued that these theories had now become a threat to the Arab world.66 In the next issue, al-Hurani began a series of articles critiquing Darwinian evolution and materialism, and he also serialized an earlier work on natural theology by the Melkite scholar Francis Fathallah Marrash, brother to nahdawi author Maryana Marrash in Aleppo.67 The debate continued in 1886 when the AMP published a longer book by al-Hurani in response to the Roman Catholic materialist Shibli Shumayyil. Al-Muqtataf subsequently issued a critical review of al-Hurani’s work.68

98  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AND TH E A R A B R E N A IS S A NCE While al-Nashra and al-Muqtataf emerged on opposite sides during the Darwin controversy, as in other Nahda debates strong rhetoric came alongside a shared commitment to open exchange and intellectual discourse. In this case, the personal ties between these journal editors were particularly strong, as the editors of the two periodicals were all members of the Evangelical Church of Beirut and al-Hurani and Sarruf were related by marriage. Even more telling for the ethos of nahdawi Protestant print culture, both al-Nashra and al-Muqtataf were produced at the AMP during this period, a reality that most studies on the Darwin Affair have not taken into account precisely because they considered the AMP to have been an American missionary mouthpiece.69 This little-known fact reinforces my interpretation of the AMP as a site for nahdawi Protestant cultural production, made so by the Syrians whose publications bore the AMP label and by independent authors, like Sarruf, Nimr, Hanna Kurani and Hilana Barudi, who commissioned the press to print their works and thus contributed financially to its survival.70 The differences of opinion within the Syrian Protestant community on Darwinian evolution did not necessarily signal a hostile disjuncture, but it did reveal that there was no single way of expressing Protestant identity in the Nahda. Rather, like other press debates of the era, the authors exercised their freedoms for intellectual inquiry, while also employing the new medium of serial publications to draw in readers, some of whom then became active participants in polemical nahdawi exchanges. Religious Polemic as Cultural Production: Intra-Christian Rivalries in the Press Joining the spirit of the Nahda with his evangelical commitments, al-Hurani made al-Nashra into a forum for theological debates with the papers of other Christian denominations in Beirut. The precedent for al-Nashra’s involvement in staged press debates was set in 1871, shortly after it became a weekly under the management of Van Dyck. The periodical publicized a forthcoming exchange with the Jesuit missionary journal in Beirut, al-Bashir (The Herald, est. 1870), explaining that the Jesuits would publish a tract (risala) and the American missionaries would issue a response. According to Holt, such coordinated and mutually beneficial disputations could become heated, but their occurrence suggested a movement away from the Christian factionalism in

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, rea di n g th e nahda   |  99 Beirut following the 1860 civil war.71 Although the doctrinal nature of the exchanges blurred the lines between religious polemic (theological attacks) and more typical nahdawi confrontations, Ayalon has contended that these debates “had constructive results in generating a seminal educational and cultural contest of ideas in the nineteenth century.”72 Beyond periodicals founded by Western missionaries, the Maronite paper al-Misbah (The Light, est. 1880) and the Greek Orthodox al-Hadiyya (The Gift, est. 1883) also joined in and initiated such religious contests.73 What were some examples of such intra-Christian encounters in the press that emerged with force during the 1880s and demonstrated the religious dimensions of nahdawi publishing? One was a Syrian evangelist’s response to a Greek Orthodox tract, and another was an orchestrated debate between Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant periodicals. Through these engagements, the American missionary press managers and Syrian Protestant writers aimed to gain a wider audience for their evangelistic message and to reinforce the faith of their existing Protestant readership. This work at the AMP was shaped by responses from readers both inside and outside the Protestant community, indicating the symbiotic relationship between the producers and consumers of nahdawi print culture. Just as urban coffee houses were centers for the exchange of ideas among intellectuals of all sects, churches and denominational schools also became public spaces where religious nahdawis met and made the discussions of the day available to rural residents. Yusif ‘Atiya and Mishriq Gharzuzi: A Protestant Apologist and a Greek Orthodox Teacher We begin with the Syrian evangelist’s reply to the Greek Orthodox tract. Representing the diverse genres and perspectives of Syrian authors for the AMP, some publications, like the 1884 tract titled Bayan al-Haqq (Statement of Truth), voiced vehement opposition to Orthodox or Catholic doctrines.74 The AMP manager did not follow tradition by identifying the author of Bayan al-Haqq or print the name al-Matba‘a al-Amirkaniyya on the cover. Yet Protestants like Nassim al-Hilu, who read the tract along with his classmates in Mashta, knew that the author was Yusif ‘Atiya, a preacher and prolific writer of evangelistic literature.75 ‘Atiya grew up in a Greek Orthodox family in Baynu (Beino), embraced Protestantism as a young man and subsequently

100  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE

Figure 13  Yusif Dib ‘Atiya Source: Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library, Henry Harris Jessup Papers, RG 117, Box 10, folder 51.

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  101 entered the employment of the American mission.76 The missionaries never ordained ‘Atiya as a minister because he was unable to complete his theological training at ‘Abay Seminary due to illness. He nevertheless served as a pastor and evangelist for over three decades in a number of locales, including Tripoli, Beirut and Baynu.77 As we shall see later, ‘Atiya became a prolific writer of literature aimed at Muslim readers.78 Among the earliest of ‘Atiya’s publications was his 1884 tract responding to Mishriq Gharzuzi, a Greek Orthodox teacher who joined the Syrian Evangelical Church and then published a recantation at the Saint George Press of the Greek Orthodox Church in Beirut titled ‘Unwan al-Tawba (Sign of Repentance).79 As ‘Atiya defended the Evangelical Church from what he characterized as lies, slander and defamation, the Protestant evangelist also used this occasion to accomplish three objectives. First, Bayan al-Haqq quoted segments from Gharzuzi’s text to demonstrate that the Orthodox teacher was ignorant of both Protestant and Orthodox doctrines.80 Gharzuzi invited his readers to search the Bible and drink from its “living water” (ma’ al-haya) in order to determine which of the Christian sects in Syria was superior, but ‘Atiya contended that such advice would only lead readers to dismiss Orthodox traditions. In his view, only the Protestant ta’ifa upheld the “sufficiency of the Bible to guide and lead people to eternal life.”81 After thanking his interlocutor for making this point in favor of Protestantism, ‘Atiya noted that Gharzuzi contradicted himself later by insisting that the Bible and the traditions of the church fathers together were the sources of Christian truth. ‘Atiya suggested, in a strongly polemical tone, that the Orthodox teacher may have been drunk when he added the reference to patristic teachings, as it so completely contradicted his first ­statement regarding the Bible.82 Second, by critiquing Gharzuzi’s apparent ineptitude and dishonesty, ‘Atiya aimed also to undermine Greek Orthodox authority. The blame for misrepresenting the teachings of Jesus Christ, ‘Atiya suggested, should not be placed directly on the foolish Orthodox teacher, but instead on those leaders of his church hierarchy “who find pride in this shameful message and who endorsed its printing and distribution among the people.”83 ‘Atiya also condemned Gharzuzi for slandering the “men of the Reformation” (rijal al-islah) and claimed that in contrast to the leaders of the “traditional denominations”

102  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE (al-tawa’if al-taqlidiyya), the pioneers of the Protestant Reformation were more favorable and pious because they “considered God’s word as their only law for faith and work, they traveled everywhere evangelizing and preaching [the Bible], and they studied it morning and night.”84 In revisiting this emphasis on the Bible as the only true guide, a point that Gharzuzi initially upheld, ‘Atiya intended to delegitimize the Orthodox clergy’s claim to ­spiritual authority. Third and finally, ‘Atiya upheld Protestant doctrine against Gharzuzi’s specific accusations, thus making Bayan al-Haqq an apologetic rather than only a polemic text.85 He responded to the issues Gharzuzi’s text raised but did not introduce new subjects for dispute. To the claim that Protestants do not believe in good works, the apologist rehearsed multiple New Testament passages to reply that salvation comes through faith, but the Lord would indeed reward believers for their good deeds.86 Moving to Gharzuzi’s next accusation, ‘Atiya explained that Protestants do not believe that the wine and bread of the Eucharist become the body and blood of Christ, but they do not despise the leftovers from the Lord’s Supper or throw the wine and bread into the streets for the dogs, as Gharzuzi alleged. Rather, ‘Atiya contended that Protestants take the Eucharist more seriously than Orthodox leaders who distribute this “blessed sacrament” (al-sir al-mubarak) without discernment to those who are “more filled with greed and sinful desires than the dogs.”87 He then addressed Gharzuzi’s claim that Protestants oppose clerical celibacy (required of Orthodox bishops), ordination by the laying on of hands and fasting. The Evangelical Church, ‘Atiya asserted, upheld each practice as optional, an approach that he considered far superior to stringent Orthodox requirements.88 The fact that ‘Atiya’s treatise was distributed at Protestant schools like Nassim al-Hilu’s in the Orthodox village of Mashta, indicated that it was also—or perhaps even primarily—intended for newly converted readers or hopeful initiates who might be tempted to follow Gharzuzi back to their former churches. Al-Hilu had not officially joined the Protestant Church at the time of ‘Atiya’s publication, but after reading both Bayan al-Haqq and Unwan al-Tawba, he and his school friends sided with ‘Atiya. Further, they determined that Gharzuzi’s activities were motivated by his aim of securing a teaching position at an Orthodox school.89 Al-Hilu’s memoir noted that Gharzuzi’s message and ‘Atiya’s response caused a commotion within the

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  103 Syrian community at the time, but he gave no indication that the confrontation proceeded any further in printed form. This brief exchange was important, however, because it demonstrated that the range of Syrian engagement in the Nahda included theological genres and doctrinal polemics. The texts by ‘Atiya and Gharzuzi were precursors for other inter-Christian debates in the nahdawi periodicals of Beirut, like one initiated in 1887 that centered upon the use of statues and icons (typically paintings) of Jesus or Christian saints in worship. Orthodox–Catholic–Protestant Controversy: Icons, Statues and the Second Commandment Protestant missionaries were known for their anti-Catholic polemics and for inciting doctrinal controversies as an evangelistic strategy. Yet the intraChristian dispute on icons and statues began as an attack upon Catholicism by al-Hadiyya, the periodical of the Greek Orthodox Christian Education Society in Beirut (Jam‘iyyat al-Ta‘lim al-Masihi al-Urthudhuksiyya fi Bayrut) and is our second example.90 In December 1887, al-Hadiyya began publishing a series of letters that a self-identified Catholic reader sent to Jerasimus Masarrah, an Orthodox deacon (shammas) and regular contributor to the Christian Education Society’s periodical.91 Earlier that year, Masarrah had published an article claiming that the Roman Catholic Church ignored the second commandment’s prohibition of the worship of idols. The Catholic respondent (whose name appeared in al-Hadiyya only as “Katoliki T” or a Catholic with the Arabic initial tā’) voiced his agreement with the deacon. Katoliki T described the intricately designed, life-size statues of saints in the “Jesuit church” (kanisat al-Jizwit) near his home in Beirut and concluded, “There is no doubt that the Jesuits have deviated from the second commandment.”92 He then posited a distinction between this use of statues in his own “Western church” (kanisati al-gharbiyya; my Western church) and the veneration of icons in Middle Eastern churches as he asked Masarrah for guidance on two subjects, “first, on statues and idols and second, on icons which deserve honor.”93 In a second letter published in the same issue of al-Hadiyya, the Catholic writer also requested that Masarrah print the text of the second commandment for those Catholic readers who were unaware of its wording.94

104  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Such critiques evoked rivalries between the Greek Orthodox Church and the Greek Catholics (or Melkites) in various parts of the Ottoman Empire, who had joined the Catholic Communion after the Propaganda Fide of 1622 spurred missionary efforts to bring “schismatic” Eastern Christians back into the fold of Rome.95 The purported Catholic authorship of such anti-Latin statements in an Orthodox paper also signaled tensions between Eastern Catholic communities in Syria and the European Jesuit missionary representatives of Roman Catholicism.96 With the letters of Katoliki T, al-Hadiyya solicited a response regarding the second commandment from the Jesuit paper al-Bashir, with which it had maintained a running theological debate on various topics throughout 1887.97 Since one of the Protestant objections to ancient church practices centered upon the use of material objects in worship, Ibrahim al-Hurani could not pass up the opportunity to join the discussion through al-Nashra alUsbu‘iyya. In an early 1888 editorial, he quoted at length from the first published letter of Katoliki T and then commented, “If we were asked these two questions [regarding statues and images] we would answer with nothing but God’s word, according to the Jesuit Bible translation.” The article then listed verses from Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy on the second commandment.98 It offered no further commentary, but this use of the Jesuit translation conveyed that the prohibition of idol worship should be well known by Catholics.99 The title of al-Nashra’s article, “The DoubleEdged Sword,” also suggested that al-Hadiyya’s charge of idolatry against the Catholic Church applied equally to the Orthodox use of religious icons. In subsequent issues, al-Nashra pointed readers to the teachings on idolatry in early church councils and recommended that the writers of al-Hadiyya and al-Bashir read Cornelius Van Dyck’s 1856 tract that used Exodus 20:4–6 and Revelation 22:9 to address the second commandment: Kashf al-Abatil fi ‘Ibadat al-Suwar wa-l-Tamathil (Exposing the Futility of Worshipping Images and Statues).100 Thus, the debate proceeded on three separate fronts: one between the Orthodox and the Jesuits; one between the Jesuits and the Protestants; and one between the Protestants and the Orthodox. Having promised that he would respond at the first opportunity to the questions of Katoliki T, Jerasimus Masarrah did so in a text that encompassed an entire issue of al-Hadiyya.101 The article echoed the language

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  105 of al-Nashra in its subtitle, “A Double-Edged Sword that cuts through two errors, the error of the Protestants and the error of the Catholics.” According to Masarrah’s argument, the error of both non-Orthodox parties was apparent in their similar representation of the second commandment as prohibiting both sculpted idols (manhut) and images (suwar). In contrast, the Orthodox Arabic translation read, “Do not make for yourselves an idol (sanam) or a statue (timthal )” (Exodus 20:4), a translation that Masarrah specified as coming directly from the Septuagint.102 On the basis of this biblical text, the Orthodox deacon maintained that his church followed the practices established in the tawra (Torah), while the Catholics explicitly violated the second commandment with their use of statues. In prohibiting the veneration of icons, Masarrah asserted, the Protestants—with their equally faulty Arabic translation—ignored the practices of God’s people and the words of the tawra.103 Ultimately, however, the Protestants’ error derived from the apparent deviations of Catholicism. It was out of fear of falling into the “Roman abyss” (al-hawiya al-rumaniyya) that the Protestant reformers left the Catholic Church, but then, Masarrah contended, they should have followed the “straight path” (al-tariq al-mustaqim) of the Orthodox Church.104 Just as al-Hadiyya used its critique of Protestantism to undermine Roman Catholic theology, the Jesuit paper al-Bashir took the opportunity to challenge both rivals at once. In late February 1888, Father Sulayman Ghanim, editor of al-Bashir, noted that al-Nashra had responded with silence to a question the Jesuits had previously posed about icon veneration. The Jesuit writer maintained that the Protestants’ silence was not because al-Bashir had offended them, for the Catholic paper had approached the Protestants amicably, unlike Masarrah’s “violent counter-attack” (al-ta‘an al-‘anif  ) against al-Nashra.105 Ghanim then referred to the Orthodox deacon’s claim that the Protestants did not apply a single word from the tawra, identifying this as an exaggerated accusation that al-Hadiyya would never be able to substantiate. The Jesuit writer proceeded, “However, I would not count it against him if he had said that they do not comprehend much from the words [of the tawra] and that what they follow is a corruption rather than its correct meaning.”106 Turning to Masarrah’s comments on the Reformation, al-Bashir depicted the deacon as attacking his own church (yat‘an kanisatahu) when he agreed

106  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE with Martin Luther’s critique of Catholic practices regarding purgatory (almathar) and prayers for the dead. Ghanim continued: We ask you deacon, if the soul after death has no other option than hell or heaven and does not have the third place which we call purgatory … then why do you pray for the spirits of dead people? Are you fooling people just to take their money to pray for something that you think does not exist?107

Having dismissed Masarrah as inept, al-Bashir carried on two separate conversations with al-Nashra in subsequent issues. One appeared in a series of six letters addressed to Van Dyck in response to his tract on idols. These letters concentrated on theological arguments, aiming to prove that the Protestants misinterpreted the views of reformers like Luther, who, according to alBashir, actually venerated icons.108 The other series of articles covered alNashra’s reply to the Jesuits’ earlier questions about icons and argued that it was illogical for Protestants to honor kings and loved ones by displaying their images but to despise images of Jesus Christ.109 Following its initial responses, al-Nashra devoted three substantive articles in its March 2, 1888 issue to refuting statements from its two rival papers. These articles demonstrated how such a debate could draw in new readers and authors beyond the journals’ regular contributors, including those living outside the nahdawi community in Beirut. The vice principal of the American Boys’ Academy in Sidon, Yuwakim Mas‘ud al-Rasi, sent in the first article, which challenged Jerasimus Masarrah’s biblical knowledge and his view that the Old Testament upholds the use of material objects in worship.110 Mas‘ud claimed: [The deacon] does not distinguish between the Old and New Testament or understand the purpose of symbolic things, just as he does not differentiate between honoring saints and worshipping images. He does not realize that there is no difference between his icons and the Jesuit statues, for God has forbidden worshipping both of them.111

While equating Catholic and Orthodox practices, Mas‘ud upheld the Protestant and Jesuit translations of Exodus 20:4 as equally accurate. The Orthodox translation, he noted, was misleading because it omitted the word sura (image), allowing Masarrah to claim that there was no commandment

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  107 against venerating icons.112 An unsigned piece, likely the editorial commentary of al-Hurani, followed Mas‘ud’s text and responded to a recent article in al-Hadiyya titled “The Protestant Attacks Himself.” Al-Hurani also critiqued Masarrah’s refusal to address Van Dyck’s pamphlet because the Orthodox deacon preferred to “stay in the press” and respond only to material recently printed in al-Nashra.113 Another editorial in the same issue of al-Nashra applied biblical texts on idolatry to practices of kissing or bowing before religious images and statues.114 The Protestant author rejected al-Bashir’s analogy between honoring images of Christ and displaying pictures of kings or deceased family members, maintaining a distinction between such permissible secular photographs and the use of forbidden images in worship.115 In these articles and in later exchanges with al-Hadiyya and al-Bashir, the Protestant writers returned repeatedly to the words of scripture, c­ laiming— like the Protestant converts we met in Chapter 1—to possess a level of scholarly dedication to scriptural study that members of other Christian communities in Syria could not match. As the debates proceeded, al-Nashra’s articles also pointed to church councils and patristic writings and insisted that the Catholic and Orthodox churches’ own sources of tradition upheld the Protestant view of the second commandment. Yuwakim Mas‘ud, who identified himself as a convert from the Orthodox Church, remained the primary respondent to Jerasimus Masarrah of al-Hadiyya.116 The Protestants’ extended conversation with al-Bashir, however, involved a number of alNashra’s readers who sent articles to the AMP and thus began to shape the debate. Through such contributions, by mid-1888 the Protestant–Jesuit conversation had branched out in a number of directions. Ibrahim al-Hurani, Salim ‘Abbud and an unnamed Protestant scholar continued the original discussion as they interpreted teachings of the church fathers and recent writings by Catholic and Jesuit scholars. Related articles that year also emphasized Luther’s rejection of icons, accused the Jesuits of general deceitfulness and of particular abuses of power in France, and commented on a confrontation between Jesuit priests and a Protestant preacher in the town of al-Salt, east of the Jordan River.117 Along with these various articles by readers, al-Nashra printed a short announcement at the end of 1888 on the calendar of religious holidays for 1889 that it had received from al-Bashir.118 This willingness to print material from the Jesuit paper after a year-long press rivalry signaled a

108  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE level of mutual interest between the two journals that went beyond theological controversies. That al-Hurani did not view al-Bashir and its Syrian editor Sulayman Ghanim only as objects of polemical discourse indicated a more complex relationship between nahdawi Protestants and Catholics that will be explored further below. By joining what was originally an Orthodox–Catholic discussion in 1888, Ibrahim al-Hurani embraced the chance to engage his Protestant readership, to attract the attention of Catholic and Orthodox readers, and perhaps also to draw in Muslims who Protestants believed would support their side on the issue of idol worship. As the editors of all three periodicals used denominational rivalries to advance their own agendas, the al-Nashra–alBashir–al-Hadiyya exchanges resembled other intra-Christian debates of the Nahda period, from the Protestant–Jesuit engagements in the 1870s, to the ‘Atiya–Gharzuzi exchange in 1884, to later disputes between al-Nashra and al-Hadiyya regarding the Virgin Mary.119 The triangular debates of 1887–8 were unique, however, because each party weighed the theologies and practices of its two opponents against each other, often in quite barbed ways, as we shall see. Implications of Intra-Christian Debates While characterizing Catholic and Orthodox worship practices as idolatrous, the writers of al-Nashra afforded the Syrian Jesuits of al-Bashir a higher level of respect as scholars, and the feeling appears to have been mutual. Protestants and Jesuits challenged one another theologically and argued on the basis of key Catholic or Protestant texts that both parties took the time to consult. They employed the sarcasm typical of Nahda debate rhetoric, but in comparison with their responses to al-Hadiyya, the exchange between al-Nashra and al-Bashir contained far fewer personal attacks and was instead, in Ayalon’s terms, a lively “contest of ideas.”120 The Jesuit Father Ghanim and the Protestant writers Ibrahim al-Hurani and Yuwakim Mas‘ud dismissed the writings of their Orthodox opponent, Jerasimus Masarrah, as ignorant, illogical and filled with unnecessary insults. Offended by Masarrah’s reference to the papacy as “the center of the Roman abyss,” al-Bashir depicted Jerasimus as too blind to recognize how “the sun of [Pope] Leo XIII … shines the light of Christian teaching and literary knowledge in every country on earth.” The

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  109 Jesuit writer addressed the Orthodox deacon as he concluded, “Isn’t it time that you climbed up out of the abyss of ignorance and rebellion where you are? Open your eyes, see the light of the Holy City, and enter it … so your mind and the minds of your followers may become enlightened.”121 When critiquing the Orthodox paper, the Protestant al-Nashra not only concurred with the Jesuit view of Masarrah as biblically ignorant but also lifted up alBashir as a more respectable partner for theological debate.122 During a period of heightened missionary rivalry, particularly between French Catholics and American Protestants in Syria, the Syrian Protestants’ more open attitude toward their Jesuit contemporaries was striking.123 In contrast, American Protestant missionaries’ employed consistently harsh characterizations of Catholics in Syria, dismissing entire Maronite villages as “bigoted” and accusing Jesuit missionaries of “stirring the fires of bigotry and hate.”124 In a similar way, al-Nashra’s attack on the Orthodox deacon’s ignorance and belligerence diverged from the reports of the American Syria Mission, which portrayed the dominant Maronite community as a threat and depicted Greek Orthodox communities in Syria more favorably than Catholics because the Orthodox were more likely to attend Protestant schools and embrace the evangelical faith.125 This had been the case since the early years of the mission when certain Orthodox villages expressed interest in becoming Protestant.126 This disparity in American and Syrian Protestant attitudes sheds light on the prevailing racial, cultural and sectarian hierarchies in the Ottoman Arab world. Al-Hadiyya was the newspaper of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate in Beirut, and al-Nashra and al-Bashir were missionary-founded periodicals operated by Syrians. The religious identities and cultural values of these Syrian Protestant and Catholic writers and editors were strongly tied to American Presbyterians or French Jesuits. Protestant converts left the congregations of their birth to build a new Evangelical Church with the Americans. As the largest Catholic community in what would become modern Lebanon, the Maronites represented themselves as a bridge between East and West because of their historical ties to Rome and contemporary relations with the French. Potential intra-Catholic tensions notwithstanding, Maronite leaders often welcomed the partnership of the Jesuits, and some, like Sulayman Ghanim, joined the Jesuit order.127 The case of the Greek Orthodox in this

110  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE region was somewhat different. Although ethnic Greeks outnumbered Arabs in the Orthodox Church hierarchy, the patriarchs in the ancient sees of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem all operated within the bounds of the Ottoman Empire. Such transnational ties made a difference for Syrian Protestant and Catholic writers who saw one another as theological opponents, but took similar Western cultural thought forms as a starting point. Moreover, affinities with the Americans or the French rested upon the Enlightenment ideals of modern science, social progress and rational thought, which the writers of al-Nashra and al-Bashir believed the Orthodox Church leadership lacked. Neither community associated such ideals with Russian missionaries in Syria, who were the Orthodox Arabs’ main allies from outside the Ottoman Empire.128 In the case of the Protestant writers of al-Nashra, this was apparent not only in the tone of their writings, but also in their assessment of Jesuit and Orthodox translations of scripture. It is likely relevant that the revised Jesuit translation of the Arabic Bible was completed by Ibrahim al-Yaziji, the editor of the periodical al-Diya’ (The Light) and the son of the Syria Mission’s bible translator, Nasif al-Yaziji.129 The Yazijis were Greek Catholic, but Ibrahim’s sister, the famed poet Warda al-Yaziji, married the Protestant teacher Francis Shamun and joined the Evangelical Church of Beirut.130 Such cross-sectarian relationships within religiously active nahdawi families should complicate our conceptions of intercommunal rivalries in Ottoman Syria. While the Protestant and Catholic attacks against al-Hadiyya disclosed less about the state of Orthodox communities in Syria than about the ethnocentrism and cultural biases that American and French missionaries transmitted to their Syrian colleagues, these views permeated Syrian Protestant debates with the Jesuits and Orthodox. Protestants approached their Catholic opponents as adversarial equals who were a threat to the evangelical faith precisely because they drew upon similar resources, like modern education and Western technologies, to advance their missionary pursuits. Because of shared notions of modernity and civilization, which they felt that the Orthodox clergy lacked, both Protestants and Catholics in Syria conveyed attitudes of intellectual superiority in their responses to Orthodox writers. Al-Hadiyya, in turn, upheld this image of an East–West dichotomy by terming Catholic churches in Syria as “Western” (gharbiyya), indicating the European Jesuit

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  111 presence.131 This echoed common Greek Orthodox accusations that Middle Eastern churches in union with Rome were Westernized or allied with foreign powers.132 Protestantism, of course, was considered a foreign imposition even after the Ottoman government recognized the Protestant ta’ifa. This three-way debate made plain that the anti-Catholic rhetoric of American missionaries did not necessarily reflect relationships on the ground in Syria between nahdawi Protestants and Catholics or the ways that they engaged one another in the press. I noted a level of affinity between men like al-Hurani and Ghanim, both known for their literary output, who used the press to advance their own versions of doctrinal purity but were also immersed in the wider transformations of the Nahda. Yet the less prominent Jerasimus Masarrah also participated in nahdawi production in the pieces he contributed to the Greek Orthodox paper. To say otherwise would be to internalize Protestant and Catholic accusations that the Orthodox were less intellectually inclined and to overlook the press publications of preachers, priests and deacons who are not well known within Nahda Studies. Bound by the spirit of the Nahda, religiously committed Protestant, Catholic and Greek Orthodox writers in the 1870s to 1880s attracted a broad readership through their debates. Together they provoked new authors, they provided models of spirited exchange that later nahdawis would follow and they made religiosity a form of nahdawi expression. Protestant Publishing and Islam in the Ottoman Arab World In contrast to the intra-Christian controversies in Beirut or public disputes between missionaries and Muslims in British colonial Egypt and India, the Arabic books of the AMP offered little evidence of Protestant confrontations with Muslims in late Ottoman Syria.133 Because of laws against proselytization and the early conviction of the ABCFM that the revival of the empire’s “nominal” Christians was the essential first step toward reaching Muslims and Jews, the American Syria Mission did not invest resources in direct or public evangelization of Muslims in the pre-First World War period.134 Later in the nineteenth century, members of the Syria Mission regularly denounced the stringent press censorship of Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid II (r. 1876–1909). Known for his “autocratic paternalism,” ‘Abd al-Hamid II ended the Tanzimat period while also bringing these reforms to completion, particularly

112  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE the centralization of control over daily life in the Ottoman provinces. This included tight imperial oversight of education, urban development, provincial bureaucracy and—as the American missionaries lamented—the press.135 Suggesting that innate tensions between Christians and Muslims had made the mission press a primary target of the Islamic government in Istanbul, the BFM reports described the regime’s publication restrictions as an affront to freedom of religion and as a major obstacle to missionary work among Muslims. These missionary narratives complained of ‘Abd al-Hamid II’s hostility toward the AMP, yet the Ottoman censorship affected Christian and Muslim press owners alike.136 It was one reason why journalists and intellectuals of all sects began migrating to British-controlled Egypt toward the end of the century.137 Syrian Protestants’ appreciative writings on Islam and Ottoman rule and the controversial literature that some of them published told a story that challenged the one American missionaries fed to supporters at home. While upholding Protestant doctrine, authors like Hanna Kurani, Farida ‘Atiya, Butrus al-Bustani, Nawfal Nawfal and even the apologist Yusif ‘Atiya participated in a local and transnational dialogue during the Nahda that challenged missionaries’ rhetoric on Islam and denied assumptions of a primordial tension between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East. Their writings considered below show that Protestants in the post-Tanzimat era were among “the inhabitants of the empire, both Muslim and non-Muslim, [who] could talk about themselves as Ottoman citizens and as modern.”138 AMP Publications and Islam in the ‘Abd al-Hamid II Period, 1876–1909 If missionary polemics overshadowed the cultural dialogue and debates that occurred in the Arabic press between Protestants and other nahdawi Christians, this is all the more true of missionary representations of Islam in Ottoman Syria. In his annual reports, public addresses and the multiple books he published during five decades of missionary service, Henry Jessup did more than any member of the Syria Mission to shape Protestant mission supporters’ conceptions of Islam and the Ottoman state.139 While he did not gain the international prominence of the so-called American “apostle to Islam,” Samuel Zwemer, Jessup’s work fueled the growing Protestant enthusiasm for missions to Muslims in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.140 Ussama Makdisi, Samir Khalaf, Thomas Kidd and others

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  113 have critiqued Jessup for transmitting a narrow view of Islam as a religion that advances by the sword, oppresses women and rejects modern rational thought.141 Despite publishing such views, Jessup demonstrated sensitivity in his interactions with individual Muslims in Syria, like the convert Kamil ‘Itani, for whom the veteran missionary became a father figure (see Chapter 1). Jessup also recognized the “favorable” aspects of Islam and the scholarly attainment of reform-minded Muslim intellectuals like the al-Azhar-educated Yusif al-Asir who assisted Cornelius Van Dyck in the Arabic Bible translation.142 Such exceptional examples, however, merely underline his general assessment of Islam as “destitute of any provision for human redemption.”143 Jessup was unrelenting in his depiction of the “Turkish despotism” of the Ottoman administration as the primary hindrance to Muslim conversions.144 Jessup’s negative assessment of Islamic doctrine and the status of Muslim women remained unchanged in publications throughout his long career, and also consistently appeared in his personal correspondence.145 In private letters to the Scottish Orientalist William Muir, for example, Jessup spoke well of “enlightened” Muslims who read and appreciated Christian literature, but he also referenced the “fanaticism of the Moslem populace and the terrible temper of the government.”146 In contrast, many Syrian Protestants in this period espoused Ottomanism and urged loyalty to the sultan, viewing him as the leader of a multiethnic and multireligious empire in which Christians could thrive. Such views appeared in Syrian articles in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya, along with appreciative references to Islamic culture. We have already seen that Ibrahim al-Hurani used the mission periodical as a medium for promoting Islamic-style prose poetry. He also published Syrian Protestant speeches in al-Nashra on socio-cultural subjects that characteristically ended with a prayer to God for the continuing health and prosperity of the Ottoman sultan.147 Hanna Kurani concluded one of her books with a tribute to ‘Abd al-Hamid II, describing him as a blessing from the creator and asking God that his days of success and reform would last “as long as the earth continues spinning on its axis.”148 Kurani sent a copy of the text to the sultan and received an imperial medal for her work.149 Other writers for al-Nashra upheld their arguments on social and religious matters with reference to classical Islamic wisdom. For example,

114  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE in her interpretation of a text from the book of Jeremiah, Farida ‘Atiya, the daughter of evangelist Yusif ‘Atiya, highlighted the wisdom of an ‘Abbasid general, Tahir bin Husayn, saying: As one of the scholars said to his son, “Oh son, refrain from lies and falsehoods. Despise (liars and keep) away calumniators. Your affairs will begin to fail, so far as their effects both in this world and the other world are concerned, as soon as you give access to a liar or boldly use lies yourself. Lying is the beginning of crimes and falsehood, and calumny their end.”150

This quotation came from the account of Ibn Khaldun, the famed fourteenthcentury historian whose work was among the classic texts listed in the AMP catalogue and thus would have been known and available to many Syrian readers.151 ‘Atiya’s reference to the text indicated both a high regard for classical Muslim scholarship and the view of al-Nashra’s writers and editors that their participation in the Nahda was a continuation of this Arab-Islamic intellectual tradition. While it is possible that notes of praise for the sultan at the end of al-Nashra’s articles were merely an editorial strategy to keep the AMP running during a period known for Ottoman government restrictions on printing, it would be difficult to argue that Syrian Protestant writers drew upon Muslim scholarship in their publications for the same reason. For citations and allusions to classical Arabic writings are integrated seamlessly into journal articles, most often without reference to the original authors. Further, expressions of Ottoman loyalty and the appreciative use of Islamic texts were common among Christian intellectuals long before the ‘Abd al-Hamid II period of press censorship. The Protestant intellectual and press owner Butrus al-Bustani, for example, was an active proponent of Ottomanism who drew upon the Qur’an and Hadith (accounts of the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and deeds) to encourage Syrian solidarity rooted in an Arab-Islamic heritage.152 In response to the sectarian violence in Mount Lebanon and Damascus in 1860, al-Bustani’s serial publication, Nafir Suriyya (The Clarion of Syria), called Syrians from all religious communities to embrace each other as one people who shared the same land, language and common cultural heritage. Advocating patriotic love instead of sectarian fanaticism, he wrote, “It is mentioned in the Hadith ‘Love of the nation is from faith’ (hubb

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  115 al-watan min al-iman).”153 Until his death in 1883, al-Bustani promoted this vision in his literary publications and educational work at his National School in Beirut, where students of all religious sects could receive instruction in their own religious traditions.154 Nevertheless, the acclaimed nahdawi pioneer also remained a religiously committed Evangelical Church member. He demonstrated this in his conversion narrative on al-Shidyaq, his engagement in evangelical outreach after the civil war, and his ongoing spiritual leadership of the Protestant community. Indeed, al-Bustani preached in the Evangelical Church of Beirut up until the year of his death, taught in the church’s Sunday school and was head of the Evangelical Society of Beirut, which in the years following the 1860 massacres aimed explicitly to spread the gospel, distribute Bibles and religious literature, and send out Syrians as missionaries (mubashirun).155 While al-Bustani aimed for the socio-cultural unity of Ottoman Syrians from every ta’ifa, another notable Protestant writer who advanced the Nahda in Tripoli, Nawfal Ni‘matullah Nawfal (1812–87), promoted a sympathetic and objective view of Islam in his 1876 publication of one of the first modern Arabic texts on the history of religions.156 Nawfal’s chapters on Islam methodically covered the biography of Muhammad and the history of the early Islamic community, explained the five pillars of Muslim belief, emphasized the diversity in Islamic schools of thought and drew upon the work of classical writers like Ibn Khaldun and Abu Hamid al-Ghazali.157 Nawfal also recognized the thought of the nineteenth-century Muslim scholar in Egypt, Rifa‘a Tahtawi (1801–73), who described the Arabs of the seventh century as a people with a strong sense of honor and a love for poetry and wise proverbs. Thus, Nawfal maintained, the Arabs were pleased with the revelation of the Qur’an. This led to Nawfal’s explanation of the understanding of prophecy in Islam: Every prophet had a miracle to fit the people of his age, and this is what caused them to follow him and boast about him, like magic in the time of Moses, medicine in the time of ‘Issa (meaning Jesus Christ), and music in the time of David. As [Muhammad’s] time was a time of rhetoric and eloquence, his miracle was this book which the eloquence of the Arabs could not oppose.158

116  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Nawfal’s parenthetical note suggests that he was writing primarily for a Christian audience, but it is significant that he referred to ‘Issa, the Qur’anic name for Jesus, rather than the name Yasu‘a, which is used in the Arabic Bible. While at certain points Nawfal’s language betrayed his own Protestant identity—he joined the Evangelical Church of Beirut and then moved to Tripoli where he became a church elder—his commitment to scholarly objectivity distinguished his work from that of his missionary contemporaries. Nawfal’s description of Islam according to the sources of Islamic tradition also might have reflected his ongoing interactions with Muslims in Tripoli, where, according to Henry Jessup, he became “a wise counselor to people of all sects who came to consult him.”159 Along with the other AMP literature appreciative of Arab-Islamic culture and Ottomanism, Nawfal’s work put forth a model of engagement with Islam far different to the approach of Jessup. It also contrasted with another genre of writing supported by the mission and pursued primarily by one author in Syria before the First World War, the preacher Yusif ‘Atiya. Whereas Nawfal explained the Muslim view of the Qur’an’s miraculous nature without affirming or denying this belief, ‘Atiya disputed such claims of the Islamic tradition. The different tenor of his writings indicated that some Syrian Protestants defined evangelical identity over and against the prevailing Islamic culture and religious ideals. It is still important, however, to bear in mind the subtle differences between the following work of ‘Atiya and missionary assertions and to recognize the close relationship between ‘Atiya and the group of nahdawis described above. Farida ‘Atiya was the preacher’s daughter, and Nawfal was among his associates in Tripoli and worshipped under his direction. The Syrian Controversialist: Yusif ‘Atiya By the time of the al-Nashra–al-Hadiyya–al-Bashir debates in the late 1880s, the Protestant effort to win converts through controversial literature (a missionary genre) was well under way in the Islamic world. Popular tracts of the nineteenth century in Urdu, Persian and Arabic included the German Pietist missionary Karl Pfander’s Mizan al-Haqq (The Balance of Truth, 1829) and the purported ninth-century Apology of ‘Abd al-Masih al-Kindi, which William Muir translated into English for missionary use.160 Another ardent supporter of missions to Muslims, Samuel Zwemer, noted in the early

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  117 twentieth century that, “One of the indications of the hopeful revival of the crusade of missions for Moslems is the increase in controversial literature,” the distribution of which “holds somewhat the same relation to evangelization as plowing does to seed-sowing.”161 Along with the works of Pfander and Muir, Zwemer recommended the writings of “unknown skillful apologists” in Egypt and Syria, titled al-Hidaya (The Guidance), al-Bakura al-Shahiyya (Sweet First-Fruits, 1893) and Minar al-Haqq (The Beacon of Truth, 1894).162 The first of these titles was a four-volume publication of the American Presbyterian (UPCNA) Mission in Egypt and composed by an Egyptian Protestant in response to a popular Muslim apologetic publication.163 The novel Sweet First-Fruits and the tract The Beacon of Truth were both the work of the Syrian evangelist Yusif ‘Atiya, whose writings shifted focus from Greek Orthodox to Muslim communities in the 1890s. ‘Atiya’s first evangelistic publication for Muslims, Sweet First-Fruits, quickly became a favorite among Protestant missionaries across the Islamic world and was translated into Turkish, Persian, Urdu, English and Chinese after the first Arabic edition appeared in 1893.164 Published the following year, The Beacon of Truth received nearly equal acclaim, and, in Zwemer’s assessment, the author of these two texts did “more to shake the whole fabric of the false prophet than all the missionaries since Henry Martyn.”165 William Temple Gairdner, a British Anglican missionary of the Church Missionary Society in Egypt, echoed such praise in less aggressive terms, explaining, “The two best controversial apologetic books ever produced in the Moslem East (probably) Sweet First-Fruits and The Beacon of Truth (translated by Sir William Muir) were both by a Syrian Christian and entirely original works.”166 ‘Atiya’s writings gained further attention at the conferences for missions to Muslims in Cairo (1906) and Lucknow, India (1911), and remained on missionary lists of controversial literature far into the twentieth century.167 Due to the press restrictions in the Ottoman Empire, however, these texts were printed anonymously outside Syria and the author remained unknown to most missionaries and Arab readers. The title page of Sweet First-Fruits identified it as “a composition of one of the learned men in the Syrian region,” and missionaries promoted The Beacon of Truth and ‘Atiya’s later tracts on Islam as new works by the author of Sweet First-Fruits.168 It is

118  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE only through the correspondence of missionaries in Syria, a close reading of early twentieth-century missionary publications and the writings of ‘Atiya’s grandson, Edward Atiyah (‘Atiya) that Yusif ‘Atiya can be identified as one of the most widely-read Arab apologists to Islam in this period.169 In his memoir, Edward referred to the custom in his grandfather’s village of Baynu of gatherings on winter evenings during which the older men of the town would tell stories: My grandfather, seizing the opportunity afforded him by this practice to improve the souls of his visitors wrote himself a few moral and religious tales in simple language, and read them aloud at these gatherings. One of these stories was about the conversion of a Moslem to Christianity, and there were dialogues in it setting out the superiority of Christianity to Islam. Subsequently this story suggested to my grandfather the idea of writing a series of books on this theme for propaganda purposes. These books became very popular with the missionaries, one of whom sent a collection of them to the well-known Orientalist, the late Sir William Muir. The latter liked them and expressed the desire to translate them into English.170

The unnamed missionary was Henry Jessup, who sent the manuscript of Sweet First-Fruits to Muir in 1890, indicating that if a British mission society would sponsor its publication, Cornelius Van Dyck would correct the Arabic proof sheets, as he had done for the modern edition of al-Kindi’s Apology.171 Cautioning that the Syrian author’s name should not appear in the publication, Jessup did not reveal Yusif ‘Atiya’s identity or background as a convert from the Greek Orthodox Church until a subsequent letter.172 Muir’s English translation of Sweet First-Fruits and Jessup’s 1910 memoir both recounted how the unnamed author left his village in 1865 during a disagreement with family members over the veneration of the Virgin Mary, sought refuge in Jessup’s home, a recurring pattern in Syrian Protestant conversions, and joined the Protestant Church. According to Jessup and Muir, the story of the Muslim converts in ‘Atiya’s novel was based on the Syrian evangelist’s own experiences of persecution and the account of a Muslim man who was imprisoned in Damascus for becoming a Christian during the same week of ‘Atiya’s conversion.173

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  119 The Religious Tract Society of London sponsored the first edition of Sweet First-Fruits, which was printed in Leipzig, Germany, since it could not be published in Syria. The German printers then sent the Arabic proofs back to Jessup and Van Dyck through Muir in Britain in order to bypass the Ottoman censors.174 As the book neared completion, Jessup wrote in another letter, “The Turks will no doubt make an onset upon the Bakurat [FirstFruits], but we hope to get it well scattered before they hear of its arrival.”175 The copies of the novel went on sale in Egypt and reached Syria from there. Subsequent editions of the novel and ‘Atiya’s next book, The Beacon of Truth, were printed in Egypt, where mission presses had freer rein under the British occupation.176 As a number of missionaries noted, both of these texts were lighter in their criticisms and less directly confrontational than the works of Pfander and al-Kindi. Sweet First-Fruits narrated the experiences of a group of scholarly and devout Muslims who read a letter from a Christian friend and became convinced that the Qur’an supported the Bible’s message that Jesus was the son of God and savior of the world.177 The Beacon of Truth expanded this argument through its interpretation of Muslim commentaries on the Qur’an and Hadith, on the relation of the Qur’an to the Bible and on the status of Muhammad in comparison with Jesus Christ. It ended with an appeal to “wise believers who study the scripture” to consider that “the secret of the mystery is not found in the Qur’an, it is only the door.”178 Sweet First-Fruits became a missionary favorite because of ‘Atiya’s narrative style, which drew in readers in the same way Edward Atiyah says his grandfather captivated listeners at the storytelling gatherings in his village. Yusif ‘Atiya’s fictional account of the process of Muslim conversions in Syria also contained several useful points of comparison and contrast with the testimonies of historical converts discussed in the previous chapter. First, in Lewis Rambo’s terms, the advocate through whom ‘Atiya’s characters encountered Christianity was a Syrian friend who wrote an evangelistic letter to the central figure, Shaykh ‘Ali, but otherwise did not enter the story until the end. Western missionaries were also conspicuously absent from the novel. Like the conversion narratives we explored in Chapter 1, Sweet First-Fruits conveyed that the primary agent in the evangelism of Muslims was not an American or even an Arab Christian. Second, this fictional account matched with the real conversion narratives of Syrian Protestants who highlighted their encounters

120  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE with the Bible and Christian literature. With his dying breath, for example, at the end of the story Shaykh ‘Ali beseeched his close friend, an imam who visited him on his deathbed, to study the Bible.179 Yet, in contrast to Syrian Protestant narratives of private conversion, the Muslims in ‘Atiya’s novel moved from spiritual quest to evangelical commitment in a communal context. Reflecting the Nahda spirit of open intellectual discourse and the local custom of social gatherings for discussion, Shaykh ‘Ali and his eleven companions studied the Bible and Qur’an together, raised questions and debated with one another until all but one accepted the truth of the gospel. Third, like al-Bustani’s account of al-Shidyaq’s conversion, ‘Atiya’s novel called for freedom of conscience in religion and insisted that Ottoman law guaranteed this right. Representing those in Syrian society who disregarded this fact, the twelfth companion—a Judas figure—betrayed his converted friends and they ended up in prison. The converts were later released but exiled from Damascus, not because conversion was illegal, but because the Muslim populace in Damascus had not fully embraced this notion. They decided to leave for their own safety and to avoid inciting further riots.180 Fourth, and finally, with his emphasis on rational debate, ‘Atiya placed the most provocative questions—such as whether the Qur’an was truly a miraculous revelation—on the lips of the converts’ interlocutors like the qadi of Damascus. Such men were esteemed and learned, yet had not fully considered the implications of the Qur’an’s references to Jesus and the Bible. In these narratives ‘Atiya disclosed his ideal audience for his message: scholarly, truth-seeking Muslims with a sincere faith who were troubled by questions that their own Islamic tradition could not explain. Shaykh ‘Ali and his companions, along with the tolerant qadi, all became models for ‘Atiya’s readers to emulate.181 ‘Atiya’s fictional seeker of truth resembled Jessup’s characterization of Kamil ‘Itani (see Chapter 1), yet it is important to consider whether the depictions of Muslim interlocutors in Sweet First-Fruits reflected the author’s experiences of discoursing with shaykhs and Muslim scholars in the Tripoli region, as missionary accounts claimed. According to Jessup, ‘Atiya was a close acquaintance of Husayn al-Jisr (1845–1909), a scholar and educator in Tripoli who attended Cairo’s al-Azhar University.182 Al-Jisr founded a national Islamic school in Tripoli and edited the city’s first newspaper,

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  121 Jaridat Tarabulus al-Sham (Tripoli Newspaper, est. 1893), in which he urged Syrians of all religious sects to seek unity in the face of Western influence.183 As a nahdawi intellectual who acknowledged the value of modern education and rational thought and made use of scientific textbooks by Cornelius Van Dyck, it is conceivable that al-Jisr discussed matters of religion with ‘Atiya or other Christians in Tripoli.184 One of al-Jisr’s pupils, the prominent Islamic reformist Muhammad Rashid Rida, was known for such engagements with Protestant evangelists like the AMP employee Niqula Ghabriyal and secular Christian intellectuals like Farah Antun and Jurji Zaydan.185 While most of Rida’s published exchanges with Christian writers took place after he emigrated to Cairo and established his journal al-Manar, when he lived in Tripoli, Rida visited the American mission’s bookstores and read Protestant publications.186 Rida, al-Jisr and other Muslim intellectuals in Tripoli might have been prototypes for the characters in ‘Atiya’s book, such as the qadi of Damascus who invited his Christian interlocutors to testify to their faith freely in his court and found himself unable to respond to their arguments.187 Unlike the fictional qadi, Islamic reformists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used their studies of the Bible, Christian literature and Western scholarship to respond to Christian apologists like ‘Atiya. Such examples emerged early in the Protestant missionary encounter, with the Indian scholar Rahmatullah al-Qairanawi, whose Arabic treatise Izhar alHaqq (Demonstration of Truth), written after his 1854 debate with Karl Pfander in Agra, became popular in the Ottoman Empire.188 Adding to the growing body of such controversial literature around the turn of the century in Syria and Egypt, Muhammad bin Tahir al-Tannir published al-‘Aqa’id al-Wathaniyya fi al-Diyana al-Nasraniyya (Pagan Doctrines in the Christian Religion) in Beirut in 1912.189 Al-Tannir, who was a graduate of SPC in Beirut, dedicated the text “to the missionaries, the Crusaders of the Twentieth Century,” and he mentioned Sweet First-Fruits and another of ‘Atiya’s books, Misbah al-Huda (The Torch of Guidance), among the missionary publications he sought to refute.190 In response to the evangelical argument that the Qur’an upheld all the teachings of the Bible as pure and unadulterated, a central contention of Sweet First-Fruits,191 al-Tannir used English-language publications on Christian history and polytheistic religions to assert that Christian scriptures were corrupted by pagan beliefs in gods and goddesses

122  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE producing children. Thus, while the historical Jesus brought the pure revelation of God in his injil (gospel), as the Qur’an indicated, human error led to the wrongful Christian belief in Jesus as the son of God.192 This book became a favorite of Muslim scholars at the time, including Rashid Rida, who supported its arguments in al-Manar.193 American missionaries in Syria noted with concern its popular usage among a new group of Muslim “reformers,” and Zwemer’s journal, The Moslem World, published a critical review of the book and a longer article by William St. Clair Tisdall, a British missionary-scholar in Persia.194 While Tisdall’s article aimed to guide Protestant missionaries in their response to al-Tannir’s work, it was Luwis Shaykhu (1859–1927), the Syrian Jesuit Father and editor of the Beirut periodical, al-Mashriq, who published two tractates of substantive critique of the Muslim scholar’s book in Arabic.195 Shaykhu’s involvement in this matter revealed that although Western Protestant missionaries placed particular emphasis on their own production of religious materials for Muslims, Christians of all denominations in Syria participated in the ongoing exchange of controversial books and tracts with Muslim scholars during the Nahda.196 Conclusion As readers, writers, translators and editors, members of the Syrian Evangelical Church used the AMP and other resources of the American mission to engage simultaneously in the socio-cultural and religious dimensions of the Nahda. While books and articles by scholars like Ibrahim al-Hurani brought the intellectual currents of that era to Protestant readers both inside and outside Syria, Christian involvement in the Nahda was not a purely secular phenomenon (neither in the sense that participants kept their religious beliefs private nor in the sense that most nahdawis were avowed atheists). Just as the Islamic scholars Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashid Rida blended commitments to Islam, Arab culture and modern reform, Syrians who used ecclesial and missionary presses to express their Christian Arab identities should not be overlooked in Nahda Studies. Thus, I have located the Protestant–Catholic–Orthodox theological disputes in the Arabic presses of Beirut within the framework of more widely recognized debates between Nahda intellectuals. Further, like the famous discourses between ‘Abduh and the Christian secularist Farah Antun, the exchange of religious literature between committed Syrian Protestants

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  123 like Yusif ‘Atiya and Muslim writers in Syria and Egypt constituted another aspect of the literary Nahda. While the AMP facilitated the Arabic production of the Syrian Protestant community, American missionaries were most often on the sidelines of this work. They did less to shape the trajectory of the Nahda than they did to influence American and European perceptions of this literary renaissance. Even Tibawi, who challenged the missionaries’ triumphalist claims, discounted the strong Syrian agency within the AMP because he based his representation of the press largely upon missionary archives. Arabic publications of the AMP demonstrated, however, that Syrian Protestants supported the aim to publish the gospel in Arabic, while also engaging deeply with the socio-cultural concerns of fellow Christians and Muslims in Syria. The work of these nahdawi Protestants was closely entwined with the publications of intellectuals outside the Protestant community, revealing the multiconfessional nature of the Syrian Nahda. Thus, even when focusing on Syrian Protestant writings, it is necessary to take into account the faith expressions of other religious communities in Syria in the late Ottoman period. The story of the Nahda would also be incomplete without including the voices of women, so I move now to the Syrian Protestant women of the AMP who have received even less attention in histories of the Syria Mission than their male colleagues. The contrast between men’s theological discussions and the genres of nahdawi women’s writings tells us how women chose to expend their intellectual energy within the boundaries of inquiry that male press owners and editors drew for them. Notes 1. Dana, The American Press, 1: PHS 115-1-27 (added emphasis). Dana took this text of Mark 13:10 from the King James Version of the Bible. Dana became AMP manager in 1913. George A. Ford, “Selections from an Historical Address,” in Centennial of the American Press, 1822–1922 (Beirut: AMP, 1923), 13–14, 39. 2. Stephen Sheehi, “Arabic Literary-Scientific Journals: Precedence for Globalization and the Creation of Modernity,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 25(2) (2005): 440. See also Ayalon, Arabic Print Revolution, 82; Fruma Zachs, “‘Under Eastern Eyes’: East on West in the Arabic Press of the Nahda Period,” Studia Islamica 106(1) (2011): 164.

124  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 3. Hanssen and Weiss, “Introduction,” 1. 4. Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 5–6; Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 7–9. 5. Key figures in the early Islamic reformist (or Salafi) movement included the Persian thinker Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, the Egyptian mufti Muhammad ‘Abduh and the Syrian intellectual Muhammad Rashid Rida. See Hourani, Arabic Thought, 103–92, 222–4; Ahmad Dallal, “Appropriating the Past: Twentieth-Century Reconstruction of Pre-Modern Islamic Thought,” Islamic Law and Society 7(3) (2000): 325–58; Umar Ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity: A Critical Reading of the Works of Muhammad Rashid Rida and His Associates (1898–1935) (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 6. On the Christian preservation of Greek science and philosophy in the Middle East, see Sidney Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 127–8. 7. Abu-Manneh, “Ottomanism and Syrian Nationalism,” 292. Muslim intellectuals pointed to the golden age of the ‘Abbasids as well. Fruma Zachs, “Muhammad Jamil Bayhum and the Woman Question: Between Social and Political Rights,” Welt des Islams 53(1) (2013): 69–70. 8. Abu-Manneh, “Ottomanism and Syrian Nationalism,” 295. 9. Sheehi, “Towards a Critical Theory of al-Nahdah,” 295. 10. Dana’s predecessors as AMP manager included Edward G. Freyer, Samuel Jessup, Henry Harris Jessup, Cornelius Van Dyck, Eli Smith and Daniel Temple. Press superintendents included Warren R. Glockler, Samuel Hallock and George C. Hurter. 11. BFM (1896), 238. 12. Jirjis Shamun (brother of Francis and brother-in-law to Warda al-Yaziji) received recognition for his fifty years working as “compositor of Arabic type.” BFM (1908), 485. Ibrahim al-Hurani’s name appeared four times, but always in conjunction with an editing project he had completed alongside an American missionary. BFM (1905), 389; BFM (1907), 429; BFM (1913), 426; BFM (1904), 341. 13. Jurji Baz noted in his address at the centennial celebration of the AMP in 1923 that one-third of the writers and translators of AMP publications were Syrian. “From the Address of George Effeni Baz,” in Centennial of the American Press, 1822–1922 (Beirut: AMP, 1923), 46. 14. For missionary representations of the AMP, see BFM (1889), 64–5; BFM

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  125 (1887), 65; BFM (1893), 230; BFM (1873), 46–7; Dana, The American Press, 6, 10. Tibawi refuted the missionaries’ claims, noting that the AMP mainly disseminated religious literature and textbooks. Tibawi, “Some Misconceptions about the Nahda,” 305, 313. See also Joey Shaw, “Butrus al-Bustani and the American Missionaries: Towards a Harmony of the Understanding of the Advent of the Nahda,” in Adel Beshara (ed.), Butrus al-Bustani: Spirit of the  Age (Melbourne: IPhoenix Publishing, 2014), 68–89; Mounir Farah, “Syria Reborn: American Missionaries, Education, and the Literary Revival of the Nineteenth Century,” in Adel Beshara (ed.), Butrus al-Bustani: Spirit of the Age (Melbourne: IPhoenix Publishing, 2014), 39–48; Zachs, “Toward a Proto-Nationalist Concept of Syria,” 145–8; Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: Between Islam and the Nation-State, 3rd edn (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 100–5. 15. Antonius, The Arab Awakening, 41–55, 81. On responses to Antonius’ work, see Sheehi, Foundations of Modern Arab Identity, 8–9. 16. On Hourani’s contributions, see John Spagnolo (ed.), Problems of the Modern Middle East in Historical Perspective: Essays in Honor of Albert Hourani (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1992); Hanssen and Weiss, Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age. 17. Albert Hourani, The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Oxford: Macmillan, 1981), 165, 204; Tibawi, “Some Misconceptions about the Nahda,” 307–9. Tibawi critiqued Hourani for idealizing the Lebanese pre-eminence in the Nahda. Ibid., 309–12. 18. Sheehi, Foundations of Modern Arab Identity, 13–14. Shaw, “Butrus al-Bustani and the American Missionaries,” 68–89. On the AMP and the development of the popular “American Arabic” typeface, see Dagmar Glass and Geoffrey Roper, “The Printing of Arabic Books in the Arab World,” in Eva-Maria Hanebutt-Benz, Dagmar Glass and Geoffrey Roper (eds.), Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution (Westhofen: WVA-Verlag Skulima, 2002), 191. 19. Grafton, Contested Origins, 17, 119; Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 180–213; Zachs, “Toward a Proto-Nationalist Concept of Syria,” 169–73; Hala Auji, “Between Script and Print: Exploring Publications of the American Syria Mission and the Nascent Press in the Arab World, 1834–1860,” PhD dissertation, Binghamton University, State University of New York, 2013, 43–9; Uta Zeuge-Buberl, “Die Mission des American Board in Syrien im 19. Jahrhundert: Implikationen eines transkulturellen Dialogs,” PhD dissertation, University of Vienna, 2014, 40–6, 96–100; Uta Zeuge-Buberl, “‘I Have Left My Heart in

126  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Syria’: Cornelius Van Dyck and the American Syria Mission,” Cairo Journal of Theology 2 (2015): 22–3. 20. Ayalon, Arabic Print Revolution, 92. 21. Elizabeth F. Kent, “Feminist Approaches to the Study of Religious Conversion,” in Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 297–8. 22. Sheehi, Foundations of Modern Arab Identity, 3. 23. Zachs, “‘Under Eastern Eyes,’” 164. 24. Sheehi, “Arabic Literary-Scientific Journals,” 444. 25. Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 19. 26. Elizabeth M. Holt, “Narrative and the Reading Public in 1870s Beirut,” Journal of Arabic Literature 40 (2009): 39, 49, 54. 27. Auji, Printing Arab Modernity, 1; Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 121. 28. Sheehi, “Arabic Literary-Scientific Journals,” 442; Stacy Fahrenthold, “Transnational Modes and Media: The Syrian Press in the Mahjar and Emigrant Activism during World War I,” Mashriq & Mahjar 1(1) (2013): 32. 29. Sheehi, “Arabic Literary-Scientific Journals,” 442. 30. Ami Ayalon, Reading Palestine: Printing and Literacy, 1900–1948 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2004), 93–108; Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 20. 31. Holt, “Narrative and the Reading Public,” 63; Sheehi, “Arabic LiteraryScientific Journals,” 445. 32. Sheehi, “Arabic Literary-Scientific Journals,” 445. 33. Holt, “Narrative and the Reading Public,” 42–4; Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. edn (London: Verso, 2006). 34. Holt, “Narrative and the Reading Public,” 41–2. 35. Joseph T. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists: The Formative Years and Beyond (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995), 65; Ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity, 71–6; Sheehi, “Arabic Literary-Scientific Journals,” 445, 448. See my discussion of the Kurani–Fawwaz debate in Chapter 3. Other debates took place between Butrus al-Bustani (al-Jinan) and Louis Sabunji (alNakhlah) and between Faris al-Shidyaq (al-Jawa’ib) and Ibrahim al-Yaziji (who responded in al-Bustani’s al-Jinan). 36. Sheehi, “Arabic Literary-Scientific Journals,” 445. 37. Ayalon, Arabic Print Revolution, 38–47; Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 118. For Sarkis’ involvement in the Evangelical Church of Beirut, see Chapter 4.

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  127 Lisan al-Hal may be rendered as Tongue of the Times or Voice of the Present, and muqtataf literally means “selections.” 38. al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 28, 37, 41; DoS (July 1899), 58. Al-Nashra was distributed throughout Syria by American missionaries and their mission employees, and also by the Biblewomen of the British Syrian Mission. DoS (July 1899), 58. 39. al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 28, 37, 41. 40. These included texts of geography, history and poetry by Ibrahim Sarkis; John Wortabet’s books on anatomy, physiology and hygiene; and Arabic grammars, poetry and prose by Nasif al-Yaziji. See AMP 1896. 41. The following works mention al-Nashra: Philip di Tarrazi, Ta’rikh al-Sihafa al‘Arabiyya, vols. 1 and 2 (Beirut: al-Matba‘a al-Adabiyya, 1913/1914); Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 137, 214; Adnan Abu-Ghazaleh, American Missions in Syria: A Study of American Missionary Contributions to Arab Nationalism in 19th-Century Syria (Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books, 1990), 59, 61; Ami Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 34; Holt, “Narrative and the Reading Public in 1870s Beirut,” 37–70; Elizabeth M. Holt, “Serialization and Silk: The Emergence of a Narrative Reading Public of Arabic in Beirut, 1870–1884,” PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 2009, 16, 29, 103; Womack and Lindner, “‘Pick up the Pearls of Knowledge’”; Zeuge-Buberl, The Mission of the American Board in Syria, 152–6. 42. “Al-Yubil,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2551 (December 1, 1915), 177. The Syria Mission’s first endeavor to publish an Arabic periodical came in 1851, with the short-lived monthly Majmu‘ Fawa’id. Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East, 34. 43. “Al-Yubil,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya, 177–8. Today the periodical remains in press as al-Nashra, published by the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon. 44. “Registry of the American Mission Press, Beirut: 1844 to 1895.” Courtesy of NEST Special Collections. In the early twentieth century, the AMP printed 650 copies per issue of al-Nashra annually and maintained a paid subscription number around 500. Franklin E. Hoskins, “The Press 1870,” undated, PHS 115-1-26. In 1905, the weekly issue of al-Nashra expanded from eight to sixteen pages, and the number of paid subscriptions was 501. This calculation does not include the issues that the mission distributed free of charge. BFM (1906), 407. 45. Womack and Lindner, “Pick up the Pearls,” 148–9. For subscription numbers

128  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE of other Nahda journals, see Sheehi, “Arabic Literary-Scientific Journals,” 448; Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East, 148. Other publications in the city included the Greek Catholic al-Nijah at 450 copies, the Jesuit al-Bashir at 450, and Butrus al-Bustani’s al-Jinan (a monthly), al-Janna (a weekly) and al-Junayna (a daily) with a circulation of 1,000 each. BFM (1873), 47. 46. “Al-Yubil,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya, 178; Frederick W. March, “Centennial of the American Press,” in Centennial of the American Press, Press, 1822–1922 (Beirut: AMP, 1923), 9. Najjar set the type for the periodical for about forty years, beginning in 1880. 47. For example, issues of al-Nashra in 1907 included photographs and articles on missions in Asia, featuring patients in a hospital in India, the Young Christian Committee in Japan and girls in a mission school in China. Al-Nashra alUsbu‘iyya 2175 (October 3, 1907), 320; al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2179 (October 31, 1907), 352; al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2181 (November 14, 1907), 368. Around that same time, the student missionary society of the Female Seminary in Sidon collected money for missions in Africa and Arabia. See BFM (1907), 447; BFM (1907), 447; Annual Report of the Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Missions of the North-West (1908), 102. In 1914, the same society gave half of its contributions for “woman’s work” in Africa, and the Young Women’s Christian Association at the American School for Girls in Beirut (formerly Beirut Female Seminary) raised 800 piasters for foreign missionary work. BFM (1915), 416, 421. 48. Representatives of Jaridat Marja‘un, Lisan al-Hal, al-Muhadhib, al-Athar, al-Tabib and al-Hasna’ wrote letters for the “Golden Jubilee” edition that al-Nashra published in 1915, two years after its actual fifty-year anniversary. Al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2551 (December 1, 1915), 177–91. Other journals reprinted pieces from al-Nashra, including the following: “‘Iyun al-Afa‘i,” alDiya’ 8(11) (March 15, 1906), 335; “Hawasuna al-Khams,” al-Diya’ 8(13) (April 15, 1906), 396–7; “The Wonders of Water,” al-Muqtataf 1(5) (1876), 117; Edwin Lewis, “On the Problem of the Saltiness of the Sea,” al-Muqtataf 1(7) (1876): 165. 49. On these various writings, see AMP 1896; Marwa Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860–1950 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 117–18, 125, 141–7; Kamal Yaziji, “Al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani, 1844–1916,” in Ruwwad Injiliyyun (Beirut: Christian Writers Fellowship, 1962), 77–102; Kamal Yaziji, Al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani: Asruhu, Hayatuhu, Adabuhu, waMukhtarat min Shi‘rihi wa-Abhathihi (Beirut: Maktaba Ra’is Bayrut, 1963).

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  129 50. Jirji Niqula Baz, “Al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2554 (March 1, 1916), 35; Yaziji, “Al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani, 1844–1916,” 80. 51. Yaziji, “al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani, 1844–1916,” 81–3. 52. Mary was the wife of John Crawford, an American Presbyterian missionary who began working with the Irish Presbyterian Church in Damascus in 1857. Crawford, Reminiscences of the Crawfords and the Wests , 1–2. 53. Yaziji, “al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani,” 83. Rev. John Crawford provided alHurani with a letter of transfer to the Beirut Church. John Crawford and James Orr Scott to the Evangelical Church of Beirut, October 31, 1870: PHS 115-4-3. Al-Hurani joined the Damascus church in 1864 and formally transferred to the Evangelical Church of Beirut in 1873. Ibrahim al-Hurani [line 7, page 32], “Communicants in Damascus,” Record Book of The Evangelical Church of Damascus, April 24, 1864. Courtesy of Rev. Adeeb Awad; “Member entry 165”: NECB 9. 54. Yaziji, “al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani,” 86; “Al-Yubil,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya, 177–8. Ibrahim married Julia Barakat. Julia’s father was Professor Na‘mi Barakat, and her sister Yaqut married Yaqub Sarruf of al-Muqtataf. Yaziji, “al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani,” 88–9. 55. March, “Centennial of the American Press,” 8. 56. Ibrahim al-Hurani, “Lam Yatruk Nafsahu bila Shahid,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1311 (March 14, 1891), 81–2; al-Hurani, “bi-l-Ni‘ma Antum Mukhallasun,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1347 (November 21, 1891), 373–6; al-Hurani, “Tarwid al-nafs,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2078 (November 23, 1905), 734–6; “Tarwid al-nafs,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2079 (November 30, 1905), 750–1. 57. Shmuel Moreh, Modern Arabic Poetry, 1800–1970: The Development of its Forms and Themes under the Influence of Western Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 294–5; Shmuel Moreh, Studies in Modern Arabic Poetry (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 8, 14–17. The first of al-Hurani’s series was published as Ibrahim al-Hurani, “Sifr al-tabiy‘a,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1903 (July 17, 1902), 259–61. The AMP later reprinted the full series as Ibrahim al-Hurani, al-Ruqum, wa-hiya Silsilat Maqalat li-Nasij Burdiha al-Marhum al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani (Beirut: AMP, 1936). Courtesy of NEST Special Collections. 58. Quotation from Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East, 176. Al-Hurani published in al-Jinan, al-Zahra, al-Ra’is, al-Tabib, al-Muqtataf, al-Hilal, alMahrusa and Lisan al-Hal, among other journals in Syria and Egypt. Yaziji, “al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani,” 85, 87. 59. Yaziji, “al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani,” 85–6.

130  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 60. See above, n. 49. Yaziji, “al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani,” 84. 61. Ibrahim al-Hurani, “Raqim al-Jaza’ wa-‘Illa al-Shaqa’,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1906 (August 7, 1902), 289–90. 62. al-Hurani, “Raqim al-Jaza’,” 290; see also al-Hurani, Ruqum, 46–7. 63. “Al-Iman wa-l-‘Aql,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1495 (April 22, 1894), 297–8. 64. Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 143. Elshakry referred to al-Hurani’s book, al-Ayat al-Bayyinat fi Ghara’ib al-Ard wa-l-Samawat (Certain Signs in the Wonders of the Heavens and Earth, as titled in English), printed at the AMP in 1883. See AMP 1896, 27. 65. On the Darwin Affair, see Anderson, The American University in Beirut, 40–4; Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 65–72. 66. [Ibrahim al-Hurani], “Al-Madhhab al-Darwini,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 37 (September 8, 1884), 389–91. This unsigned article was the work of al-Hurani as the periodical editor. See Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 117, 352 n. 73; Shafiq Juha, Darwin and the Crisis of 1882 in the Medical Department: And the First Student Protest in the Arab World in the Syrian Protestant College (Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 2004), 42. 67. Ibrahim al-Hurani, “Nushu’ al-Madiyyin wa-l-Mu‘atillin wa-Irtiqa’uhum,” alNashra al-Usbu‘iyya 38 (September 5, 1884), 297–300. This was the first article of the series, which the AMP later published as Ibrahim al-Hurani, Manahij alHukama’ fi Nafi al-Nushu’ wa-l-Irtiqa’ (Beirut: AMP, 1886). Al-Hurani’s book was listed in AMP 1896, 37. The AMP also printed Marrash’s text Shihadat al-Tabi‘a fi Wujud Allah wa-Shari‘a (The Testimony of Nature to the Existence of God and Law). Ibid., 109. See also Anderson, The American University of Beirut, 42; Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 114. 68. Ibrahim al-Hurani, al-Haqq al-Yaqin fi-l-Radd ‘ala Butl Darwin (Beirut: AMP 1886); Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 117–19. 69. Al-Muqtataf was printed at the AMP until 1885, when Nimr, Sarruf and Makarius moved to Egypt. In 1886, when they began publishing the journal in Cairo, the AMP printed a set of illustrations for al-Muqtataf. “Registry of the American Mission Press, Beirut: 1844 to 1895,” 42–118. Al-Hurani and Sarruf’s wives, Julia and Yaqut Barakat, were sisters. 70. “Registry of the American Mission Press, Beirut: 1844 to 1895,” 165. Barudi independently published a book on hygiene, al-Haqa’iq al-Jismiyya wa-lDaqa’iq al-Sihiyya. See AMP 1896. 71. Holt, “Narrative and the Reading Public,” 47. Holt cited al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1(49) (1871), 8. See also Holt, “Serialization and Silk,” 29–30.

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  131 72. Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East, 34. 73. Ibid., 39; Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 214–16. 74. The small pamphlet only bears a title and date of publication in Beirut. [Yusif ‘Atiya], Bayan al-haqq: Rad ‘ala Russaylat al-Mu‘allim Mishriq al-Gharzuzi (Beirut, 1884). Courtesy of NEST Special Collections. 75. al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 31. It was only through al-Hilu’s reference that I was able to identify ‘Atiya as the author. A later article of ‘Atiya’s in al-Nashra also critiqued Orthodox beliefs. Yusif ‘Atiya, “Fasl al-Khitab L’uli al-Albab,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 47 (November 30, 1889), 379–84. 76. Edward Atiyah, An Arab Tells His Story: A Study in Loyalties (London: John Murray, 1946), 5–7. 77. Yusif ‘Atiya to Franklin E. Hoskins, 1912, in “Translation of Earliest Theological Seminary Record Book,” by James W. Willoughby, undated: PHS 115-17-9. 78. Deanna Ferree Womack, “Yusif Dib ‘Atiyya,” in David Thomas and John Chesworth (eds.), Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 1500–1900 (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). 79. ‘Atiya, Bayan al-Haqq, 3; al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 31. 80. I have been unable to locate a copy of Gharzuzi’s original text. 81. ‘Atiya, Bayan al-Haqq, 4. 82. Ibid., 13. 83. Ibid., 6. 84. Ibid., 15. 85. Apology and polemic are categories of classical Greek rhetoric employed by Christian writers and orators since the time of the early church. Aimed at defending the faith, apologetic works may include polemical statements, as ‘Atiya’s treatise did, but are typically prompted by an opponent’s accusations. See “Apologetics,” in Eric Orlin et al. (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions (New York: Routledge, 2016), 74–5. 86. ‘Atiya, Bayan al-Haqq, 7, 8–9. 87. Ibid., 9. 88. ‘Atiya, Bayan al-Haqq, 10–11. 89. al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 31. See my treatment of al-Hilu in Chapter 1. 90. On the anti-Catholicism of Protestant missions in the region, see Heleen Murre-van den Berg, “‘Simply by Giving to Them Macaroni …’ AntiRoman Catholic Polemics in Early Protestant Missions in the Middle East, 1820–1860,” in Martin Tamcke and Michael Marten (eds.), Christian Witness

132  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE between Continuity and New Beginnings: Modern Historical Missions in the Middle East (Berlin: Lit, 2006), 63–80. Direct attacks on Catholic beliefs in the early period of the Syria Mission included Jonas King’s “Farewell Letter,” which As‘ad al-Shidyaq read prior to his conversion. See Chapter 1 and alBustani, Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq, 69. 91. The first letter from “Katoliki T” to al-Shammas Jerasimus Masarrah was dated August 14, 1887, and it appeared under the title “Ahwal al-Kanisa alBabawiyya,” al-Hadiyya 5(109) (December 10, 1887), 404–5. Al-Hadiyya was published at the Monastery of Saint George. 92. Katoliki T, “Ahwal,” 405. The self-proclaimed Catholic author admitted that the church members’ devotion to these statues had troubled him even before he became familiar with the writings on this topic in al-Hadiyya. Ibid., 404–5. 93. Ibid., 405. The author used the term al-kanisa al-gharbiyya interchangeably with kanisat al-Jizwit (Jesuit church) and al-kanisa al-Babawiyya (Papal church). 94. This shorter letter was also dated August 14, 1887, and appeared in a message from Jerasimus Masarrah, which explained his correspondence with the Catholic writer. Masarrah, “Jawab Quds al-Shammas Jerasimus Masarrah ‘ala Hadhihi al-Risala,” al-Hadiyya 5(109) (December 10, 1887), 406. 95. Masters, Christians and Jews, 80–118; Bernard Heyberger, Les Chrétiens du Proche-Orient: De la acompassion à la compréhension (Paris: Payot & Rivages, 2013), 49–50; Lucette Valensi, “Inter-Communal Relations and Changes in Religious Affiliation in the Middle East (Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries),” Comparative Studies in Society and History 39(2) (1997): 251–69. On the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and its effect on the Middle East, see Tejirian and Simon, Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion, 60–7. 96. On Roman Catholic and Middle Eastern Catholic relations, see Khater, Embracing the Divine; Chantal Verdeil, “Between Rome and France, Intransigent and anti-Protestant Jesuits in the Orient: The Beginning of the Jesuits’ Mission in Syria, 1831–1864,” in Martin Tamcke and Michael Marten (eds.), Christian Witness between Continuity and New Beginnings: Modern Historical Missions in the Middle East (Berlin: Lit, 2006), 24–6; Elizabeth Thompson, “Neither Conspiracy nor Hypocrisy: The Jesuits and the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon,” in Reeva S. Simon and Eleanor Harvey Tejirian (eds.), Altruism and Imperialism: Western Cultural and Religious Missions in the Middle East (New York: Middle East Institute of Columbia University, 2002), 66–87. 97. Throughout 1887, the most common topics of discussion in al-Hadiyya’s

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  133 articles included the Catholic Church, the Jesuits and the writings of al-Bashir. By contrast, al-Hadiyya’s articles displayed far less interest in Protestantism. Index for al-Hadiyya 5 (1887), 427–30. 98. “Sayf dhu Haddayn,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2 (January 14, 1888), 11. The article quoted Exodus 20:4 and 23:34; Numbers 4:18, 5:8, 27:15 and 27:26; and Leviticus 26:1. 99. Al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2 (January 14, 1888), 11. 100. Cornelius Van Dyck, Kashf al-Abatil fi ‘Ibadat al-Suwar wa-l-Tamathil (Beirut: AMP, [1856] 1889), courtesy of NEST Special Collections. Al-Nashra advertised Van Dyck’s text and Mikhail Mishaqa’s Dalil ila Ta‘at al-Injil in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 8 (February 24, 1888), 64; al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 9 (March 2, 1888), 69. 101. Jerasimus Masarrah, “Katoliki ‘T’ wa tamathil al-Jizwit,” al-Hadiyya 6(113) (January 7, 1888), 6; Jerasimus Masarrah, “Su’al al-Katoliki ‘T’ fi-l-Suwar wa-l-Tamathil wa-l-Jawab ‘Anhu,” al-Hadiyya 6(114) (January 14, 1888), 9–16. 102. Ibid., 11–12. Masarrah’s translation, as printed in this article, read, “La tasna‘ laka sanaman wa-la timthalan …” The Protestant translation completed by the Syria Mission in 1865 referred to a graven image or sculpted statue (timthalan malhutan): “La tasna‘ laka timthalan manhutan wa-la suratan …” (Exodus 20:4, Arabic Bible translation 1865). The Jesuit text, as represented by alNashra, referred only to a sculpture (manhut): “La tasna‘ laka manhuta wa-la suratan …” “Sayf dhu Haddayn,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2 (January 14, 1888), 11. 103. Masarrah, “Su’al al-Katoliki ‘T’,” 13. Masarrah’s response to Katoliki T continued in a subsequent issue claiming that in contrast to the Orthodox Church members, “the Protestants do not apply a single word from the words of the tawra.” Masarrah, “Risalat al-Katoliki ‘T’ wa-l-Jawab ‘Anha,” al-Hadiyya 6(116) (January 28, 1888), 30. See the similar focus on the teachings of the tawra in Masarrah, “al-Brutistani Yat‘an Nafsahu” al-Hadiyya 6(117) (February 4, 1888), 35–8. The deacon’s critique of Catholicism on the topic of the second commandment appeared in Masarrah, “Suqut al-Bashir fi Mabadi’hi,” al-Hadiyya 6(115) (January 21, 1888), 23–4. These authors used the term tawra (meaning the five books of Moses). 104. Masarrah, “Risalat al-Katoliki ‘T’,” 30. 105. [Sulayman Ghanim], “al-Nashra wa-l-Hadiyya,” al-Bashir 910 (February 22, 1888), 3. The editor of al-Bashir did not sign his name to his pieces, but

134  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE al-Nashra identified him as al-Khuri Ghanim (Priest Ghanim). Sulayman Ghanim (1849–1943), a Maronite who joined la Compagnie Jésuite, was editor of al-Bashir from 1882 to 1884 and again from 1885 to 1891. “P. Soleiman Ghanem (1849–1943),” in Henri Jalabert, Jésuites au Proche-Orient (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1987), 222–3. I am indebted to Chantal Verdeil for alerting me to this entry in Jalabert’s volume. 106. Ghanim, “al-Nashra wa-l-Hadiyya,” 3. 107. Ibid. 108. In response to Van Dyck’s tract on idolatry, al-Bashir published a series of six letters to the missionary under the same title. [Sulayman Ghanim], “Ila al-Qis Cornelius Van Dyck,” al-Bashir 19(912) (March 7, 1888), 3–4; al-Bashir 19(913) (March 14, 1888), 3–4; al-Bashir 19(914) (March 21, 1888), 3–4; al-Bashir 19(915) (March 28, 1888), 3–4; al-Bashir 19(916) (April 4, 1888), 1–2; al-Bashir 19(918) (April 18, 1888), 1. See also “Al-Brutistan wa-l-Suwar,” al-Bashir 19(920) (May 2, 1888), 1. 109. “Jawab al-Nashra ‘ala Su’alana al-Thani,” al-Bashir 19(914) (March 21, 1888), 3. This discussion continued in “Jawab al-Nashra ‘ala As’ilatina,” al-Bashir 19(915) (March 28, 1888), 3; “Ajwibat al-Nashra ‘ala As’ilatina,” al-Bashir 19(916) (April 4, 1888), 2. 110. Yuwakim Mas‘ud al-Rasi graduated from the American mission’s theological seminary in ‘Abay in 1878, worked as a teacher and preacher in Sidon until 1896, and then worked for the mission in his home village of Ibl al-Saqi. Yuwakim Mas‘ud al-Rasi to Franklin E. Hoskins, 1912, in “Translation of Earliest Theological Seminary Record Book,” by James W. Willoughby, undated: PHS 115-17-9. Mas‘ud was vice principal of the Sidon Boys’ Academy when Nassim al-Hilu studied there. Al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 34–5, 43, 45. 111. Yuwakim Mas‘ud [al-Rasi], “al-Nashra wa-Shammas al-Hadiyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 9 (March 2, 1888), 65. The printed letter from Sidon was dated February 9, 1888. 112. Ibid., 66. 113. “al-Nashra,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 9 (March 2, 1888), 79–80. 114. “Talbiyyat al-Bashir,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 9 (March 2, 1888), 80–2. 115. Ibid., 80. 116. Yuwakim Mas‘ud, “Shammas al-Hadiyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 23 (June 9, 1888), 178–9; Mas‘ud, “Shammas al-Hadiyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 24 (June 16, 1888), 186–7. Al-Hadiyya responded directly to Mas‘ud in Jerasimus

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  135 Masarrah, “al-Nashra wa-Mas‘udaha,” al-Hadiyya 6(126) (April 7, 1888), 105–9 and Masarrah, “al-Nashra wa-Mas‘udaha,” al-Hadiyya 6(133) (April 7, 1888), 165. 117. “Hujja Jizwitiyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 11 (March 16, 1888), 82; “Aqwal Luthirus fi-Wittenburg bi-Khusus al-Ayqunat,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 11 (March 16, 1888), 85–7; Bahnam Hasuna, “Radd ‘ala Aftira’,” al-Nashra alUsbu‘iyya 20 (May 19, 1888), 107–10; Hasuna, “Radd ‘ala Aftira’,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 21 (May 26, 1888), 165–7; “al-Shammas Jerasimus wa-l-Khuri Ghanim,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 21 (May 26, 1888), 163; “Radd ‘ala al-Khuri Ghanim Sahib al-Bashir,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 25 (June 23, 1888), 194–5; “Hujja Jizwitiyya wa-Rakaka Bashiriyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 25 (June 23, 1888), 195; N.S., “al-Mursalun al-Amirkan wa-Bashir al-Jizwit,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 39 (September 29, 1888), 309–10; “Hal Yusaddaq al-Jizwit fi al-Kalam ‘ala Khusumahum,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 42 (October 20, 1888), 334–5; S.N., “Khulasat Muqaddimat Mishu al-Kahin al-Kathuliki,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 42 (October 20, 1888), 331–2. 118. “Taqwim al-Bashir,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 49 (December 8, 1888), 389. 119. On the Protestant–Orthodox conversation of late 1889 on the Virgin Mary, see “Adillat al-Hadiyya ‘ala Wujub al-Sala li-Maryam al-‘Adhra’ wa-Ta‘adud Wasit al-Khalas,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 48 (November 30, 1889), 378–9; “Sadiquna al-Yafi,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 48 (November 30, 1889), 379; Yusif ‘Atiya, “Fasl al-Khitab L’uli al-Albab.” The Ottoman government suspended al-Nashra in January 1890 for printing a foreign telegram and then granted the AMP permission to resume publishing al-Nashra at the end of the year under the condition that it would refrain from printing foreign news or attacks on other religions in the empire. BFM (1891), 214. 120. Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East, 34. 121. “al-Nashra wa-l-Hadiyya,” al-Bashir 910 (February 22, 1888), 3. 122. Mas‘ud, “al-Nashra wa-Shammas al-Hadiyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 9 (March 2, 1888), 66. 123. Verdeil, “Between Rome and France,” 23–32. 124. BFM (1888), 72; BFM (1891), 225. 125. For examples, see BFM (1887), 66; BFM (1890), 212, 217; BFM (1889), 67. 126. Lindner, “In this Religion I Will Live.” 127. The Maronite hierarchy in Lebanon and French Jesuits partnered together in 1881 in the establishment of the Université Saint-Joseph, the Jesuit institution which would rival SPC. Herzstein, “Saint-Joseph University of Beirut,”

136  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 749–59. On the distinctive Maronite tradition, see Matti Moosa, The Maronites in History (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986). 128. On the Russian presence in Syria, see Derek Hopwood, Russian Presence in Syria and Palestine, 1843–1914: Church and Politics in the Near East (London: Clarendon, 1969); Womack, “Imperial Politics and Theological Practices,” 1–18. 129. Sadgrove, “Ibrahim al-Yaziji,” 812; Grafton, Contested Origins, 11, 97, 223. 130. “Member entry 149,” NECB 9. Both Warda and her husband worked for the Quaker mission. Henry John Turtle, Quaker Service in the Middle East: With a History of Brummana High School, 1876–1975 (London: Friends Service Council, 1975), 48. For Shamun, see Figure 24, below. 131. Katoliki T, “Ahwal,” 404. 132. Karène Sanchez Summerer, “Linguistic Diversity and Ideologies among the Catholic Minority in Mandate Palestine: Fear of Confusion or a Powerful Tool?” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 43(2) (2016): 194–5; Valensi, “Inter-Communal Relations,” 261. 133. Avril A. Powell, Muslims and Missionaries in Pre-Mutiny India (Richmond: Curzon, 1993), 226–62; Sharkey, American Evangelicals in Egypt, 108–33; Ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity. 134. Sharkey, “American Missionaries in the Middle East,” xxi; Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 140–1, 217; Habib Badr, “American Protestant Missionary Beginnings in Beirut and Istanbul: Policy, Politics, Practice, and Response,” in Heleen Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 212–13. 135. Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 9–10. The rule of ‘Abd al-Hamid II (r. 1876–1909) (rendered as Abdülhamid in Turkish) ended shortly after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. Kemal H. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam: Restructuring Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 155–82. 136. BFM (1893), 233; BFM (1895), 207. See also Evan Lattea Rogers Hays, “‘Their Object is to Strengthen the Moslem and Repress the Christian’: Henry Jessup and the Presbyterian Mission to Syria under Abdul Hamid II,” MA thesis, University of Maryland, 2008. 137. Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East, 38–9; Donald J. Cioeta, “Ottoman Censorship in Lebanon and Syria, 1876–1908,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10(2) (1979): 167–86; Donald J. Cioeta, “Thamarat al-Funun,

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  137 Syria’s First Islamic Newspaper, 1875–1908,” PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1979. Karpat, The Politicization of Islam, 119–35; Ebru Boyar, “The Press and the Palace: The Two-Way Relationship between Abdülhamid II and the Press, 1876–1908,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 69(3) (2006): 417–32. Boyar argued that the “image of Abdülhamid’s reign as one dominated by a censorship at times verging on the absurd was first used by the post-1908 elite and then reproduced in the early days of the [Turkish] Republic.” Ibid., 417. 138. Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 8, 139. Kidd, American Christians and Islam, 48–53; Khalaf, Protestant Missionaries in the Levant, 86–93. Henry Jessup’s publications on Islam included The Setting of the Crescent and The Mohammedan Missionary Problem (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1879). 140. On Zwemer, see Kidd, American Christians and Islam, 58–74; Sharkey, American Evangelicals in Egypt, 49–52, 92–5. 141. Ussama Makdisi, Faith Misplaced: The Broken Promise of U.S.–Arab Relations: 1820–2001 (New York: Public Affairs, 2010), 48–50; Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 165–71, 215; Khalaf, Protestant Missionaries in the Levant, 86–93; Kidd, American Christians and Islam, 48–9; Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 255–7. 142. Jessup, Mohammedan Missionary Problem, 58–106, esp. 88. 143. Ibid., 14–15. 144. Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 4, 41. 145. Henry Harris Jessup, “Introductory Paper,” in S. M. Zwemer, E. M. Wherry and James L. Barton (eds.), The Mohammedan World of To-day, Being Papers Read at the First Missionary Conference on Behalf of the Mohammedan World held at Cairo April 4th–9th, 1906 (New York: Fleming H. Revel, 1906), 18. 146. Henry H. Jessup to Sir William Muir, February 4, 1891: Day Missions Library Special Collections, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut, Record Group 117-4-11 (hereafter YDS). 147. Maryam Zakka, “al-Jidd wa-l-Ijtihad,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (August 27, 1887), 374; Rujina Shukri, “al-Makatib wa-Luzumuha,” al-Nashra alUsbu‘iyya, 16 (April 20, 1888), 123. 148. Hanna Kurani, al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id (Beirut: AMP, 1891), 47. Courtesy of NEST Special Collections. 149. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 290. 150. Farida ‘Atiya, “al-Hidhr wa-l-Intibah,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 6 (February 1,

138  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 1888), 42. The italicized portion matches Tahir Bin Husayn’s letter to his son in Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddima, as translated in Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, vol. 2 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 144. 151. AMP 1896, 43. 152. The elementary Arabic grammar textbook al-Bustani produced in 1854 for mission schools opened with two verses from the Qur’an, “Praise is to God, the high, the most gracious! Who taught by the Pen; taught Man what he knew not.” Tibawi, “The American Missionaries in Beirut and Butrus al-Bustani,” 160–1, 170. Al-Bustani dedicated a number of his publications to the sultan and also mentioned Ottoman governors with reverence. See also Abu-Manneh, “Ottomanism and Syrian Nationalism,” 287–304. 153. This is Stephen Sheehi’s translation of al-Bustani’s Nafir Suriyya. Sheehi, “Inscribing the Arab Self,” 14. This saying from the Hadith also became the motto printed on the cover page of al-Bustani’s journal al-Jinan. 154. Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 207–9; Abu-Manneh, “Ottomanism and Syrian Nationalism,” 294; Khalil Abou Rjaili, “Educating the Nation: The Role of Education in Butrus al-Bustani’s Thought,” in Adel Beshara (ed.), Butrus alBustani: Spirit of the Age (Melbourne: IPhoenix Publishing, 2014), 90–112. 155. “Al-Asif al-Azim,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 19 (May 17, 1883), 149; Evangelical Society of Beirut, A‘mal Jam‘iyyat Bayrut al-Injiliyya ‘an Sanat 1862 (Beirut: n.p., 1863). Courtesy of Andover-Harvard Theological Library Special Collections. The article from al-Nashra was al-Bustani’s obituary, and the Evangelical Society publication was the organization’s constitution and first annual report. See also Zeuge-Buberl, “Die Mission des American Board in Syrien,” 187–217; Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 180–213, 249 n. 71; Lindner, “Rahil ‘Ata al-Bustani,” 49–67; Shaw, “Butrus al-Bustani and the American Missionaries,” 83. 156. Titled The History of Religions in English, Nawfal’s book covered religious traditions from the ancient Magians to Hinduism and Buddhism to the practices of Nawfal’s contemporary Christians, Muslims and Jews in the Middle East. Nawfal Ni‘matullah Nawfal, Kitab Sawsanat Sulayman fi Usul al-‘Aqa’id wa-l-Adiyan (Beirut: AMP 1876). Courtesy of NEST Special Collections. On Nawfal and his family see Zachs, Making of a Syrian Identity, 234–6. 157. Nawfal, Kitab Sawsanat Sulayman, 184, 185. Nawfal also referenced the work of al-Mazriqi, the Mamluk-era historian in Egypt. 158. Ibid., 182.

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  139 159. Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 2, 527. Nawfal joined the Syrian Evangelical Church of Beirut in 1862 and returned in 1868 to his family’s home town of Tripoli, where he became an elder in the Evangelical church, ibid., 526–7; “Member entry 63,” NECB 9. 160. William Muir (trans.), The Apology of Al Kindy, Written at the Court of Al Mamun, (a.h. 215; a.d. 830) in Defense of Christianity Against Islam, 2nd edn (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1887), 4–10; Powell, Muslims and Missionaries, 130. Cornelius Van Dyck corrected the proof sheets for Muir’s translation, as noted in Henry Harris Jessup to Sir William Muir, September 12, 1890: YDS 117-4-11. 161. S. M. Zwemer, “Arabic Controversial Literature for Moslems,” The Missionary Review of the World 24(10) (1901): 734. 162. Ibid., 735. In a 1919 review of important Arabic evangelistic literature, Arthur Upson, the director of the Nile Mission Press, included al-Hidaya, Pfander’s Balance of Truth, al-Kindi’s Apology, Sweet First-Fruits “and other volumes by the same Syrian author,” and the works of William St. Clair Tisdall. Arthur T. Upson, “The Need for Arabic Christian Literature,” The Moslem World 10(1) (1919): 44–5. 163. Ibid., 736; E. M. Wherry, C. G. Mylrea and S. M. Zwemer (eds.), Lucknow, 1911: Being Papers Read and Discussions on the Training of Missionaries and Literature for Muslims at the General Conference on Missions to Muslims held at Lucknow, Jan. 23–28, 1911 (London: Christian Literature Society for India, 1911), 176. Al-Hidaya was a multi-volume response to Izhar al-Haqq. Indian scholar Ramatullah Qairanawi wrote Izhar al-Haqq in Arabic in refutation of Pfander’s Mizan al-Haqq and published it in the Ottoman Empire. Avril A. Powell, “Maulana Rahmat Allah Kairanawi and Muslim–Christian Controversy in India in the mid-19th Century,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1 (1976): 61–3; Ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity, 23, 214. On the UPCNA work in Egypt, see Sharkey, American Evangelicals in Egypt. 164. Zwemer, “Arabic Controversial Literature,” 735; Isaac Mason, “Christian Literature for Chinese Moslems,” The Moslem World 10(2) (1920): 167. The Arabic text is [Yusif ‘Atiya], al-Bakura al-Shahiyya fi al-Riwayat al-Diniyya, eighth printing (n.d.; 1st edn Leipzig, 1893). 165. Zwemer, “Arabic Controversial Literature,” 735. 166. The Church in the Mission Field: Report of Commission II, World Missionary Conference, 1910 (Edinburgh and New York: Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier

140  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE and Fleming H. Revell, 1910), 257. The report quoted Gairdner. The following English translations that Gairdner referenced were used to educate Christian readers and train missionaries for work among Muslim populations: William Muir (trans.), Sweet First-Fruits: A Tale of the Nineteenth Century on the Truth and Virtue of the Christian Religion (London: Religious Tract Society, 1893); William Muir (trans.), The Beacon of Truth, or Testimony of the Coran to the Truth of the Christian Religion (London: Religious Tract Society, 1894). 167. Wherry et al., Lucknow, 1911, 128, 149, 176, 180, 240, 275; Jessup, “Introductory Paper,” 15. 168. While Sweet First-Fruits and The Beacon of Truth were ‘Atiya’s most highly acclaimed and widely distributed works, “his evangelistic writing continued into the twentieth century.” His third publication, Misbah al-Huda ila Sirr alFida (1898) was translated by Muir before the British scholar’s death. William Muir (trans.), The Torch of Guidance to the Mystery of Redemption (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1900). Jessup sent this manuscript to Muir as well. Jessup, FiftyThree Years in Syria, vol. 2, 663. Missionary records noted three later books by ‘Atiya, including Risalat al-Dalil ila Sawa’ al-Sabil (Epistle of Guidance to the Right Path). “Report of the Beirut Station—Syria Mission for the year 1911”: PHS 90-2-11; W. S. Nelson to James Dennis, June 7, 1911: PHS 90-12-4. 169. A publication on Christian missions after the First World War identified “the Protestant pastor named ‘Atiyah” as the author of Sweet First-Fruits and Balance of Truth and a “chief” writer of apologetic literature for Muslims. Joint Committee on the Survey of Christian Literature for Moslems, Christian Literature in Moslem Lands: A Study of the Activities of the Moslem and Christian Press in All Mohammedan Countries (New York: George Doran, 1923), 62. 170. Atiyah, An Arab Tells His Story, 6. Edward Atiyah continued with the story of Yusif’s arrest and miraculous release during the First World War, when Ottoman authorities discovered in a missionary’s library one of the books with Yusif ‘Atiya’s name inscribed in it. Ibid., 6–7. The confiscated book was reported as a new, unpublished manuscript that was never returned. Joint Committee, Christian Literature, 62. 171. Henry Harris Jessup to Sir William Muir, September 12, 1890: YDS 117-4-11. 172. Jessup to Muir, February 4, 1891: YDS 117-4-11. This letter mentioned another of ‘Atiya’s manuscripts titled “Critical Observations on the Life of Muhammad,” which Jessup offered to send as well. 173. Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 2, 567–8; William Muir, “Preface,” in Sweet First-Fruits, vii–viii. Yusif was initially turned out of his home but later

“pu b l ish ing ” the g ospel, readi n g th e nahda   |  141 “made peace with his family, and returned to his village.” Atiyah, An Arab Tells His Story, 6. 174. Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 2, 567; Henry Harris Jessup to Sir William Muir, March 21, 1892 and April 11, 1892: YDS 117-4-11. 175. Henry Harris Jessup to Sir William Muir, December 20, 1892: YDS 117-4-11. 176. Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 2, 567. 177. Muir (trans.), Sweet First-Fruits, 48–9. 178. Muir (trans.), The Beacon of Truth, 150, 157. 179. Muir (trans.), Sweet First-Fruits, 169. 180. Ibid., 161. 181. Ibid., 139–42. 182. Henry H. Jessup to Sir William Muir, February 4, 1891: YDS 117-4-11; Hourani, Arabic Thought, 222–4. 183. Dorothe Sommer, Freemasonry in the Ottoman Empire: A History of the Fraternity and its Influence in Syria and the Levant (London and New York: I. B. Tauris and Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 50, 167. On al-Jisr’s National Islamic School, see Hourani, Arabic Thought, 223; Martin Strohmeier, “Muslim Education in the Vilayet of Beirut, 1880–1918,” in Caesar E. Farah (ed.), Decision Making and Change in the Ottoman Empire (Kirksville, MO and Lanham, MD: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1993), 215. 184. Hourani, Arabic Thought, 223. 185. Simon A. Wood, “Researching ‘The Scripture of the Other’: Niqula Ghabriyal’s Researches of the Mujtahids and Rashid Rida’s Rejoinder,” Comparative Islamic Studies 6(1/2) (2010): 181–216. Rida and Farah Antun were both natives of Tripoli, where they became close friends. The two emigrated together in 1897 to Egypt where Antun began his journal al-Jami‘a and Rida founded the influential al-Manar. Ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity, 71–6. Ghabriyal published his Researches of the Mujtahids in Egypt. 186. Dyala Hamzah, “From ‘ilm to Sihafa or the Politics of the Public Interest (maslaha): Muhammad Rashid Rida and his Journal al-Manar (1898–1935),” in Dyala Hamzah (ed.), The Making of the Arab Intellectual: Empire, Public Sphere and the Colonial Coordinates of Selfhood (New York: Routledge, 2013), 94. 187. Muir (trans.), Sweet First-Fruits, 35–53. 188. After the debate, which by all accounts the Muslim scholar won, Qairanawi published the first volume of Izhar al-Haqq in Constantinople in 1864 at the request of Sultan ‘Abdul ‘Aziz I (r. 1861–76). Powell, “Maulana Rahmat Allah

142  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Kairanawi,” 61–3; Powell, Muslims and Missionaries, 226–62; Ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity, 214, 216. 189. Muhammad Tahir al-Tannir, Al-‘Aqa’id al-Wathaniyya fi al-Diyana al-Nasraniyya, ed. Muhammad Sharqawi ([Beirut: 1912] Cairo: 1993). 190. Ibid., 7, 50–1. Al-Tannir also listed Pfander’s Mizan al-Haqq, Muir’s Call to Moslems Invited to Read the Bible, the Egyptian Protestant publication alHidaya, Zwemer’s journal The Moslem World and W. A. Rice’s Crusaders of the Twentieth Century, or the Christian Missionary and the Muslim: An Introduction to Work among Muhammadans (London: Church Missionary Society, 1910). 191. Muir (trans.), Sweet First-Fruits, 31–45, 129. 192. al-Tannir, Al-‘Aqa’id, 14–19, 53, 105–8, 219. 193. Ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity, 57–61, 127. 194. W. St. Clair Tisdall, “The Latest Muhammadan Mare’s Nest,” The Moslem World 3(1) (1913): 407–15. 195. Ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity, 97; G., “Book Review,” The Moslem World 3(2) (1913): 198–200. Shaykhu published a two-part response in 1912 titled Tanfid al-Tazwir li Muhammad Tahir al-Tannir. 196. On similar exchanges between Shaykhu and Rida in al-Mashriq and al-Manar, see Ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity, 96–102.

3 A FEMINIST AWAKENING? EVANGELICAL WOMEN AND THE ARAB RENAISSANCE 

L

ike their male colleagues, Syrian women participated fully in the literary, educational and evangelistic activities of the American Syria Mission, yet the traditional missionary narrative overlooked their contributions, depicted the missionary enterprise in Syria as a masculine endeavor and indicated that strict gender norms in Islamic society barred women from social and religious leadership.1 Only recently have scholars proposed a counter-narrative, documenting how in fact missionary and local Syrian women employed the teaching profession to engage in religious activities alongside male missionaries and local clergymen.2 Rare writings by Syrian Protestant women in the late Ottoman period reveal further that Syrian women moved into other maledominated fields through the cultural and intellectual movements of the Nahda as writers, public speakers and activists. Among such publications featured in this chapter, Farida ‘Atiya’s novel, Riwayat Bahjat al-Mukhaddarat fi Fawa’id ‘Ilm al-Banat (The Education of Women, 1893), encapsulated the spirit of the Protestant women’s renaissance.3 The novel featured a cultivated man in Syria, named Adib, who fell into a life of misery by marrying a beautiful but ignorant woman, Hannah. After much sorrow and strife, and with the aid of an educated female cousin, the new bride experienced a Protestant conversion, learned to read and manage the household and became a joy to her 143

144  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE husband and all who met her. At the climax of ‘Atiya’s story, Hannah, stood before an audience of men and women in her home, a domestic space where public and private spheres often converged during the Nahda. After testifying to her recent spiritual and intellectual transformation, Hannah exhorted: Miserable are those children who are raised in the embrace of an ignorant mother. Woe to the husband who lives with such a woman. Beware of leaving your daughters ignorant and neglecting to discipline and refine them. You are committing a great and terrible mistake for the coming generation, and the consequences will be severe. The benefit of educating girls is immeasurable.4

Reflecting the social aims of ‘Atiya’s novel, this fictional speech fell into the first of three genres in nahdawi women’s writings that I will explore in this chapter: texts advocating the education of Syrian women and girls. ‘Atiya’s words also evoked a second common genre, known as tarbiya literature, or publications on child-rearing, an activity deemed essential for the future of modern Syria.5 The third literary genre—published sermons—set Syrian Protestant women’s work apart from the writings of their Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim and Jewish counterparts in the women’s movement. In the excerpt above, attention to matters of morality subtly suggested the sermonic quality of Hannah’s exhortation. ‘Atiya herself was among the Protestant women of her day who produced biblically based sermons along with publications on women’s roles in education and child-rearing. Recognizing this rich body of literature and the need to account more fully for women’s experiences in the missionary encounter, I emphasize the ways in which Syrian Protestant women, who were both teachers and graduates of mission schools, used their training to work outside educational institutions as authors and journalists for the AMP in Beirut from the 1880s until the First World War. Like nahdawis from other ta’ifas, Syrian Protestant women held various intersecting commitments that resonated across confessional boundaries, including love of the Syrian homeland, nascent ideas of citizenship, loyalty to the sultan and civilizational progress. These ideals shaped their sense of identity as Syrians, as Ottomans and as modern women, and led many of them to write for nahdawi publications like al-Jinan, al-Muqtataf and Lisan

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  145 al-Hal, all Protestant-owned periodicals that upheld such aspirations without advancing a religious agenda. Yet Farida ‘Atiya and the Protestant women of her generation were also invested in creating a new particular identity through their AMP publications and addresses at mission schools. Their invocations of religiosity and evangelical community in sermonic texts and even in writings on “secular” subjects such as education and child-rearing distinguished them from other nahdawi women and bonded them to the growing population of Protestants in Syria and other global mission fields and to American and European women in Syria and in the West.6 As such, they joined many other Christians worldwide in the self-conscious and strategic recreation of identity during the colonial era.7 After addressing the role of Syrians in the women’s Nahda, this chapter introduces the Protestant women writers of the AMP. It then turns to the heretofore neglected novels, books, poems, public addresses and feature articles that these women published at the mission press, giving specific attention to sermonic texts and writings on female education and childrearing. As pioneers in the wider Arab women’s awakening (al-nahda alnisa’iyya), Syrian Protestant women contributed to the intellectual currents of this renaissance, while also using the modern Arabic press as a means of preaching the gospel in written form.8 They integrated nahdawi ideals and evangelical faith, as did the Protestant men addressed in Chapters 1 and 2. Thus, although the Arab renaissance was a social and cultural movement that united women and men from all religious backgrounds in the Ottoman Arab provinces, religion remains a fruitful and necessary lens through which to examine what nahdawi women wrote and what they aimed to accomplish through their press publications. My attention to the Protestant identity of the earliest nahdawi women in Syria is of particular importance, considering the sparse scholarship on the religious activities of Middle Eastern Christian women.9 By tracing the seminal journalists and novelists of the Syrian women’s Nahda to their respective religious communities, this chapter makes apparent the permeability of religious boundaries within Syrian women’s intellectual circles, where Christian, Muslim and Jewish women upheld common societal goals, because—and not in spite—of their ­diverging ­religious affiliations.

146  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Al-Nahda al-Nisa’iyya: The Arab Women’s Awakening The nahdawi women of the modern period stand in a long line of Middle Eastern women who achieved renown for the eloquence of their Arabic prose and poetry, from the seventh-century Arabian poet al-Khansa’ who met the Prophet Muhammad to the fictional Shahrazad, the “mistress of speech” and orator of the tales of one thousand and one Arabian nights.10 Yet in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, modernizing reforms and the rise of independent press establishments afforded women new opportunities to showcase their literary talents while engaging in conversations on the role of women in the home and modern society. Such discussions took place in press publications, literary salons, women’s societies and homes in Syria and throughout the Empire.11 Qasim Amin’s Tahrir al-Mar’a (The Liberation of Women), published in Egypt in 1899, is often considered the launching point for the women’s movement in the Ottoman Arab provinces.12 However, other intellectuals in the region took up the subject of women’s rights long before Amin’s publication. These included the Muslim writer Rifa‘a Tahtawi (1801–73), who advocated for women’s education and marriage equality in Egypt,13 and the Syrian Protestant Butrus al-Bustani (1819–83) with his “Discourse on the Education of Women” addressed to the Syrian Society of Arts and Sciences in 1849.14 The commitment of al-Bustani and other Christian men to the promotion of knowledge and national progress led them to emphasize the importance of female education and women’s roles in the development of modern Syria.15 To their ranks we might add women like Farida ‘Atiya, whose aforementioned novel on the benefits of women’s education went to press six years before Amin’s acclaimed work. While much has been written about the debates among men on the subject of women, as Ellen Fleischmann noted, women such as ‘Atiya “themselves, far from being merely the objects of this debate, energetically engaged in these contestations, challenging conservative male polemicists as well as other women.”16 Nahdawi women were part of the “lively and active community of discourse” carried out in the periodical presses and in public and private meeting places, as described in Chapter 2.17 They expanded the field of discussion by seeking to inform women readers in their press articles and public addresses on themes like women’s education and tadbir al-manzil

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  147 (household management), a prevalent subject for nahdawi women writers and the focus of an ongoing column in al-Muqtataf.18 It was the opportunity for formal education—often in Protestant schools for girls—that enabled the women of Syria to join in nahdawi production. Among the Protestant-educated Syrian women who became writers of various genres, the most well known included the Jewish journalist and translator Esther Muyal (1873–1948), the Maronite writer and lecturer Labiba Hashim (1882–1952), the Greek Orthodox press pioneer Alexandra Avierno (1872–1927) and the Protestant periodical founder Rosa Antun Haddad (1882–1955).19 Some authors like the sisters Anisa (1881–1906) and ‘Afifa Shartuni (1886–1906), ‘Afifa Karam (1883–1925) and Eveline Bustrus (1878–1971), attended Catholic missionary or Maronite schools.20 Nahdawi Muslims, like Zaynab Fawwaz (1846–1914) and ‘Anbara Salam Khalidi (1897–1986), were also highly educated, in contradiction to Protestant missionary claims that Muslim girls had no means of attaining an education outside mission schools. Some attended Protestant schools, but others learned from educated family members, studied at home with professional tutors (including learned women, or shaykhas), attended public khuttabs (traditional elementary schools led by shaykhs) or, after 1878, enrolled in the schools of Jam‘iyyat al-Maqasid al-Khayriyya al-Islamiyya (Maqasid Islamic Benevolent Society, est. 1878).21 Regardless of where they were educated, two factors defined the generation of Syrian women who began their literary careers around the turn of the century. First, they came from a diversity of religious backgrounds; and, second, these writers built on the legacy of nahdawi Protestant women who had been publishing at the Arabic presses of Beirut for a decade or more. This neglected legacy is my focus in the current chapter.22 For studies on nahdawi women’s activities often mark the beginning of the women’s Nahda in the 1890s, as the following statement indicates: With only two female voices—Warda al-Yaziji (1838–1924) in Lebanon and ‘A’isha al-Taymuriya (1840–1902) in Egypt—the 1880s gave no hint that a multitude of women writers were preparing to emerge into the public eye. These writers boldly chose two outlets: journalism, which gave immediate access to the reading public and allowed them to shape public

148  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE opinion, and the novel, the most malleable literary genre and the newcomer to Arabic culture. In journalism, women did not limit their articles to women’s magazines, and they did not write only about the status of women and their demands.23

In reality, Syrian Protestant women employed the medium of journalism throughout the 1880s. A rare few, like Adelaide al-Bustani and Khuzma ‘Ata’, even signed their names to periodical pieces beginning in 1870.24 The writings of such Protestant women, published at the AMP and at other presses in Beirut and Cairo, not only hinted at what was to come. These Protestant productions actually paved the way for the vibrant Arab women’s press movement in Syria and Egypt that gained momentum in the 1890s as a religiously diverse group of nahdawi women began founding their own periodicals and publishing novels and journal articles in higher numbers. Perhaps because the Arab renaissance was widely perceived as a secular movement in which religious identity made little difference, their subversion of gender norms and contributions to Arabic literature stole attention from the theological commitments and spiritual practices of these nahdawi women. This was particularly true of Syrian Protestant writers like the aforementioned Warda al-Yaziji and Rosa Autun Haddad, who are not widely recognized as converts to Protestantism.25 We see a similar neglect of other nahdawi Protestant women, many of whom began their careers writing for the AMP. Most the women featured in Fruma Zachs and Sharon Halevi’s Gendering Culture in Greater Syria, for example, were members of Syrian Protestant churches, yet the book gave little attention to the religious convictions of these nahdawi pioneers or to their involvement with Protestant literary production. The first six of the following ten Protestant women whose publications this book examined also wrote for the AMP: Alice al-Bustani, Farida ‘Atiya, Hanna Kurani, Rujina Shukri, Salma Tannus, Julia Tu‘ma al-Dimashqiyya, Adelaide al-Bustani, Rosa Antun Haddad, Yaqut Sarruf and Maryam Nimr Makarius.26 The religious identities of these women can be documented with reference to their earlier writings in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya and mission or church records. With the use of such sources, the following sections fill out the history of the early women’s Nahda in Syria, uncover the stories of unsung Protestant writers and further illuminate the histories of well-known nahdawi women.

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  149 The Writers of the Protestant Women’s Nahda Building on the work of Ellen Fleischmann and Christine Lindner to piece together stories of Arab and Armenian Protestant women in Syria, in the remainder of this chapter I explore the writings of nine women who published at the AMP, beginning with an overview of Protestant women’s activities and biographical information on each author.27 As these women came of age during the Nahda and attended mission schools, they shared much in common with other women of their generation who were not accomplished writers, but nevertheless entered educated circles through their Protestant schooling and became consumers of nahdawi literature. Writing and reading were among the many ways—including educational pursuits, teaching, women’s societies, public concerts and familial practices as wives, mothers and daughters—of enacting what Lindner described as “Protestant nahdawi womanhood.”28 Protestant women’s self-definitions were often in flux and may not have matched the ideals that their male colleagues articulated. Nevertheless, following the spirit of the Nahda, these women’s diverse activities were “essential to the creation of a society that was literate in the Arabic language and knowledgeable of its cultural achievements.”29 Nahdawi Protestant women’s embrace of new opportunities for education and social engagement demonstrated their belief that women’s work in the family was essential for national progress. This emphasis, while shared by Nahda thinkers outside the Protestant community, also resonated with the ideal of evangelical women’s domestic piety that American missionaries transmitted when they advocated for girls’ schools as a means of producing good Christian wives and mothers. In nineteenth-century American Protestant thought, the father’s role in the home diminished and the pious mother demonstrated her Christian character in every facet of her domestic work, from raising and instructing her children in religion to her arrangement and decoration of the household.30 Most intellectuals of the Nahda recognized women as holding the future of the nation in their hands, but for American and Syrian Protestants, the purity and virtue of a Christian woman was also essential for the material and spiritual well-being of her family. These nahdawi women encountered such ideals in their early education and then reinforced these views of Protestant womanhood when they became mission

150  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE schoolteachers themselves.31 While Syrian women thus embraced the social and spiritual ideals of evangelical Protestantism, my reading of nahdawi publications reveals that they also adapted and refined the American missionaries’ message, making it their own. The writers whose work I explore below attained the highest level of education possible for women of their time by graduating from American mission high schools in Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon, or from British institutions in Beirut and Shimlan.32 As students, they were schooled in biblical studies, Arabic grammar and composition, and domestic arts like needlework and sewing. Their graduation certificates entitled them to teach in mission schools, which many of them did.33 While Syrian women had studied and taught at Protestant schools for decades, those who wrote for the AMP in the 1880s and 1890s were among the second generation of Protestants to graduate from these schools, and they came of age during a period of increasing intellectual and literary opportunities for women. This was the era of the first Syrian women’s associations, such as Bakurat Suriyya (Syrian Dawn, founded by Protestant women by 1880) and Jam‘iyyat Zahrat al-Ihsan (Flower of Charity Association, a Greek Orthodox association established in 1880).34 Opportunities for writing and public speaking as mission school pupils, teachers and members of women’s societies helped to facilitate Syrian Protestant women’s early ventures into professional journalism and other literary endeavors. Women’s addresses for organizations like Bakurat Suriyya, for example, were often printed afterwards in nahdawi periodicals like alMuqtataf and al-Nashra.35 The educational and social activities that prepared these women to be writers were often reflected in the subjects of their publications. For example, among the earliest pieces in al-Nashra attributed to a female author was a brief report by Maryam Sarkis in 1884 on the founder’s-day celebration of the British Syrian Training College, a Protestant missionary school in Beirut where Sarkis worked (known earlier as the Training Institution).36 Although authors like novelist Farida ‘Atiya wrote similar reports documenting their own participation in women’s societies and school celebrations, by contributing short notices on local events, Protestant women who never wrote feature articles could become involved in the production of al-Nashra as well.37 Protestant women also translated English texts for the AMP and wrote shorter

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  151 pieces for al-Nashra such as obituaries, wedding announcements, poetry and notices on events at local Protestant schools and churches. At a time when few women were publishing their writings, these texts were an early precursor of the women’s press movement that would gain strength at the turn of the century. For Syrian Protestant women who did not become well-known authors, occasional writing for al-Nashra was one way of enacting nahdawi Protestant womanhood. For others, opportunities to write for al-Nashra, to publish longer manuscripts and novels at the AMP, or to translate evangelical books and tracts, paved the way for careers as journalists and novelists. While it is possible that women wrote for the AMP during an earlier period under pseudonyms or without signing their names, the earliest feature articles in al-Nashra with women named as authors included Labiba Barakat’s 1883 piece on the priority of the sense of touch and an article by Maryana Mariya of Tripoli published in 1884, titled “The Benefits of History.”38 The following year, Rujina Shukri noted in her first article in al-Nashra that male intellectuals had encouraged the young women of her generation to “venture into the field of composition, in the service of science and literature.”39 This suggested that although Syrian women may have taken the initiative to submit their writings for publication, men like al-Nashra’s editor Ibrahim al-Hurani also actively solicited women’s writings. Women’s compositions were outnumbered by the work that Syrian and American men wrote for the AMP, but these women’s texts were nevertheless significant for a period during which al-Muqtataf, also printed at the AMP, was the only comparable journal publishing women’s writings. These pioneers of the 1880s paved the way for a younger generation of Protestants who grew up reading women’s articles in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya and would begin writing for the AMP and various other Nahda journals in the early twentieth century. Biographies: Alice al-Bustani and Farida ‘Atiya Among the women who wrote for the AMP in the late nineteenth century, Alice al-Bustani (1870–1926) and Farida ‘Atiya (1867–1917) were novelists who also published their writings in al-Nashra. Alice was the daughter of Butrus al-Bustani, the Protestant intellectual and pioneer of the Nahda, and Rahil ‘Ata’ al-Bustani, an early Protestant convert raised in the home of American missionaries.40 Alice’s novel, Sa’iba (Correct), published in 1891,

152  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE has been acclaimed as one of the first Arab women’s novels of the Nahda, second perhaps only to the novel ‘A’isha Taymur published in 1888. Alice published Sa’iba at al-Matba‘a al-Adabiyya in Beirut, the press establishment owned by her brother-in-law, Khalil Sarkis.41 Like Sarkis and his wife Louisa al-Bustani, Alice was a founding member of the Evangelical Independent Church of Beirut (see Chapter 4).42 Her nahdawi involvements also included her membership in Bakurat Suriyya. She married a member of her extended family, ‘Abdullah al-Bustani, and moved with him to Egypt, where she lived until her death.43 Farida ‘Atiya was a graduate of the American Girls’ School in Tripoli and the daughter of the AMP writer and evangelist Yusif ‘Atiya and Hadla ‘Atiya, both first-generation converts like Butrus and Rahil al-Bustani. Farida taught at her alma mater, married the Protestant teacher Matta ‘Atiya from Baynu and had seven children.44 She lived for a period in Beirut and became a member of the Evangelical Church there, but she later moved to the Hums region.45 Around 1905, she met the English traveler and archaeologist,

Figure 14  Hanna Kasbani Kurani Source: May Wright Sewall (ed.), The World’s Congress of Representative Women: A Historical Résumé for Popular Circulation of the World’s Congress of Representative Women (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1893), 604.

Figure 15  Rahil ‘Ata’ al-Bustani, mother of Alice al-Bustani Source: Woman’s Work for Woman 9(7) (1894): 182.

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  153 Gertrude Bell, who was visiting Qal‘at al-Husn, a Crusader castle near Hums. Bell identified her as “Sitt Ferideh, the Christian wife of the Government land surveyor, who is also a Christian.” Commenting on ‘Atiya’s fluency in English as she interpreted during a meeting between Bell and the local governor’s wife, the Englishwoman explained, “I was not long left in ignorance of the fact that she was an authoress, and that her greatest work was the translation of the ‘Last Days of Pompeii’ into Arabic.”46 Besides translating this work by Edward Bulwer Lyton for the AMP in 1889, ‘Atiya composed and translated articles for al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya in the 1880s and later wrote for the Beirut journals al-Ahwal (Events) and al-Muraqib (The Observer).47 Her independently published novel, Between Two Thrones (Bayna Arshayn, 1912), has been noted as one of the early Arabic novels by women.48 What was overlooked in Bell’s description and in later studies of Arab women’s writing was that ‘Atiya had published her first novel, ‘Ilm al-Banat, at the AMP nearly two decades before that. Maryam Zakka and Rujina Shukri While ‘Atiya and al-Bustani are known as pioneering novelists, Maryam Zakka and Rujina Shukri specialized in another form of nahdawi women’s writings as journalists for al-Nashra and a number of other Nahda periodicals. Zakka was an Evangelical Church member in Sidon, where she graduated in 1886 from the American mission’s Female Seminary and then taught for decades.49 She was the Syrian woman writer who contributed articles to al-Nashra most frequently and over the longest period of time, from the 1880s until 1915. By the early twentieth century, she had also emerged as a nahdawi writer outside of Protestant circles. While her contributions to the women’s Nahda have not been widely recognized, her work appeared frequently in Jurji Niqula Baz’s al-Hasna’ (The Beautiful), the first women’s magazine in Syria, which also featured the writings of Zakka’s younger Protestant contemporary Julia Tu‘ma, the Maronite author Labiba Hashim and the Jewish journalist Esther Muyal.50 Rujina Shukri was a graduate of the Beirut Female Seminary (later the American School for Girls)51 and a teacher who published one article in alNashra on education and two on child-rearing. Her first appeared in 1885, at a time when she had already begun writing for other Nahda journals, like

154  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE al-Muqtataf, the journal of the Syrian Protestant intellectuals Faris Nimr and Yaqub Sarruf in which she published a piece on household arrangement and décor (tartib al-bayt).52 Because of these activities, the mission periodical introduced her as a literary writer (adiba). Like Zakka, Shukri engaged in a long career as a Protestant schoolteacher. During the 1880s, she taught at the Beirut Female Seminary, and in 1912 she was still working for the American mission in one of the girls’ day schools in Dayr al-Qamar.53 ‘Aziza ‘Abbud and Salma Tannus Less information is available for other women who wrote for al-Nashra in the 1880s. ‘Aziza ‘Abbud composed an article for the mission periodical in 1886 when she was living in Hums.54 Like Zakka, ‘Abbud was a graduate of the Female Seminary in Sidon and a member of the Evangelical Church there. By 1905 she had emigrated to the United States, where she later died.55 Salma Tannus is also relatively unknown within studies on Arab women writers, but she has been identified as one of the earliest women to sign her name to an article published in al-Muqtataf in 1882.56 In a likely tribute to her accomplishments as a writer and orator, the Beirut Female Seminary invited Tannus, a graduate of the institution, to deliver an address at its anniversary gathering in 1887.57 She worked as a teacher in Tripoli in the early 1880s and then later for her alma mater in Beirut.58 Hanna Kurani In contrast to Tannus and ‘Abbud, the story of Hanna Kurani (1870–98) has been documented in a variety of sources. Kurani was the daughter of Habib and Marta Kasbani and a member of the Evangelical Church of Kfar Shima.59 The second of nine Kasbani children, she studied at the British Syrian Mission school in Shimlan and then at the American mission’s Beirut Female Seminary. After graduating in 1885, she taught at the American Girls’ School in Tripoli and then married the Syrian intellectual Amin Kurani in 1887. According to Joseph Zeidan, the marriage ended in divorce, a practice that was permitted under Islamic law but prohibited by the Middle Eastern church hierarchies that oversaw matters of civil law for Ottoman Christians. Nevertheless, divorces occurred with more frequency among Christian women writers and intellectuals, and the Syrian Evangelical Church

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  155 embraced Kurani as a member even after she separated from her husband.60 She was an author, translator and journalist who began writing for the AMP and nahdawi periodicals like Lisan al-Hal by the early 1890s.61 Kurani also served as a Sunday school teacher and lecturer for the Protestant community in Beirut. In one such address at the Beirut Church’s Sunday school hall, she spoke on the subject of “the need to raise up a national industry in Syria”—a frequent theme of the Nahda—before a crowd of listeners from all religious sects. Such accounts revealed that by the last decade of the nineteenth century it had become more acceptable for women to give public addresses, at least in some circles.62 Public lecturing for Kurani became a means of educating a wider audience not only in Syria, but also in the United States, where she toured on the lecture circuit and resided in New York after attending the Congresses held in the Women’s Building at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair (World’s Columbian Exposition). There she and her husband, Amin, prepared an exhibit of Syrian women’s embroidery. At the Congresses, she delivered a speech on the status of women in her homeland and read a translation of one of her earlier press articles, arguing that the wisdom and cultivation gained from education should be “the crown of glory and scepter of power for woman.”63 Kurani achieved such prominence in her talks for American women’s circles on Middle Eastern women and customs that the suffragist Francis Willard described her in a review of famous women as “A lecturer who belongs to no class, but is a class unto herself”; and Susan B. Anthony invited Kurani to address the 1894 convention of the National-American Woman Suffrage Association in Washington, DC.64 The American women Kurani met in Chicago, Washington, DC, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and New York were so taken with her that their reports were prone to exaggeration, lamenting the Ottoman government’s opposition to Kurani’s writings and asserting that Kurani was the first woman in Syria to write for newspapers, to publish a book, to take the speaker’s platform or to venture into public with her face unveiled—claims that earlier generations of Syrian women featured in this chapter might contest.65 It is unlikely that Kurani was writing articles at the age of ten, in 1880, when women began signing articles in al-Muqtataf, and this assertion certainly did not take into account the pieces women wrote for al-Jinan in the 1870s. Yet the claim attributed to Kurani,

156  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE that she submitted her first pieces anonymously was instructive because it indicated that her earliest writings appeared in nahdawi periodicals in the late 1880s and that other Syrian women may have published unsigned articles long before that.66 During her time in the United States, Kurani contracted tuberculosis, a disease that kept her confined to bed, except for a visit to Cairo, where one American journal reported that she “founded the first women’s club in that city.” She died at her home in Kfar Shima in 1898.67 Her obituary in al-Nashra commended both her literary activities and her evangelical faith, noting Kurani’s words to those who visited her while she was ill, “God is the Lord of kindness and beneficence and truly, in each command he creates good for those who love him.” On her deathbed, she thanked God for being near to her through her savior Jesus Christ and comforted her parents, saying, “I am ready to go anytime he calls me. Do not grieve, oh my dear parents, because I will be with my savior who is far better.”68 While these recorded statements matched the convictions Kurani expressed through her work as a Sunday school teacher and translator of evangelistic literature, such posthumous memorializations also aimed to shape the Syrian Evangelical community’s ideal of nahdawi Protestant womanhood. For fear of TB contamination, the Kasbani family burned Hanna’s papers and manuscripts along with her other belongings after her death. Thus, scholars know little about her literary works beyond the articles preserved in prominent journals.69 Her 1892 debates with the Muslim feminist Zaynab Fawwaz on the pages of the periodicals Lubnan and al-Nil have been documented.70 As for the work she published at the AMP, anthologies of Arab women writers note the title of her book, Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id (Manners and Customs, 1891) and three stories she translated. These manuscripts have not been the subject of scholarly analysis, perhaps because they were presumed lost.71 Kurani was in her early twenties when she wrote Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id, a short book that ended with glowing praise for the Ottoman Sultan ‘Abd alHamid II, who awarded her a medal for this work.72 While certain sections of the book revealed the author’s Protestant affiliation, it was a private publication printed at the AMP but not sponsored by the American mission or any other missionary society. Reflecting her wide audience of readers beyond the Protestant community in Syria, the Cairo-based journal al-Muqtataf printed

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  157 excerpts from two poems she wrote in Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id along with a brief commentary from the editors, to whom she had sent a copy of the full treatise.73 These poems, one printed on the front page of Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id and one in the conclusion, expressed Kurani’s intention to use her literary talents in the service of her country. It appears, however, that the preview of her work in al-Muqtataf was more widely preserved than the treatise itself. Shereen Khairallah, who translated these excerpted lines of poetry from the periodical, emphasized the poem’s value as one of the few remaining works by Kurani.74 My comparison of these translated verses from al-Muqtataf with the original manuscript of Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id held at NEST revealed an equally important segment from Kurani’s second poem that was not printed in the periodical. It read: I do not fear or flee from reproach Nor am I ashamed that I might chance upon revival But I do request your aid For my hope will never be fulfilled without you.75

These lines placed Kurani’s work in the genre of Nahda writing, while also indicating her intention to recruit other Syrians to join this cultural revival. The book itself aimed to introduce “the sons and daughters of the homeland” to the importance of good manners and customs, without which “it is impossible for any human being, even the most knowledgeable scholar, to be endeared and appreciated by others.”76 Kurani did not concentrate on cultural customs specific to Syria or to the West but turned her attention to the proper way of speaking and acting within society, which was a focus of wider nahdawi discourses.77 Later in this chapter I examine the section of her book on tarbiya, or child-rearing. As a writer and lecturer who gained prominence in the early 1890s, Kurani occupied a position between the first women writers of al-Nashra and a younger generation of Protestant nahdawi women like Julia Tu‘ma and Salma Badr, who published articles in the mission journal in the early twentieth century. Kurani was also representative of the thousands of Syrians of this later generation whose education and acquisition of English in mission schools facilitated a wave of transnational migration from Syria to North and South America around the turn of the century.78

158  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Julia Tu‘ma and Salma Badr Both Julia Jirji Tu‘ma al-Dimashqiyya (c. 1882–1955) and Salma Badr (b. 1883) were daughters of first-generation Syrian Protestant converts, and it is likely that they were influenced and inspired by the earlier writings of the Syrian Protestant women mentioned above.79 Julia Tu‘ma was born to a Greek Orthodox family in Mukhtara, in the Shuf Mountains of Lebanon.80 Like her aunt Liza Tu‘ma, who worked for decades as a Biblewoman with the missionary doctor Mary Pierson Eddy, Julia attended the American Girls’ School in Sidon, entering the boarding school at the age of ten.81 She later reflected on this move as a step toward achieving self-sufficiency as a woman, in contrast to her mother, who was subjugated by her domineering husband.82 Julia recalled in her memoirs: I was now ready to begin my life’s battle: I would stand alone without the help of any man, husband or brother; I would free my mother from her servitude. I would teach my brothers and sisters and free them too.83

In Sidon, Julia would also have encountered the schoolteacher Maryam Zakka, whose arguments about women’s education Julia echoed in her own work. After four years in Sidon, Julia moved to the Protestant school in Shwayfat, and upon graduating with her teacher’s diploma she spent two years teaching in Palestine. After her mother’s death she moved to her family’s new home in Brummana, taught at the British Quaker high school there and became an avid reader of al-Muqtataf, which would later publish her work. In subsequent decades, Julia began giving public addresses calling for reform through women’s education, and the leading periodicals printed a number of these. She delivered her first speech in Beirut in 1910 at a gathering to raise funds for a tuberculosis sanatorium.84 Soon afterwards, she became the first Christian woman to direct the Maqasid Islamic School for Girls in Beirut, and then in 1913 she married a prominent Beiruti Muslim, Badr al-Dimashqiyya. Because this was an interreligious marriage and Julia did not wear the veil, the couple could not live in Beirut’s Muslim quarter. They settled in the mixed neighborhood of Ras Beirut, near SPC, and from that point onward, Julia focused her attention on the Arab women’s movement.85 Between 1915 and 1925 she initiated a literary salon in her home, established

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  159 a woman’s association, published a magazine for children and founded one of the leading Lebanese women’s periodicals, al-Mar’a al-Jadida (The New Woman, est. 1921).86 It is perhaps because of Julia’s many achievements in the post-First World War period that scholars have overlooked her earlier involvement in the Syrian Protestant community and the first published expression of her thoughts: the article on women’s education that she wrote for al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya in 1905, which I explore below. Born around the same time as Tu‘ma, Salma Badr did not gain equal prominence as a Nahda writer. The short sermon that she composed and delivered in 1900 may be the only piece she ever published, and her name is not known today outside a small circle of relatives. Her story, reconstructed from family sources and immigration records, resembled that of other nahdawi Protestant women in the early twentieth century who learned English at mission schools and emigrated to the United States. As a student at the British Syrian Training College in Beirut, she made her profession of faith in 1899 and joined the Evangelical Church of Beirut.87 Her father, the Protestant preacher and teacher Antun Mikhail Badr (d. 1884), attended the American mission’s theological seminary in ‘Abay with his brother Yusif (1841–1912), who was one of the few pastors ordained by the Americans in the late nineteenth century.88 While studying in the British school, Salma would have attended prayer meetings and worship services led by women missionaries and Syrian Biblewomen. Thus, she had many role models in ministry to emulate as she delivered and published her sermon. Salma married Khattar Qiyami from Shwayr in 1901 and moved with him to Australia, where her daughter Salwa was born in 1905.89 Salma then returned to Syria after her daughter’s birth and worked for a brief period as a Biblewoman in Baalbek.90 According to members of the Qiyami family, Salma left her husband, and perhaps this was the reason for her return from Australia. Her work as a Biblewoman may have provided her a means of financial support during this period of transition as a single mother. In 1912, she emigrated to the United States with her daughter and three younger members of the Badr family.91 Salma made her residence in Brooklyn, obtained a divorce from Qiyami and in 1923 married a recent immigrant from Cairo, George Bazergui. She became a naturalized American citizen in 1932.92 While living in Brooklyn, it is likely that Salma joined the Syrian

160  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Protestant Church there, which was incorporated under New York City law in 1907.93 Her biography and her publication in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya demonstrated how Syrian women used their mission school educations to become published writers and to secure a means of independent support in Syria and abroad. Themes of the Women’s Nahda: Education and Child-rearing Already in the 1880s, three decades before Salma Badr moved to New York, al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya had begun to engage in nahdawi discussions of “women’s subjects.” In particular, writers of the Nahda frequently focused on women’s education and child-rearing. Articles and other publications of the AMP reflected Syrian Protestant women’s regular participation in such conversations. This section examines how nahdawi Protestant women advocated for the education of girls, proposed child-rearing practices and yet also reflected their own evangelical religiosity. Women’s Education and the Pursuit of Knowledge Among the authors who urged women to seek advancement by acquiring academic knowledge and skills in the domestic arts was Farida ‘Atiya, whose aforementioned novel, ‘Ilm al-Banat (1893), blended the principles of Protestant faith with the Nahda emphases on intellectual attainment, social progress, modernity, civilized manners and the value of essence over appearance. As such, I use this novel to frame my discussion of writings on education by five other women, Maryam Zakka, Julia Tu‘ma (al-Dimashqiyya), Salma Tannus, Rujina Shukri and Alice al-Bustani. ‘Atiya wrote ‘Ilm al-Banat in response to the American Syria Mission’s call for women readers of al-Nashra to compose a Christian story on the benefits of educating women. This novel received a prize from the Religious Tract Society, the London-based mission society that supported al-Nashra and other publications of the AMP. The society funded the publication of 2,000 copies in 1893, and the AMP issued a new edition of the novel in 1909.94 Its full Arabic title, Riwayat Bahjat al-Mukhaddarat fi Fawa’id ‘Ilm al-Banat, conveyed ‘Atiya’s meaning that Middle Eastern girls who had been kept in seclusion from the outside world would delight in the benefits of a modern education.95 She advanced this argument in the fictional account of

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  161 a young, cultured man named Adib who agreed, against his better judgment, to marry a woman named Hannah without meeting her in person before their wedding day.96 As one might expect from a fictional commentary on the state of Syrian society, Hannah was not what Adib had hoped for in a bride.97 Although she was beautiful in appearance and came from a wealthy family, Hannah’s mother followed what Adib characterized as the “outmoded and uncivilized” tradition of secluding her daughters in their home.98 This was not a commentary on Muslim practices in Syria, but rather on the tradition of women’s seclusion followed in Hannah’s Christian family. ‘Atiya conveyed that due to her isolation from modern society, Hannah was ignorant, poorly mannered, unwilling to learn anything new from her husband and so difficult to live with that it brought Adib to a state of emotional and physical collapse. Pressing her point, ‘Atiya depicted the illiterate, unwitting Hannah giving her husband a vial of deadly poison, which she had mistaken for one of the medicines the doctor prescribed for his illness. It was only through the intervention of Adib’s educated cousin Sa‘da that his life was spared. Sa‘da was also the instrument of Hannah’s eventual transformation, which occurred at the end of the novel in a chapter titled “The fruit of ignorance and the good angel.” As ‘Atiya described the misery that consumed Adib’s household while he struggled for his life, she advanced her argument about women’s education and also revealed the Christian intention of her novel. Sa‘da called the doctor, who labored for hours to save Adib’s life. When the physician finally emerged from the room, he showed Hannah, Sa‘da, Adib’s sister and Adib’s mother (Umm Adib) the vial of poison and explained that if Sa‘da (the good angel) had not sent for him as soon as she did, Adib would have died. While the other women rejoiced at the news of Adib’s recovery, Hannah promptly fainted, and when she woke, revealed in her monologue the depth of her ignorance: How miserable I am! How foolish I am! How wretched! I have earned the result of refusing Adib’s useful instruction. I have received the penalty for my wickedness and anger. Oh, kill me. Kill me! Don’t let me live, friends and loved ones. I nearly murdered Adib with my hands … I am stupid,

162  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE ignorant, and lack knowledge. I had to give him the medicine when Sa‘da was absent, and I didn’t know how to read the names of the medication. So I thought this small bottle was the one to give to him. Because of my ignorance of reading I poured it in the cup with the other medicines and I handed it to him and he drank.99

This revelation astounded Hannah’s listeners, and the doctor proclaimed that these unfortunate events were the “fruit of ignorance.” At this point, ‘Atiya emphasized, all who were present “truly appreciated the necessity of educating girls, and they learned how beneficial it was.”100 Hannah’s distress was so complete that while Adib was still recovering, she fell into a violent sickness and miscarried their unborn son. Yet by the end of the chapter, the “good angel” had brought blessings to the household again. Some weeks later, Adib emerged from his room, finally cured from the effects of the poison, and was greeted by a visibly changed Hannah, who said meekly to her husband: Please, my dear, forgive me. Do not mention my insult toward you and my ignorance and cruelty. From now on I am determined to live for God and for you, doing what satisfies God and you. And I will make amends with Umm Adib and please her because I have been born anew. God has forgiven me because I have been asking for his forgiveness for a month and I repented to him. I poured my tears out in front of him, and he has accepted, loved and blessed me as a lost sheep that was found or as a son who was dead but then came alive again. So please forgive me as God did.101

These touching words rendered Adib speechless. He did not ask what caused this great reversal in her behavior, although the Protestant language of spiritual rebirth and echoes of New Testament parables likely gave him clues.102 Only later did Hannah tell him that Sa‘da had visited her during her sickness, read the Bible to her and prayed with her. In so doing, Hannah disclosed the nature of her transformation, in effect describing a Protestant conversion comparable to those of Layyah Barakat and the Bible-reading men in Chapter 1. Hannah recounted spending her days in tears at first, believing that God would never accept her but would punish her for what she had done to Adib. However, Sa‘da assured her that Adib would recover, and she taught the

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  163 young wife how to pray. Then, Hannah explained, “I prayed eagerly, and God heard me and sent comfort and rest to my heart. God accepted me and blessed me, and here I am as you see me.”103 While Hannah’s spiritual life and personal mannerisms had been transformed, she still remained uneducated; she had become Protestant, but was not yet a woman of the Nahda. In contrast to the stories of Syrian Protestant men like As‘ad al-Shidyaq, Salim Kassab and Nassim al-Hilu, Hannah’s education came after her conversion. ‘Atiya’s concluding chapter depicted Hannah studying diligently with Adib. He taught her how to read and write so that she soon excelled in Arabic composition and could read any subject that interested her. From her mother-in-law, Hannah learned how to manage the home, and from Sa‘da she acquired domestic arts like sewing and weaving, emphases that ‘Atiya had likely encountered through her missionary education and in al-Muqtataf  ’s column on tadbir al-manzil.104 Hannah became known in the community for her gentleness and refinement, her beauty increased and her face glowed with knowledge. In this way, ‘Atiya explained, “God blessed her diligence and crowned it with success.”105 The book closed with a dinner party Hannah held to mark the year that had passed since her “new birth.”106 During the gathering she stood and addressed her guests, impressing them with her eloquence of speech and refined manners and urging them to spend all their resources and effort in educating their daughters, for the sake of their families and the coming generation.107 Thus, Hannah performed her nahdawi Protestant womanhood in the intimate space of the home. This final act blurred public and private spheres and revealed ‘Atiya’s view that faith and nahdawi values could be intertwined.108 Like Farida ‘Atiya, the women who wrote for al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya on the topic of education drew upon their experience as mission schoolteachers and used the AMP to expand their instruction beyond the regular classroom, aiming perhaps to reach women like the fictional Hannah, who did not have the benefit of a formal education. Maryam Zakka’s 1887 article in al-Nashra titled “Diligence and Perseverance” may have been the first of her career. It treated the same theme as ‘Atiya’s novel as it advocated for families to support women’s education and urged women to work diligently, as Hannah did, for self-improvement. The article, however, also revealed Zakka’s perspective as an activist seeking social change by and for women. She extolled the virtues

164  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE of diligence (jidd) and perseverance (ijtihad) as key to the success of nations and as the means through which Syrian women might elevate themselves to their full potential, following the example of women in the West who “kept pace with men in the field of science.” In response to those Syrians who might claim women had only “half a brain,” Zakka asserted that both women and men were created in God’s image and possessed equal intellectual capacity. Since innate ability did not prevent women’s advancement, she argued, if men were to see in the faces of women “the attributes of progress and diligence and a yearning for science,” they would extend their hands to help. Zakka charged Syrian women with the responsibility of proving their “mockers” wrong through their actions as she urged them, “Let us strip off our robe of indolence, put on the garment of diligence, pick up the pearls of knowledge and adorn ourselves with the jewelry of literature.”109 At the same time, like ‘Atiya, Zakka critiqued the wrongful beliefs and practices of those who would prevent women from developing their God-given abilities. She aimed to convince her male readers that it was only natural to support women in such endeavors, asking rhetorically, “What father would not want to see his daughter enter the gate of civilization?”110 Whether because of their own indolence or the lack of support from family members, in Zakka’s opinion too few women in her country had attained the desired level of enlightenment. She believed that in comparison with women in the West, the “daughters of the lovelier sex in the East” remained in a state of deep deterioration. In order to avoid “sinking in a sea of inaction,” she urged women to turn to schools as a means toward their success in an era of “progress and civilization under the banner of our illustrious Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid.”111 Spurring her fellow Syrian women to action, she then adopted military language as she concluded, “Let us gird ourselves with the sword of perseverance, cut down before us the uselessness of foolishness and indolence, and drink from the hot spring of pure knowledge.” Thus, with imagery reminiscent of the “armor of God” in the book of Ephesians, Zakka contrasted nahdawi ideals of civilization and enlightenment with backwardness and stagnation.112 Zakka’s contemporaries, Salma Tannus and Rujina Shukri, also advocated for such diligent perseverance by urging women to continue the pursuit of knowledge even after completing their formal education. Both women

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  165 published speeches in al-Nashra that they delivered, one year apart, at the Beirut Female Seminary, reflecting on the socio-cultural changes in Syria during a period when Beirut was becoming the site of numerous modern educational institutions, many of them for girls.113 In her address at the seminary’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration in 1887, Tannus spoke on the topic of “a praiseworthy return” and emphasized the role that the school had played in her own life and the lives of former students, many of whom were in the audience. She described the sense of homesickness to return to the place where they might again drink “the waters of pure knowledge and manners (al-‘ulum wa-l-akhlaq).” Such a return home, she noted, was praiseworthy and beneficial for all who gathered before her. Tannus indicated that she and her fellow graduates, among the first to depart from that “lofty home,” came back from dispersed countries in the East and West “to greet our old home, see our teachers and schoolmates who are still here, and shed tears of sorrow and grief for love of those who have left here and for those who have gone on to their everlasting home.”114 Beyond recognizing the impact of the school, she also advised her listeners that they should now continue the learning—of various subjects including mathematics, literature, fine arts and music—that they had begun during their school years in order to fulfill their familial and social duties. She reminded her listeners: Each one of us has a specific duty: a married woman to her husband and children, a teacher to the students, a daughter to her parents and brothers. And all of us have duties toward our country and homeland. The more we learn, the more we see how many other things we have not learned. We have only collected small drops of knowledge (al-ma‘ruf  ) from the wide ocean of science (al-‘ulum), and even in a lifetime we may not possess all of its knowledge.115

In this statement, Tannus made explicit the connection between a woman’s acquisition of knowledge and her influence upon the home and society. While she allowed room for all women—including those who remained single—to serve their country, many of her listeners would have fulfilled multiple roles at once, as they became wives, mothers and teachers after graduating from the seminary. Yet each of them, she claimed, possessed beneficial knowledge from their schooling that they ought to put to good use

166  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE rather than keeping it hidden. Such inactivity would provide a poor model for the seminary graduates coming after them and would “confirm the views of critics who dare to believe that we have no right to be equal with men in intellect.” She urged the women in the audience therefore to wield the twin weapons of endurance (al-thubat) and unity (al-ittihad), supporting one another while endeavoring to benefit Syria “by producing books and other works, or at least useful translations.” At the end of her talk, Tannus saluted Beirut as a city of learning, and indicated her religious sensibilities with a lengthy prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God for the seminary and for lifting its graduates “from river beds to this level of freedom and knowledge.”116 She then recited an original poem about the school that echoed her nahdawi emphasis on the pursuit of knowledge while indicating its religious dimension. The concluding lines read: The dawn of knowledge appeared here, and the night of ignorance turned away. Come, and enter the Garden of Eden, for the building of knowledge is wide. The treasure of knowledge is like the sea; its water is pure and of sweet taste. All the treasures of this earth vanish, but this treasure of knowledge is eternal.117

During the next commencement ceremony at the Beirut Female Seminary, Rujina Shukri similarly exhorted her listeners to continue their educational advancement. Shukri chose “The Necessity of Libraries” as the topic of her address, a subject that she identified as one of the most “fitting to the present state of our country.”118 While she did not echo Zakka’s concern for the degraded state of women in her society, Shukri described Syrians as a whole as existing in a state of “heavy sleep.”119 The problem, in her view, was not the absence of educational opportunities, but the lack of interest in owning and reading books. Although students studied various subjects in school, Shukri explained, they did not make reading a part of their lives outside their formal studies or after graduation. For this reason, she advised parents to take the responsibility for their children’s broader education by creating small libraries in the home.120

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  167 Shukri displayed the knowledge that she acquired from books as she recounted the story of the great libraries in history, many of them in the Islamic world. She also rehearsed a familiar Nahda theme as she pointed to the past greatness of Arab-Islamic civilization. The key for contemporary Syrians, Shukri argued, was to build upon this “root of knowledge and civilization” within their own history and turn to books, where they would find a friend, companion and guide “leading them on the straight path.”121 While noting that the introduction of the printing press had made many important texts affordable, Shukri described the Bible as “the most useful, finest, and best of books.” She explained: [The Bible] is the one friend and companion to people of all backgrounds, whether young or old, who are suffering under various hardships. In it we also find condolence and comfort, and through it, speaks the One who is higher and more exalted than all tribes and people upon the face of the earth.122

Assuring her Syrian audience that success was within their grasp, Shukri then praised God for the missionary schools that provided Syrians with the foundation for social and intellectual transformation. She concluded by appealing to her listeners to exhibit patriotic fervor for their country.123 Thus, she combined an evangelical view of biblical faith, Protestant ideals of educational progress, and the Nahda emphasis on Syrian patriotism to support her argument for the unceasing pursuit of knowledge through reading. While Shukri, Tannus and Zakka were in the first generation of nahdawi women to publish in al-Nashra in the 1880s, Julia Tu‘ma wrote her article on “The Relation of the Educated Woman to her Homeland” in 1905, at the beginning of her career.124 This piece displayed a firm confidence in the cause of women’s education as Tu‘ma lamented that her Syrian sisters copied European women’s fashions without also following their example to become scientists, astronomers, doctors and athletes. While she did not object to Western attire, she claimed that such adornments held no value if the mind was not also educated. Like other nahdawi discourses on the elements of fashion, Tu‘ma considered excessive adornments to be wasteful and a misleading measure of status. In her view, Syrian women should not be “content with an outer display that lacks inner essence, like a shell without a core.”125 Here,

168  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE like ‘Atiya in her description of the ignorant-but-beautiful Hannah, Tu‘ma contrasted appearance with interiority, a theme she would revisit in other journals of the Nahda.126 Building upon the legacy of earlier women writers in al-Nashra, Tu‘ma’s argument in the early twentieth century differed from theirs in one regard: she recognized that her society was in the midst of a great revival, that the condition of women had improved and that many of them had acquired an education. While Shukri advocated reading for personal edification and as an extension of one’s formal education, Tu‘ma maintained that women who embraced education should actively use their knowledge to improve their communities.127 A woman’s life practices, rather than her written diploma, should be the testimony of her educational attainment. With this in mind, Tu‘ma addressed her women readers in words strikingly reminiscent of Zakka’s activist language in 1887, saying, “put on the necklaces of thought, read the newspapers, adorn yourselves with the jewels of your knowledge, and maybe we will reach the goal of serving our beloved country.”128 In teaching at the Maqasid School, marrying a Muslim and opening her salon to intellectuals of all religious sects, Tu‘ma did not actively aim to convert others to her Protestant faith, although her advocacy for women took on a missionary zeal. Like the other women who wrote for al-Nashra, however, her faith and Protestant upbringing were interwoven into the women’s reforms that she advocated in the spirit of the Nahda, as demonstrated in her 1905 article. Playing on the Arabic word shahada, which could mean a religious or legal testimony as well as a certification of graduation, Tu‘ma advised her women readers, “We ought to be living testimonies to the results of genuine education and true modernization.”129 Then, with a paraphrase of the Gospel of Luke (6:44), she continued, “For we know a tree by its fruit.”130 Employing the biblical image of those who need deliverance from the “sinking mire” (cf. Psalm 69:2, 14), Tu‘ma claimed that many educated women who thought they had been formed from the “perfect clay” were in fact among the “miry sludge.”131 They had reached this state, Tu‘ma declared, because they had squandered their talents by giving attention to frivolous fashion magazines and romance novels rather than scientific and literary publications or magazines on household management. Alluding again to biblical imagery, she continued:

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  169 We waste much of the talents that were given to us, and we suffocate the seeds of true education and religion with the thorns of neglectfulness. Instead of being useful to our homeland and the cornerstones in building the new temple of progress (haykal al-taqaddum al-jadid ), we become a catastrophe for the country, the home, and the family.132

With this final assessment of the state of women in her country, Tu‘ma alluded to the biblical parable about those who stifle the seeds of the gospel (Matthew 13:1–9 and 18–23).133 She also recalled the parable of the talents (a unit of currency) about an anxious man who buried his money, wasting it rather than increasing his wealth through investment (Matthew 25:14–30). While the view of women as the foundation of the nation was common in the Arab women’s movement, Tu‘ma’s reference to the cornerstone and temple evoked the vision of Jesus Christ as the foundation and his followers as the stones that build the church.134 Like these teachings from the New Testament, each of Tu‘ma’s statements signified that a person’s life should bear fruit. With such words, she strove to put her beliefs into practice and to promote socio-cultural change, uniting nahdawi values with Protestant religiosity, like many of the pioneers of the women’s awakening who had come before her. Tarbiya Literature: Bringing up the Syrian Nation The subject of women’s education was strongly tied to a second theme that nahdawi women addressed in their writing: raising a child well (al-tarbiya al-hasana). The following examples from three such authors demonstrate how Syrian Protestant women engaged this Nahda refrain, linking civilizational progress to an educated woman’s work in the home in a way that resonated with their evangelical faith. In so doing, they advanced what would become a separate genre of nahdawi discussions on women in Syria, Egypt and throughout the Ottoman Arab world.135 Rujina Shukri, who authored the 1888 article on “The Necessity of Libraries,” addressed the subject of child-rearing in her first publication in al-Nashra in 1885, and revisited this theme in her address at the 1899 commencement of the Beirut Female Seminary.136 In the first of these two pieces of tarbiya literature, Shukri took the same position as ‘Atiya

170  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE and emphasized the influence that mothers have upon their children, saying: Good discipline, the forming of manners, and training in virtue all depend upon mothers because they are the ones who accompany their children from the time that they are infants, walking with them either along the straight path or toward the way of delusion.137

Those who had attained success as scholars and world leaders, she argued, should give credit to God and to their mothers, who prepared them for greatness as “their bodies grew from breastfeeding and their minds grew from their soul’s feeding.” Making explicit the connection between a mother’s education and the children’s upbringing, Shukri continued, “This makes it clear for us how very necessary it is to teach and discipline women.”138 Besides knowing how to raise well-mannered children, mothers should also be able to teach them the essentials of the Christian faith. Such instruction should be given, she noted, even before the children begin their formal education, as their behavior and level of diligence in school would reflect either positively or negatively upon their mother. Shukri was concerned not only with the mother’s social reputation, but with the spiritual salvation of both the child and the mother, as “God will ask her about the souls of her children on the day of judgment.”139 Thus, like missionary women who worried that they had not done enough to ensure their children’s conversions, Shukri held that it was the responsibility of mothers to pass on their religion to their children.140 She represented the practices of Syrian Protestant families as similar to those middle-class families in Antebellum America, where work took the fathers outside the household and the duty of a child’s spiritual instruction fell to the mother.141 It was only in her closing words that Shukri directly mentioned the role of the father, indicating some sharing of parental responsibilities: I ask God to enlighten mothers and fathers so they will pay attention to the responsibility on their shoulders to guide their children to the best of their ability by disciplining and training them. In the name of his beloved son, our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, Amen.142

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  171 As in all of the articles she published in al-Nashra, Shukri signaled her faith by concluding with a prayer; she called upon the name of Christ and upheld the uniquely Protestant emphasis on the mother’s role in the salvation of her children. In comparison with her first piece on child-rearing, Shukri’s 1899 address was less explicitly Protestant, as she delivered it in front of a mixed audience of men and women at the Beirut Female Seminary, where listeners would have represented a variety of Syria’s religious sects. Speaking from the knowledge that she had “harvested” from her career as a teacher, she took the commencement address as an opportunity to educate parents on the proper way of raising their children.143 Throughout the article, Shukri sought to convince parents of her views, pressing them to acknowledge two critical points. First, she argued that it was the duty of both parents together to provide their children with a good upbringing even before they entered school.144 Shukri voiced regret that many parents neglected this work out of ignorance or because of the false belief that “child-rearing is not on the shoulders of the parents, but on the teachers of the schools,” whereas, she insisted, a child’s upbringing must begin in infancy, while “being nourished by his mother’s milk.”145 According to Shukri, only during this mentally pliable early period could obedience and honesty be imprinted upon a child’s nature like a seal in hot wax or “an engraving on a stone,” in this echoing Alice al-Bustani’s words that we shall consider below.146 Second, Shukri emphasized this work as primarily the mother’s duty in order to advance her broader argument for women’s education. She reiterated the claim from her 1885 article that mothers were responsible to God for how well they brought up their children, and noted that children learn to imitate their mother’s manners and virtues.147 Then she emphasized the connection between a mother’s education and child-rearing: A mother is the one God has prepared for this work of bringing up the child, and the happiness or misery of the children depends upon her. From her, the child takes strength and wisdom, so neglecting the education of girls is one of the most harmful things for humankind.148

In order to uphold this statement, Shukri offered counter-arguments to two possible objections that parents might make against investing in their

172  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE daughters’ education. In response to the view that the education of women would be of no benefit because women could not find employment in government jobs or have the same careers as men, she replied, “It is more than enough that they would be useful in their homes, beneficial for their husbands, children, and everyone around them, and bring up a generation on the basis of love, virtue, and honesty.”149 Because men relied on their wives to raise the children, she contended, the results of the work of an ignorant mother would be apparent in their children’s poor behavior, even if the father was an upstanding, educated man. This resonated with ‘Atiya’s novel, in which, despite the nobility of her father, Hannah was like her uneducated mother.150 Shukri closed her piece by refuting the belief that if young women were wealthy and beautiful enough, it would be unnecessary to educate them. Her argument indicated that a woman’s status and reputation would ultimately depend upon the way she spoke and acted: Let us suppose one of the uneducated girls is so beautiful that everyone who sees her is attracted to her at first. Then when she opens her mouth, she speaks in a harsh and witless way, revealing that she is empty of gentleness and kindness and full of pride. She is so immature and ignorant that if asked about America, she would reply, “Is America a woman or a man?” And if questioned about Paris, she would answer, “Is this a mountain or a river?” This happens because she is uneducated. At the same time, another daughter comes forward who has less beauty than the first. She may be more ugly than pretty, but she smiles respectably, bows her head in shyness, and talks in a low voice with speech full of gentleness and politeness. She is educated, and if you ask her about something she will respond with the correct answer. The first impression you had will therefore change, and another impression will be produced. Thus, education is the real beauty, not the apparent beauty.151

This passage conveyed Shukri’s underlying presuppositions and her aim of undermining what she viewed as an outmoded way of evaluating a woman’s worth. Drawing on the contrast between appearance and inner essence evoked in ‘Atiya’s novel and in other nahdawi texts like Tu’ma’s, Shukri emphasized the distinction between merely beautiful and truly cultivated women. Wealth

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  173 and beauty represented the qualities that a prospective husband would likely seek in a wife, as was the case in ‘Atiya’s novel.152 Both ‘Atiya and Shukri indicated that if men were given the chance to hear their prospective brides speak, they would reject uneducated women and look elsewhere for a more refined wife. While in ‘Atiya’s story the happiness of the household centered upon the knowledge and manners of the wife, Shukri took this argument beyond the home as she concluded that “the modernization of the whole earth depends upon educating [women].”153 In another example of Protestant tarbiya literature, Hanna Kurani covered the topic of child-rearing in her 1891 book al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id, including it among the factors that could improve an individual’s social manners. Kurani opened her section titled al-tarbiya al-hasana with a quotation from Proverbs 22:6, “Raise a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (NRSV). Like Shukri’s 1885 text, Kurani’s discussion began with the psychology of early childhood development. Although she was more willing than Shukri to admit that no matter what their parents were like, some children were naturally “decorated with the gems” of kindness, gentleness and generosity, Kurani insisted that such occurrences were irregular.154 Rather, most people developed distinguished manners if their parents were of noble character and disciplined their children at a young age. This way, “good manners are imbedded in their consciousness,” so that later on, even the greatest forces of wickedness could not uproot the seeds that the parents had planted.155 In Kurani’s view, then, a good upbringing was the basis for producing “great honorable men and favorable generous women.”156 Kurani followed Shukri in assigning a spiritual value to child-rearing, but al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id did not designate the mother or the father as being primarily responsible for bringing up the children. Rather, in Kurani’s view, God placed the responsibility for raising and disciplining children “upon the shoulders of parents and teachers” together.157 She contended that only the ignorant and foolish would neglect this God-given duty. The most honorable impact that parents could leave in this world, she wrote, was their good influence upon their children, for which they would receive a reward and blessing. Therefore, “Parents, especially, should pay much attention to this task and bring their children up with good and honorable manners.”158 With these words, Kurani asserted that a good upbringing was one of the most

174  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE significant means of helping a child to acquire the sort of manners and characteristics that could bring richness “even if he is poor, and will elevate him in the world and reward him far more than a prince who lacks such virtues.”159 The final Syrian Protestant woman to publish tarbiya literature in alNashra was the novelist Alice al-Bustani. Her text was the address she gave in April 1894 at an event commemorating the establishment of the American mission’s school for girls in Beirut, which her mother, Rahil ‘Ata’ al-Bustani (1826–94), attended in the 1830s (see Figure 15, above).160 In memory of Rahil, who had died only two months earlier, the missionaries invited Alice to speak to the crowd of 900 mission schoolchildren and hundreds of adults on the subject of “the influence of an educated Christian mother upon her children.”161 While Alice did not mention her mother in the course of the speech, the model of Protestant motherhood that she espoused fit with the descriptions that missionaries and Syrian writers of the time gave of Rahil al-Bustani’s character.162 Alice’s views on the proper upbringing also matched those of Shukri and Kurani, whose earlier publications she may have had in mind as she opened her speech with the acknowledgment that in recent years the important topic of tarbiya had become “a field of research for notable men and women writers.”163 Alice determined that the few words she would contribute on this topic would be like “leftovers” compared with this existing literature. Indeed, al-Bustani’s speech was notable not so much for the new ideas it expressed as for its demonstration of Syrian Protestant women’s ongoing engagement with the nahdawi subjects of education and child-rearing. She connected these two themes when she stated, “The home is the first, and most important, school for the child.”164 Following both Shukri and Kurani, she underscored the sensitivity and impressionability of young children and portrayed them, in imagery that evoked the literary production of the Nahda, as “pure, like white paper ready to be printed.” Then al-Bustani quoted an Arabic saying that education during childhood was like “an engraving on a stone.”165 This approach to child-rearing resembled Kurani’s interpretation of Proverbs 22:6, showing confidence that a child who was brought up well would not stray from truth and virtue during adulthood. While focusing less on the need for women to be educated in order to better raise their children, al-Bustani implied this ultimate aim in her description of the ways

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  175 that children imitated their mothers’ speech and behavior. She then assured worried mothers that even though it might appear at first that their efforts had been in vain, the result of their labors would be apparent once their children reached adulthood.166 Al-Bustani was asked to speak about a Christian mother’s role, but she also recognized a father’s influence on his children. She indicated, for example, that a child would pick up the “manners of those who are around him in the home.” She also noted that if children developed vices and bad manners, people would blame “the teachings of the parents.” She added, however, that observers would focus most upon the mother and the principles she transmitted to the child, since mothers spent more of their time raising the children.167 In a statement that would surely have brought to mind the death of her mother earlier that year, al-Bustani summed up her view of the mother and father’s separate roles in a family, saying: The impact of the Christian mother does not die with her death, but it lives on from one generation to another. After she is gone, her children will rise up and bless her because she was a blessing for them. The mother’s influence is greater than the influence of the father, as the children are not always able to see their father as much as they see their mother, due to his absence from the home on account of his work. In this case she is the mistress and manager of the house, and the absolute authority in it. Those under her charge take her as a model for their actions and behavior.168

At that point al-Bustani emphasized again the importance of the home, this time drawing on the theme of tadbir al-manzil. She also reflected view—of ‘Atiya, Shukri and others—that women were a “litmus test” for judging Syria’s civilizational progress.169 Indicating varying opinions in the press on the impact of educated women, al-Bustani acknowledged that some had exaggerated the significance of mothers. Yet she agreed that even if women did not gain as much fame in philosophy, poetry or science, their influence upon the modernization of the world would surpass that of men “because children are raised and educated in [the mother’s] embrace.”170 After thus identifying educated Syrian women as mothers of modernity, al-Bustani proclaimed, “May God have mercy upon the person who said, ‘She who rocks the cradle with her right hand moves the earth with her left.’”171 This familiar maxim

176  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE was often repeated in the Nahda but wrongly attributed to Alice al-Bustani’s father Butrus or her brother Salim, both of whom had used it in their own writings.172 While such statements applied to all mothers, and not just to Christians, as she concluded her speech Alice al-Bustani turned to her view of Protestant motherhood, describing the proper Christian upbringing, which would produce well-behaved, humble and courteous children who were also “instilled with piety, morals, and love for God, neighbor, and country.” Such individuals, al-Bustani contended, were a mother’s best gift to her homeland, as they would be a blessing to themselves, to their friends and families and to the entire world. This reference to her country’s future prospects led al-Bustani to conclude with a prayer for God’s protection over the sultan and an affirmation that all she had spoken of might become a reality for women under ‘Abd al-Hamid’s reign.173 Echoing her father’s words of patriotism, Alice alBustani thereby wove together Ottoman loyalty and Protestant sensibilities in her nahdawi discourse on the place of women, education, child-rearing and the home in the advancement of a modern Syrian homeland. Pioneers of the Protestant Women’s Nahda The articles, novels, treatises and poems published at the AMP in Beirut in the late nineteenth century revealed Syrian Protestant women’s full participation in the intellectual movements of the Nahda. Moreover, as the pioneers of the evangelical women’s renaissance in the 1880s, Protestants like Rujina Shukri, Maryam Zakka and Salma Tannus foreshadowed the Arab women’s social and literary movements that emerged around the turn of the century in Syria and Egypt. While writing for al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya was the primary way that some Protestant women contributed to the literary production of the Nahda, most of the writers examined here went on to publish in widely read Arab women’s magazines or in well-known journals headed by male intellectuals. For some, like Tu‘ma and ‘Atiya, work for the AMP became an entry point into careers as journalists, novelists and activists. Hanna Kurani, however, died at the beginning of a promising career in writing and public speaking. Her obituary in al-Nashra and her treatise on Manners and Customs, both published and preserved by the American mission, are the most substantive primary sources available today on her life and work. The

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  177 value in examining the compositions of such nahdawi Protestant women is therefore apparent for contemporary scholarship on Arab women writers of the Nahda and for the study of Syrian Protestant history. Like other nahdawi women, these Syrian Protestants wrote not only for the benefit of other women but for male readers as well, as the Syria Mission did not follow the practice of other missions in the region and publish a journal specifically for women.174 Some writers, like Maryam Zakka, used their discussions on “women’s subjects” to pressure Syrian men to support women’s education. Others, like Rujina Shukri, chose to cover universal topics, such as the owning of books and the reading of the Bible. By addressing the crowd at the Beirut Female Seminary commencement and later publishing her speech, Shukri moved beyond her regular audience of girls’ mission school pupils and aimed to influence a wider community of men and women from a variety of religious backgrounds. Kurani sought to do the same in her treatise, which devoted only a few paragraphs to the subject of women’s intellectual capacities.175 Affirming that women should be measured by their wisdom and manners, she also boldly offered advice for men in their social affairs and critiqued the long-winded preaching of Protestant pastors.176 These women joined the ranks of the male intellectuals in their communities and advocated for the rights of women, but as a whole they did not espouse radical feminism. Rather, they upheld similar views of gender roles as their American and British Protestant contemporaries, who believed that the function of women’s education was to produce good Christian wives, mothers and daughters. Indeed, as these Syrian Protestants treated Nahda themes like education and child-rearing, their expressions of evangelical faith emerged most clearly in their discussions on the ideal wife and mother. In ‘Atiya’s novel, prayer and Bible study were the instruments of Hannah’s transformation into the type of refined and gentle-mannered woman whom Adib had always hoped to marry. For Shukri, a mother’s worldly success was measured by the behavior of her children, and she would earn either a blessing or a punishment from God for the way that she had raised them. While such justifications may have been necessary to convince Syrian readers and listeners to support women’s education, perhaps inadvertently these explanations also sustained the same sort of patriarchal power structure that made

178  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Arabic publishing the domain of men and prompted some Arab women to write under pseudonyms to avoid scrutiny. Beyond these Protestant conceptions of feminine piety, some scholars have noted that Syrians who attended American and British schools also adopted Western Protestantism’s cultural trappings. Jean Said Makdisi provided a vivid description of how her grandmother Munira Badr Musa (daughter of Syrian Evangelical Church pastor Yusif Badr) was educated at Protestant mission schools in Syria and this shaped her ways of speaking, dressing, maintaining her home and enforcing table manners. Makdisi contrasted Munira to her sister Melia, who attended the same schools, but stubbornly “kept up the old customs, sang the old songs and ate the old foods.”177 The Protestant lifestyle in Syria included ways of ordering daily life, as well as the embodiment of “Puritan virtues of temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, etc.”178 Nahdawi Protestant women made reference to European fashions and emphasized the values of diligence, perseverance, proper manners and eloquence of speech. They also extolled Western women as models and characterized Arab women as ignorant and indolent, and the wider Syrian society as “sinking in a sea of inaction,”179 existing in an intellectual state of “heavy sleep,”180 and persisting in “outmoded and uncivilized” practices.181 Might these writers be subject to the same critique as other Arab Protestant intellectuals who have been described as Westernized and self-Orientalizing?182 The women of the AMP embraced and promoted their own versions of Protestant modernity, yet their assessments of Syrian society also fit with the ethos of the Arab renaissance as espoused by intellectuals outside the Syrian Protestant community who strove to demonstrate their own cultural authenticity when accused of embracing ifranji (foreign) ideals.183 The religiously diverse women of the Syrian Nahda included the Shi‘a feminist Zaynab Fawwaz, who argued for a woman’s right to pursue any male profession, including politics.184 This feminist stance prompted Fawwaz’s 1892 debate with Hanna Kurani, who then upheld the viewpoint that the participation of women in politics was contrary to their God-ordained function.185 Although the two women voiced sharp disagreements on the pages of the press, this reflected the vibrancy of Nahda debates and the diversity of opinions that journal editors encouraged in order to draw in readers, rather

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  179 than any religious rivalry. Fawwaz invited Kurani to contribute to her book, al-Durr al-manthur fi tabaqat rabbat al-khudur (Scattered Pearls Concerning the Classes of Cloistered Ladies), a biographical dictionary of Arab women. The two were also among the group of Syrian women invited to attend the World Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893.186 The Jewish journalist Esther Muyal, who joined Kurani in the women’s delegation to Chicago, was also a notable participant in nahdawi women’s activism and a contributor to Fawwaz’s biographical dictionary. She delivered a speech at the Beirut Female Seminary arguing that her young women listeners should take the initiative to create a modern Syria in which men and women were equal partners. The Jewish woman then upheld this charge not with a quotation from the Hebrew Bible but with a Qur’anic verse saying, “God does not change a people’s status until they change their own disposition.”187 Kurani, likewise, exhibited her familiarity with the Qur’an when reading and translating from it for women’s groups during her visit to the United States. Perhaps she had Fawwaz in mind when she stated to the World’s Congress of Representative Women that despite their seclusion, Muslim women in Syria had caught “a glimpse of modern enlightenment” and many of them were well educated and devoted to literary pursuits.188 Indicating the permeability of religious boundaries for Syrian nahdawi women of the period, Protestant women likewise balanced their new vision for modern Syrian womanhood with a respect for Arab-Islamic cultural traditions and for the modernizing reforms the Ottoman administration undertook in the nineteenth century. ‘Atiya cited the wisdom of an ‘Abbasid leader in medieval Baghdad in her published sermon,189 Kurani praised Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid II and sent her manuscript on Manners and Customs to him as a sign of her commitment to Ottomanism,190 and Shukri framed her argument for the creation of household libraries with a discussion of the impressive libraries of the ‘Abbasid caliphs and of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II.191 To apply the words of Matthew Engelke with regard to African Christianity, this “realignment” with an ancient cultural past allowed nahdawi women to articulate an authentically Syrian Protestant identity, while justifying their critique of contemporary Syrian society.192 Given the backlash some Syrian women faced as they attempted to move into the masculine sphere of Arabic literary production, the harsh critiques of Syrian society that nahdawi women

180  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE used in their lectures and articles may have been a strategy to make their voices heard. It is in this sense that Syrian Protestant women’s writing and publishing in the mid- to late nineteenth century became a subversive activity that subtly upset social norms. It was also, perhaps, to surmount the barriers to women’s journalism that nahdawi women turned to the AMP. While the American missionaries upheld their own gendered hierarchy of religious and administrative authority, they nevertheless viewed the writing of Syrian women as a means of supporting the mission’s evangelistic and social aims. The literary activities of Syrian Protestant women at the AMP challenged traditional views of writing as a masculine domain beginning in the 1880s, when it was rare to find women’s articles in nahdawi periodicals and some men still questioned whether women could or should write at all. Publishing for a periodical that was read primarily by Syrian Protestants and mission school pupils may have shielded them from reproach. At the same time, their articulations about women’s issues did not go beyond what was acceptable in the eyes of their missionary editors and the Protestant reading public. For example, when writing in Nahda journals, Kurani took issue with Zaynab Fawwaz’s support of women entering politics.193 In Manners and Customs, she avoided statements that might have indicated a radical transgression of gender norms, abbreviating her treatment of women’s contributions to society, saying, “I do not want to explain this at length or else I will be accused of what I am innocent from and attacked with [allegations] I don’t deserve.”194 In her talk at the Women’s Congress Kurani upheld the argument, also expressed in her debate with Fawwaz, that it was against the laws of nature for men and women to “labor in the same field of action.” Yet her experiences among American suffragists reportedly prompted her to revise her views, and to embrace the ideal of gender equality in all spheres.195 Regardless of this change, of all the authors discussed in this section, Kurani was the one who made the least distinction between men and women’s roles in society, and she charged parents—rather than just mothers—with the responsibility for raising children. Her own life practices did not support an extremely conservative conception of a woman’s place in society, as she gave speeches for mixed audiences, lectured in the United States for three years, raised no children and divorced her husband. While less is known about the personal lives of ‘Atiya, Tannus, Zakka and Shukri, by similarly stepping beyond the

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  181 boundaries of the home to become professional teachers and authors, all of these late nineteenth-century nahdawi writers paved the way for the next generation of Protestant women, like Julia Tu‘ma al-Dimashqiyya, who would advocate more openly for women to enter male-dominated professions. As the following section will show, these early writings on “women’s subjects” also opened the door for Protestant women to engage in the traditionally male activity of sermon writing. From Writing to Preaching: Women’s Sermons in al-Nashra Just as the farmer in the natural world does not harvest his crops straightaway but waits patiently for the fruits to appear, so also in the spiritual realm, we cannot immediately reap the fruits of our labor. Indeed many children of God spend their lives honestly and patiently in ministry to the Lord and die without seeing the apparent result of their efforts.196

Printed in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya in 1900, these words held striking relevance for the mission field in Ottoman Syria, where the Evangelical Church remained small after nearly eight decades of American missionary activity.197 For the American Syria Mission, the survival of this evangelistic work depended upon the hope, expressed in countless sermons, station reports and mission publications, that with continued patient labor the harvest would indeed come.198 The content of this Arabic text was therefore not out of the ordinary. It warrants further attention, however, because the author was a Syrian woman named Salma Badr. At a time when women could not be ordained or licensed to preach in either American Presbyterian or Syrian Evangelical churches, al-Nashra did not label Badr’s message as a sermon, even though she interpreted verses from scripture and delivered it during a Sunday meeting of young Protestants. Her message was among a small number of existing Arabic texts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that testified to Syrian Protestant women’s evangelistic practices. For Badr and other Protestant women, the mission periodical provided a means not only to publish their compositions, but also to preach the gospel in written form. In some cases, the author delivered her text to a listening audience before submitting it for publication. With the use of such rare publications, this final section addresses the work of four Syrian women who

182  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE published sermons in the pre-First World War period, a facet of the Syrian missionary encounter that has not been explored in any depth. The sermonic texts that Salma Badr, ‘Aziza ‘Abbud, Maryam Zakka and Farida ‘Atiya wrote for al-Nashra followed the same form and served the same function as the sermons that Syrian men published at the mission press.199 These texts encouraged readers to deepen their understanding of the Bible and to remain true to the Protestant faith. For accomplished authors like Zakka and ‘Atiya, such pieces also demonstrated an ability to work across and blend multiple genres of the Nahda. The authors not only performed biblical exegesis (or interpretation), as preachers would when writing and delivering sermons, these women also applied scriptural teachings to contemporary life in Syria. Some printed sermons were pastoral in approach and offered ­spiritual guidance to the readers, while others took the form of prophetic proclamation, warning against the many worldly dangers that believers might face. While such sermonic elements might have appeared in addresses that were delivered outside the context of a church service, when al-Nashra labeled a text as a formal sermon (maw‘iza), the piece always began with the printed verses of scripture that the author then proceeded to interpret. Despite the fact that Ibrahim al-Hurani and the periodical’s missionary managers did not identify these pieces as sermons, certain publications in al-Nashra by Syrian Protestant women included common elements of evangelical sermons: spiritual guidance, prophetic proclamation and application of biblical teachings to contemporary situations. Spiritual Guidance In the first front-page piece in al-Nashra credited to a Syrian woman, “The Influence of Music,” ‘Aziza ‘Abbud encouraged her readers to consider the spiritual value of music.200 Her exposition began with the statement, “When the world was created the angels rejoiced, praising with the sound of music that pleased the ears.”201 She then offered an overview of the significance of worship music in the Hebrew Bible, recounting how the Jews of ancient Israel used musical instruments to praise the Lord and pilgrims sang on the road to Jerusalem. She depicted King David processing alongside the Ark of the Covenant with priests who sang and played instruments “until all the people were touched and felt the presence of God among them.”202 In the

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  183 same way, ‘Abbud asserted, the number of people who were spiritually moved by the music in the church might surpass those congregants influenced by the preaching. Music, she contended, had been known to save human lives and lead people to eternal salvation. As proof, she recounted the story of a missionary who journeyed to Africa to preach the gospel and was surrounded in the jungle by a hostile tribe. He closed his eyes, and then began to sing and play the flute that he was carrying. When the missionary opened his eyes again, he found the tribesmen sitting around him and listening attentively because the music had touched their hearts. ‘Abbud concluded, “So he rose up and began to preach to them, and a great number of them believed.”203 Like many Protestant publications during this period, ‘Abbud’s article affirmed the importance of evangelism and also affirmed her sense of connectedness to Protestant missions taking place across the world. Each time she mentioned preaching, she also emphasized the role of music in drawing people to accept the gospel message. Missionary records of that time indicated that American women played the organ in Syrian Protestant worship services, and it was likely that Syrian women who studied music in Protestant schools likely shared in this work.204 Thus, ‘Abbud’s reference to music touching the listening audience signified that songs played during worship or at informal Christian gatherings could carry as much as or more spiritual value than the sermons that Protestant men preached. Perhaps ‘Abbud herself was an accomplished musician who used her talents in the Evangelical Church in Hums, where she lived at the time of this writing. ‘Abbud emphasized the belief that the spoken word was not the only way to bring others to the evangelical faith. The sermonic elements in ‘Abbud’s own written text demonstrated this point as well. While ‘Abbud informed her readers about the history of worship music, she acted as an interpreter of scripture and a spiritual guide for members of the Protestant community whose faith, she believed, might be edified through the practice of Christian worship. The universal aim of her message, which applied equally to male and female readers, was another characteristic that her text shared with Syrian men’s sermons. Like ‘Abbud, the nahdawi writer Maryam Zakka spoke to a male and female audience through her texts, interpreted scripture and encouraged her readers to engage in evangelistic missionary work. During her long career as a schoolteacher in Sidon, Zakka used al-Nashra to extend her religious and

184  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE moral instruction to a wider body of “pupils.” Her first article on “Diligence and Perseverance,” addressed earlier in this chapter, not only engaged the Nahda theme of women’s education, but also used the creation story in Genesis to uphold the assertion that men and women possessed equal intellectual capacity. She contended, “The Almighty created [male and female] in his image, in cognitive ability, righteousness, and holiness.”205 As she paired the intellect with holiness, Zakka’s exegesis began with the creation narrative of Genesis 1:26–27 and skipped—perhaps intentionally—over the second account of creation in Genesis 2:21–23, which lacks the image-of-God language and describes God creating Eve from Adam’s rib.206 Zakka moved instead to the sin and punishment of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 and argued that if women actually had only “half a brain,” as some of her readers wrongly believed, then God would have given Eve only half of the punishment Adam received when the two sinned together. Instead, she maintained, God “dealt with both of them in the same way.”207 In another article published in al-Nashra in 1888, Zakka contended that the virtues of hard work and diligence that she had advocated previously were in fact insufficient if not accompanied by faithfulness (al-amana).208 She made known her religious interpretation of this subject matter as she explained in words echoing the armor of God imagery in Ephesians 6:14 that Zakka had also evoked in her earlier article on diligence and perseverance: If it is thus incumbent upon us to act with faithfulness along our path in this mortal world, how much more important it is on our journey toward our eternal homes, for faithfulness is the belt and pillar of righteousness.209

Zakka defined Christian faithfulness as acting “according to what is written in the Good Book without adding to or subtracting from it.”210 Putting on the garb of faithfulness meant boldly testifying to God’s word even under threat and following the example of the one Zakka called “the elected ­apostle,” likely the apostle Paul. This exposition offered a deeper understanding of what perseverance meant to Zakka as a Protestant in Syria, and it shed light on the combination of practical and spiritual teachings that she might have offered to her pupils at the Sidon Girls’ School. Implicit in this article was Zakka’s belief that both men and women had the duty to share the gospel with others, a conviction that she also upheld in her later articles.211 Faithfulness, Zakka

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  185 insisted, was the responsibility of all people in every form of work. From artisans and merchants to students and teachers to the woman in her home, she asserted, “No one is excluded from it.”212 Zakka’s article also included a strong warning against seeking material progress through means of betrayal (al-khiyana), a term which she posited was the exact opposite of faithfulness and the root of all forms of destruction.213 She explored the spiritual dimensions of this term and indicated the sinful nature of deception and betrayal of trust as she explained: While a person is busy with his work, the demon of betrayal overcomes him and whispers in his heart saying to him, “Look at the condition you are in. Are you satisfied with your poverty and degradation? Oh servant, no one will know if you steal a little money from your master, and you will be in a better condition than before. And you, oh governor, do not fear to take something and not return it, or act unjustly, or accept a bribe. And there is no blame upon you, oh teacher, if you are negligent and lazy, so do not worry.” In this way Satan releases his killing poison in the human heart and pulls the reins toward the path of betrayal.214

While lying and manipulation might lead to temporary progress, Zakka warned, reproach and regret would be the final outcome for those who fell into such temptations. These individuals, she wrote, become drunk with betrayal and “offer themselves as victims on its altars. They are the most miserable people in the house of the unjust.” Alluding to Psalm 1:4, Zakka reiterated that if people used wicked means to achieve their goals, the results would be scattered with the wind.215 Beyond the worldly realm, Zakka warned her readers against trespassing on God’s commands for faithful worship. In a clear allusion to the practices of Catholic and Orthodox Christians in Syria that her male colleagues were using al-Nashra to critique that same year, she indicated that adding unnecessary rituals of worship, like bowing to icons and statues, was among the greatest forms of betrayal. She upheld this statement with a quotation from Revelation 22:18–19: “If anyone adds to [the words of the book of prophecy], God will add to that person the plagues described in this book; if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are

186  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE described in this book” (NRSV). Ending on a more positive note, she referenced yet another scriptural promise that all who were faithful would gain an enduring “crown of life” and in the end would hear the voice of the Creator saying, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23, NRSV).216 Thus, while Zakka and ‘Abbud both exegeted scripture and offered spiritual guidance to their readers, in this article Zakka also moved into the realm of prophetic exhortation, not merely proclaiming what she understood as scriptural truth but, like the biblical prophets, urging and imploring her readers to follow God’s word. Prophetic Proclamation In an 1888 article titled “Caution and Warning,” the novelist Farida ‘Atiya took on the position of a prophetic preacher, as she addressed the theme raised in Jeremiah 9:4: “Beware of your neighbors, and put no trust in any of your kin; for all your kin are supplanters, and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer” (NRSV).217 Echoing Jeremiah’s prophetic counsel, ‘Atiya warned readers to beware of their closest associates. She then upheld this warning in her interpretation of the story of Cain and Abel. Just as Satan possessed the heart of Cain and used him for his brother, in Abel’s downfall, ‘Atiya proclaimed, the agents of sin might be present among one’s closest family members and companions. Thus, she cautioned readers against trusting those whose loyalty had not been proven. If composed instead by the author’s father, Yusif ‘Atiya, this piece might have been delivered from the pulpit and then printed in al-Nashra. Farida ‘Atiya’s text, however, was not labeled at all, neither as a sermon nor as an address (khitab or khutba), the latter being terms the periodical commonly used to describe women’s speeches. It is therefore unclear whether she presented her message before a listening audience first or wrote it specifically for publication in al-Nashra. However, it is likely that ‘Atiya had shared this work with others in one format or another. Perhaps she read it at a woman’s association like Bakurat Suriyya or at an informal gathering in her home, like the one described at the end of her novel, ‘Ilm al-Banat. Read together, ‘Atiya’s text in al-Nashra and her novel balance each other. Like her protagonist Hannah at the dinner party, in the article ‘Atiya

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  187 addressed an audience of men and women as she warned them that their closest companions could become agents of death. While the solution offered in this piece was for the readers to examine their friends and associate only with those who were trustworthy, the novel depicted how an upright, refined Christian friend (like Sa‘da) could become the means of salvation. ‘Atiya’s prophetic warning to beware even of family members takes on deeper meaning when paired with her novel, as it was through the negative influence of Hannah’s mother—who insisted on secluding her daughters from the outside world—that she came to be in such a miserable state prior to her marriage. Hannah’s concluding speech was the capstone of her transformation, signifying that she now possessed the ability to offer wisdom and guidance to others in raising their own daughters. In the same way, ‘Atiya’s venture to publish her prophetic sermon demonstrated her aim to direct Syrian readers away from the path of spiritual destruction.218 Biblical Preaching Along with presenting their evangelical ideas at social or literary gatherings, elite Protestant women writers also found opportunities for voluntary service to their churches by leading prayer and Bible study meetings and teaching Sunday school.219 The Syria Mission encouraged such activities as a facet of “woman’s work,” and the responsibilities were sometimes shared with American women. Little survives from the Bible lessons and evangelistic addresses Syrian women gave in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but the speech by Salma Badr, with which I opened this section, is one example of the type of religious teaching that Syrian women offered in Protestant settings. Like ‘Atiya’s 1888 article and the sermons of Syrian pastors and preachers published in al-Nashra, Badr’s message began with selected verses from scripture. Speaking to the young women members of Jam‘iyyat al-Ijtihad al-Ruhi (the Spiritual Endeavor Society) on the election of new leaders in 1900, Badr interpreted Matthew 18:21–25, the parable of a servant who asked his master to be patient with him as he repaid his debts, but who denied the same mercy to others.220 Salma was sixteen years old when she wrote and delivered this message. While ‘Atiya’s article in al-Nashra paralleled Syrian pastors’ sermons in length, Badr’s exhortation could be classified more accurately as the type of

188  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE sermonette that mission employees would preach at evangelistic meetings outside of Sunday services. Shukri Fakhuri, a long-time preacher and assistant at the medical dispensary and church in Tripoli, gave such addresses at gatherings of Jam‘iyyat al-Ijtihad al-Masihi (the Christian Endeavor Society) in that city.221 While al-Nashra used the term khitab for Fakhuri’s talks, in the view of the American missionaries in Tripoli, all of his addresses in the clinic, in schools, at special meetings and in churches were forms of evangelistic preaching. In Tripoli Station reports, missionary Ira Harris counted Fakhuri’s short speeches as “sermonettes,” noting that the Syrian evangelist delivered 235 of these along with 62 “regular” sermons during 1898.222 Despite the different terminology applied to men and women’s religious exhortations, Salma Badr’s message in al-Nashra demonstrated that women wrote and delivered evangelistic, biblically-based sermons to Syrian audiences. Her starting point was the repeated plea in the text of Matthew 18, “Be patient with me.” Drawing upon the Arabic Bible’s use of the word sabara, which can mean to show patience to others or to endure, Badr alerted her audience to the fact that they shared the characteristics of the unmerciful servant: We ask God for forgiveness and for the sake of his beloved son he forgives our sins freely; but we, ourselves, take revenge upon our fellow man and punish him for the least mistake or offense against us. We do not want to be patient with him even though his sin against us is like a drop of water in the great ocean compared to our many sins against God.223

Badr not only explicated her selected scripture passage, she also interpreted its relevance for her listeners’ lives. All the while, she remained true to the theology of the Reformed Tradition of the Syrian Evangelical Church with its emphasis on human depravity.224 Moving beyond individual sin, Badr then warned that a lack of patience in daily interactions could cause grief and division within families and prohibit true service toward the Lord. Badr therefore alerted her congregation of young Protestant women to the effort they should make to execute this work together as partners in ministry. Badr’s reminder that the harvest would surely come was also relevant for these young Christian workers and al-Nashra’s reading audience, given the small size of the Protestant community. She explained, “Sometimes our heavenly Father

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  189 does not respond immediately to the petitions of his children, but … answers at the appropriate time.” After using verses from the New Testament epistles of Paul and James to encourage patience and endurance during times of trial, Badr closed her message with a scriptural promise from Matthew 24:13: Everyone who is patient will be rewarded and will live happily with joy and pleasure until finally receiving eternal life and the crown of glory. As it is written, “Those who are patient to the end will be saved.”225

From her exegesis of scripture to this concluding call to salvation, Badr’s address demonstrated that the religious exhortations of Syrian women could follow the same pattern and serve the same purpose as the sermons of Protestant pastors and licensed preachers. The printing of such unofficial sermons by women did not signify, however, that members of the Syrian Protestant community or the American Mission were advocating a preaching office for women. On the contrary, although early nineteenth-century revivalism in Britain and the United States had prompted a movement of women preachers, these pioneering female evangelists did not preach from church pulpits, request ordination or challenge the male clergy’s exclusive right to administer the Lord’s Supper and baptism. By the late nineteenth century, even those American evangelicals who had encouraged female evangelists during the revivals withdrew their support for such activities.226 American Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches that sent missionaries to Syria, however, had never allowed women to preach, and the Syrian Evangelical churches upheld similar views. Nevertheless, Syrian Protestant women found alternative ways to engage in preaching long before their own churches would consider ordaining or licensing women as preachers.227 Badr’s sermonette demonstrated this, as did the activities she and other Biblewomen undertook for the American Syria Mission and the BSM (see Chapter 5). Conclusion Within the three common genres of women’s writings for the AMP—tarbiya literature, educational advocacy pieces and sermonic texts—the first two clearly fit the ethos of the Nahda in its typical definition as a secular, cultural movement toward Syrian modernity. These texts, however, also contained deep expressions of Protestantism, demonstrating that nahdawi Protestant

190  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE women did not divorce their intellectual and socio-cultural endeavors from their evangelical commitments. Instead, they upheld their views of women’s roles in society according to the tenets of their faith. They invoked an identity that was simultaneously Syrian and Ottoman and modern, but also presented themselves as belonging to a particular local and transnational Protestant community whose expressions of womanhood they were consciously crafting. On the one hand, this meant that Syrians from outside the Protestant community came in contact with evangelical beliefs as they read AMP publications or listened to women’s lectures at churches and schools. The evangelistic aim to attract converts was one of the reasons why the Syrian editors and American missionary managers of al-Nashra printed discussions of modern thought alongside religious subject matter. By recruiting women writers in the 1880s, these men hoped to attract a female reading audience and to encourage Syrians to enroll their daughters in mission schools, where they would be immersed in Protestant teachings. On the other hand, as many of the Syrians who subscribed to al-Nashra and purchased AMP publications were already Protestant, these women’s writings drew such readers into the Nahda, while also nurturing their faith. The fact that women throughout Syria were reading was apparent from the number of them who participated in the production of al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya by contributing short news reports, obituaries or wedding announcements. Thus, al-Nashra and the AMP emerged as a significant vehicle through which the Protestant community in Syria became engaged in the socio-cultural transformations of the Nahda, and, more specifically, in the early Arab “women’s awakening.” They participated as readers, while also contributing to nahdawi literature as authors of occasional reports, as translators and editors, or as journalists, novelists and poets. The mission periodical was also a means for highly educated nahdawi women to act upon their evangelical commitments by offering pastoral guidance, biblical interpretations and prophetic pronouncements in the form of sermonic texts. While the AMP printed such pieces less frequently than articles on “women’s subjects,” these religious writings revealed that women wrote and delivered biblically-based sermons that matched the work of ordained Syrian pastors and licensed preachers. The writings of Salma Badr, Farida ‘Atiya, Maryam Zakka and ‘Aziza ‘Abbud offered a glimpse of the sort

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  191 of religious messages Syrian Protestant women delivered during high school commencements, at Sunday schools throughout the region, at gatherings of the YWCA and Christian Endeavor Societies, and during Bible study and prayer meetings. As Syrian Protestant women took the lead in such religious activities, they demonstrated a sense of evangelistic calling. These involvements must also be placed within the context of the Nahda, which brought new opportunities for women to engage in socio-cultural and literary endeavors beyond the domestic sphere. Just as texts on child-rearing and education established that women (single or married) could raise up the next generation of Syrians through the public acts of teaching and writing, published sermons brought women’s spiritual insights to a general readership outside Protestant homes and churches. Zakka and ‘Atiya, who wrote sermonic texts and included expressions of Protestantism in their writings on Nahda themes, indicated that women’s biblical interpretations, pastoral advice and written sermons were significant elements of their nahdawi womanhood. These writers’ religious commitments colored their publications, but the press was not the only arena through which the Syrian Protestants of this period expressed their nahdawi identity. Protestant engagements with the Arab renaissance played out in the church as well, and the Nahda ideals of modernity, national progress and intellectual independence influenced Syrian Evangelical Church members’ conceptions of congregational leadership and missionary oversight. While Syrian women ventured beyond the male-dominated structures of the church to exercise their spiritual authority through schools for girls, the press and the Biblewomen’s movement, Syrian men contended with American missionary ministers for leadership over local churches. There was no recognized place for women in the decision-making processes of the Syria Mission, whether on matters of finance, ordination for ministry or other areas of church governance. Nevertheless, the intra-Protestant controversies in Beirut at the turn of the century took on a gendered dimension as Syrian pastors and evangelists used the language of the Nahda to assert masculine agency and check missionary power. Notes 1. For efforts to correct such imbalances in studies of other mission fields, see Rosemary Seton, Western Daughters in Eastern Lands: British Missionary Women

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in Asia (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013); Eliza F. Kent, Converting Women: Gender and Protestant Christianity in Colonial South India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Rhonda Anne Semple, Missionary Women: Gender, Professionalism and the Victorian Idea of Christian Mission (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2003); Dana L. Robert, American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996); Amanda Porterfield, Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); R. Pierce Beaver, American Protestant Women in World Mission: History of the First Feminist Movement in North America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980). 2. Ellen L. Fleischmann, “Lost in Translation: Home Economics and the Sidon Girls’ School of Lebanon, c. 1924–1932,” Social Sciences and Mission 23(1) (2010): 32–62; Ellen L. Fleischmann, “‘Under an American Roof’: The Beginnings of the American Junior College for Women,” Arab Studies Journal 17(1) (2009): 62–84; Fleischmann, “The Impact of American Protestant Missions,” 411–26; Ellen L. Fleischmann, “Evangelization or Education: American Protestant Missionaries, the American Board, and the Girls and Women of Syria (1830–1910),” in Heleen Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 263–80; Marilyn Booth, “‘She Herself Was the Ultimate Rule’: Arabic Biographies of Missionary Teachers and their Pupils,” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 13(4) (2002): 427–48; Hauser, German Religious Women; Uwe Kaminsky, “German ‘Home Mission’ Abroad: The Orientarbeit of the Deaconess Institute Kaiserswerth in the Ottoman Empire,” in Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 191–209; Majstorac-Kobiljski, “Women Students at the American University”; Hauser, Lindner and Möller, Entangled Education. 3. Farida ‘Atiya, Riwayat Bahjat al-Mukhaddarat fi Fawa’id ‘Ilm al-Banat (Beirut: American Mission Press, [1893] 1909). My analysis is based on the 1909 edition, courtesy of NEST Special Collections. All translations from this novel are mine with assistance from Yvonne Roman and Liza Titizian. For an explanation of the Arabic terms used in the book title, see note 97 in this chapter. 4. ‘Atiya, ‘Ilm al-Banat, 131. On the blurring of public and private in the bourgeois homes of Beirut, see Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 31. 5. Omnia El Shakry, “Schooled Mothers and Structured Play: Child Rearing in

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  193 Turn-of-the-Century Egypt,” in Lila Abu-Lughod (ed.), Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 131; Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 117–18. 6. Layyah Barakat’s memoir, for example, reflected bonds of Protestant sisterhood and “little links that bind life together” with women she met in the United States, a number of whom had directly supported Barakat’s early education in mission schools. Barakat, Message from Mount Lebanon, 137, 154–6. 7. Cabrita and Maxwell, “Introduction,” 21. See also ibid., 35, on imagined links within World Christianity. 8. On al-nahda al-nisa’iyya, see Ellen L. Fleischmann, “The Other ‘Awakening’: The Emergence of Women’s Movements in the Modern Middle East, 1900– 1940,” in Margaret L. Meriwether and Judith E. Tucker (eds.), Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), 89–139. 9. Regarding the lack of scholarship on Middle Eastern Christian women and on women’s encounters with missionaries in the Middle East, see Khater, Embracing the Divine, 4–8; Eleanor Abdella Doumato, “Missionary Transformations: Gender, Culture and Identity in the Middle East,” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 13(4) (2002): 373–4. 10. Radwa Ashour, Ferial J. Ghazoul and Hasna Reda-Mekdashi (eds.), Arab Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide, 1873–1999, trans. Mandy McClure (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2008), 1–2. 11. Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 17–21; Reeves-Ellington, Domestic Frontiers, 78–107. 12. Qasim Amin, “The Liberation of Women,” in The Liberation of Women and the New Woman: Two Documents in the History of Egyptian Feminism, trans. Samiha Sidhon Peterson (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2002), 1–106. On Amin’s work, see Fleischmann, “The Other ‘Awakening,’” 98; Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 144–68. Ahmed was particularly critical of views of Amin as the pioneer of Arab feminism. 13. Nikki R. Keddie, Women in the Middle East: Past and Present (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 71–2, 66; Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 14–15. 14. Butrus al-Bustani, “Khitab fi ta‘lim al-nisa’,” in Yusuf Qizma Khuri (ed.), A‘mal al-Jam‘iyya al-Suriyya li-l-‘Ulum wa-l-Funun, 1847–1852 (Beirut: Dar al-Hamra’, 1995), 45–53; Lindner, “Negotiating the Field,” 178–9; Fruma

194  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Zachs, “Feminism for Men: A Note on Butrus al-Bustani’s Lecture on the Education of Women (1849),” in Adel Beshara (ed.), Butrus al-Bustani: Spirit of the Age (Melbourne: IPhoenix Publishing, 2014), 113–30. 15. Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 20–6. 16. Fleischmann, “The Other ‘Awakening,’” 98. 17. Fruma Zachs and Sharon Halevi, “From Difa‘ al-Nisa’ to Mas’alat al-Nisa’ in Greater Syria: Readers and Writers Debate Women and their Rights, 1858–1900,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 41 (2009): 616. The authors documented an early debate in 1858, between Khalil al-Khuri and the women of Tripoli. Ibid., 617–18. 18. Perhaps because of al-Muqtataf  ’s thorough coverage, the subject of tadbir almanzil was not a primary focus in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya. On al-Muqtataf  ’s column, see Fruma Zachs and Sharon Halevi, “‘The Little Kingdom over Which God made you Queen’: The Gendered Reorganization of a ‘Modern’ Arab Home in late Nineteenth-Century Beirut,” Hagar: Studies in Culture, Polity and Identities 10(2) (2013): 139–56; Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 118–20. 19. Marilyn Booth, Classes of Ladies of Cloistered Spaces: Writing Feminist History through Biography in Fin-de-siècle Egypt (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2015), 7; Shereen Khairallah, The Sisters of Men: Lebanese Women in History (Beirut: Lebanese American University/Institute for Women Studies in the Arab World, 1996), 179–83; Beth Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 18–21, 25–7; Lital Levy, “Partitioned Pasts: Arab Jewish Intellectuals and the Case of Esther Azhari Moyal (1873–1948),” in Dyala Hamzah (ed.), The Making of the Arab Intellectual: Empire, Public Sphere and the Colonial Coordinates of Selfhood (New York: Routledge, 2013), 128–63; Karam, “Esther Azhari Muyal,” 255–64. 20. Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 183, 210–15. The majority of the women journalists, authors and poets in this study had some connection to the Protestant community in Syria. Ibid. 175–234. 21. Ashour, Ghazoul and Reda-Mekdashi, Arab Women Writers, 14–15, 103; Booth, Classes of Ladies, 8–9; Anbara Salam Khalidi, Memoirs of an Early Arab Feminist: The Life and Activism of Anbara Salam Khalidi, trans. Tarif Khalidi (London: Pluto Press, 2013), 56–7, 112; Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 18, 121; Mona L. Russell, Creating the New Egyptian Woman: Consumerism, Education, and National Identity, 1863–1922 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 77, 100.

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  195 22. Notably, Zachs and Halevi’s Gendering Culture recognized the work of certain women authors in Beirut long before the turn of the century. 23. Ashour, Ghazoul and Reda-Mekdashi, Arab Women Writers, 5. For an important study of the early women’s awakening, see Baron, Women’s Awakening in Egypt, 13–37. 24. Adelaide al-Bustani, “Hinri wa-Imilia,” al-Jinan 1 (1870): 366–7, 406–7. This was a serialized novella by Adelaide (Idlid), the daughter of al-Jinan’s owner, Butrus al-Bustani. See Zachs and Halevi, “From Difa‘ al-Nisa’ to Mas’alat al-Nisa’ in Greater Syria,” 617. Also in the early 1870s, Khuzma ‘Ata’, a Druze convert to Protestantism, translated stories for the mission’s paper for children, Kawkab al-Subuh al-Munir. Henry Harris Jessup, The Women of the Arabs (New York: Dodd & Mead, 1873), 33. 25. The poet Warda al-Yaziji Shamun was the daughter of Melkite poet Nasif alYaziji, the sister of the Nahda intellectual Ibrahim al-Yaziji (see Chapter 2) and a member of the Evangelical Church of Beirut along with her husband, Francis Shamun. She joined in 1872. “Member entry 149,” NECB 9. Both al-Yaziji and Shamun worked for Quaker missionaries. Turtle, Quaker Service in the Middle East, 48. Rosa Antun Haddad founded the magazine al-Sayyidat wal-banat (Ladies and Girls) in Alexandria and assisted her brother Farah Antun in the production of the periodical al-Jami‘a. Baron, Women’s Awakening in Egypt, 25–6; Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 181. Rosa attended the American Girls’ School in her home town of Tripoli, taught there and joined the local Evangelical Church in 1898, despite protests from her Greek Orthodox family. BFM (1899), 276–7; “Tripoli Church,” 1905: PHS 115-15-15. 26. Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 26–7, 31, 33, 61, 94–5, 105–6, 111, 115–23, 128–30, 133, 146. 27. These nine nahdawi writers are Alice al-Bustani, Farida ‘Atiya, Salma Tannus, ‘Aziza ‘Abbud, Rujina Shukri, Maryam Zakka, Hanna Kurani, Julia Tu‘ma (alDimashqiyya) and Salma Badr. See Appendix F for their publications. Lindner demonstrated that American and Syrian women contributed to the development of the early Protestant community in Ottoman Syria from the 1820s to 1860. Christine B. Lindner, “‘Long, Long Will She Be Affectionately Remembered’: Gender and the Memorialization of an American Female Missionary,” Social Sciences and Missions 23(1) (2010): 7–31; Lindner, “Negotiating the Field”; Lindner, “Making a Way into the Heart of the People’: Women in the Early Protestant Church in Beirut,” NEST Theological Review 32(2) (2011): 75–6, 89; Christine B. Lindner, “Piecing Together the Fragmented History of Esther

196  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Mushriq Haddad,” AMEWS E-Bulletin 1 (2014): 1–3. Fleischmann highlighted American women’s educational and medical work and examined the impact of mission schools upon the socio-cultural identity of Syrian women and girls. Ellen L. Fleischmann, “I Only Wish I Had a Home on this Globe’: Transnational Biography and Dr. Mary Eddy,” Journal of Women’s History 21(3) (2009): 108–30; Fleischmann, “The Impact of American Protestant Missions”; Fleischmann, “Evangelization or Education”; Fleischmann, “Lost in Translation”; Fleischmann, “Under an American Roof”; Ellen L. Fleischmann, “Our Moslem Sisters’: Women of Greater Syria in the Eyes of American Protestant Missionary Women,” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 9(3) (1998): 308, 317. On Syro-Lebanese Protestant women also, see Rima Nasrallah Van Sanne, “Adèle Jureidini Hajjar (1893–1971): The First Ordained Female Minister in Lebanon,” NEST Theological Review 27(2) (2006): 76–90; Heleen Murre-van den Berg, “Nineteenth-Century Protestant Missions and Middle Eastern Women: An Overview,” in Inger Marie Okkenhaug and Ingvild Flaskerud (eds.), Gender, Religion and Change in the Middle East: Two Hundred Years of History (Oxford: Berg, 2005), 103–22. 28. Christine B. Lindner, “‘The Woman Who Rocks the Crib with Her Right Hand is the One Who Shakes the World with Her Arm’: Gender and Performances of the Protestant Nahdawi Woman,” paper presented at the ARAM Society 37th International Conference, Oxford, July 15–17, 2013. By 1858, the Beirut newspaper Hadiqat al-Akhbar had a large enough female readership in Tripoli alone that the periodical owner could publish a letter addressed to the women of that city. On this and Syrian women’s reading and writing practices, see Zachs and Halevi, “From Difa‘ al-Nisa’ to Mas’alat al-Nisa’ in Greater Syria,” 615–33. 29. Lindner, “The Woman Who Rocks the Crib.” 30. Colleen McDannell, The Christian Home in Victorian America, 1840–1900 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1986), 39, 84, 134; ReevesEllington, Domestic Frontiers, 20–6. 31. Fleischmann, “Lost in Translation,” 32–62. 32. Lindner, “The Woman Who Rocks the Crib.” 33. Christine B. Lindner, “Labiba Kurani’s Teaching Certificate (1887),” NEST Theological Review 34 (2013): 126–31. 34. The founding members of Bakurat Suriyya included Maryam Nimr Makarius, wife of the Lata’if newspaper publisher and joint editor of al-Muqtataf, Shahin Makarius; Julia Barakat al-Hurani, the wife of al-Nashra’s editor Ibrahim

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  197 al-Hurani; and Yaqut Barakat Sarruf, Julia’s sister and the wife of al-Muqtataf editor Yaqub Sarruf. Ashour, Ghazoul and Reda-Mekdashi, Arab Women Writers, 4; Yaziji, “al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani,” 88–9; Fruma Zachs, “CrossGlocalization: Syrian Women Immigrants and the Founding of Women’s Magazines in Egypt,” Middle East Studies 50(3) (2014): 356, 367 n. 28. The recorded dates of Bakurat Suriyya’s establishment have ranged from 1878 to 1880. 35. See Appendix F and Hilana Barudi, “Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id,” al-Muqtataf 6 (1883): 321–2. 36. Maryam Sarkis, “Tidhkar: Milad al-Sayyida Elizabeth Bowen Thompson Mu’assisat al-Madaris al-Suriyya al-Inkliziyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 15 (April 7, 1884), 115. 37. See Appendix F. 38. Labiba Barakat, “Tafdil al-Yad ‘ala Baqiyyat Alat al-Hawas,” al-Nashra alUsbu‘iyya (1883), 125–6; Maryana Mariya, “al-Ta’rikh wa-Fa’idatahu,” alNashra al-Usbu‘iyya 20 (May 12, 1884), 158–9. On Arab women’s anonymous and pseudonymous publications, even in the early twentieth century, see Ashour, Ghazoul and Reda-Mekdashi, Arab Women Writers, 107–8. 39. Rujina Shukri, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (1885), 82. Syrian women followed the models of nahdawi men and not of American women, who rarely published texts at the AMP. The few exceptions, by girls’ school principals, included Ellen Jackson’s textbooks on arithmetic and natural philosophy, Eliza Everett’s astronomy textbook and Harriet La Grange’s book on child development, which the AMP serialized in al-Nashra. AMP 1896, 33, 36, 38; al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1861 (1901), 326. See also the following translation from English: Rachel Tolles, “al-Bayt wa-l-Madrasa,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2501 (January 2, 1913), 6. 40. Lindner, “Rahil ‘Ata al-Bustani,” 120–39. 41. Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 127–30; Fruma Zachs, “Subversive Voices of Daughters of the Nahda: Alice al-Bustani and Riwayat Sa’iba (1891),” Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 9 (2011): 339, 345; Ashour, Ghazoul and Reda-Mekdashi, Arab Women Writers, 380. Syrian women published fiction long before this, however. Alice’s older sister Adelaide published her novella in 1870: al-Bustani, “Hinri wa-Imilia,” 366–7, 406–7. See Ghenwa Hayek, “Experimental Female Fictions; Or, The Brief Wondrous Life of the Nahda Sensation Story,” Middle Eastern Literatures 16(3) (2013): 249–65.

198  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 42. See the membership list in Appendix C. Alice al-Bustani joined the Evangelical Church of Beirut in 1886. “Member entry 379,” NECB 9. 43. Zachs, “Subversive Voices,” 339. 44. On the history of the ‘Atiyas of Baynu, see the autobiography of Farida’s nephew, Edward Atiyah. Atiyah, An Arab Tells His Story, 5–9. 45. “Beirut Church,” 1905: PHS 115-15-15. The reorganized rolls of the Beirut Church in 1905 listed Farida and her husband, Matta ‘Atiya, as absent members residing near Husn. 46. Gertrude Lowthian Bell, Syria: The Desert and the Sown (London: Heinemann, 1907), 20. 47. Ashour, Ghazoul and Reda-Mekdashi, Arab Women Writers, 360; Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 209–10. 48. Khayr al-Din al-Zirkili, al-A‘lam: Qamus Tarajim li-Ashhar al-Rijal wa-l-Nisa’ min al-‘Arab wa-l-Must‘aribin wa-l-Mustashriqin (Beirut: Dar al-‘Ilm li-lMalayyin, 1979): 145; Ashour, Ghazoul and Reda-Mekdashi, Arab Women Writers, 360; Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 210; Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 69–70, 291–2 n. 70. 49. “Sidon Church—Resident Members,” 1905: PHS 115-15-15; “Prospective List of Salaries of the Teachers of the Sidon Station,” August 1, 1890–May 1, 1891 and “Sidon Station,” 1897: PHS 115-12-7; “List of Native Instructors in Employ of the Sidon Station, American Mission Syria,” October 18, 1887: PHS 115-17-7; List of Sidon Girls’ School Graduates, 1881–1952, unpublished manuscript from the Sidon School, May 10, 2005, 1. Courtesy of Ellen L. Fleischmann. Maryam’s brother Nakhla attended the Boys’ Academy in Sidon with Nassim al-Hilu. Al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 41, 97. 50. All four women were regular contributors to al-Hasna’. See Julia Tu‘ma, “al-Mar’a al-Fadila man Yajiduha,” al-Hasna’ 1(3) (1909): 203–10; Maryam Zakka, “Hadhar Ya Dhat al-Siwar,” al-Hasna’ 1(3) (1909): 74–9; Labiba Hashim, “Tarbiya al-Dhawk,” al-Hasna’ 3 (1911): 62–5; Esther Muyal, “Mamlakat al-Mar’a,” al-Hasna’ 1(3) (1909): 49–55. On Jirji Baz and his periodical, see Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 55–6. 51. As Fleischmann remarked, missionary sources were casual in the English names they called the Beirut Female Seminary. The institution was officially renamed the American School for Girls in 1904, and it later gave birth to the American Junior College for Women. Fleischmann, “Evangelization or Education,” 267, 269. 52. Shukri, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana,” 82–3. See also Rujina Shukri, “Farsh al-Buyut

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  199 wa-Tartibuha,” al-Muqtataf 9 (1885): 744–5. This piece, originally an address to the women’s society Bakurat Suriyya, was analyzed in Zachs and Halevi, “The Little Kingdom,” 146–7, 150. Such articles on tartib al-bayt fit under the larger theme of tadbir al-manzil (household management), with the former focusing on the details of organizing and decorating the physical space of the home. Tadbir al-manzil pieces also included broader reflections on the domestic arts and the running of a household. 53. Shukri, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana,” 83; Diary of William Jessup for 1912, entry for March 20: YDS 117-7-28. 54. ‘Aziza ‘Abbud, “Ta’thir al-Musiqa,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 10 (March 8, 1886), 73–4. 55. “Sidon Church: Absent Members,” 1905: PHS 115-15-15; List of Sidon Girls’ School Graduates, 1881–1952, 1. The list of graduates marked ‘Abbud’s last place of residence as the United States and noted her death without giving a date. 56. Elsada, “Discourses on Domesticity,” 28; Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 27. 57. Salma Tannus, “Khitab,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (1887), 186. I am grateful to Rahimjon Abdugafurov for assistance in translating this text, 58. “Tripoli Station Helpers and Wages,” 1880 and “Tripoli Station,” 1881: PHS 115-12-5; “Beirut: Annual Tabular View, No. 1, 1890”: PHS 115-12-7; “List of Teachers and Diplomas Sent to the Waly,” October 18, 1887; and “Beirut,” October 18, 1887: PHS 115-17-7. 59. Samir Nasrallah, Al-Kanisa al-Injiliyya al-Wataniyya fi Hadath: Ahdath waDhikrayat (Beirut: Private printing, 2007), Appendix, 3. Courtesy of Samir Nasrallah and Rima Nasrallah Van Sanne. Habib and Marta Kasbani baptized six of their children in the Evangelical Church of Beirut before they transferred their membership to the new church in their own village of Kfar Shima in 1877. Habib Kasbani, “Membership entry 51,” and Marta Kasbani, “Membership entry 119,” NECB 9. For Hanna Kasbani’s baptism as an infant on March 13, 1870, see ibid., “Baptismal entry 79.” The biography accompanying Kurani’s printed address from the Congress of Women marked her date of birth as 1871, and some scholars follow that dating. Hanna K. Korany, “The Glory of Womanhood,” in Mary Kavanaugh Oldham Eagle (ed.), The Congress of Women: Held in the Woman’s Building, World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, U.S.A, 1893 (Chicago, IL: Monarch Book Co., 1894), 359; Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 118.

200  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 60. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 83. On divorce practices in the Middle East and their role in religious conversion, see Willy Jansen, “Conversion, Marriage, and Gender: Jordanians and the Christian Mission,” Swedish Missiological Themes/Svensk Missionstidskrift 92(1) (2004): 99–122. The reasons for Kurani’s divorce were unclear, but in 1894 American periodicals reported on the happy marriage, while noting that after the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Amin Kurani traveled to California without Hanna, who stayed on her own in the eastern United States. Fannie C.  W. Barbour, “Madame Hanna K. Korany, the Most Famous Syrian Woman of the Day,” The Chautauquan 19(5) (1894): 616–17; Frances H. Howard, “Madam Hanna K. Korany,” The Woman’s Journal, November 17, 1894, 362. 61. Her earliest signed pieces included Hanna Kurani, “Majd al-Mar’a,” Lisan al-Hal 1279 (October 27, 1890), 3; Kurani, “Ta‘lim al-Banat,” Lisan al-Hal 1283 (November 10, 1890), 3; Kurani, “Ta‘lim al-Banat,” Lisan al-Hal 1284 (November 13, 1890), 2–3. See also Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 207; Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 118–22; Booth, Classes of Ladies, 276–84. 62. “Wafa,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1685 (May 14, 1898), 157. This obituary reported that Kurani frequently spoke in public halls filled with thousands of listening men and women. On this same theme of indigenous industry, see Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 134–6, 160–1. 63. Korany, “The Glory of Womanhood,” 359–60. Kurani’s Arabic publication of the same title was Kurani, “Majd al-Mar’a,” 3. See also Hanna K. Korany, “The Position of Women in Syria,” in May Wright Sewall (ed.), The World’s Congress of Representative Women: A Historical Résumé for Popular Circulation of the World’s Congress of Representative Women, vol. 2. (Chicago, IL: Rand, McNally, 1894), 773–7; Barbour, “Madame Hanna K. Korany,” 614–17. After the embroidery exhibit failed to make money, Amin Kurani traveled to California for the Midwinter Fair of 1894 while Hanna remained in the eastern US. 64. Francis E. Willard, Helen M. Winslow and Sallie Elizabeth Joy White, Occupations for Women: A Book of Practical Suggestions for the Material Advancement, the Mental and Physical Development, and the Moral and Spiritual Uplift of Women (New York: Cooper Union, 1897), 221, 280–1. Susan B. Anthony, “National-American Woman Suffrage Convention,” in Harriet Taylor Upton (ed.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Convention of the National-American Woman Suffrage Association (Washington, DC, 1894), 4, 7. Kurani’s Convention address was titled “Woman Suffrage from an Oriental Standpoint.”

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  201 65. Barbour, “Madame Hanna K. Korany,” 615–17; F.H.H. (Frances H. Howard), “Madame Hanna Korany,” The Woman’s Journal 24(52) (December 30, 1893): 414–15; Howard, “Madam Hanna K. Korany,” The Woman’s Journal (November 17, 1894): 362; “Minutes of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Convention of the National-American Woman Suffrage Association,” in Harriet Taylor Upton (ed.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Convention (Washington, DC: n.p., 1894), 86–7; Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (eds.), History of Women’s Suffrage, vol. 4 (Indianapolis, IN: Hollenbeck Press, 1902), 228; “In Memorium,” The Woman’s Journal 29(35) (August 27, 1898): 277. This final piece described Kurani as an exile from the Ottoman government because of her writings and lectures, and it stated that she had difficulty in securing permission to return to Syria. 66. “Howard, “Madam Hanna K. Korany,” The Woman’s Journal (November 17, 1894): 362. Kurani’s anonymous articles mentioned in this report were likely published in the middle to late 1880s. Howard noted that Kurani had published such texts before the age of eighteen when she submitted her first signed piece on “Women and Politics” to three different editors, all of whom rejected its radical view of gender equality. For an early article in al-Muqtataf authored by a woman, see Yaqut Sarruf, “Tarkib al-Insan,” al-Muqtataf 5 (1880): 110–15. 67. “In Memorium,” The Woman’s Journal, 277. See also Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 119. On the rise in tuberculosis among Syrians due to migration during this period, see Deanna Ferree Womack, “Medical Arts and the Healing of Souls: A Transnational Story of Tuberculosis Care in Early Twentieth-Century Syria and Lebanon,” Practical Matters Journal 11 (2018): 6–22. 68. “Wafa,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1685 (May 14, 1898), 157. The anonymous obituary commended Kurani’s “perseverance in reading the Holy Bible, which she adopted as the constitution for her life in sickness and in health.” After listening to verses of scripture, it recounted, “she lay down to rest in Christ like a child in the bosom of his parents, without pain or discomfort.” 69. Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 206, 208; Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 87. Kurani wrote for Lisan al-Hal, al-Fatah and other nahdawi periodicals. The items destroyed by Kurani’s family may have included her first novel and a short story that she wrote while in America. Barbour, “Madame Hanna K. Korany,” 616. 70. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 65; Booth, Classes of Ladies, 81–2; Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 122.

202  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 71. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 290 n. 60; Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 208. Khairallah noted that she could not locate the original texts. See Appendix F for these manuscripts held at NEST. 72. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 290; Kurani, al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id, 47. The copy of al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id at NEST bears the inscription of the author on the front page, dedicating it to the missionary Henry Harris Jessup. Kurani rendered her name as Hannā (Hanna). This name does not match the biblical name, Óanna (Hannah). 73. al-Muqtataf 15 (1891): 559–60; Kurani, al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id. 74. Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 208–9. Khairallah’s translation of the opening poem read, “My hand writes what comes to mind, and my aim to serve this land. Cooperation leads to Union in strength that is best.” The poem appeared in al-Muqtataf (1891): 559–60 and Kurani, al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id, 1, 47–8. 75. Ibid., 48. 76. Ibid., 4. 77. On discussions of manners (indicated variously with Arabic terms such as adab and akhlaq) in the Nahda, see Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 126, 138. The Sunni Muslim periodical in Beirut, Thamarat al-Funun, ran a regular column on akhlaq wa-‘adat (manners and customs). 78. Like Kurani, many Syrians during this period traveled back and forth between their homeland and the Americas. Akram Fouad Khater, Inventing Home: Immigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon, 1870–1920 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001). 79. The Sidon Boys’ Academy graduate Nassim al-Hilu recalled receiving free copies of al-Nashra at his primary school in Mashta and subscribing to the journal when he began attending the mission school in Sidon. Al-Hilu, Mudhakkirat, 28, 37. 80. Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 188; Hala Ramez Dimechkie, “Julia Tu‘mi Dimashqiyi and al-Mar’a al-Jadida: 1883–1954,” MA thesis, American University of Beirut, 1998, 5, 17–19; Ashour, Ghazoul and Reda-Mekdashi noted that Julia was born in 1883 and died in 1953. Arab Women Writers, 384. Julia’s father, Jirji, attended the American mission seminary in ‘Abay and was the first in his village to convert to Protestantism. He taught Arabic in the Protestant school at Mukhtara and directed a boys’ school in B‘aqlin. Hala Dimechkie gave 1883 as Julia’s date of birth and Shereen Khairallah listed it as 1884. Tu‘ma’s gravestone, in the National Evangelical Cemetery in Beirut, marked her year of birth as 1882. I am grateful to Christine B. Lindner, who provided me with a photo of

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  203 the gravestone. See also Christine B. Lindner, “From Foreign Soil to the ’Ard of Beirut: History of the American University of Beirut and the Anglo-American Cemetery,” in Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Lina Choueiri and Bilal Orfali (eds.), One Hundred and Fifty (Beirut: AUB Press, 2016), 199. 81. Dimechkie, “Julia Tu‘mi Dimashqiyi,” 5, 17–19; BFM (1907), 428. 82. Dimechkie, “Julia Tu‘mi Dimashqiyi,” 19–20. Julia’s mother was Farida Nassif. 83. Ibid., 20. This is Dimechkie’s translation from Julia Tu‘ma’s memoirs, Min ‘Afarat al-Fajr, recorded in 1953. 84. Ibid., 21–2, 24, 30, 45–9; Ashour, Ghazoul and Reda-Mekdashi, Arab Women Writers, 384; Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 208. Three of Julia’s speeches were published in al-Muqtataf, and she also wrote for Sawt al-Mar’a, al-Hasna’, al-Fatah, al-Fajr and al-Nadim. On the history of Brummana High school, see Turtle, Quaker Service in the Middle East. 85. Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 116–17; Dimechkie, “Julia Tu‘mi Dimashqiyi,” 57–8. According to Dimechkie, Julia fled to Egypt after Badr al-Dimashqiyya—who was already married with three children—fell in love with her. Badr followed her to Cairo and convinced Julia to marry him on the condition that he would divorce his first wife. Tu‘ma remained part of the Protestant community in Beirut and was buried, apart from her husband, in the National Evangelical Cemetery of Beirut. Lindner, “From Foreign Soil,” 199. On the Maqasid Islamic Benevolent Society schools, see ‘Abd al-Latif Fakhuri, “Madaris al-Maqasid al-Islamiyya fi Bayrut: al-Lugha wa al-Din wa al-Huwiyya,” in Julia Hauser, Julia, Christine B. Lindner and Esther Möller (eds.), Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19–20th Centuries) (Würzburg: Ergon, 2016), 211–34. 86. Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 189–90; Dimechkie, “Julia Tu‘mi Dimashqiyi,” 56; Zachs and Halevi, Gendering Culture, 123. 87. George F. Sabra, “The Badr Story,” unpublished manuscript, July 2002. Courtesy of George Sabra. Salma joined the Evangelical Church of Beirut on March 5, 1899. “Membership entry 527,” NECB 9. Like most of the BSM students, Salma’s school expenses were offset by British mission supporters. “Friends and Adopted Protégés,” DoS (October 1898), 111. 88. Sabra, “The Badr Story.” Antun Badr was born sometime between 1845 and 1847. He married Zelpha Halabi, who may have been his second wife. Relatives noted that Salma had two siblings, Khalil and Anisa.

204  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 89. Ibid. The naturalization application of Salwa Qiyami (Keamy) specified that she was born in Melbourne, Australia, on May 24, 1905. “Petition for Naturalization for Selwa Victoria Keamy.” National Archives and Records Administration, Index to Naturalization Petitions of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 1865–1957, April 16, 1929: Ancestry. com Operations, Inc., 2007. When the American Mission reorganized its church membership rolls in 1905, Badr was listed as an absent member of the Beirut Church residing in Australia. “Beirut Church: Absent and Emigrant,” 1905: PHS 115-4-4. 90. BSM (October 1908), 14; BSM (December 1909), 9. 91. Badr’s immigration papers identified her as a seamstress. Immigration and Naturalization Service, “List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival, S.S. Ivernia sailing from Paris September 17, 1912, Arriving at Port of New York, 6 October, 1912,” Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897–1957, October 6, 1912: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007. 92. National Archives and Records Administration, “United States of America Petition for Citizenship of Selma Bazergui,” Petitions for Naturalization of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, 1865–1937, April 18, 1932: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007. 93. Mary Ann Haick DiNapoli, “The Syrian–Lebanese Community of South Ferry from its Origin to 1977,” in Kathleen Benson and Philip M. Kayal (eds.), A Community of Many Worlds: Arab Americans in New York City (New York: Museum of the City of New York, 2002), 25. 94. “Registry of the American Mission Press, Beirut: 1844 to 1895,” 165; AMP 1896, 74; Farida ‘Atiya, ‘Ilm al-Banat. 95. This title’s literal translation is A Novel on the Delight of Secluded Females in the Benefits of Educating Girls. Mukhaddara indicates a girl kept in seclusion. Khadira, the root verb of mukhaddara, may mean to seclude in women’s quarters or, alternately, to be numb, paralyzed or drugged. This word choice was likely intentional, as ‘Atiya believed that girls who were kept cloistered from the world were intellectually numb and socially paralyzed. 96. The name Adib was a play on the word adab (literary culture) and therefore conveyed that he was highly cultured, in the sense of being educated and active in discussions of science and literature. 97. Early Nahda writers like ‘Atiya embraced fiction as an arena for social critique and reform. “Holt, “Narrative and the Reading Public,” 46.

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  205 98. ‘Atiya, ‘Ilm al-Banat, 8. 99. Ibid., 118. 100. Ibid. 119. 101. Ibid., 120–1. 102. Hannah alluded to the parables of the lost sheep (Matthew 18:12–14 and Luke 15:3–7) and of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32). 103. ‘Atiya, ‘Ilm al-Banat, 125. 104. See Zachs and Halevi, “The Little Kingdom.” 105. ‘Atiya, ‘Ilm al-Banat, 127. 106. Ibid. 107. Ibid., 131. 108. On the home as a space where women advanced the Nahda and Syrian modernity, see Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 30–4. 109. Maryam Zakka, “al-Jidd wa-l-Ijtihad,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (August 27, 1887), 374. See also Womack and Lindner, “‘Pick up the Pearls of Knowledge,’” 125. 110. Zakka, “al-Jidd wa-l-Ijtihad,” 374. 111. Ibid. 112. Ibid. Ephesians 6:10–17 speaks of girding oneself with the “whole armor of God,” including the “sword of the Spirit” and the “belt of truth.” 113. Strohmeier, “Muslim Education,” 222, 230; David Dean Commins, Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 16. 114. Tannus, “Khitab,” 186. 115. Ibid. 116. Ibid. 117. Ibid. Poem translation by Rahimjon Abdugafurov. 118. Rujina Shukri, “al-Makatib wa-Luzumaha,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 16 (April 20, 1888). 121. This article was also addressed in Womack and Lindner, “Pick up the Pearls of Knowledge,’” 139–42. 119. Shukri, “al-Makatib,” 123. 120. In her 1885 article in al-Muqtataf on the proper arrangement of a middleclass house, Shukri recommended that books be placed throughout the house. Halevi and Zachs, “The Little Kingdom,” 14. 121. Shukri, “al-Makatib,” 123. 122. Ibid. 123. Ibid.

206  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 124. Julia Tu‘ma, “Nisbat al-Mut‘alima ila al-Watan,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2059 (July 13, 1905), 442–4. 125. Ibid., 444. On discussions of fashion and moderation in this period, see AbouHodeib, A Taste for Home, 136. 126. Julia Tu‘ma, “Al-Sama’ al-Ula,” al-Hasna’ 2(1) (July 1910), 9–14. In this published speech for the Greek Orthodox Benevolent Society in Tripoli, Tu‘ma asked her listeners who publicly resembled Western women in dress, if they also carried out their civilizational duties at home. See Zachs and Halevi, “The Little Kingdom,” 145; Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 115–16. 127. Tu‘ma, “Nisbat al-Mut‘alima ila al-Watan,” 442. 128. Ibid., 444; Zakka, “al-Jidd wa-l-Ijtihad,” 384. See also Kurani’s similar charge that women ought to adorn themselves with wisdom and jewels of perseverance and endurance. Kurani, “Majd al-Mar’a,” 3. The words of exhortation by both Zakka, Kurani and Tu‘ma were reminiscent of Butrus al-Bustani’s 1849 speech on the education of women. Al-Bustani implored his listeners, “Let us then gird ourselves with wisdom and understanding, and robe ourselves with true politeness and meekness, and be crowned with the flowers of the ‘jenan’ (gardens) of knowledge.” Quoted in Jessup, Women of the Arabs, 164. See al-Bustani, “Khitab fi ta‘lim al-nisa.’” 129. Tu‘ma, “Nisbat al-Mut‘alima ila al-Watan,” 444. 130. Julia wrote, “Min al-thamara na‘rif al-shajara” (“We know a tree by its fruit”). Ibid., 443. The verse from Luke 6:44 in the Arabic Bible used by the Syrian Protestant churches is “Kullu shajara tu‘rafu min thamariha” (“Each tree is known by its fruit”). The parallel verse in Matthew 7:16 reads, “Min thimarihim, ta‘rifunahum” (“You will know them by their fruits”). This is my translation from the Arabic Bible Translation of 1865, also known as the Van Dyck Bible. 131. Besides Psalm 69, this image of mire, or sinking mud, appears in 2 Samuel 22:43, Psalm 18:42, Job 30:19, Isaiah 10:6, Isaiah 57:20, Micah 7:10 and 2 Peter 2:22. In every case the image is associated with degradation or punishment. 132. Tu‘ma, “Nisbat al-Mut‘alima ila al-Watan,” 443–4. 133. See Mark 4:1–9, 13–20 and Luke 8:4–15. Matthew 13:7 reads, “Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.” Verse 22 explains, “As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing” (NRSV).

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  207 134. See Ephesians 2:19–21, 1 Peter 2:4–7, Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10 and Luke 20:17. 135. El Shakry, “Schooled Mothers and Structured Play,” 131. 136. Shukri, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana,” (1885), 82–3; Rujina Shukri, “al-Tarbiya alHasana,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (1899), 387–90. 137. Shukri, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana” (1885), 82. 138. Ibid. 139. Ibid., 83. 140. Missionary women voiced such concerns in other parts the Ottoman Empire, see Reeves-Ellington, Domestic Frontiers, 29–30. 141. Ibid., 21–2. 142. Shukri, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana” (1885), 83. 143. Shukri, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana” (1899), 388. 144. Ibid. 145. Ibid. 146. Ibid. Al-Bustani, “Ihtifal Tidhkar: Khutba,” 138. 147. Shukri, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana” (1899), 387. 148. Ibid., 389. 149. Ibid. 150. ‘Atiya, ‘Ilm al-Banat, 125, 127. 151. Shukri, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana” (1899), 389. 152. ‘Atiya, ‘Ilm al-Banat, 16, 18. 153. Shukri, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana” (1899), 389. 154. Kurani, al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id, 15. 155. Ibid. 156. Ibid. 157. Ibid., 16. This contrasted, to some extent, with her 1890 article in Lisan al-Hal that she presented in translation at the Women’s Congress, claiming that “woman’s office is a very sacred one; for the world is what woman makes it. As the mother of men, she stamps indelibly upon them her own weakness or talent, health or disease.” Korany, “The Glory of Womanhood,” 360. See also Kurani, “Majd al-Mar’a,” 3. 158. Kurani, al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id, 16. 159. Ibid., 41. 160. Alice al-Bustani, “Ihtifal Tidhkar: Khutba,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1475 (May 5, 1894), 137–8. The celebration of the Beirut Female Seminary, which included the erection of a memorial column commemorating the school’s

208  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE establishment in 1835, was reported in the Presbyterian women’s missionary magazine. Hannah M. Condit Eddy, “A Memorial Pillar in Beirut, Syria,” Woman’s Work for Woman 9(12) (1894), 317. This event is addressed in Lindner, “Long, Long Will She Be Affectionately Remembered,” 27–8. 161. al-Bustani, “Ihtifal Tidhkar: Khutba,” 137–8. On the memorial event and Rahil’s relation to the mission, see Henry H. Jessup, “The Memorial Column in Beirut,” The Church at Home and Abroad 15 (October 1894), 301–3; Hannah M. Condit Eddy, “Testifying to the Grace of God,” Woman’s Work for Woman 9(7) (July 1894), 181–2. Rahil al-Bustani’s obituary appeared in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1464 (February 17, 1894), 55–6. 162. al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1464 (February 17, 1894), 55–6; “Shahirat al-nisa’: Rahil Ata,” Fatat al-Sharq 14(1) (October 15, 1919), 1–4. On this series of Middle Eastern women’s biographies in Fatat al-Sharq, see Marilyn Booth, May Her Likes be Multiplied: Biography and Gender Politics in Egypt (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001), 135–6. 163. al-Bustani, “Ihtifal Tidhkar: Khutba,” 137. 164. Ibid. On this claim, see also Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 123. 165. Ibid., 138. Shukri would use similar words in “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana” (1899), 388. 166. al-Bustani, “Ihtifal Tidhkar: Khutba,” 138. 167. Ibid. (added emphasis). 168. Ibid. 169. For this reason women were under constant scrutiny in the press, far more than men. Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 123. 170. al-Bustani, “Ihtifal Tidhkar: Khutba,” 138. 171. Ibid. 172. The English version of this saying was commonly quoted in the United States. Lindner, “The Woman Who Rocks the Crib”; Sarah Frances Smith, ‘“She Moves the Hands that Move the World’: Antebellum Child-rearing: Images of Mother and Child in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals for Mothers,” PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, 2009. Butrus al-Bustani employed these words in a speech he gave for the seventh annual examination of the British Syrian Mission’s Training College Beirut in 1867. Susette H. Smith, The Daughters of Syria: A Narrative of Efforts, by the Late Mrs. Bowen Thompson, for the Evangelization of Syrian Females, ed. H. B. Tristram, 2nd edn (London: Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, 1872), 217–18; “Account of the Examination given in the Arabic Newspapers,” July 27, 1867: Elizabeth Mary Copley

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  209 Papers, University of Durham Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham, England: GRE/G19/3/23. Salim al-Bustani used the same phrase in in al-Muqtataf 7 (1882), 702–12. See also Zachs, “Subversive Voices,” 342. 173. al-Bustani, “Ihtifal Tidhkar: Khutba,” 138. 174. George Swan, “Lacked ye Anything?” A Brief Story of the Egypt General Mission, rev. edn (London: Egypt General Mission, 1932), 54; Reeves-Ellington, Domestic Frontiers, 14, 78–9, 82. 175. Kurani, al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id, 38–9. 176. Ibid., 34. 177. Munira Badr Musa attended the BSM’s Training College in Beirut. Jean Said Makdisi, Teta, Mother, and Me: An Arab Woman’s Memoir (London: Saqi, 2005), 66, 187, 203. See Appendix A for the Badr family. 178. Khalaf, Protestant Missionaries in the Levant, 12. 179. Zakka, “al-Jidd wa-l-Ijtihad,” 374. 180. Shukri, “al-Makatib,” 123. 181. ‘Atiya, ‘Ilm al-Banat, 8. 182. Sirène Harb, “Orientalism and the Construction of American Identity in Abraham Mitrie Rihbany’s A Far Journey,” MELUS 33(3) (2008): 131–45. 183. Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home, 30, 131–42, 174–5. Abou-Hodeib examined the efforts of middle-class Beirutis to localize modernity by evoking an authentic Syrian or “Oriental” identity. 184. Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 204; Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 65; Baron, Women’s Awakening in Egypt, 21. 185. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 65; Booth, Classes of Ladies, 81–2. 186. Fawwaz declined the invitation because the Chicago World’s Fair was a mixedgender gathering, but she reportedly sent a copy of her book for the exhibition. Booth, Classes of Ladies, 259–65 187. Levy, “Partitioned Pasts,” 129, 136, 161 n. 80. 188. Korany, “The Position of Women in Syria,” 776; Lilian Whiting, “The Value of Receptions,” The Woman’s Journal 25(29) (July 21, 1894), 226. 189. Farida ‘Atiya, “al-Hidhr wa-l-Intibah,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 6 (February 1, 1888), 42. 190. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 290. 191. Shukri, “al-Makatib,” 122. 192. Engelke, “Past Pentecostalism,” 177, 182, 187. 193. Zeidan, Arab Women Novelists, 65. 194. Kurani, al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id, 39. Kurani’s conversations with women in the

210  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE United States indicated that in Syria she had felt pressured to uphold separate male and female spheres of work and to refrain from radical ideas that might cause editors to reject her submissions. See “Minutes of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Convention,” 86; Howard, “Madam Hanna K. Korany,” The Woman’s Journal (November 17, 1894), 362. 195. Korany, “The Glory of Womanhood,” 360. When introducing her to the women’s suffrage convention in 1894, Susan B. Anthony declared that Kurani had reversed her stance following the World’s Fair after she “saw the progress [American] women had made in all departments, even politics.” “Minutes of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Convention,” 86. 196. Salma Badr, “Muntakhabat li-Jam‘iyyat al-Ijtihad al-Ruhi: al-Sabr,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1895 (June 21, 1900), 205. 197. At the turn of the century, the Syrian Evangelical Church had 2,208 communicants. BFM (1900), 282–3. 198. BFM (1899), 267–8; Elizabeth M. Thompson, The Missing Link (September 2, 1867), 280; “Moslem Ladies Thirsting for the Word of God,” The Missing Link (October 2, 1876), 306. The last two publications used the same biblical theme of harvest, taken from Matthew 9:37–8, to appeal for more finances and personnel. 199. For men’s sermons, see Rashid Daghir, “Da‘wat Allah li-l-Khuta,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (May 18, 1885), 153–4; Yusif Badr, “al-Masih Fishana,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (May 29, 1897): 174–5. 200. ‘Abbud, “Ta’thir al-Musiqa,” 73–4. 201. Ibid., 73. 202. Ibid. 203. Ibid., 74. 204. Theodosia Jessup played music for the Anglo-American Congregation, the Syrian Evangelical Church in Beirut and the Beirut Sunday School. Theodosia Jessup, Pocket Diary, 1902: YDS 117-7-2. Kurani noted that playing music was considered an ideal art for women, and Salma Tannus listed music as a subject of study at the Beirut Female Seminary. Kurani, al-Akhlaq wa-l‘Awa’id, 27; Tannus, “Khitab,” 186. 205. Zakka, “al-Jidd wa-l-Ijtihad,” 374. 206. For the gendered implications of these two creation narratives, see Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1978), 72–143. 207. Zakka, “al-Jidd wa-l-Ijtihad,” 374.

a f emi ni st awa k eni ng?    |  211 208. Maryam Zakka, “al-Amana,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 16 (April 20, 1888), 315–16. Amana signifies faithfulness, honesty or loyalty. Zakka used the term broadly throughout the piece to refer to temporal and spiritual commitments but argued that the highest form of amana is shown to God. 209. Ibid., 316. Ephesians 6:14 reads, “Fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness” (NRSV). See Zakka, “al-Jidd wa-l-Ijtihad,” 374. 210. Zakka, “al-Amana,” 316. 211. In the jubilee celebration edition of al-Nashra, Zakka commended the mission periodical’s devotion “to the service of science and the demonstration of the spirit of the Christian religion.” Maryam Zakka, al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2551 (December 1, 1915), 184. 212. Zakka, “al-Amana,” 316. 213. The term al-khiyana signifies betrayal, faithlessness, deception or disloyalty, thereby in contrast to the various meanings of al-amana. 214. Ibid., 315. 215. Ibid., 316. Psalm 1 states that those who “delight in the law of the Lord” will prosper (v. 2–3), “But not the wicked! They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind” (v. 4, NRSV). 216. Ibid. 217. ‘Atiya, “al-Hidhr wa-l-Intibah,” 41–3. 218. ‘Atiya, ‘Ilm al-Banat, 128–31. Hanna Kurani’s book also reflected the thinking behind such warnings to be careful in choosing friends with noble manners and respectable reputations. Kurani, al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id, 12–14. 219. Hanna Kurani taught girls’ Sunday school classes for the Evangelical Churches. “Wafa,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1685 (May 14, 1898), 157. Yaqut Barakat Sarruf and Maryam Nimr Makarius, founders of Bakurat Suriyya, led women’s prayer and Bible study meetings together, and Sarruf taught at the Beirut Female Seminary. BFM (1884), 55; “Beirut Station,” February 1877: PHS 115-12-5. See their writings in Yaqut Sarruf, “al-Nisa’ al-Falakiyat,” al-Muqtataf 10(6) (March 1886), 371–3; Maryam Makarius, “al-Khansa,” al-Muqtataf 9 (1885), 622–6. 220. Badr, “Muntakhabat,” 205. 221. Istir Sarkis, “Ihtifal Jam‘iyyat al-Ijtihad al-Masihi fi Tarabulus,” al-Nashra alUsbu‘iyya 1903 (July 17, 1902), 262. 222. Ira Harris, “Tripoli Station Medical Report,” 1899: PHS 115-19-16. 223. Badr, “Muntakhabat,” 205. Badr used the words of Matthew 24:13.

212  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 224. Similar examples abounded in Protestant sermons of this period. Robert H. Ellison (ed.), A New History of the Sermon: The Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2010). On the Reformed tradition, see Leith, Introduction to the Reformed Tradition. 225. Badr, “Muntakhabat,” 205. The text of Matthew reads, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (NRSV). My direct translation of this verse in the quotation from Badr retains her emphasis on patience. 226. Catherine A. Brekus, “Female Preaching in Early Nineteenth-Century America,” Christian Reflection: A Series in Faith and Ethics (2008): 21–2, 25, 27. 227. Adèle Hajjar received ordination as a minister in the Church of God in Lebanon in 1920. Van Sanne, “Adèle Jureidini Hajjar,” 76–90. Hajjar was the first Protestant woman to be ordained to ministry in Lebanon. The second and third, Rola Sleiman and Najla Kassab, were ordained in 2017 by the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon. This Presbyterian body began licensing women to preach in 1993. Deanna Ferree Womack, “Contributions of Women in the Middle East,” in Mark Lamport (ed.), Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South, vol. 2 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 858–9. On women in the Arab churches, see also Mary Mikhail, “alMar’a al-Masihiyya,” in Andriyah Zaki (ed.), Nahwa Lahut ‘Arabi Mu‘asir (Beirut: Dar al-Thaqafa, 2008), 285–332.

4 MINISTERS AND NAHDAWI MASCULINITY: THE BEIRUT CHURCH CONTROVERSY

I

n February 1902, a group of Syrian Protestants in Beirut embodied nahdawi ideals of independent agency and free inquiry by circulating a damning assessment of the American mission that depicted the Syrian Evangelical Church “crying as from the grave and its echo being heard by the missionaries and the Presbyterian Board of New York.”1 This English-language pamphlet spoke on behalf of Syrians who had seceded from the Evangelical Church of Beirut in the 1890s to form a second Protestant church in that city, a non-denominational congregation independent of missionary oversight and pastored by a recent seminary graduate As‘ad Zurub. The anonymous authors identified with the “Evangelical Independent Church” and proclaimed that rather than extending mercy and “sympathy for help,” the American missionaries were the direct cause of Syrian suffering.2 Members of this independent church, whose interests the pamphlet represented, included the press owner Khalil Sarkis, Khalil’s wife Louisa al-Bustani, the nahdawi author Alice al-Bustani and the convert from Damascus Salim Kassab. Sarkis emerged as spokesperson for the independent church during its short history (1894–1906), but neither he nor any of his congregation members claimed responsibility for the pamphlet. That same year, the BFM secretary Arthur Judson Brown (1856–1963) 213

214  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE visited Syria on the last leg of his worldwide tour of Presbyterian missions. Upon returning to board headquarters in New York, Brown published a book-length report that documented his visit, evaluated the mission’s successes and mapped the trajectory for future Protestant work in the region.3 His detailed study, edited in consultation with missionaries in Syria, told a version of the American Syrian Mission’s story that not only completely omitted the contributions of nahdawi women but also overlooked the diverse voices of Syrian Protestant men, like those who initiated the Evangelical Independent Church. While the women of the Protestant community were not absent from the historical entanglements that led to the antimissionary pamphlet, the competing discourses of masculine authority within the Syria Mission and the Syrian Evangelical Church often rendered them silent observers of Protestant men’s conversations. This chapter illuminates the ways male members of Syrian Protestant churches countered the BFM and leading missionary men like Henry Harris Jessup and Franklin Hoskins, Jessup’s successor at the Beirut Station. It also attends to the differences of opinion Syrian men had with one another on the role of the American mission in their homeland nearly eighty years after its inception. Arthur Brown’s records gave no indication that he knew about the controversial pamphlet that the Beirut mission station had received just weeks before his arrival. Nevertheless, Brown’s published report on his visitation issued a firm rebuttal to anyone who might question the value of the Syria Mission or call for its removal.4 The Board secretary emphasized the importance of continued Protestant work in the Holy Land to combat the “intolerable” reality that the birthplace of Christ had lapsed into “utter heathenism.” Then, in the language of spiritual conquest common in early twentieth-century missionary writings on the Middle East, Brown contended: The motive of the old Crusaders was not bad though their methods were so unwise. The modern Christian Crusader goes to Syria and Palestine not armed with carnal weapons to wrest the land from the Turk with violence and blood, but he goes as the ambassador of the Prince of Peace to teach the young, to heal the sick, to distribute the Word of God, and to preach the Gospel of peace and good-will to men.5

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  215 The American missionaries’ ultimate aim, as conveyed in this statement, had not changed since the time of Rufus Anderson (1796–1880), the influential ABCFM secretary who surveyed the Syrian mission field in 1855.6 Yet factors on the ground in Syria had shifted significantly since the mid-nineteenth century. In particular, transnational networks of communication and the rising movement of people, goods and information between the Ottoman Empire and the Americas provided new avenues for Syrians to make use of their mission school training, and to monitor and critique American missionary activities. Whereas Syrian Protestant men of an earlier generation like Butrus al-Bustani and John Wortabet took Anderson’s visit to Beirut as an opportunity to air their grievances privately to the Board representative, by the turn of the century Syrians had recourse to public methods for challenging and influencing mission activities both in Beirut and in America and, not incidentally, for assuming more authority.7 The antimissionary pamphlet of the Evangelical Independent Church of Beirut represented one such mode of resistance, facilitated by Englishlanguage fluency and modern printing. Among other criticisms, the document condemned the very sort of language Arthur Brown used to characterize the “lapsed” state of Syrian society.8 Drawing upon their connections with Syrian immigrants in the United States, the pamphlet’s authors claimed that in lectures for mission supporters in America, the leading men of the Syria Mission exaggerated their successes and made “Syria the darkest place upon the surface of the globe, and its race in the most savage state, while things in reality are far from being so.”9 With such pronouncements, the pamphlet endeavored to expose the unethical behavior of the Syria Mission’s central figures: American missionary ministers. When considered alongside Brown’s official report, this antimissionary treatise provides an alternative vantage point from which to approach the history of the Syria Mission. I take the 1902 pamphlet as a point of departure for exploring the power dynamics within the Syria Mission and the hierarchies of race and gender that played out in internal Protestant conflicts. Although excluded from the official reports of the Syria Mission and from existing scholarship on Syrian Protestantism, this pamphlet is one key to understanding the complex, enmeshed relationship between American missionaries and members of the Syrian evangelical community during the Nahda.10 The origins of this

216  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE antimissionary publication may be traced back to the Beirut Church division of 1892, while the schism itself emerged from a longer history of Syrian negotiations of Protestant masculinity under the dominance of American missionaries. For the modern nahdawi identity that Syrian Protestant men sought to construct—as elite male scholars, authors and theologians who surpassed most missionaries in Arabic composition—clashed with the subordinate positions American men imposed upon them. Decisions regarding church operations and pastoral leadership generated a complex of questions for these men of late nineteenth-century Syria: what did it mean to be a nahdawi Protestant man? Had Syrian Protestant men achieved full equality with American Protestant ministers in clerical responsibility, theological acumen and spiritual authority? When would such questions be decided, and by whom? The Syrian sources that I explore in this chapter—petitions for church independence, antimissionary critiques and statements presented to Arthur Brown during his tour—grappled with such questions. These understudied materials together unlock the nuances of nahdawi Protestant men’s relationships to one another and to missionaries, whom some defied and others acknowledged as spiritual father figures. For the opinions of these Syrian men were not uniform. The AMP editor Ibrahim al-Hurani, for example, opposed the church schism, and he was one of multiple men in Beirut and in rural Syria who wrote addresses and letters in Brown’s honor extolling the role of the mission in advancing the Arab renaissance. To some onlookers, both then and now, Syrians who thus attached themselves to Western Protestants had become “alien” or “inauthentic” to their own culture. Yet, as we saw in Chapter 1, even the Syria Mission’s most acclaimed converts made the evangelical faith their own, apart from missionary designs. Likewise in the writings and behaviors of other Syrian Protestant men, we can detect levels of “irony, resistance, hybridity, and selectivity” common to non-Western appropriations of Protestantism.11 This was apparent even in the way nahdawi Protestants dressed, combining Western attire, modern Middle Eastern accoutrements like the fez, and more traditional Arab headgear and robes (see Figures 16, 22, 23, 24 and 27). Syrian resistance to American control was to be expected, in fact, since even in contexts of Western imperialism, “the subaltern can speak.”12 Some

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  217

Figure 16  Theological Seminary graduates in Syria, c. 1902 Special Collections, Yale Divinity School, Library, Arthur Judson Brown Papers, RG 2, Box 19, folder 45.

critics of missions would not define Syrian Protestants as subaltern, however, but as co-opted collaborators with the Western missionary enterprise. Sirène Harb, for example, adapted Edward Said’s analysis of “the native intellectual formed in the West” to characterize the Protestant convert Abraham Rihbany as a self-Orientalizing Arab who distanced himself from his past by adopting Protestantism, emigrating to the United States and then embracing “Americanism.”13 The implication of Harb’s study was that “natives” who adopted Protestant missionaries’ religious or cultural ideals were no longer authentically Arab. Along with the 1902 pamphlet, the published and handwritten texts of nahdawi Protestant men considered in this chapter show that they felt otherwise. Gender, Race and American Missionary Authority The antimissionary pamphlet of 1902 was a product of nahdawi culture in Beirut at the turn of the century, but it also represented an ongoing pattern of resistance to the Syria Mission’s institutionalized Western leadership

218  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE structures dating back to the work of the ABCFM in the early nineteenth century. In the theological conception of evangelical Protestants, missionaries were divinely called agents of Christ sent to preach the gospel for the salvation of the world.14 In more mundane terms, however, throughout much of the nineteenth century the word “missionary” implied an ordained American or European male. Even though the self-conceptions of Syrian Protestants and American women in the Syria Mission challenged such definitions, both were functionally subordinated to the religious and administrative authority of American men. The titles the ABCFM used reinforced this status: “native assistants” and “female assistant missionaries.”15 Only in the decades following the American Civil War, when shifting views of women’s professions brought about the “feminization” of global missions, did Protestant definitions expand to include Western women as missionaries along with nonordained male doctors and press managers.16 Yet even in the late nineteenth century under BFM leadership, American missionary ministers maintained their position at the center of what Christine Lindner termed the “Protestant Circle” in Syria, where these men formed the community’s ideological core.17 This gendered and racialized community structure, as Lindner’s circular imagery indicated, was not a strict hierarchy but “an intricate dispersal of power emanating from the center.”18 Outside the center, access to power shifted according to circumstance. Syrian Protestant men and Western missionary women navigated and sometimes contested the space between the male leaders of the Syria Mission and Syrian Protestant women. Remaining near the center, American women often oversaw missionary efforts targeted toward women and girls. While Syrian men rarely gained this level of control over mission institutions, they could (in theory) attain the same status as missionary men through ordination. Ordained offices were not open to women, and missionary women similarly lacked jurisdiction over church affairs and mission policies. Thus, it would be only the mission’s eight male members who made the unanimous decision in 1870 to transfer the Syria Mission and its stations from the ABCFM to the BFM, while excluding the ten American women of the mission and its sixty-three Syrian employees from the vote.19 Although most of the American women were Presbyterians and likely to support this move, some Syrian Protestants opposed it from the very beginning.20 As we shall see, the antimissionary pamphlet of 1902 was a manifestation of

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  219 such recurring conflicts that began in the 1870s over the question of adopting Presbyterian polity (or form of church governance). When Arthur Brown arrived in Syria, the BFM had operated the Syria Mission for just over three decades. Mission personnel had increased to 15 American men, 25 American women and 193 Syrians, but the institutional decision-making process had changed only slightly. Brown informally polled the American women who attended the extensive conferences he held with the men of the mission, but no Syrians were present.21 Theodosia Davenport Jessup (1839–1907) noted that she attended one of Brown’s meetings along with her husband Henry in order to listen to the proceedings, reflecting her role as a silent observer and not a participant.22 While some American women, like Dr. Mary Pierson Eddy, expressed frustration at being denied a voice during such meetings,23 Syrian men were not afforded even a passive role in mission proceedings, a reality that the antimissionary pamphlet’s authors lamented when they criticized the missionaries’ closed meetings.24 In administrative matters, then, American women often fared better than the leading men of the Syrian Evangelical Church. Within their own gendered sphere of influence, American women exercised a considerable level of authority, for they directed girls’ schools, corresponded with mission supporters at home, raised funds for their own projects and shaped opinions in the United States by writing for denominational publications and women’s magazines.25 Male missionaries and board secretaries wrote or edited the official mission board publications, and these did not fully reflect missionary women’s views of their work or account for their contributions to the mission. This was particularly true for missionary wives, whose given names rarely appeared in such reports, and whose work and salary were attached to that of their husbands. For example, although Harriette Mollison Eddy (1855–1929) had worked as a missionary in Syria long before her husband Franklin Hoskins entered the field, the annual report following their marriage stated, “During the year, Rev. Frank E. Hoskins and Rev. Wm. S. Nelson and their wives have joined the mission.”26 In her 1929 report as director for the mission’s tuberculosis sanatorium, Harriette M. Eddy Hoskins attempted to correct this oversight by insisting that she had completed fifty-four years of service, and not merely forty-one. Hoskins asserted, “The Calendar gives my date as 1888 (the date of my marriage) but

220  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE

Figure 17  Harriette Mollison Eddy Hoskins Source: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, Harold B. Hoskins Papers, MC221, Box 14, folder 34.

Figure 18  Franklin Evans Hoskins Source: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, Harold B. Hoskins Papers, MC221, Box 14, folder 34.

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  221

Figure 19  Harriette Eddy Hoskins with a Syrian woman Source: Harriette Eddy Hoskins, Foreign Missionary Personal Files, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Foreign Missionary Papers, RG 360.

I have my appointment to Sidon from Dr. Ellinwood in 1875 as Harriette M. Eddy.”27 Besides indicating the BFM’s mistake, Hoskins’ annual report reminds us that although their contributions were sometimes overlooked, missionary women were not without a voice when it came to representing their own activities. In contrast to their American counterparts, Syrian women remained peripheral to the processes of mission management. As Chapter 3 demonstrated, some Syrian women gained a measure of influence within the Protestant community as public speakers and authors. American and Syrian men edited their pieces, however, and if nahdawi women questioned mission policies, they were not free to do so in the publications of the AMP. What

222  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE little we know about the role of Syrian women in the Beirut Church controversy must be gleaned from the writings of American and Syrian men. The same is true for American missionary women and the women leaders of the BSM who were part of the Protestant Circle and employed Syrian Evangelical Church members. The tensions that led to the Beirut Church schism and the antimissionary pamphlet at the turn of the century centered on ordination and church governance, subjects that the BFM located firmly in the masculine domain. American, British and Syrian women surfaced occasionally in the existing sources on this conflict, not as players but as pawns in the contest between American and Syrian men. The Syria Mission upheld a patriarchal leadership structure that excluded women from clerical office and high administrative positions, even as it promoted the education of girls and provided opportunities for women to engage publicly in religious work. This was not simply a matter of masculine privilege, however, as American missionary ministers also exercised control over the men of the Syrian Protestant community. Thus, as specified in this book’s introduction, I use the term patriarchy to signify the masculinist power of structural gender inequality and also, more literally, the paternalistic hierarchy of a father over his children.28 Both forms of patriarchy were operative in the Syrian missionary encounter as the men of the mission claimed spiritual fatherhood over native pastors and evangelists and as Syrian men negotiated with the Americans for a place in the male sphere of church leadership. Mission Policies and Discourses of Syrian Masculinity Whereas Protestant notions of men and women’s differing roles in mission work rested upon a gendered understanding of religious leadership, the place of indigenous men in nineteenth-century Protestant missions was governed by the “cultural hegemony of white male missionary pastors.”29 The same sort of racialized assumptions of Western superiority that operated in European colonial contexts were present in the American–Syrian missionary encounter, even though the Ottoman Empire maintained control over Syria in the pre-First World War period.30 Ethnocentrism colored missionary practices in contradiction to the universalist theology of evangelical Protestantism that informed official missionary policies. Rufus Anderson’s influential

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  223 “three-self” theory, for example, upheld the equality of “native” Protestants and aimed to equip their churches to be self-supporting, self-governing and self-propagating.31 This emphasis on indigenous Christian agency continued to inform the Syria Mission’s theoretical articulations after its transfer to the Presbyterian Board in 1870, when only two ordained Syrian pastors were serving Evangelical churches.32 Presbyterian mission strategy supported the timely transfer of all church operations to local authority, eventually negating the need for foreign missionaries altogether.33 Yet the men of the Syria mission exhibited great reluctance to relinquish control to Syrian pastors, a pattern repeated across global mission fields. Although missionary and indigenous women contributed to the establishment of independent congregations, Anderson’s formula conceived of this “three-self” process as entirely male-initiated, and Presbyterian missionaries in late nineteenth-century Syria agreed with this basic premise in their written texts. The duty of the male missionary minister, in the words of William W. Eddy (1852–1900), was to introduce the people to the gospel, form a congregation and then hand that church over to a Syrian pastor.34 American men had first to “raise up a native ministry” before this process could end with an exchange of power between a metaphorical father and son.35 Potential Syrian pastors required training and close examination before they were judged ready for ordination, yet even then Anderson justified keeping native pastors “practically subordinate to the missionaries” on account of the “weakness and waywardness so generally found in men just emerging from heathenism.”36 This sort of paternalism stemmed from a perceived gap between the Western missionary and the “native helper,” the former being of a higher rank in Anderson’s opinion and receiving a significantly higher salary.37 While missionaries feared making mission employment a form of social welfare or a lucrative career that would attract insincere Protestants, the effect of such thinking, as some Syrians noted, was to keep native employees “on the level of poverty.” When describing the missionary who hired him to teach in the Suq al-Gharb day school in the 1880s, Abraham Rihbany reflected, “Mr. Pond lived in a beautiful residence. He had a carriage, a saddle horse, and three servants. Why was it that I should accept a position whose salary did not enable me to preserve my self-respect?”38 This feeling of disparity prompted Rihbany to immigrate to the United States, where he

224  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE published these words in his 1914 memoir, echoing the sentiment of other Syrian Protestants—like the authors of the 1902 pamphlet—who named the asymmetrical relationship between American missionaries and their Syrian protégés. Whether missionaries upheld their continued tutelage of native church leaders through such racial justifications or with more veiled references to educational qualifications and budgetary concerns, the contradiction of the Syria Mission’s practices with mission theories and Protestant doctrine was apparent from the very beginning to the Syrians who partnered in the mission’s evangelical work. For example, the 1847 petition for the first independent Syrian Evangelical Church in Beirut used the language of Protestant mission theory to contest missionary authority subtly and cleverly. The document, written on behalf of the congregation by the renowned Butrus al-Bustani, proclaimed the Syrian Protestant intention to “preach the gospel to high and low, if perchance we may bring the people around us to repentance and true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”39 The petition continued to explain, however, that the Beirut congregation was hindered in their duty of self-propagation

Figure 20  The Evangelical Church of Beirut and American School for Girls Source: James S. Dennis, A Sketch of the Syria Mission (New York: Mission House, 1872), frontispiece.

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  225 because it was not publicly manifested in an independent church. Thus, alBustani urged the missionaries to take up the matter of church organization as soon as possible.40 By requesting complete independence under the leadership of a Syrian pastor, with a missionary appointed to counsel the pastor only at the beginning, the petition upheld Anderson’s theory that missionary oversight should be temporary.41 It also employed sound evangelical theology in its multiple references to Jesus Christ alone as head of the church, reminding the missionaries that Syrian Protestants did not leave their former churches to exchange one human authority for another.42 Nevertheless, the document deferentially placed this decision in the hands of the Americans as it indicated the paternal relationship between the missionaries and the native congregation, saying, “we are your children in the Lord.”43 While the Syria Mission officially organized the Evangelical Church of Beirut in 1848, it failed to install a Syrian pastor for the new church, even when six years later the members requested the ordination of al-Bustani as their pastor. Instead, an American filled the position for decades, and in other Syrian towns and villages the mission instituted a hierarchy of religious authority by employing Syrian men as licentiates (non-ordained evangelists who were licensed to preach) and ordained evangelists, rather than as settled church pastors.44 The disproportionately high number of licentiates serving the Syria Mission in the period before 1900 may be traced, in part, to the high educational requirements for those who would enter ordained ministry. Some licensed Syrian preachers, like Yusif ‘Atiya, who did not complete the full theological course of instruction at the mission’s Theological Seminary, served for decades at mission churches.45 They performed regular pastoral duties, except for administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, without receiving the higher pay that would be due to an ordained Syrian minister.46 Ostensibly due to either lack of educational training or funding for salaries, the majority of the mission’s Syrian preachers were never ordained. From the ordination of the first Syrian Evangelical minister, John Wortabet, in 1853, until 1890, the mission ordained only four new Syrian ministers, while employing dozens of licentiates at a low salary (see Figure 21).47 The missionaries also observed a hierarchy even within ordained offices of ministry, as the position of an ordained evangelist, as held by Wortabet

226  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Figure 21  Table of Ordained Syrian Protestant Ministers, 1853–1908 Date of Ordination

Name

Location of Ordination Service

1853

John Wortabet

designated as evangelist

1864

Saliba Jarwan (d. 1911)

‘Abay

1866

Khalil Mughabghab

‘Ayn Zhalta

1872

Yusif Badr of Shwayr (d. 1912)

Hums

1879

Salim al-Hakim of Dayr Mimas (d. 1896) —

1891

As‘ad ‘Abdullah al-Rasi (d. 1915)

‘Ayn Zhalta

1894

As‘ad Daud Zurub

Beirut, designated as evangelist

1905

Bishara Barudi of Suq al-Gharb

Beirut

1905

Yusif Jirjir

Beirut

1905

Mikhail Ibrahim

Beirut

1908

Amin Fahd Khuri of ‘Abay

‘Abay

1908

Antun Hamawi of Kharaba

Sidon

1908

Tanius Sa‘d of Shwayfat

Sidon

and by the schismatic church pastor As‘ad Zurub, was placed one tier below the office of church pastor, because of the missionaries’ view that some theologically educated and ordained Syrian men were still not ready to serve independently as ministers.48 According to the form of government of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, such ordained evangelists who served a number of churches instead of just one, should have been equal to ordained pastors and also to American missionary ministers, in status if not in salary.49 The meager salaries granted to Syrian pastors, evangelists and teachers were presented as a functional necessity, but mission policies and funding designations were also the result of missionaries’ ethnocentrism. American missionaries often petitioned the BFM for more funds, lamented their financial losses during years of retrenchment and noted that Syrian Evangelical churches possessed even fewer resources to contribute to their pastors’ salaries. This last issue was a clear impediment to the goal of establishing self-supporting congregations and another reason that the Americans felt justified in their close oversight of Syrian church affairs. In Eddy’s words, when foreign churches provided the money, they had “a right to control its

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  227 application.” A Syrian minister who remained dependent upon this outside source would be obliged to follow the desires of the sponsors rather than those of the congregation. Eddy continued: And while thus dependent, the church cannot properly claim a choice in selecting pastors, nor demand the dismissal of one it deems unsuitable, or incompetent, or unworthy, all which is contrary to the spirit of Christianity which allows the largest liberty in things not essential.50

Since the early years of the ABCFM, Syrian congregations had relied upon mission funds, but under BFM oversight the rules of Presbyterian polity institutionalized the mechanisms of missionary control and solidified the religious authority of the American missionary men. This occurred between 1880 and 1896, as the missionaries gradually moved the Syrian churches from the congregational model of the ABCFM, which had no higher governing body beyond the mission, to a Presbyterian system of government with three presbyteries or regional governing bodies made up of American missionary ministers, Syrian pastors and elected Syrian elders (members of a congregation’s governing council, or Session). The churches founded under the ABCFM were not denominationally Congregational, but followed a congregational form of church polity that Congregationalist missionaries had influenced. In this system each congregation had an elected council, similar to the elders in Presbyterian churches, but there was no central governing authority to oversee the local church.51 In contrast, the missionaries of the BFM divided the churches into three governing presbyteries, covering the regions of Sidon (1883), Tripoli (1890) and Lebanon (finalized in 1896 to include Mount Lebanon and Beirut). The Presbytery rules of ordination upheld Eddy’s argument that a church’s liberty depended upon its financial independence. In order to encourage self-support, the mission paid half of the salary for each ordained preacher and took the remaining portion of the salary from funds that local churches contributed to the Presbytery. Under this structure, a new minister could be ordained only when Syrian churches’ contributions toward selfsupport sufficed “to pay half the salary of another ordained preacher.”52 Notably, these Presbytery rules did not apply to the ordination of church pastors, but of preachers, thus establishing that ordained evangelists would

228  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE

Figure 22  Members of the Sidon Presbytery Source: The Assembly Herald 14, No. 12 (December 1908), 554.

Figure 23  Members of the Tripoli Presbytery Source: The Assembly Herald 14, No. 12 (December 1908), 546.

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  229 continue to occupy a liminal position between that of non-ordained licentiates and settled pastors. Each new ordained evangelist would remain “a servant of the church at large.”53 An itinerant evangelist could become installed as a settled church pastor only when one particular congregation assumed responsibility for half of that pastor’s salary (with the other half paid by the Presbytery). When it came to matters of finance, Americans had the final say as long as they paid the bills. The Presbytery rules made this explicit: The mission will respect and carry out the decisions of Presbytery in every case possible, but in cases where there are strong reasons for objecting to the action of Presbytery, the mission will have the final decision, as representing the donors of the funds in America to whom the missionaries are responsible.54

In acting as a financial donor for the churches of the Syrian presbyteries and stipulating how the presbyteries were to use this money, the missionaries retained paternal oversight and decision-making power. At the same time, by making the ordination and installation of pastors dependent upon funding, these missionary guidelines deliberately limited the number of Syrians who were granted status as full ministers, equal in function, if not in salary, with American men. The Beirut Church Controversy The conflict that emerged within the Beirut Protestant community in the 1890s demonstrated how difficult it was for Syrian mission employees or church members to challenge American power and achieve a measure of control over their own affairs. To have any chance of success, one needed financial independence from the mission, influence within the Syrian Evangelical Church and the ability to speak the missionaries’ language of Protestant patriarchy. This made it nearly impossible for women to institute major structural changes in the Syria Mission, yet, as we shall see, American and Syrian men made calculated references to the women of the community during the Beirut Church schism of 1892 and the antimissionary pamphlet controversy of 1902. Statements about women and other gendered discourses were intended to bolster masculine authority on one side or the other of these ongoing controversies, revealing more about Protestant men’s dispositions in

230  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE nineteenth-century Syria than about women’s experiences in this masculinist environment. The Evangelical Independent Church According to missionary Franklin E. Hoskins (1858–1921), who recorded the history of the Evangelical Church of Beirut for the Syria Mission’s private records, the roots of the church schism may be traced to the year 1870, when “a certain section of the Church rose in rebellion” against the mission’s move to Presbyterian oversight. Writing in the early twentieth century as head of the Beirut Station, Hoskins stated, “from that day to this they have made open and secret war against the Mission.”55 This “rebellion” manifested itself again in the mid-1880s, when the mission initiated a Presbytery for the Mount Lebanon region, and the Beirut Church members refused to accept the rules of Presbyterian governance.56 The church preferred the congregational system described above and therefore had not yet joined the Lebanon Presbytery in 1890, when, according to Hoskins, the church was “induced, under pressure, to seek for and accept a native pastor.”57 After a number of potential candidates declined, that year the church members unanimously accepted Yusif Badr to replace Henry Jessup and become the congregation’s first Syrian pastor.58 In 1892, however, three prominent members—Khalil Khattar Sarkis, Na‘mi Tabet (Thabit) and ‘Abdullah Saigh—wrote to Jessup, then head of the Beirut Station, informing him of a disagreement between the congregation and Badr.59 As the 1902 pamphlet later put it, this was a turning point in the “quarrel within and without the church in Syria,” which led to Badr’s resignation and the creation of the Evangelical Independent Church.60 Sarkis, Tabet, Saigh and their families were long-time members of the Evangelical Church of Beirut and claimed to speak on its behalf. Khalil Sarkis, the nahdawi press and periodical owner and husband of Louisa al-Bustani, emerged as the spokesman for the disgruntled members of the church.61 The letter to Jessup stated that because Badr’s initial period of ministry had come to an end, the church had determined not to renew his tenure but to elect a new pastor in his place. The writers explained that they made this decision in consultation with missionary Cornelius Van Dyck, indicating that they had the support of a higher authority.62 As for their grievances against

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  231

Figure 24  The Evangelical Benevolent Society in Beirut, 1876. Pictured clockwise from top: Nicola Tobbajy, Salim Kassab, Michael Araman, Yusif ‘Abd al-Nur, Ibrahim al-Hurani, Francis Shamun, Michael Gharzuzi; Center: John Abcarius Source: Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library, Henry Harris Jessup Papers, RG 117, Box 10, folder 51.

232  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE

Figure 25  Henry Harris Jessup Source: Henry Harris Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, frontispiece.

Figure 26  Dr. Cornelius Van Dyck Source: Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library, Henry Harris Jessup Papers, RG 117, Box 10, folder 50.

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  233

Figure 27  Khalil Khattar Sarkis Courtesy of Orient-Institute Beirut.

Figure 28  Louisa al-Bustani Sarkis Courtesy of Orient-Institute Beirut.

234  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE the pastor, the three men claimed that Badr had admitted members to the church without consulting the church council (‘umda), and had attempted to take control of the religious endowment (waqf  ) entrusted to the church’s Benevolent Society.63 Sarkis, Tabet and Saigh were members of this Benevolent Society that a group of influential Syrian Protestants had founded in 1868, and it was perhaps for this reason that Jessup doubted the validity of their report. The contrast between the deferential language of the Syrian letter and Jessup’s pedantic response revealed the patriarchal power dynamics operating between the Beirut Church and the mission station. While Sarkis and his colleagues recognized Jessup’s “fatherly concern” (al-ghira al-abawiyya) toward them, hoping that he would favor their request, Jessup spoke like a father ­admonishing his children for their actions. He responded: I cannot accept everything that came in your letter until the facts become clear … What I know is that there is a disagreement between some individual members in the Evangelical Church and the aforementioned pastor, but I do not know the reasons for it.64

Jessup stated further that he neither believed the claim about Van Dyck nor did he support such appeals to missionaries, because foreigners could not “decide to end the appointment of one [pastor] or appoint another without the church’s knowledge, as the church is the only possessor of this right.”65 Then, with another series of rhetorical questions, he asked, “Who determined the period of [Badr’s] ministry? … Did you cancel the system of governance of the Syrian Evangelical Church so that some individuals may dismiss their pastors?”66 With these words, Jessup reinforced the connectional principles of Presbyterian polity and the Syria Mission’s aim to promote self-governing congregations. His response also demonstrated, however, that as the leading male missionary in Beirut he freely exercised his authority over the affairs of the Syrian Protestant community, despite his earlier statement insisting against such missionary meddling. This paternal power was not lost upon Sarkis and his colleagues, who recognized that missionary backing was necessary for any major church decision. While they followed the example of al-Bustani’s 1847 petition as they placed themselves in subordination to the

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  235 mission, these Syrian men were not so powerless in their relationship with Jessup. As in all mission fields, the Syria Mission’s ultimate survival and success was contingent upon the receptivity and partnership of the local people. Indeed, Sarkis, Tabet and Saigh were among the most influential members of the congregation, and a number of other wealthy and prominent Protestants joined them when they seceded from the Evangelical Church of Beirut that same year and began worshipping separately after receiving Jessup’s reply.67 When it became clear that neither the mission nor the remaining members of the original Beirut Church were willing to force Badr’s resignation, in January 1893, Sarkis and his colleagues submitted a second document to the mission, a petition requesting the ordination of a recent theological seminary graduate named As‘ad Zurub to serve as pastor for their worshipping community.68 Exhibiting familiarity with the missionary ideal of self-governing churches, and echoing the agenda for Syrian Protestant men’s ministry that al-Bustani initiated in 1847, the document proclaimed: As we are now organized into a purely native church in accordance with your request … owing to our knowledge of the fact that it is one of your desires and aims that native churches should be organized in Syria with native pastors … all the individuals of the native church assembled in a meeting held Jan. 5 1893, and unanimously elected Mr. Assad Zarub their native pastor.69

The authors requested official organization on the basis of the old nizam (system) of congregationally-governed churches under the ABCFM, indicating their dislike of Presbyterian polity and their rejection of the mission’s views on this matter. According to the nizam’s stipulations, they requested two Syrian pastors to ordain Zurub.70 It would be another year—during which the missionaries failed to reconcile the seceding members with their former congregation—before missionaries reluctantly accepted the petition. In the meantime, Yusif Badr resigned from his position at the Evangelical Church of Beirut and the American men determined this was an “opportune moment” to reorganize the congregation “on a basis of full sympathy with the Mission and cooperation with the other Protestants of Syria.” The church finally came into full membership in the Lebanon Presbytery in 1896.71 Thus,

236  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE the Evangelical Church of Beirut, known then as the “First Church” in Beirut, became for a time a Presbyterian congregation. The majority of the Protestants in Beirut remained in this First Church, but those who left to form the new church included representatives of the Sarkis, al-Bustani, Tabet, Mishalani, Fuaz, Abcarius and Araman families, whose relatives had joined the Beirut Protestant community before 1870. Indeed, among the seceding group, Lulu Araman and the aforementioned Na‘mi Tabet had both been members of the Evangelical Church of Beirut back in 1854 when the mission refused to ordain al-Bustani. Louisa Sarkis and Alice al-Bustani would have recalled this slight against their father.72 On March 18, 1894, Henry Jessup organized Alice, Louisa, Na‘mi, Lulu and twenty-six other founding members into a new congregation, known by missionaries as the “Second Church” of Beirut but self-identified as the Evangelical Independent Church. In the following week, the Lebanon Presbytery examined As‘ad Zurub and ordained him as an evangelist.73 Sarkis and his colleagues thus achieved freedom from Presbyterian polity and financial independence from the mission, having agreed to take full responsibility for Zurub’s salary. The church was congregationally governed and “undenominational,” as its representatives would later explain.74 That is to say, the Second Church was neither Congregational nor Presbyterian. Yet the involvement of Jessup and the Presbytery in these affairs made it plain where the ultimate decision-making power resided in the Protestant community in Syria. It was Jessup who determined that with sixteen men and fourteen women, the congregation was large enough to become viable. This assessment was needed in order for Zurub to receive a Protestant ordination.75 Only at this point did the women of the independent church come briefly to the forefront. Jessup named them in his records because their numbers helped him to frame the congregation’s existence as a mission success story even though it refused to become Presbyterian. In Jessup’s estimation, the church’s financial independence was also a noteworthy accomplishment. He reported to the BFM: The zeal of the membership of the Second Church and congregation are most commendable. They are determined to support their own pastor and depend no longer on foreign missionary help. This is the first church in

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  237 Syria to pay the full salary of the pastor and one can well forget the past alienations and differences of opinion, in our joy at seeing a little church pledged to bear its own burdens and to show to the people of Syria that a Protestant Church can manage its own affairs.76

In fact, the Presbytery’s decision to ordain Zurub as an evangelist and not as a settled pastor was one indication of the missionaries’ reluctance to allow the church to manage on its own.77 References to the “Second Church” of Beirut in the Syria Mission’s annual reports similarly demonstrated that the missionaries continued to claim paternal jurisdiction over the fledgling congregation. To be clear, although the members called themselves the Evangelical Independent Church to indicate their Syrian leadership and funding, they did not initially declare a clean break from the mission. Franklin Hoskins claimed that throughout its twelve years of existence (1894–1906), the independent church spared no efforts in “keeping up the strife,” but Syrian records suggest a more stable relationship in the 1890s between the new congregation, the missionaries and the members of the First Church of Beirut. Al-Nashra alUsbu‘iyya continued publishing articles by As‘ad Zurub and members of his church, and Protestants from both Beirut churches shared sympathy in times of sorrow like the devastating typhoid epidemics of 1895 to 1896.78 The women of the Evangelical Independent Church also paid friendly visits to the American women’s homes, showing their willingness to transcend divisions between the men of the Protestant community.79 By the end of the decade, Zurub’s church had grown to include new members like Antun Qanawati, a Beiruti businessman, and Salim Kassab, the nahdawi author employed by the BSM whom we met in Chapter 1. The congregation now desired its own church building, but the members could not finance the project alone. This may be one reason for their attempt in 1897 to reunite with the First Church on a non-Presbyterian basis.80 The mission vetoed this overture, and Zurub soon left for the United States, where he endeavored to raise funds for his church.81 He found American donors unreceptive, and the antimissionary pamphlet materialized after he returned to Syria empty-handed.82

238  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE The “Infamous” Pamphlet This brings us finally to the 1902 pamphlet, a document that illuminates the power dynamics between male missionaries and Syrian Protestants, and also alerts us to the gendered entanglements between American and British missionaries in the region, entanglements that Chapter 5 will discuss in greater detail. In February 1902, As‘ad Zurub presented an English-language pamphlet titled “Syria and the Mission Work” to the Rev. H. B. Macartney in Beirut.83 Perhaps Zurub thought to find an ally in the Anglican clergyman and affiliate of the BSM, a male figure with the status and authority to compete with the American missionaries. Macartney, however, took the pamphlet to the American mission where Henry Jessup hastened to respond. In a letter to Caroline Thompson, director of the BSM, Jessup condemned the pamphlet’s “atrocious libels” and characterized Zurub as “consumed by conceit, and no doubt, revenge for having failed to get his Diploma in the Pharmacy department of the [Syrian Protestant] College, and disappointed in not getting the pastorate of the First Church [of Beirut].”84 Jessup’s immediate move to involve Thompson is curious, as she was neither American nor male. Yet as the employer of Salim Kassab, Thompson, for a brief moment, wielded a level of influence over the Syria Mission’s future that even the American men could not match. She was the key to suppressing the independent church’s protest quickly, and Jessup sought her assurance that Kassab, a leading member of Zurub’s church, would condemn the pamphlet’s claims.85 This was among the earliest of many letters the Americans sent over the next eight years urging the Evangelical Independent Church members to repudiate the “infamous document.”86 In eight pages, Zurub’s pamphlet presented an alternative view of the history of the Syria Mission, a story that overlooked past tensions between missionary men and first-generation nahdawi Protestants like al-Bustani and Wortabet in order to build a case against the Presbyterian missionaries at the turn of the century. The pamphlet was similarly unconcerned with missionaries’ actual dates of service. It simply contrasted the “first faithful missionaries” of the ABCFM in the early nineteenth century to the “new” Presbyterian Board missionaries who “destroyed the work which before was so faithfully carried on.” While the former were a blessing to Syria, the latter

Figure 29  British Syrian Mission director, Biblewomen and male employees. Back left: Salim Kassab; Front left: Nijma ‘Atiq; Center: Caroline Thompson; Back right: Ibrahim Nassif ‘Atiya

240  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE were “a curse and nothing more.”87 Primary among its grievances was the mission’s enforcement of Presbyterian polity. After the BFM took control of the m ­ ission in 1870, the document asserted: The new missionaries began to change the system and discipline of the Syrian churches, from the simple old system to the Presbyterian denomination. They came by force to compel the churches to accept the rules of Presbytery as they are, without letting them understand what it meant. They organized a senate and a general assembly, and forced the people to believe in the government of the church.88

The pamphlet praised ABCFM missionaries like Eli Smith, Cornelius Van Dyck, William Thomson and Simeon Calhoun. These men preached Christ and organized an “undenominational” church, but the current missionaries preached “the Presbytery and the government of the church.”89 This shift, the pamphlet insisted, caused an ongoing quarrel between the missionaries and the Syrian churches. The pamphlet’s authors strongly preferred the old congregational system of church organization. Yet their main grievance was not with all missionaries of the BFM (like Van Dyck), or with Presbyterian missionaries specifically (like Thomson and Calhoun) or even with the principles of Presbyterian government. Rather, the Evangelical Independent Church members opposed the missionaries’ imposition of racial hierarchies through their governing policies. The Americans were motivated by personal gain, according to the document, and they used Presbyterian polity to exploit the Syrian community. The authors also charged that the missionaries’ schools and medical work were simply a means to gain money from donors in the United States; the Americans then forced Syrians to pay exorbitant fees for education and medical care and took these funds to build luxurious homes, hire servants, and buy horses and carriages. The pamphlet listed Henry H. Jessup, William W. Eddy and Dr. George Post (of SPC) among those who “lift themselves up higher and higher above the natives and live in castles,” unlike Smith and Van Dyck, who “came down and lived among the natives and became as one of them.”90 The pamphlet affirmed Van Dyck in particular, as “our dearly beloved father of all the Syrian people,” and devoted a paragraph to describing his work as a translator, author, educator, scientist and medical

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  241 doctor. It also lamented that the missionary doctor “died dishonored by the new missionaries.” As it continued, the document maintained that over time the once close-knit American–Syrian relationship was severed by a new missionary regime: The former missionaries treated the native preachers as partners in the work and trusted them … Therefore, they succeeded and the work prospered. The present missionaries dismissed every native member and every smart man from the work and left those who call them “My lord, my lord, I am under your orders.”91

Through unfair ordination practices and by depriving the most intelligent Syrians of control over their own affairs, the Americans employed Presbyterian rules of government and other mission policies to create a force of servants rather than raising up native church leaders.92 For Syrians of Zurub’s generation, who were products of the Nahda that Protestants of al-Bustani’s era had endeavored to advance, this underlying argument was critical: Syrian men were morally and intellectually equal to American men, and their ongoing labors for the Evangelical Church and their activities in the Arab renaissance proved as much. Beyond the Americans’ sense of tutelage over Syrians, the pamphlet complained, the missionaries also “have a secret meeting which they hold at irregular intervals and nobody knows what their proceedings are.”93 While alluding to the fact that mission decisions were made without Syrians’ knowledge or input, the document went on to contend that certain activities of the American men should not be kept secret. It claimed that George Ford committed immoral acts with a Syrian woman and an unmarried female missionary, Charlotte Brown of Sidon, and then referenced another story about “the missionary with a Syrian girl one night before the communion” in Mount Lebanon. Indicating that such abuses of masculine power might be prevalent on the mission field, the authors asserted that the Presbyterian Board in New York should be informed of these shameful incidents.94 Thus, like Jessup, who used the list of women church members to justify the creation of a new congregation, the pamphlet’s authors referenced women in order to reinforce their claims about missionary immorality. Women’s bodies—whether

242  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE present in the church or abused by men—mattered in both instances, but apparently not enough to honor their voices! Like the antimissionary critiques that Syrians published in the New York City newspaper Kawkab Amirka (The Star of America) during the Beirut Church controversy of 1892 and the aforementioned complaints of Rihbany about mission salaries, the 1902 pamphlet drew upon the resources of the Syrian community in the United States to contest the American narrative of Syria Mission history. It claimed that in America the missionaries had transmitted misinformation “against all the Syrian immigrants and against all the Syrian race.”95 Citing evidence from immigrants like David Fullihan, who attended Ford’s lecture in Philadelphia and sought to correct the missionary’s account, the pamphlet contended that both Ford and Jessup lied to American audiences about the dismal conditions in Syria and exaggerated their conversion successes.96 With these examples, the document accused the Syria Mission of falsifying its reports. In making use of the same printing technology that missionaries employed in their evangelistic literature, it also challenged the missionaries’ hegemony over the production of knowledge. Published for an English-speaking audience, As‘ad Zurub’s “tract” posited that Syrians themselves constituted an alternative and more reliable source of information. More particularly, however, it argued that only those Syrians who were independent of the mission could be trusted. For this reason, prominent American donors could not be assured that their money was used according to their wishes, even if they traveled to Syria themselves to speak with the people there. Alluding, perhaps, to the visits of Presbyterian Board officials like Arthur Judson Brown, the pamphlet asserted: When an actual member [of the Presbyterian Church in the United States] or prominent man comes to Syria, [the missionaries] meet him at the shore and take him directly to visit the college and show him some other views, and the poor, blind stranger is led to believe that all those whom he saw are Protestants … meanwhile, the teachers (many of them not Protestants) and the hired natives are compelled to speak highly of their lords …97

If Americans desired to know the truth, the document contended, they should go in secret to speak with “the native Evangelical Independent Church of Beirut.”98

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  243 The double emphasis of the words “native” and “independent”—both possible translations for the term wataniyya in the church’s Arabic name— underscored this congregation’s sense of complete distinction from the American mission and its churches.99 To reiterate this point, the document rehearsed the history of the Evangelical Independent Church, which saw the American missionaries’ corruption and thus “proclaimed independency.” The pamphlet explained, “When this band of Christians started alone as the first native and self-supporting church … the American missionaries tried by all means to scatter this band and destroy their activity and development from the world.” When “necessity required,” the congregation sent Zurub to the United States to raise funds for a church building. Yet, the document charged, the missionaries covertly sent letters to the American mission boards and prevented both Presbyterians and Congregationalists from supporting Zurub, “the faithful servant of God,” in this independent endeavor. This implied that the missionaries desired to keep the American donors’ funds for themselves. The pamphlet concluded with the claim that the Evangelical Independent Church was the one “remnant in the East which will not bow a knee to ‘Baal.’”100 By styling the Evangelical Independent Church as the remnant of true Protestantism in Syria and the only congregation that remained loyal to the “real Christian spirit” of the missionary pioneers, the pamphlet juxtaposed this congregation’s Christian faithfulness with the apparent idolatry of the American mission and other Syrian Protestant churches.101 The Americans, for their part, abandoned the optimistic language they had used with regard to the Second Church and represented the controversy as the result of a “dissenting faction” in Beirut that formed a new church under an illegitimate minister.102 The Pamphlet Controversy and Aftermath, 1902–1916 The missionaries were united in their condemnation of the pamphlet, but even though they regarded the entire document as false, they never directly refuted any of its claims, not even its allegations of sexual promiscuity. Their increasingly negative characterizations of Zurub and his church, however, conveyed an intention to protect the reputation of the mission. Henry Jessup reflected his regret for taking any part in Zurub’s ordination, and by omitting

244  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE the title of “Reverend” in his references to “Mr. Zarub,” he discounted the legitimacy of the ordination that he had himself arranged.103 Samuel Jessup, Henry’s brother and another long-time member of the mission, conveyed a similar perspective after reviewing the proof sheet of Arthur Brown’s Report of the Visitation of the Syria Mission, which briefly noted the church division.104 Samuel specified that the schism “was caused by obstreperous members of the church against an excellent pastor—but the present Second Church pastor [Zurub] keeps the feud alive.”105 Such statements codified the mission’s view of the Beirut Church schism as an internal squabble provoked by troublemakers. Samuel, in fact, had joined Henry Jessup and William Eddy as a participant in Zurub’s ordination service, yet Hoskins’ revisionist history insisted that the independent church’s pastor was “ordained and installed but not by the Mission.”106 This became the official version of events that missionaries told after the First World War, as reflected in a printed bulletin on Protestantism in Syria which stated that in 1894 Zurub was “irregularly ordained in Beirut as an evangelist to be pastor of the seceding Second Church in Beirut.”107 Such reports naturally concealed the existence of the antimissionary pamphlet. In the years after the pamphlet materialized, the Americans used private correspondence to urge all Syrians associated with the Evangelical Independent Church to repudiate the document, with their efforts eliciting a variety of responses. Jessup’s aforementioned letter to Caroline Thompson achieved its desired result, as Salim Kassab quickly condemned the pamphlet and withdrew his membership from Zurub’s church. Yet Kassab refused to return to the Evangelical Church of Beirut. In a letter to the missionaries, he wrote, “[A]s there is no other Evangelical Protestant church save your Presbyterian one, the organization of which I cannot conscientiously approve; I have made up my mind to attend Divine Service in your Presbyterian church as a visitor taking no part in its regulations.”108 Kassab, who voted to retain Badr and remained part of the First Church in 1892, thereby signaled that he later joined the independent church because of its non-denominational polity and that he did not harbor ill will toward the Syria Mission.109 For other members of the Evangelical Independent Church, however, the dispute ran much deeper than mere matters of denominational polity. After demanding that Zurub’s church repudiate the document, the

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  245 missionaries waited for more than a year without receiving a written reply and then repeated their demand in another letter.110 The congregation eventually responded through Khalil Sarkis, who explained that his “brethren” believed the conflict was between Zurub and Henry Jessup alone and that the two men should resolve the issue privately. Sarkis opined that the problem was more than a dispute between the two individuals, noting, “What use is it to repair the roof if the foundation underneath it is crumbling?”111 Was the pamphlet then only the most visible manifestation of a long-broken relationship between his church and the mission? In this letter and his later correspondence with the Beirut Station, Sarkis did not directly answer this question as he maintained a cordial tone and refrained from accusations against the mission or the First Church. By taking on the role of an ­intermediary—as he had also done during the 1892 dispute—Sarkis placed himself in an influential position vis-à-vis the mission and ultimately used it to advance his own vision for the Beirut Protestant community, a vision built upon the al-Bustani family legacy that he and his wife Louisa shared. Sarkis did not condemn the antimissionary pamphlet, but neither did he defend his pastor’s actions. That task was left to Zurub, who attempted to do so after reading the mission’s letter to Sarkis on May 11, 1903, which stated, that “if ever Mr. Assad Zarub … wishes to make any atonement to those whom he has thus slandered, he must do so in writing.”112 In a letter a few days later to Hoskins (now head of the Beirut Station), Zurub requested a conference with the American missionaries in order to “close the door” on the matter. He emphasized, however, that the meeting should be conducted on the basis of friendship and brotherly love and that he was not willing to be put on trial.113 Hoskins replied that an individual conference would be “out of order at this stage” because the mission viewed the problem as one between Zurub’s entire church and the mission. He also reiterated that any “retraction of the libel of the pamphlet handed to Mr. H. B. Macartney, must for the best of reasons be made in writing.”114 To press the point, the mission drafted a form letter for Zurub to sign claiming full responsibility for the production of the pamphlet and asking the mission’s forgiveness.115 Zurub did not sign the retraction letter in 1903. According to Antun Qanawati, a church member who wrote in defense of his pastor, the mission’s demand for a written confession of guilt was too stringent. Qanawati asserted:

246  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE I am not a theologian or an authority on God’s word, as my calling is to work among accountants and businessmen, but God’s spirit is inviting me to remind you about forgiveness with some Biblical principles and verses.116

Citing passages from the Bible, he urged the missionaries to exhibit grace and to recognize that Zurub had already accepted the Americans’ verbal rebuke. While Qanawati admitted that Zurub had made mistakes, he held that these were primarily the result of the pressure the missionaries had placed upon the pastor as they made countless efforts to “dismiss him from the church, and from Syria also.”117 While the missionaries spent their “precious time seeking how to humiliate the independent church and its pastor,” he recounted, Zurub had remained a friend to the mission by defending Henry Jessup against the criticisms of Arab intellectuals in Egypt and New York. Reiterating his view that the American missionary pastors should hold themselves to the same standard they had set for Syrian Protestants, he concluded with the charge, “Give up the law of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth … but act like children of light.”118 Although Qanawati remained respectful, he did not convey the sort of deference for the missionaries’ fatherly authority that we saw in previous Syrian Protestant letters, instead interpreting scripture as a great equalizer and reminding the Americans that they, too, were children in God’s sight. Qanawati sympathized with his pastor’s position, but other members of his church yielded under pressure from the mission. The congregation eventually dismissed Zurub and he departed for the United States.119 After some difficulty in securing a new pastor, the Evangelical Independent Church accepted the services of the pastor of the First Church of Beirut, and this arrangement laid the foundation for a formal reunion between the two congregations in 1906. That same year, Zurub wrote the missionaries a letter from his new residence in Nantucket, Massachusetts, containing what the Americans considered a “partial apology.”120 Later, when he returned to Beirut in 1910, Zurub finally signed a recantation. At that time, some of his former church members, who had returned to the reunited Evangelical Church of Beirut, invited him to preach from its pulpit. The missionaries protested that this was actually the pulpit of the church building owned by the Beirut Station. When they refused to allow the “unreconciled” Zurub to

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  247 preach, he signed a formal apology, and within a few months he returned yet again to the United States. From Massachusetts he moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and in a change of vocation managed “Zorub’s Oriental Bazar” until the 1930s.121 The pamphlet controversy was finally laid to rest, but only after it brought an end to Zurub’s ministry and the dissolution of his church. The antimissionary pamphlet itself succeeded, if only for a brief moment, in unsettling the missionary narrative. Foreshadowed by the church petitions of 1847 and 1893, the pamphlet maintained that the mission ought to treat Syrians as equal partners in Christian work. Moving radically further than these earlier documents, it leveled charges against the Americans’ misuse of power in the areas of finance, sexual morality and the transmission of information to the American public. With these accusations—whether true, exaggerated or wholly fabricated—the authors conveyed a sense of having been victims of American power. Jessup and Hoskins considered all such claims to be slanderous falsehoods, but their actions in response to the pamphlet, in fact, corroborated the document’s general contention about American missionary control. Through the direct and indirect pressure they placed upon the church members and their pastor, the missionaries reinforced their paternal authority and demonstrated that the influence they wielded over the Syrian Protestant community extended even to the independent congregation that had no financial or denominational ties to the mission. It was, therefore, with a renewed note of hope for reconstituting a Presbyterian church in Beirut that the mission reported on the church reunion of 1906.122 The reunification did not signify that the Americans had fully reasserted their authority over the “obstreperous” members of the Beirut Church, however.123 In fact, the seceding members returned to the Evangelical Church of Beirut on their own terms. Rather than requesting the assistance of the Beirut Station as in previous church petitions, they simply met in the home of Khalil Sarkis with the Syrian leaders of the First Church to draft and sign the reunification agreement. Afterwards they presented it to Henry Jessup. The document stipulated that the pastor and elders would be free to direct all church affairs without seeking the missionaries’ approval, that the church would no longer operate according to Presbyterian polity and that the members would pay their pastor’s full salary.124 Thus, Sarkis and the

248  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE returning members of the independent church finally achieved what they had desired during their first failed attempt at reunion in 1897.125 The church gained freedom from Presbytery and missionary control while still retaining the use of the central church building. Although the missionaries felt they had “adopted the kindliest attitude possible” toward the congregation, they failed time and again in the decade after the reunion to induce the Beirut Church to rejoin the Lebanon Presbytery. The Americans voiced their frustrations openly in the published reports of the BFM, complaining that the Evangelical Church of Beirut remained “out of line” with the mission’s other churches but continued to occupy the manse and church building, “both of which belong unconditionally to the Presbyterian Board.”126 In response to the mission’s overture in 1916, the church council presented its own proposal for a governing structure distinct from that of the Syrian Presbyterian churches. It asserted that the congregation’s internal unity was more important than outside relations and that it did not require the missionaries’ assistance in securing a new pastor after the death of the Rev. As‘ad ‘Abdullah al-Rasi.127 With the intensification of the First World War in Syria, after this mid1916 exchange the Americans left the matter of Beirut Church polity, and those who remained in the region turned their attention to humanitarian relief.128 By the close of the war, the Syria Mission’s tone toward the Beirut Church had shifted again, as reflected in the postwar bulletin that represented the Evangelical Church of Beirut as following “the wisest and best principles of the whole Presbyterian System and the Congregational Polity, without insisting upon the narrower conceptions of either.”129 While this statement may have misrepresented the Beirut Church’s self-conception, it paved the way for the Presbyterian mission to accept the National Evangelical Church of Beirut’s eventual affiliation as a denominationally Congregational church (now in communion with the United Church of Christ).130 The mission’s revised view also signified that although the missionaries would continue to frame such decisions in the best possible terms for their American supporters, in the end Syrian church members—or at least the male social elites of that community—determined the character of the Evangelical Church of Beirut. In Syria, as in many global mission fields of the modern period, there were more than simply two sides to any story. This was apparent in the

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  249 varying reactions of Kassab, Sarkis, Qanawati and Zurub to the pamphlet controversy of 1902, and as we shall see next, other documents that nahdawi Protestant men wrote that same year further elucidate the complexity of their relationships with the American missionaries. Beyond the Antimissionary Pamphlet: Responses to Brown’s Visit The existing sources do not confirm a direct connection between the appearance of the antimissionary pamphlet in February 1902 and the arrival of BFM secretary Arthur Judson Brown in Syria the following month.131 Nevertheless, the document described the very sort of experience Brown would soon have when inspecting the Syria Mission’s work. As predicted, missionaries met Brown “at the shore” and escorted him from one mission site to another.132 Protestant church members and schoolchildren greeted him with the pomp and circumstance one would expect upon the arrival of a Board official from New York. Representatives of the Syrian Protestant community offered him flowery letters of welcome, poems of praise and addresses that emphasized the successes of the Syria Mission. Brown did not have the opportunity, in the pamphlet’s words, to “go secretly … and ask everything from the native Evangelical Independent Church.” The Board secretary did not meet As‘ad Zurub, but if he had, the aggrieved pastor might have reiterated that the “hired natives” Brown had met were “compelled to speak highly of their lords.”133 Most of the documents that Brown retained from his trip did indeed come from Syrian men who worked for the mission. At face value these Syrian writings conveyed everything the missionaries would have desired their Board secretary to hear. Yet the words of appreciation offered to Brown should not be discounted immediately as inauthentic expressions of Syrian Protestant views. Just as the antimissionary pamphlet shone light on the history of the Beirut Church, the documents that Syrian Protestants composed for Brown in 1902 offered a rare glimpse into the ways pastors, teachers and men of rural churches, those whose lives were tied to the mission, conceived of nahdawi Protestant identity. Despite the contrasting tones of praise and condemnation, these Syrian writings had much in common with Zurub’s pamphlet, and together they reflected the diverse ways in which Syrian men articulated their views and asserted independent agency to influence mission policies.

250  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Syrian Protestants Address Arthur Judson Brown Ten Syrian Protestant documents have survived from Brown’s tour of Syria in 1902, all of them composed by men. Within these various letters, addresses and poems—all writing forms of the Nahda—three themes emerged as firm rebuttals to the sort of allegations the antimissionary pamphlet made that same year. First, each document reflected general appreciation for the Presbyterian mission and honored Brown as a patriarch of this missionary enterprise. Among Brown’s files from his visit were two poetic songs composed by Shakir Daghir, a Syrian teacher, and sung in English to Brown by schoolchildren and teachers standing along the roadside near the mission school in Sidon. Resembling the hymns and poetry published in al-Nashra, one song extended “loving tribute” and “hearty thanks” to Brown and then recognized the work of the missionaries, proclaiming: All the means of knowledge true, Have been offered to our race The new World is as the sun Shining now on every land. To good works do they all run, Stretching forth a mighty hand Gospel news have reached us here. Freely sent to all the world. May your banner ever bear, Freedoms song where e’r unfurled.134

The address of welcome from Mufid ‘Abd al-Karim in the village of ‘Abay paid similar homage to the BFM and also echoed the deferential language of the Beiruti Protestant petitions of 1847 and 1893, as it called Brown a “father among his children,” while recognizing the mission as a mother.135 It pronounced: It is your righteous Society which is the tender and common mother of the Christians in the world that she had sent to the east, specially to Syria, the representatives, like our respected and loved minister Mr. Bird and his

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  251 honorable family, who by their virtue and good behavior lightened the hearts with the light of true faith.136

The collective letter of welcome signed by the male members of the Evangelical Church in Zahle resembled the sort of letters and petitions that might be sent in to a nahdawi periodical, and the signatures in both Arabic and English indicated the members’ literacy in both languages.137 Like ‘Abd al-Karim’s message, the congregational letter stood in great contrast to Zurub’s pamphlet as it expressed heartfelt love for “such God-like men, as Dale, Hoskins, Jessup and Doolittle.”138 Like ‘Abd al-Karim, it honored the American missionaries by name. The letter continued, “How can we forget such names! The debt we owe them and those who sent them is beyond our power to repay.”139 Similar sentiments came in the addresses by two members of the First Church of Beirut. Ibrahim al-Hurani, the nahdawi editor who cast his ballot for pastor Yusif Badr in 1892, wrote: We very willingly acknowledge that we are deeply indebted to your Board of Missions for all that we have learned of true religion, and also of higher education and that you have done all in your power, by good counsel, and labour, and patience, and love, to advance us both spiritually and intellectually.140

Fu’ad Khairallah, a younger Beirut Church member whose father, As‘ad, voted with al-Hurani to retain Badr, went even further by emphasizing the contrast between the former darkness and ignorance in Syria and the light of the country’s social and literary renaissance (Nahda). In his view, “American missionaries were one of the chief instruments to develop the spiritual and intellectual elements out of which resulted the present regeneration of heart and brain.”141 Together al-Hurani and Khairallah represented the perspectives of the older and younger generations of Beiruti Protestants who remained in the original Evangelical Church of Beirut. The First Church pastor, As‘ad ‘Abdullah al-Rasi, reinforced his church members’ views in a long Arabic piece detailing the history and accomplishments of the Syria Mission.142 He emphasized that Syria was profoundly impacted “by the entrance of the light of the gospel through the American missionaries.” Then he offered a counter-argument against skeptics who

252  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE might highlight how few converts the mission had made. In al-Rasi’s view it would have been impossible to exaggerate the mission’s impact because the benefits of the gospel “surpassed the circle of the Evangelical Churches” so that nearly every rational, educated Syrian had already recognized “the truth of the Evangelical doctrines even if he does not say this in public or join an Evangelical Church.”143 Although perhaps none of these writers had read the antimissionary pamphlet, those in Beirut had likely heard the rumblings of Second Church members, and with the constant concourse of people and nahdawi publications moving between the United States and Syria at the time, these men were surely familiar with the critiques that Syrian–American papers made of the Syria Mission.144 Their words of praise contested such accusations. Second, while Zurub’s pamphlet accused missionaries of spreading misinformation about the state of Syrian society, these other writers concurred with the missionaries on Syria’s need for spiritual and intellectual regeneration, a concern that was also central to nahdawi Protestantism. In another address from Zahle, Fida Musawwir matched Brown’s rhetoric of spiritual crusade as he praised the “faithful mission armies” that brought the “light which drove away the darkness of that night during which Syria had been sleeping.”145 Al-Rasi similarly presented the Americans as “soldiers for the Lord” who rescued the gospel from the churches and monasteries where it was imprisoned and who brought copies of the Bible to Syrian homes.146 Other, less militaristic texts also stressed that prior to the missionaries’ arrival, Syrians had little access to education or biblical instruction. ‘Abd al-Karim commended the mission’s work of “reformation” and “civilization.”147 Similarly, al-Hurani affirmed that “the church in Syria has changed the old habits of many,” indicating that numerous Syrians had received a higher education and “learned of true religion.”148 In Khairallah’s view, the regeneration, reformation of reason and freedom of conscience brought by the missionaries was necessary, given the realities of Syria’s past: Then the inhabitants of this same spot deteriorated, their religious sentiments laid dormant under the embers of past intolerance. Their ambition was crushed, and their comforts diminished. They descended the dark steps to ignorance.149

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  253 This account of Syria’s fall from cultural pre-eminence paralleled the language of the Nahda writers during this same period, even outside the Protestant community. Khairallah, however, indicated the key role of the missionaries in drawing Syria out of ignorance because “solid improvement and true success must be based on true religion.” He also emphasized the mission’s introduction of books and Arabic printing through the missionary press and the impact of SPC upon the “literary and scientific movement” in Egypt, where many graduates had emigrated. Thus, the young writer expressed what it meant for him, religiously, to be a Protestant in the Nahda, while recognizing the ties many Syrians maintained to the intellectual circles in Egypt through the publications they read and their correspondence with associates in Cairo.150 Third, the texts written for Brown indicated hope for the American missionaries’ ongoing presence in Syria. ‘Abd al-Karim, for example, ended his message from ‘Abay with a cry of “long live Mr. and Mrs. Brown and the American Society and its Missionaries.”151 The Zahle congregation expressed this desire more directly with a request for Brown to “plead our cause before the Board” for the construction of a new Protestant school building.152 The text that spoke most clearly about the future of the mission, and the only text of the ten that Brown quoted in his report, was an address from the Evangelical Church pastor in Zahle, Murad Haddad. Haddad wrote it in Arabic for al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya, and Brown received a translated version when Haddad delivered the address to him in person.153 The translated excerpt printed in Brown’s report emphasized the American mission’s impact upon Syrian literacy and the formation of a generation of doctors and teachers, but the full Arabic text in al-Nashra also asked God’s blessing upon the future work of the Presbyterian missionaries. Haddad asserted in the periodical: In reality, we are drowning in a sea of indebtedness to those virtuous [missionary] predecessors, who carried out the aforementioned works of charity, and their successors who still continue with much diligence and zeal for today and for tomorrow. May the Lord aid them and bestow upon them his highest gifts and blessings.154

In its Arabic and English versions, this text served as a welcome address to Brown and as a means of informing Syrian Protestant readers about the

254  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Board secretary’s visit and confirming the importance of the mission for Syria’s past, present and future. Diversity and Consensus The differences between As‘ad Zurub’s 1902 pamphlet and the documents written for Arthur Brown during the same year are striking. Yet when compared with Brown’s published report from 1902, it becomes apparent that these texts did not fully corroborate the American missionaries’ representation of their work in Syria. In fact, the letters and addresses to Brown had more in common with the antimissionary pamphlet than one might expect. All of the texts under consideration concurred that the American mission had a catalytic effect upon Syrian society. Amidst its strident criticism of the Presbyterian mission, Zurub’s pamphlet applauded the piety and devotion of the early missionaries and their success in building churches, schools and the Protestant Arabic press. In particular, it abounded with praise for Cornelius Van Dyck, whose model of fatherhood set him apart from the present-day missionaries. Van Dyck “was a father to the fatherless, advisor to the ignorant, supporter to the needy ones, and doctor to the sick. He captured the hearts of all the sects in Syria and Egypt.”155 Brown and the First Church member Fu’ad Khairallah also highlighted this revered missionary’s contributions, but for them, Van Dyck’s work was part of the ongoing legacy of the Syria Mission, especially since he served under both the ABCFM and the BFM.156 While Brown and the Syrian Protestants who welcomed him made no distinction between the work of the two mission societies, the pamphlet’s view differed. It considered Van Dyck as one of the “former faithful missionaries” and used his example to underline the dangerous shift in missionary morality under the Presbyterian Board.157 Despite this difference of opinion, the pamphlet, Brown’s report and the other Syrian texts all affirmed the legitimacy and usefulness of American Protestant missions. This consensus reflected the theological affinity and the normative views of nahdawi Protestant modernity shared by those Syrians who chose to be Presbyterian and those who preferred to be congregationally governed. These affirmations of American missionary accomplishments rested on the common diagnosis of the problems in Syrian society. The antimissionary pamphlet mirrored the statements by Brown and the other Syrian

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  255 Protestant writers on Syria’s prior condition of social and spiritual decline as it contended: Sixty years ago one could not find a single Protestant, a school, printing press, or perfect copy of the Bible in all the country. Darkness and ignorance reigned upon that land for many centuries.158

Arthur Brown would have fully supported this statement, but his report and the 1902 pamphlet disagreed when it came to interpreting the changing situation in Syria over time. In Brown’s estimation, despite laudable progress by the mission, much of Syria remained in “utter heathenism and superstition,” and he perpetuated American views of Syrians as part of the “uncivilized races.”159 Although reports from the missionaries in Syria corroborated Brown’s interpretation, members of the Evangelical Independent Church considered such assessments inaccurate and arrogant. In less hostile terms, the letters, poems and addresses written for Brown’s visit supported the pamphlet’s view of Syria’s positive social development. Even while affirming a hope for the ongoing work of the mission, these documents all affirmed that progress had come to the region, and their references to cultural degeneration pointed only to the past. In fact, Khairallah admitted that even before the missionaries’ arrival, there were enlightened individuals among the educated elite and the clergy.160 Thus, for Syrian Protestant men, while their homeland was no longer filled with darkness and ignorance, the past was never completely devoid of light. If the women of the Protestant ­community—like Rujina Shukri or Julia Tu‘ma—had found the opportunity to write their own letters for Brown, they likely would have upheld similar sentiments. Certainly, these nahdawi women would have had something to say in response to the BFM secretary’s conviction that Protestant schools were needed primarily for “lifting girls out of the moral cesspools of Oriental life.”161 Yet the only documents Brown retained from his visit were those written by male leaders of the Syrian Protestant community. The variance between Brown’s claims and the Syrian tributes he received related to another distinction between Syrian Protestant views and Brown’s report. While the mission secretary declared the American missionaries’ work indispensable for bringing the mission’s goals to completion, the 1902 pamphlet and the Syrian letters, poems and addresses affirmed Syrians as agents

256  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE of change in their own society. This is where the authors’ conceptions of nahdawi masculinity and Protestant identity intersected. When giving his public address, itself a form of nahdawi production, al-Hurani proclaimed his hope that the Syrian church of the future “may grow in grace, and be zealous for the uplifting of the banner of Christ in every place, and that we may let our light shine.” He charged Syrian Protestants with the duty of partnering in and completing the work the mission had started.162 Thus, the Evangelical Church deacon, who Chapter 2 showed was completely immersed in the cultural currents of the time, emphasized Syrian Protestants’ religious agency. Other addresses went further to evoke the mission’s contribution to educational advances of the Nahda. Khairallah recognized the impact of missionary-educated Syrian men in Egypt.163 Musawwir’s address affirmed that mission schools “raised up many good [Syrian] men who were a blessing upon the country and its language,” and Haddad emphasized the number of missionary-trained Arab teachers and preachers who were deployed across the Ottoman Arab provinces.164 By attending to one additional item that Brown brought back from Syria, we can gain even deeper insight into these writers’ conceptions of masculine identity within the Protestant context of the Nahda. Among many photographs Brown took on his trip is one of eight young men, likely Theological Seminary students at the turn of the century (Figure 16, above).165 Signifying the influence of Western men’s styles and particularly the attire of missionary men, all these Syrians wore frock coats and most wore neck or bow ties.166 Two had donned the brimless fez reflecting reforms in nineteenth-century Ottoman men’s fashion, as seen in portraits of Khalil Sarkis and the Benevolent Society members (Figures 24 and 27, above) and also of Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid II. The sultan, in fact sought to make the fez the official headgear for the empire’s men, discouraging traditional turbans and newer Western brimmed hats that distinguished men according to sect, social class or profession. The empire’s religious minorities, such as these Syrian Protestants, often embraced the freedom afforded by such visual uniformity.167 Yet the men in these photographs and in other Protestant images of the period were not identical. All sporting moustaches without beards, each man carried a book, signaling a commitment to studying the Bible and other subjects. Seven wore

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  257 trousers and just one was shown with a long, loose-fitting tunic. Similarly, in photographs of older Syrian pastors, preachers and elders of the Sidon and Tripoli presbyteries, we see most men wearing the fez and Western attire but also a number in tunics and long, traditional headdresses, or kufiyyas, fashioned from a square piece of cloth (Figures 22 and 23, above).168 Preserving the diverse ways that male leaders of the Syrian Evangelical Church presented themselves in the Nahda, these images conveyed a blending of Western, Syrian and Ottoman styles and of the historical processes that shaped such hybrid identifications.169 As forms of nahdawi production similar to men’s writings, such photographs provide us with a better understanding of the men who welcomed Arthur Judson Brown in 1902 with documents that praised the Syria Mission but also identified Syrian men as capable agents of their own histories. These assertions of Syrian Protestant agency neither opposed the American missionaries’ continued presence in Syria nor contradicted the mission’s goals for independent Syrian churches. Brown’s report attested, however, that the Presbyterian Board continued to measure the Syrians’ potential for independent agency according to their ability for self-support. The Board secretary lamented that although the Syrian Protestants he met impressed him as “intelligent and kindly,” their “dependent disposition” had obstructed this goal.170 Like William Eddy’s tract on self-government and the mission’s Presbytery rules, such paternalistic depictions implied that until Syrian Protestants achieved financial independence, they would require continued missionary tutelage.171 The Syrian Protestant writers, on the other hand, elevated their full and active participation in both the religious and cultural developments in their homeland, and they considered the Syrian Evangelical Church as already capable of being “the faithful servant of God,” independent of missionary control.172 Supporting this view of Syrian (masculinist) agency, these addresses to Brown and the antimissionary pamphlet together testified to the ways Syrian Protestants sought to make their voices heard. Through their writings, addresses, demands and critiques, Syrians asserted power to construct their own identities, alter missionary practices and shape the future of the Protestant community in late Ottoman Syria.173

258  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Conclusion The Beirut Church petition of 1847, the letters of Sarkis and his colleagues in the 1890s, Zurub’s pamphlet in 1902 and the documents written for Arthur Brown represented a range of Syrian Protestant critiques tempered by appreciation for missionary work. Through these various forms of writing, the early generations of Syrian Protestants interpreted their own history and asserted their freedom from missionary control while also emphasizing their evangelical commitments and sustaining relationships with fellow Protestants in the American mission. That Syrian Protestants did not conform to missionary designs will come as no surprise to scholars of World Christianity, for this pattern has repeated itself across the globe.174 Like the writings Syrian women published at the AMP, the Syrian Protestant men’s sources treated in this chapter did not support the notion that members of the Syrian Evangelical Church capitulated to American ideological power or were victims of a missionary-induced “colonization of the mind.”175 Instead, the authors of these texts employed the language of American missions to assert authority over their own church affairs. They appropriated Western Protestant forms of worship and theology—and styles of dress—while also challenging missionary methods of control. Although never completely rectifying the imbalance of power upheld by ethnocentric and patriarchal mission policies, Syrian Protestant men in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries exercised agency in ways that missionaries themselves were forced to recognize. These men did not become selfOrientalizing “native informants” at the hands of the Americans. Rather, by negotiating with the missionaries, whose theological convictions they chose to share, nahdawi Protestants in Beirut and throughout the region asserted their masculine agency, demanded equality and shifted the missionary encounter in ways that destabilized missionary control. While the primary actors in the debates over ordination and church governance were male members of the socio-economic and intellectual elite, the final chapter will demonstrate how Syrian women challenged such gendered boundaries outside ecclesiastical structures, in urban and rural areas and among illiterate populations.

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  259

Notes 1. “Syria and the Mission Work,” c. 1902 (hereafter SMW 1902). PHS 115-4-4. The pamphlet’s full text is printed in Deanna Ferree Womack, “Conversion, Controversy, and Cultural Production: Syrian Protestants, American Missionaries, and the Arabic Press, ca. 1870–1915,” PhD dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2015, 390–4. 2. SMW 1902. I refer to the pamphlet’s authors in the plural because the document spoke on behalf of a group and because it was unlikely the work of As‘ad Zurub alone. I render the church’s name in English as it appeared in the pamphlet, emphasizing independence from mission oversight. In Arabic, the congregation called itself an “independent church” (kanisa mustaqilla) but used the official name al-kanisa al-injiliyya al-wataniyya, which missionaries translated as Evangelical Native Church. Henry Harris Jessup, “Letter Forwarded by the American Missionaries of Beyrout, Lebanon, Tripoli, Sidon, etc., to the Evangelical Native Church of Beyrout; and the answer of the church to it” (Beirut, February 28, 1898). In the context of early Syrian Protestantism, the term wataniyya, translated then as “native” and today as “national,” signified a Syrian-run institution or organization, independent of missionary or governmental oversight. 3. Brown, Report of a Visitation. Brown was administrative secretary and then general secretary for the BFM from 1895 to 1929. R. Park Johnson, “Arthur Judson Brown,” in Gerald H. Anderson (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 94. 4. Brown did not mention the pamphlet in his report or in the private diary where he recorded his discussion with Henry Jessup about the schismatic “Second Church.” Arthur Judson Brown, “Diary of Arthur J. Brown on Tour of Asia, Book XVII,” April 7–May 17, 1902: Arthur Judson Brown Papers, YDS 2-12-32. 5. Brown, Report of a Visitation, 22. On the language of spiritual crusade in mission publications, see Heather J. Sharkey, “A New Crusade or an Old One?” ISIM Newsletter 12 (June 2003): 48–9. 6. Anderson visited the Near East in 1829, 1844 and 1855. Harris, Nothing but Christ, 75, 135; Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 55–7, 104–8, 139–41. 7. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 140–2; Uta Zeuge-Buberl, “Misinterpretations of a Missionary Policy? The American Syria Mission’s Conflict with Butrus al-Bustani and Yuhanna Wurtabat,” Theological Review

260  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 36 (2015): 23–43. Both men soon pursued careers independent of the Syria Mission. 8. Brown described what he viewed as superstition, bigotry, fanaticism and heathenism in the Holy Land. Brown, Report of a Visitation, 18–21, 29. 9. SMW 1902. 10. Tibawi referenced a controversial pamphlet printed by the Evangelical Independent Church, but mistakenly indicated that the tensions within the Beirut Protestant community ended with harmony between the Evangelical Church of Beirut and the independent church in 1899. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 281. The Syria Mission’s published reports described the schism and eventual reunion between the two Beirut churches but made no mention of the pamphlet. BFM (1893), 232; BFM (1894), 257; BFM (1896), 237; BFM (1902), 298; BFM (1907): 426–47. 11. Ryan Dunch, “Beyond Cultural Imperialism: Cultural Theory, Christian Missions, and Global Modernity,” History and Theory 41(3) (2002): 311. For a similar argument, see James Elisha Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity in Colonial India: Telugu Women in Mission (New York: Palgrave, 2013), 22. 12. Said, Orientalism, 335. This was Said’s response, in his 1994 afterward, to discussions among postcolonial theorists, including Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak? Speculations on Widow Sacrifice,” Wedge 7/8 (1985): 120–30. 13. Harb, “Orientalism and the Construction of American Identity,” 134, 143. 14. Hutchison, Errand to the World, 7–9. 15. “Mission to Syria and the Holy Land,” Missionary Herald 33 (January 1837), 8. The terminology was more fluid at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Sarah Smith, who died in 1836, was described as a missionary. Lindner, “Long, Long Will She Be Affectionately Remembered.” 16. By the late nineteenth century, women were the majority of the global Protestant mission force. See Beaver, American Protestant Women in World Mission; Robert, American Women in Mission. For the first time in 1876, the BFM annual report dispensed with the “assistant missionary” category and divided the missionary force between “ministers” and “lay missionaries” (women and non-ordained men). BFM (1876), 86. 17. Lindner, “Negotiating the Field,” 14–15, 280. The “Protestant Circle” included peripheral figures like non-Protestant mission employees and Greek Orthodox families who sent their children to Protestant schools. 18. Ibid., 15.

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  261 19. BFM (1871), 36, 88; “Transfer of the Syria Mission,” Missionary Herald 66 (1870), 390–5. The vote was taken at ‘Abay on August 16, 1870. 20. Franklin E. Hoskins, untitled timeline of the Beirut Church, 1870–1910: PHS 115-4-4. 21. “General Summary,” BFM (1902); Brown, “Diary XVII,” 99: YDS 2-12-32. Brown’s entry for April 25, 1902, noted the “ladies’ informal opinion being asked” about the proposed relocation of a boys’ boarding school. 22. Theodosia Davenport Jessup, Pocket Diary, 1902: YDS 117-7-2. On April 25, 1902, Jessup wrote, “I was in the meeting to listen to discussion about the boys’ boarding school.” 23. Fleischmann, “I Only Wish I Had a Home,” 122. After the annual meeting of the mission in 1897, Eddy complained that the veteran missionary women like herself were not asked their opinions but new male recruits on the mission field were entitled to vote. 24. SMW 1902. 25. Theodosia Jessup recorded that in 1885 she wrote 166 letters, one article for the Woman’s Foreign Mission Society and a daily journal “amounting to 800 pages of large note paper.” Jessup, Pocket Diary, 1885: YDS 117-7-23. 26. BFM (1889), 63. By 1919, when Harriette directed the mission’s tuberculosis sanatorium, she and her husband received equal salaries of $750 per year. Individual Income Tax Return Work Sheet for Harriette Hoskins and Franklin Hoskins, 1919: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University Library, Harold B. Hoskins Papers, MC221-9-12. 27. Harriette Eddy Hoskins, “Hamlin Memorial Sanatorium, Report for 19281929”: PHS 115-8-17. On Hoskins’ work at the sanatorium, see Womack, “Medical Arts and the Healing of Souls,” 6–22. 28. Gullvåg, “Social Theories for Researching Men and Masculinities,” 19–20. 29. Kristin Fjelde Tjelle, Missionary Masculinity, 1870–1930: The Norwegian Missionaries in South-East Africa (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 115. 30. Makdisi argued that members of the Syria Mission “became ever more explicitly racist as the nineteenth century progressed, and were increasingly determined to distinguish themselves from the very natives they converted and educated …” Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 216–17. 31. Harris, Nothing but Christ, 46, 99, 113. Henry Venn (1796–1873), the head of the Church Missionary Society, introduced the “three self” concept. Wilbert R. Shenk, “Rufus Anderson and Henry Venn: A Special Relationship?” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 5(4) (1981): 168–72.

262  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 32. BFM (1871), 88. 33. William W. Eddy, “On the Importance of a Native Ministry Supported by Native Churches,” 1870: PHS 115-19-4. 34. Eddy, “On the Importance of a Native Ministry.” 35. Harris, Nothing but Christ, 56. The language of “raising up” native pastors came from Rufus Anderson, but the focus on missionary training of native pastors toward independence continued on in the mission’s Presbyterian form of government after the transfer. Franklin Hoskins, “Church Organization, Booklet I: Records 1836–1872,” undated: PHS 115-4-3. 36. Anderson’s 1848 annual report for the ABCFM was quoted in R. Pierce Beaver (ed.), To Advance the Gospel: Selections from the Writings of Rufus Anderson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967), 123. 37. Rufus Anderson upheld such thinking in a letter warning the missionaries of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland not to hire John Wortabet, the former Syrian pastor, as a “missionary” with the same status and salary of European and American missionaries. Rufus Anderson to Andrew Somerville, June 4, 1860: PHS 115-5-25. 38. Abraham Mitrie Rihbany, A Far Journey (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), 147, 154. See also Jean Makdisi, Teta, Mother, and Me, 215. 39. “Syria: Organization of a Native Church,” Missionary Herald xliv, 8 (August 1848), 266 (added emphasis). On al-Bustani’s authorship of this document, see Tibawi, “The American Missionaries in Beirut and Butrus al-Bustani,” 181. 40. “Syria: Organization of a Native Church,” 266–7. 41. Ibid., 268. 42. Ibid., 266. 43. Ibid., 268. 44. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 130–2, 281; Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 311–12. Although Tibawi interpreted this as a problem of missionary control, in the 1880s, the mission offered Rizqullah Berbari and Salim al-Hakim the pastorate of the Beirut Church and they both declined, so Henry Jessup and William W. Eddy served as pastors. BFM (1881), 36; BFM (1883), 46; BFM (1889), 66. 45. Yusif ‘Atiya, for example, withdrew from theological study in 1866 due to illness, but served as preacher and pastor for a number of Syrian churches. Yusif ‘Atiya to Franklin Hoskins, 1912. In “Translation of Earliest Theological Seminary Record Book” by James Wallace Willoughby, undated: PHS 11517-9. The Theological Seminary was housed in ‘Abay, Beirut and Suq al-Gharb

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  263 in the nineteenth century and returned in the early twentieth century to Beirut, where it later became the Near East School of Theology. Sabra, Truth and Service, 13–45. 46. In the 1892/3 operating year, American missionary men received salaries ranging from $844 to $2,000, or the equivalent of between 22,412 and 53,111 piasters, the unit of currency in Syria. In contrast, the one ordained minister in the Sidon field that year, Salim al-Hakim, earned 5,380 piasters and the nine licentiates in Sidon received an average salary of less than 3,000 piasters. “Appropriations for Syria Mission, 1892–1893,” 1893: NEST Special Collections. 47. In 1880, the mission had twelve ordained missionaries, four Syrians pastors and twenty-three licentiates. BFM (1880), 42. By 1900 these numbers had changed to thirteen American men (twelve were ministers), five Syrian ministers and forty licentiates. BFM (1900), 284. 48. The mission ordained Wortabet as an evangelist, thus limiting his authority over the church he pastored in Hasbayya and subordinating him to the missionaries of the Sidon Station. After Wortabet left the mission in 1859, Anderson expressed his relief that Wortabet had not been “installed really and fully” as the pastor of the Hasbayya church. Zeuge-Buberl, Mission of the American Board in Syria, 55. 49. Presbyterian Church in the USA, The Form of Government, the Discipline, and the Directory for Worship of the Presbyterian Church in the USA (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1841), 436–44. The only difference between a pastor and an ordained evangelist was that the former was settled in a parish, while the latter engaged in itinerant ministry or served multiple churches at once. 50. William W. Eddy, “On the Importance of a Native Ministry Supported by Native Churches,” 1870: PHS 115-19-4. 51. Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 356; BFM (1884), 52; BFM (1886), 74; BFM (1891), 222; BFM (1897), 207; As‘ad ‘Abbud and Jirjis al-Khuri, “Khutab fi Ta’rikh Majma‘ Mashikhat Sayda al-Injiliyya wa-Majma‘ Mashikhat Tarabulus al-Injiliyya” (Beirut: n.p., 1904). Courtesy of NEST Special Collections. The lowercase term “congregational” denotes the form of polity used in Congregational, Baptist and other congregationally-governed churches. 52. The mission provided these guidelines to the first fully-functioning Presbytery in Sidon. Syria Mission to the Churches of Sidon Presbytery, July 23, 1890. Letter recorded by Franklin Hoskins in “Matter of Beirut Church, Vol. II,” undated: PHS 115-4-3 (added emphasis).

264  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 55. Hoskins, Untitled Timeline of the Beirut Church, 1910. Hoskins succeeded Jessup as head of the Beirut mission station in 1903, and Jessup went on furlough to the United States. 56. Representatives of six congregations met in Beirut in June 1885 and again in December 1886. The Beirut congregation alone refused to accept the rules of Presbyterian Church government that the missionaries presented. F. E. Hoskins, “Matter of Beirut Church, Vol. II,” undated: PHS 115-4-3. 57. F. E. Hoskins, “Beirut Church: Report of the Beirut Station for 1903,” in “Matter of the Beirut Church, Vol. II.” See n. 44, above, on the Syria Mission’s efforts to find a pastor for the Beirut Church in the 1880s. 58. BFM (1891), 211. 59. Khalil Sarkis, Na‘mi Tabet and ‘Abdullah Saigh to Henry H. Jessup, July 14, 1892: PHS 115-4-5. On the Thabit family, which renders its name as Tabet in English, see Hauser, German Religious Women, 10. 60. SMW 1902. In her memoir, Jean Said Makdisi, the great-granddaughter of Yusif Badr, mentioned Badr’s resignation in 1893 during “a dispute within the congregation over the organization of the church and its policy, whether it should follow the Americans as Presbyterians, or take a more independent stand as Congregationalists.” Badr moved to the district of Marj ‘Ayun where he lived until his death. Jean Makdisi, Teta, Mother, and Me, 214; “Tarjamat al-Fadil al-Marhum al-Qis Yusif Badr,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2406 (March 7, 1912), 76–7. 61. Khalil Sarkis married Louisa al-Bustani. “Marriage entry 23”: NECB 9. On Khalil Sarkis’ life and work, see Ami Ayalon, “Private Publishing in the Nahda,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 40(4) (2008): 561–77. The condolence letters the Sarkis family received on the deaths of Amin, Fu’ad, Salma and Nada Sarkis testified to the family’s prominence in both Protestant and wider Syrian intellectual circles. Sarkis Family Archive, vol. 13, “Death of Nada Sarkis,” January 26, 1906–February 26, 1906; vol. 20, “Death of Amin, Fu’ad, and Salma Sarkis,” 1896: Orient Institute, Beirut. 62. Sarkis, Tabet and Saigh to Jessup, July 14, 1892. Van Dyck, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, was then a member of the Beirut Station. Van Dyck began his work under the ABCFM in 1840 and remained a member of the mission until his death in 1895. He also served on the medical faculty at SPC. Zeuge-Buberl, The Mission of the American Board in Syria, 127–62.

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  265 63. Sarkis, Tabet and Saigh to Jessup, July 14, 1892. The Benevolent Society (al-jam‘iyya al-khayriyya) was, in the missionaries’ view, intended to use the waqf property and other investments to raise money for charity projects and to fund a Protestant school in the eastern quarter of Beirut. Franklin E. Hoskins, “Matter of the Beirut Church, Vol. III,” undated: PHS 115-4-3. 64. Henry H. Jessup to Khalil Sarkis, Na‘mi Tabet and ‘Abdullah Saigh, July 16, 1892: PHS 115-4-5. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid. 67. BFM (1893), 232. This annual report, which explained the division, also blamed the seceding members for making “strenuous efforts to dismiss [the pastor].” Church members who opposed to this action wrote to the mission about the possibility of removing the seceding members from the church rolls if they refused to participate in a referendum on the pastor’s dismissal. Murad Barudi, Salim Kassab, Jabir Dumit, As‘ad ‘Atiq, Salih al-Salibi and Ibrahim al-Hurani to American Missionaries in Beirut, December 16, 1892: PHS 115-4-5. 68. Zurub was from the village of ‘Alma al-Sha‘b, near Tyre, and had taught for the mission in Sidon. He graduated in 1891 from the mission’s Theological Seminary when it was housed at SPC in Beirut. Sabra, Truth and Service, 33–4, 226. 69. Na‘mi Tabet, Khalil Sarkis, Michael Mosully, ‘Abdullah Saigh and Daud alKhuri to the Syria Mission, January 14, 1893; translated by Henry H. Jessup: PHS 115-4-3. 70. Ibid. 71. BFM (1897), 207; Hoskins, “Matter of Beirut Church: Volume II.” Hoskins quoted from the mission vote on June 12, 1893, which stated: “Voted that in case the Beirut church refuse to accept the proposition of the mission, that the Beirut Station be directed to take the necessary steps to organize the church, de novo, on a Presbyterian basis.” Badr resigned in December 1892, and in September 1893 the mission transferred him to Tyre. Thomas Laurie and Henry H. Jessup, “A Brief Chronicle of the Syria Mission,” 1909: PHS 115-1121. Badr is pictured in the first row, second from the left in Figure 22, above. 72. For a list of these thirty founding members, see Appendix C. Lulu Araman and Na‘mi Tabet, “Member Entry 17” and “Member Entry 34”: NECB 9. Araman died in 1899 and Tabet in 1898, while both were members of the “Second Church.”

266  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 73. Notes of Henry H. Jessup, March 18, 1894: PHS 115-4-3; Jessup, “Minutes of the Presbytery of Beirut,” March 24–25, 1894: PHS 115-4-3; “Minutes of the Presbytery of Beirut ordaining As‘ad Daud Zurub as Evangelist,” March 24–25, 1894: PHS 115-4-5; Jessup to Rev. J. Gillespie, March 28, 1894: PHS Syria Letters, 1893–1895, vol. 10 (microfilm reel); al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1471 (April 1, 1894), 105–7. Jessup was the chair in organizing the congregation, Cornelius Van Dyck was moderator and Rev. As‘ad ‘Abdullah al-Rasi was clerk when the Lebanon Presbytery examined Zurub and approved his ordination on March 24, 1894. Al-Rasi and the Rev. Salim al-Hakim ordained Zurub, and Henry Jessup delivered the sermon. Samuel Jessup, William Eddy and the British pastor G. M. Mackie assisted in the service and Khalil Sarkis gave an address. 74. SMW 1902. 75. Notes of Jessup, March 18, 1894. 76. Jessup to Gillespie, March 28, 1894. 77. Since the new church provided Zurub’s entire salary and he worked only for that church, the designation of “evangelist” was contrary to the rules for ordination that the mission provided to the Syrian presbyteries in 1890. Syria Mission to the Churches of Sidon Presbytery, July 23, 1890. This action fit with the mission’s practice since the time of John Wortabet of treating the position of evangelist as one tier below the position of full pastor. 78. As‘ad Zurub, al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1740 (June 3, 1899), 212–13; Alice alBustani, “Ihtifal Tidhkar: Khutba,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1475 (May 5, 1894), 137–8. On the typhoid epidemics, see BFM (1896), 237. Amin Sarkis, an Evangelical Independent Church member and brother of Khalil Sarkis, died in the epidemic along with Khalil’s son Fu’ad. Both of their obituaries were printed in the mission’s periodical. “Asaf ‘ala Asaf,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1566 (February 1, 1896), 38. Khalil Sarkis also received condolence letters from the pastor of the Evangelical Church of Beirut, As‘ad ‘Abdullah al-Rasi, and church members like Ibrahim al-Hurani. Sarkis Family Archive, vol. 20, “Death of Amin, Fu’ad, and Salma Sarkis,” 1896: Orient Institute, Beirut. Ibrahim alHurani’s son Nasib also died during the epidemic. “Death entry 168,” NECB 9. 79. Theodosia Jessup, Pocket Diary, 1896: YDS 117-7-26. See, for example, the visit of Admah Tabet that Theodosia Jessup recorded on January 9, 1896, and the visit of Sabat Harari on January 27. 80. Having finally secured the First Church’s entry into the Lebanon Presbytery, the mission vetoed the Second Church’s proposal for reunification on the basis

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  267 of the old nizam, stating that “the Presbyterian polity now in force among the churches of the mission will prove to be the simplest, safest and most effective possible in promoting such welfare and growth.” “A proposal for Reunion on non-Presbyterian Basis,” December 20, 1897: PHS 115-4-3. See also Jessup, “Letter Forwarded by the American Missionaries of Beyrout, Lebanon, Tripoli, Sidon, etc., to the Evangelical Native Church of Beyrout; and the answer of the church to it.” Jessup sent this letter in response to the reunification request, and deacon Na‘mi Tabet replied on behalf of the independent church. Tabet’s letter, reprinted alongside Jessup’s, protested against the mission’s enforcement of Presbyterian polity and claimed that the independent congregation did not initiate the reunion attempt. 81. BFM (1898), 244; BFM (1899), 267. 82. SMW 1902. 83. Macartney, an Australian, would later edit the autobiography of Salim Kassab. See Chapter 1 and H. B. Macartney (ed.), Two Stories from the Land of Promise (London: British Syrian Mission, 1906). 84. Henry Jessup to Caroline Thompson, March 1, 1902: PHS 115-4-4. See Figure 29 image of Caroline Thompson and Salim Kassab with British Syrian Mission workers. 85. Ibid. 86. The pamphlet is now held at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia. The author’s name is not printed on the document, but an attached note by Jessup reads, “The infamous Document given by A. Zurub to Rev. Mr. H.B. Macartney Feb 1902.” 87. SMW 1902. Among the missionaries mentioned, Cornelius Van Dyck and Henry Harris Jessup had both worked for the ABCFM and the BFM, and, historically speaking, represented an older generation of missionaries. Yet the pamphlet praised Van Dyck and critiqued Jessup. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid. 90. SMW 1902. During the ABCFM years, the American missionaries often resided in the same home with Syrian Protestants. Christine B. Lindner, “The Flexibility of Home: Exploring the Spaces and Definitions of the Home and Family Employed by the ABCFM Missionaries in Ottoman Syria from 1823 to 1860,” in Mehmet Ali Doğan and Heather J. Sharkey (eds.), American Missionaries and the Middle East: Foundational Encounters (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2011), 33–62.

268  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 91. SMW 1902. 92. Ibid. 93. Ibid. 94. Ibid. 95. Ibid. Syrian immigrants in New York City published Kawkab Amirka as an English–Arabic journal, beginning in 1892. That same year, the publication featured a series of letters to the editor titled “The Missionary Controversy,” in which multiple Syrians in the United States and abroad answered the question “What do the Syrians Think of the American Missionaries Among Them?” The respondents included Syrian Protestants who critiqued the missionaries’ high salaries, their lives of luxury and their mistreatment of Syrian preachers and teachers. Salim Sarkis, a Beiruti Protestant and the nephew of Khalil Sarkis, blamed the missionaries for the division within the Syrian Protestant congregation. Salim Sarkis, “Mukatibat,” Kawkab Amirka 1(19) (August 19, 1892), 1; Sarkis, “The Missionary Controversy,” Kawkab America: The Star of America, English edition, 1(24) (September 23, 1892), 1. See Jacobs, Strangers in the West, 269; Deanna Ferree Womack, “Syrian Christians and Arab-Islamic Identity: Expressions of Belonging in the Ottoman Empire and America,” Studies in World Christianity (forthcoming 2019). 96. SMW 1902. David (Daud) Fullihan graduated from the collegiate department of SPC in 1885 and later emigrated to the United States. Catalogue of the Syrian Protestant College, 1901–1902, 96. 97. SMW 1902. 98. Ibid. 99. Today the National Evangelical Church of Beirut retains the name al-kanisa al-injiliyya al-wataniyya, but because of the pejorative connotation of the term “native,” wataniyya has been standardized in English as “national.” 100. SMW 1902. 101. Ibid. 102. Hoskins, Untitled timeline of the Beirut Church, 1910. 103. Henry Jessup to Caroline Thompson, March 1, 1902. 104. Brown, Report of a Visitation, 64. 105. Samuel Jessup to Arthur J. Brown, August 31, 1902: YDS 2-4-119. 106. Hoskins, Untitled timeline of the Beirut Church, 1910 (underlined in original). 107. “Anglo-American Congregation,” January 1919: PHS 115-3-18. This bulletin detailing the relationship between the Syrian Protestant churches and the Anglo-American congregation did not indicate an author.

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  269 108. Salim Kassab to the Beirut Station, March 22, 1903: PHS 115-4-4. Kassab sent an earlier letter to the mission as well, repudiating the pamphlet and declaring that he had no role in its production. Salim Kassab to the Beirut Station, March 20, 1903: PHS 115-4-4. Kassab first joined the Evangelical Church of Beirut in 1866. “Member entry 79”: NECB 9. 109. Kassab was not among the original members of the Second Church in 1894. As a church deacon, Kassab opposed Badr’s dismissal in 1892 and remained in the Evangelical Church of Beirut. Murad Barudi, Salim Kassab, Jabir Dumit, As‘ad ‘Atiq, Salih al-Salibi and Ibrahim al-Hurani to American Missionaries in Beirut. December 16, 1892; “Beirut Church Vote,” December 1892: PHS 115-4-5. It is likely that Kassab joined the Evangelical Independent Church after 1896 when the mission reorganized the First Church on a Presbyterian basis. Hoskins noted that during the pamphlet controversy Kassab began attending the Anglo-American Congregation of British and American missionaries. Hoskins, “Matter of the Beirut Church, Vol. III.” 110. Franklin Hoskins, Samuel Jessup, Henry H. Jessup and Daniel Bliss to the Committee of the Evangelical Independent Church of Beirut, March 11, 1903: PHS 115-4-4. 111. Khalil Sarkis to Franklin Hoskins, May 6, 1903: PHS 115-4-4. 112. Franklin E. Hoskins to Khalil Sarkis, May 11, 1903: PHS 115-4-4 (underlined in original). 113. As‘ad Zurub to Franklin Hoskins, May 16, 1903: PHS 115-4-4. 114. Franklin E. Hoskins to As‘ad Zurub, May 28, 1903: PHS 115-4-4 (underlined in original). 115. American Syria Mission, Untitled form letter addressed “To the members of the American Community and Mission in Syria,” June 1903: PHS 115-4-4. The letter absolved the Evangelical Independent Church of responsibility for producing the pamphlet and said, “The charges of luxury, of lying, of swindling and of immoralities against individuals in particular and the community as a whole, are slanders and I regret deeply that I ever listened to them and blame myself for having had anything to do with the printing of them.” 116. Antun Qanawati to the Syria Mission, June 13, 1903: PHS 115-4-5. 117. Ibid. 118. Ibid. 119. Franklin E. Hoskins, “Matter of the Beirut Church, Vol. III.” 120. As‘ad Zurub to the American Missionaries in Syria, June 24, 1906: PHS 115-4-5.

270  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 121. As‘ad Zurub, “Retraction and Plea for Forgiveness,” March 22, 1910: PHS 115-4-5; Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820–1957. T715, 1897–1957, roll, 1485 (see database online) (Provo, UT, May 25, 1910: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010); “Hot Springs Arkansas City Directory,” 1912 and “Hot Springs Arkansas City Directory,” 1935. U.S. City Directories, 1821–1989 (database online) (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011). By the time Zurub signed this apology, Hoskins had concluded that Zurub was not the only author of the pamphlet. Franklin Hoskins to Syria Mission, March 9, 1910: PHS 115-4-4. 122. BFM (1907), 426–7; Frederick W. March to Henry Jessup, November 29, 1906: PHS 115-4-4. 123. Samuel Jessup to Arthur J. Brown, August 31, 1902. This was Jessup’s characterization of the members who seceded from the Beirut Church. 124. Reunification Agreement of the Evangelical Church of Beirut, November 21, 1906: PHS 115-4-5. The agreement addressed to Henry Harris Jessup bore the signatures of Khalil Sarkis, Salim Kassab, Ibrahim al-Hurani, As‘ad Khairallah, Jabir Dumit, Khalil al-Mishalani, Faris al-Mishalani, Jirjis al-Khuri al-Maqdisi and two others whose names are illegible. 125. “A proposal for Reunion on non-Presbyterian Basis,” December 1897: PHS 115-4-3. 126. BFM (1909): 470. In the years between 1906 and 1916, Hoskins complained often of the church’s improper use of waqf income for the pastor’s salary. George Ford attempted to broker a deal allowing the congregation to use the mission’s church building and manse (that it was already occupying) if the members would only adopt Presbyterian polity. Hoskins, “Matter of the Beirut Church, Vol. III”; Hoskins, “Beirut Church, Vol. IV.” 127. Ibrahim Sarafian and Jirjis al-Khuri al-Maqdisi to Dr. William Jessup, June 3, 1916. Translated by James Wallace Willoughby: PHS 115-4-4. The church’s pastor, As‘ad ‘Abdullah al-Rasi, died in 1915. According to the letter, one of the Beirut Church members, Jirjis al-Khuri al-Maqdisi, was serving as preacher. 128. On relief work during the war, see Christine B. Lindner, “‘Calpurnia’s Husband Unable to Make Delivery’: The American Mission Press of Beirut and Transnational Relief during World War I,” unpublished paper delivered at the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations annual meeting in Washington, DC, June 25–27, 2015; A. Tylor Brand, “‘That They May Have Life’: Balancing Principles and Pragmatism in the Syrian Protestant College’s Humanitarian Relief Projects during the Famine of World War I,” in Nadia

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  271 Maria El Cheikh, Lina Choueiri and Bilal Orfali (eds.), One Hundred and Fifty (Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 2016), 51–62. 129. “Anglo-American Congregation,” 1919. 130. At present, nine Congregational churches form the National Evangelical Church in Lebanon, which has its organizational center in Beirut. These congregations are located in Beirut, ‘Abay, Kfar Shima, ‘Aramun, Khaldeh, Hadath, Dbayeh, Bhamdun and Dhur al-Shwayr. The National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon is a Presbyterian body including fifty-eight member congregations in Lebanon and Syria. Betty Jane Bailey and J. Martin Bailey, Who Are the Christians in the Middle East? 2nd edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 114–19. The member churches of the Union of Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East are also denominationally Congregational. For their history, see Haidostian, “Church Communion in the Middle East.” 131. Jessup speculated that the document had actually been printed a few years earlier during Zurub’s time in the United States, perhaps after his fundraising failure. Henry Jessup to Caroline Thompson, March 1, 1902. 132. SMW 1902. Upon his arrival in Beirut, Brown and his wife were indeed met at their boat by Henry and William Jessup, Franklin Hoskins, William Eddy and Dr. Mary Eddy. They went by carriage to Henry Jessup’s home and then the next day Brown’s tour of mission institutions began at the station in Shwayr. Arthur Judson Brown, “Diary of Arthur J. Brown on Tour of Asia, Book XVI,” March 8, 1902–April 7, 1902: YDS 2-12-30. 133. SMW 1902. Brown visited the First Church and discussed the church schism with Henry Jessup during his trip. Brown, “Diary XVII.” 134. Shakir Daghir, “Welcome Dr. Brown,” 1902: YDS 2-14-4. 135. Mufid ‘Abd al-Karim to Dr. Brown, March 23, 1902: YDS 2-14-4. 136. ‘Abd al-Karim to Brown, March 23, 1902. Missionaries Isaac and Ann Parker Bird worked in ‘Abay from 1823 to 1835. Their son William served the Syria Mission from 1853 until his death in 1902 and also worked in ‘Abay. 137. For example, a group of women in Tripoli sent a comparable letter to Hadiqat al-Akhbar in 1858. See Zachs and Halevi, “From Difa‘ al-Nisa’ to Mas’alat al-Nisa’ in Greater Syria, 616. 138. Evangelical Church in Zahle to Dr. A. J. Brown, April 10, 1902: YDS 2-5-168. 139. Ibid. 140. Ibrahim al-Hurani to the Rev. Dr. Brown, 1902: YDS 2-14-4. 141. Fu’ad A. Khairallah to Arthur J. Brown, 1902: YDS 2-14-4. As‘ad Khairallah

272  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE worked for the mission press in Beirut. He voted to retain Yusif Badr, but his son Fu’ad was not listed in the vote. “Beirut Church Vote,” December 1892. 142. As‘ad ‘Abdullah al-Rasi, “The work of the Gospel in Syria from the arrival of the American missionaries until today,” April 23, 1902: PHS 115-4-5. 143. al-Rasi, “The work of the Gospel in Syria.” 144. See n. 95, above. In 1905, the Evangelical Church of Beirut listed 138 members residing in Beirut and 208 absent members, including 30 known to be in the United States. “Beirut Church: List of Absent and Emigrants,” 1905 and “Beirut Church: Living Members Now in Beirut,” 1905: PHS 115-4-4. 145. Brown, Report of a Visitation, 22; Fida G. Musawwir, “Zahle Address of Welcome,” 1902: YDS 2-14-4. 146. al-Rasi, “The work of the Gospel in Syria.” 147. ‘Abd al-Karim to Brown, March 23, 1902. 148. al-Hurani to Brown, 1902. 149. Khairallah to Brown, 1902. 150. Ibid. 151. ‘Abd al-Karim to Brown, March 23, 1902. 152. Evangelical Church of Zahle to Dr. A. J. Brown, April 10, 1902. 153. Brown, Report of a Visitation, 28–9. “Translation of the Speech of Rev. Murad Haddad,” April 8, 1902: YDS 2-14-4. Henry Jessup translated the text. The full Arabic address appeared in Murad Haddad, “al-Duktur Brown,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1890 (April 17, 1902), 135. 154. Haddad, “al-Duktur Brown,” 135. 155. SMW 1902. 156. Brown, Report of a Visitation, 69; Khairallah to Brown, 1902: YDS 2-14-4. 157. SMW 1902. 158. Ibid. 159. Brown, Report of a Visitation, 22, 42. His report also spoke of Syria’s “state of utter stagnation” and noted that when the first missionaries arrived, the “Oriental mind seemed asleep.” Ibid., 27. 160. Khairallah to Brown, 1902. 161. Brown, Report of a Visitation, 29–30. 162. al-Hurani to Brown, 1902. 163. Ibid. 164. Musawwir, “Zahle Address of Welcome”; Haddad, “Al-Duktur Brown,” 135. 165. Photo of eight men in Syria, c. 1902: YDS 2-19-45. The Theological Seminary’s graduating class of 1901 included eight men: Mufid ‘Abd al-Karim, Daud

m inist ers a nd nahdawi mas cul in ity   |  273 Ashkar, Mirshid al-Bustani, Yacub Hazuri, Jirjis Katbeh, James Kohen, Jabbur Sallum and Nassim Yarid. Sabra, Truth and Service, 226. 166. Fifteen missionary men were pictured in dark tailored suits and ties in “Photo of the Syria Mission,” The Assembly Herald (December 1908), 546. The Syrian dress of Cornelius Van Dyck in Figure 26, above, was not typical of missionary men. 167. Sharkey, History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, 130–1, 245, 257. Sultan Mahmud II (1785–1839) instituted the fez in 1829 as a visual equalizer among the empire’s men, and he banned turbans. ‘Abd al-Hamid II mandated the fez as the authentic form of Ottoman headgear at a time when men in Ottoman cities, and especially Christians and Jews, had started wearing brimmed European hats. 168. “Members of the Tripoli Presbytery” and “The Sidon Presbytery,” in The Assembly Herald (December 1908), 548, 554. 169. The introduction of photography helped to make previously instituted dress codes, like the fez, into normative fashions of the Nahda. Stephen Sheehi, “The Nahda After-Image,” Third Text 26(4) (2012): 407–8. 170. Brown, Report of a Visitation, 22, 87. Brown blamed this “dependent disposition” on the fact that “for two thousand years the Christians [in the Middle East] have been the almoners of European Charity,” 87. 171. Eddy, “On the Importance of a Native Ministry.” 172. SMW 1902. 173. In the same period the number of licentiates dropped from forty to twentyseven. See Figure 30 in Chapter 5 and BFM (1900), 248; BFM (1910), 460. 174. Webb Keane, “From Fetishism to Sincerity: On Agency, the Speaking Subject, and their Historicity in the Contexts of Religious Conversation,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 39(4) (1997): 674–93; Richard Fox Young, “Enabling Encounters: The Case of Nilakanth-Nehemiah Goreh, Brahmin Convert,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 29(1) (2005): 14–20. 175. For a similar argument from the perspective of World Christianity, see Brian Stanley, “Conversion to Christianity: The Colonization of the Mind?” International Review of Mission 92(366) (2006): 318–19.

5 SYRIAN WOMEN WITH A MISSION: PREACHING THE BIBLE AND BUILDING THE PROTESTANT CHURCH  

I went up to the second story of the khan … Five women asked me to read to them. While I was reading, one of them asked me, “What was your first religion?” I told her I was Greek. She said, “Why have you become a Protestant?” I told her I had read the New Testament; and now I felt I should like to show my sisters the way the New Testament teaches; for whatever it teaches us we ought to do. Then one woman asked, “Is it wrong to tell lies?” I said, “Yes, it is”; and read to them the fifth chapter of Acts, and they were afraid. After which I left them, and went to another place.1

W

ith these words, an elderly Syrian woman in Beirut conveyed her experience of becoming Protestant in a manner that corresponded with the lengthy and more popular conversion narratives of Syrian men. Converted through reading the Bible, she felt compelled to spread the gospel message and eventually made this work into a profession. In the 1860s she became one of the first Arab women preachers who were known as “Biblewomen” to missionaries, yet her role in the development of Syrian Protestantism was not recognized in American missionary reports. Identified in the literature of her British missionary employers as Umm Yusif (or “mother of Yusif” in Arabic), 274

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  275 this pioneering evangelist remains mysterious, like many of the women who followed in her footsteps. In this chapter, I turn to the history of these Syrian Biblewomen, the most liminal agents of Protestant Christianity in Syria. Overlooked by American men who were the gatekeepers of evangelical authority, Biblewomen worked for far less pay than pastors and licensed preachers. Biblewomen outnumbered ordained Syrian men in the nineteenth century, and were employed in numbers often comparable to that of the Syria Mission’s licentiates (Figure 30). Yet the “office” of ministry these women occupied brought them freedoms not afforded to their male contemporaries who negotiated with missionary ministers for ordination and church appointments. Like Salma Badr, the nahdawi sermon-writer in Chapter 3, Syrian Biblewomen joined an emerging global movement when they embraced itinerant evangelism as a vocational calling and a means of independent support.2 Unlike Badr, however, most Biblewomen in Syria did not publish in nahdawi journals and many came from lower-class backgrounds. Their stories thus disclosed social realities that were not apparent in the writings of elite Protestant intellectuals. By working within rural villages and illiterate populations, these women extended the margins of the evangelical Nahda to Christian, Muslim and Jewish residents who had no other sustained contact with mission institutions. After the massacres of 1860 in Mount Lebanon and Damascus, when the very survival of the Protestant community in these areas was uncertain, Biblewomen women began working outside the purview of American and Arab clergy to build the Syrian Evangelical Church. Supported primarily by the BSM rather than the Americans, the work of these historically unrecognized Biblewomen revealed the feminization of the Protestant movement in the region and its multinational character.3 Figure 30  Syrian Biblewomen, ministers and licentiates, 1870–1910 Date

Ordained Ministers

Licentiates

Known Biblewomen

1870

 2

13

 7

1880

 4

23

19

1890

 4

35

24

1900

 5

40

24

1910

14

27

14

276  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE British Protestant women initiated the non-clerical office of the Biblewoman in 1857 through Ellen Ranyard’s London Bible and Domestic Female Mission (LBDFM), and it was the female-led BSM that commissioned the first generation of Arab Biblewomen in Syria in the 1860s.4 Following the Victorian era’s conception of “woman’s work for woman,” which held that women were best suited to bring about the spiritual and social development of other women and girls,5 the LBDFM sent working-class women to sell Bibles and read—but not necessarily to interpret—scripture in their own London neighborhoods.6 In practice, however, these British Bible readers also offered expositions on biblical texts, causing consternation among some mission supporters and Anglican clergymen long used to owning those roles exclusively.7 Arab Biblewomen followed this British example and became active interpreters of scripture. Although there was no cultural precedent for women preachers in Syria, as there had been in other global mission fields, in Syria, we find examples of women leading spiritual movements, like the eighteenthcentury Maronite nun Hindiyya al-‘Ujaymi, whose activities the Catholic clergy suppressed.8 From the very beginning of the Biblewomen’s movement, however, the Arabic term used to describe their work was mubashira (pl. mubashirat), the female equivalent of the title given to male preacher-­ evangelists (mubashir, pl. mubashirun).9 This term was in fact more accurate than the English title in conveying what Biblewomen did, for the inclusion of the feminine ending signaled that the preaching of the gospel (tabshir) was a task that women and men in the Syrian Protestant community shared.10 In this, the comparable terms mubashir and mubashira differed from the male-only title of khuri (priest) and qassis (minister) and from the feminine title rahiba (nun) used in the Catholic and Orthodox communities of Syria. We find a similar equivalency in the terms shayk and shaykha, employed in Muslim communities to designate learned men and women who were commissioned to recite the Qur’an to women and girls or to tutor them privately in reading. While shaykha connoted a scholarly rather than a preaching function, Protestant women who visited Muslim homes were often seen in this light. In fact, mubashirat may have acted like shaykhas as they dialogued with the shaykhs teaching Muslim girls in their homes or as they visited the quarters of Muslim women. Mubashirat who read their Bibles out loud and

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  277 taught women to read therefore did not introduce a new practice, but built on the existing interests of elite Muslim families in literacy and knowledge of scripture.11 For some Muslim families, in fact, Biblewomen took the place of shaykhs as a more suitable option for teaching their daughters and wives to read while maintaining the norm of separate gendered spaces.12 By examining the activities of mubashirat, we gain a more comprehensive understanding of Syrian women’s roles in the missionary encounter beyond the circle of highly-educated women authors discussed in Chapter 3. Yet this investigation is complicated by most mubashirat not leaving a written record, and the men of the American Syria Mission seldom writing in any depth about Biblewomen. They treated this evangelistic office as peripheral to the work of ordained male ministers, and in so doing reflected the same hierarchical conceptions of race and gender that pervaded the Beirut Church controversy. For documentation on the daily work and experiences of Syrian Biblewomen, we can turn to the rich and largely neglected publications and archives of the BSM, which included translations of Biblewomen’s reports, visiting diaries and autobiographies.13 When reading this material—along with magazines of American women’s missionary boards and the scattered references in American Syria Mission reports—against the grain, we can discern the voices of Syrian women evangelists representing their own history.14 The mubashirat emphasized the significance of their work for the growth of Protestantism in Syria, but the common themes throughout their reports and letters also indicated that Biblewomen’s conceptions of their vocations did not always match missionary articulations. As Mrinalini Sebastian has argued, new and unintended meanings emerge from the tensions “between the ideal of the missionaries and the reconstructed experiences of the native women employed by the missionary societies.”15 Rather than conforming to the expectations of their employers, Syrian Biblewomen enacted their theological beliefs by excelling in the traditionally male activities of biblical interpretation, pastoral care and preaching, and also by refusing to target an exclusively female audience. This chapter tells of the first Syrian Biblewomen who partnered with the BSM and of the women evangelists employed by the American Syria Mission, who in various ways profoundly shaped the history of the Syrian Evangelical Church.

278  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE First, however, I turn to American and British missionary approaches to “woman’s work for woman,” a concept that simultaneously restricted and expanded the realm of possibility for Syrian women’s evangelistic activities. Whereas American actions have been the overwhelming focus of mission histories on Ottoman Syria, when it came to “woman’s work,” the lives of Syrian, British and American Protestants were thoroughly enmeshed. Whether employed by the British or the Americans, the mubashirat came from the same Protestant community and worshipped in the same Syrian Evangelical churches (with the exception of those who worked in Damascus).16 By weaving together British and American missionary materials along with Syrian writings, therefore, we gain a deeper sense of the ways that these Syrian women conceived of and enacted their chosen vocations. Woman’s Work for Woman and the Feminization of Missions in Ottoman Syria In the 1850s, women constituted around half of the missionary personnel of the ABCFM, the largest American missionary society that still operated in Syria at that time. During the 1860s, this number increased to 60 percent, and newly established women’s missionary societies began to challenge the male-dominated American mission boards.17 Such organizations in North America and Europe ensured the continued feminization of the Protestant missionary enterprise. They funded the work of women missionaries and indigenous Christian women, bringing a female majority to most mission fields by the turn of the century.18 Yet the level of independent agency and decision-making power missionary women achieved depended on the nature of their sending society and the cultural context of their chosen mission field. The women’s boards that supported the American Syria Mission, for example, operated under the aegis of the ABCFM (from the 1820s to 1860s) and the Presbyterian BFM (after 1870), both of which had male governing boards. American men, therefore, retained power over mission personnel and official Syria Mission publications, in which American women’s activities were less prominent and Syrian women’s voices were almost entirely absent. When annual reports made references to local women, these usually appeared in connection with the work American missionary women did in girls’ schools

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  279 and churches.19 American men and women alike justified such activities with gendered language, lamenting the low status of Arab women while also masking Syrian women’s contributions to social and religious change.20 Critiquing practices of seclusion, they depicted Syrian women as veiled in superstition, spiritually degraded and intellectually stagnant. In missionary publications, which measured Ottoman Syria according to the condition of its women, Eastern Christian communities fared marginally better than Muslim communities.21 Henry Jessup’s The Women of the Arabs, for example, asserted: Ignorant and oppressed as the Greek and Maronite women may be, you feel on entering their houses that the degrading yoke of Moslem brutality is not on their necks. Their husbands may be coarse, ignorant and brutal, beating their wives and despising their daughters, mourning at the birth of a daughter, and marrying her without her consent, and yet there are lower depths of coarseness and brutality, of cruelty and bestiality, which are only found among Mohammedans.22

For this veteran of the American mission, conversion to “pure Christianity” was the key for Syrian women to move forward on the pathway “between barbarism and civilization.”23 Employing the same dichotomous rhetoric that Syrian Protestants would critique decades later during the Beirut Church controversy, Jessup’s book condemned Syrian society in order to promote Western civilization and Protestantism.24 While nahdawi writers of the period also called for improving the status of women, the severity of Jessup’s tone stood in contrast to the writings of Syrian intellectuals and to the reports from Biblewomen, who entered Greek, Maronite and Muslim homes far more often than did the missionaries. Umm Yusif’s testimony in the opening of this chapter indicated that she likely shared Jessup’s theological views. Yet instead of describing her former life in the Greek Orthodox community as one of ignorance and oppression, she underscored her ability to read the Bible and choose Protestantism for herself; and she assumed that her female listeners possessed the same agency and intelligence, even if they were illiterate. Likewise, as we shall see later, other Biblewomen’s reports diverged from Jessup’s description of Syrian women’s domestic spaces. Despite the Western biases in their reports to mission supporters, in their advocacy of work by and for women, Jessup and his contemporaries in

280  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Protestant missionary circles demonstrated a willingness to adapt to Middle Eastern cultural practices, even while critiquing them. Like the activities of women evangelists in South Asia, the work of Biblewomen in the Arab world emerged because male missionaries and native pastors could not access a certain segment of the female population.25 Such divisions, however, also conveniently matched American and British evangelical conceptions of “woman’s work.” This opened the way for women’s activities of direct evangelism, while at the same time relegating such work to a separate gendered sphere that did not impinge upon male clerical authority.26 Thus, the involvement of American, British and Syrian Protestant women in missions rose dramatically in late nineteenth-century Ottoman Syria, while evangelical religious structures remained firmly a masculine domain of influence. As ordained ministers and supervisors of the Syrian Evangelical churches, American missionary men exercised their religious authority over the entire Protestant community in Syria, including the BSM and its network of girls’ schools and Biblewomen. When it came to American–British relations, such masculinist assertions of power unexpectedly contributed to a flourishing Syrian Biblewomen’s movement, making the Syrian context a unique point of comparison with Biblewomen’s work elsewhere. Although the British mission occupied much of the same field in Syria, in the eyes of the American mission’s male leaders it complemented the American work rather than rivaling it because the BSM specialized in “woman’s work for woman.”27 As an independent, non-denominational organization operated by British and Syrian women, the BSM maintained no official ties with British clergy who might encroach upon American Presbyterian territory and use converts from the British Syrian Schools to establish their own denominational churches.28 In those regions where both the American mission and the BSM were present, converts and teachers from the British schools became members in the Syrian Evangelical churches, and the Americans focused on schools for boys rather than opening competing girls’ schools. Such collegial divisions of labor concealed the tensions that arose periodically between the leadership of the BSM and American missionary men. When Augusta Mott became the BSM director in 1869 after the death of her sister Elizabeth Thompson, the mission’s founder, she expressed the desire for a “clerical superintendent” for the British school system. According to BSM

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  281

Figure 31  Elizabeth Bowen Thompson Source: Daughters of Syria, special Jubilee number (1910).

Figure 32  Augusta Mott Source: Daughters of Syria, special Jubilee number (1910).

282  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE publications, the appropriate British clergyman was simply never found, but in reality, the American men deliberately prevented interference from British clergy.29 As most of the BSM missionaries and their supporters were members of the Church of England, in 1876 Mott and another of her sisters, Susette Harriet Smith, petitioned the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in London to send an Anglican minister to “visit and inspect the schools, hold services in connection with them, and administer the ordinances of the church.”30 This overture led to prolonged negotiations between Mott, Henry Wright of the CMS and Henry Jessup, who drew up a list of conditions upon which the American mission would consent to a Church of England minister joining the BSM.31 Mott accepted most of Jessup’s recommendations, but in reply to his stipulation that the prospective superintendent should not conduct church services in Arabic or administer the sacraments, she objected that “no Clergyman would submit to such terms as those proposed.”32 Employing such arguments in this and subsequent letters, Mott refrained from asserting her own authority as head of the BSM. Rather, she used the position of British clergy as leverage, noting the need to afford these men the same liberties Jessup would claim for American ministers.33 As the two continued their measured contestations on this subject, Jessup also wrote to Wright and sent a copy to Mott, conveying his position to her indirectly: I can see no occasion for sending a Clerical Superintendent. The British Syrian Schools are almost without exception in places where both teachers and pupils are under the pastoral care of either American missionaries or native Protestant pastors, and the introduction of a clerical superintendent would lead to confusion in the native churches. Our relations with your honored Missionaries in Palestine are of the most fraternal character. Disaffected natives in Es Salt [al-Salt, Transjordan] and other places have repeatedly petitioned us to send preachers to them and we have always absolutely and utterly refused to have anything to do with them.34

This response did not alter Augusta Mott’s plans. She thanked Jessup for permitting her to read his correspondence with Wright and reminded him “that if the offer of the CMS were entirely rejected, it is not impossible that

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  283 the gentlemen of our Council and other friends might decide upon sending us a Clerical Superintendent, who would be unfettered by any stipulations or arrangements whatever with your Mission.”35 The CMS, however, was slow to act, and the discussion over the proposed appointment continued for another two years. In 1878, American missionary William W. Eddy reiterated Jessup’s stance as he sought assurance from Wright that the CMS would not send a clerical missionary to superintend Mott’s schools. Eddy insisted further that “the introduction of a new religious organization would be an unnecessary measure and one liable to do great harm” since the jurisdiction of the American mission and its churches extended over every location where the British mission operated schools, except for Damascus.36 Ultimately, Wright deferred to the American mission’s request, and the BSM continued without a British clergyman.37 Instead Salim Kassab, the Greek Orthodox convert and Beirut Church member, became superintendent of the mission schools. Jessup raised the same concern yet again in 1888 when he informed Mott that as long as the British schools remained under her direction, the American mission would “have no apprehension from ritualistic intruders from Protestant lands.” Following this unfavorable depiction of the Anglican tradition, Jessup voiced his fears, explaining, “[S]hould any change occur in the management of your schools, we might be exposed to serious danger from such interference.”38 With such pressure placed periodically upon the British mission to remain a non-denominational “woman’s work for woman,” the American missionary ministers and their Syrian pastors continued to lead Protestant services at the British schools far into the twentieth century. It was not until 1936 that the BSM appointed a British pastor to serve as chaplain for the mission schools.39 The men of the American mission thus succeeded in preserving their clerical power though negotiations with British men and women, just as they also did through close oversight of Syrian pastors. This racialized and gendered structure of religious authority had its limits, however, when it came to women’s activities outside churches and American mission institutions. In their evangelistic tours and medical work, American women found opportunities to engage Syrian men in religious discussions and sometimes voiced a preference for the quality of conversations they had with Syrian men, as opposed to the “densely ignorant” Syrian women.40 Such mixed gender

284  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE interactions were all the more possible for British women and the mubashirat they employed because their enterprise remained in the sphere of “woman’s work.” Had British clergy arrived on the scene and taken on a preaching office, the Biblewomen’s movement might have dwindled and become marginal like it was in the American Syria Mission. By preventing Anglican clergy from joining the BSM, the Americans in fact opened the way for the BSM Biblewomen to perform all the duties of male pastors and preachers, except for administration of the sacraments. Rather than conforming to Orientalist notions of men and women’s public and private roles in the Middle East, the mubashirat often transcended the socially and religiously constructed boundaries of gender upheld by Syrians and Western missionaries alike.41 The Mubashirat of the British Syrian Mission, 1860–1915 The Syrian Biblewomen’s movement emerged in the aftermath of the sectarian violence of 1860 that prompted the intervention of European powers.42 Nahdawi Protestant men responded to this crisis by calling for pan-Syrian unity in printed appeals aimed at the leaders of Syria’s rival sects, and at the same time raised funds to send Syrians as missionaries to their own people in the hard-hit Mount Lebanon region.43 Syrian women contributed to these funds but also found active grassroots ways to serve uprooted orphans, widows and families, while reconstituting the fractured Protestant community. These were the first mubashirat of Elizabeth Bowen Thompson’s BSM. Responding to the Syrian refugee crisis of the nineteenth century, these women were widows, migrants and marginal figures within the Protestant community, and yet in villages like Hasbayya, devastated by the massacres, their work was key for rebuilding the Syrian Evangelical Church. Elizabeth Thompson and the Mubashirat Arriving in Beirut soon after the conflict, the English widow Thompson founded a sewing and laundry school to provide displaced women with a temporary means of livelihood until they returned to their homes.44 As many refugees remained in the city after the immediate crisis had settled, Thompson soon shifted her focus to establishing elementary schools for girls and continued supporting the women by sending out Biblewomen to visit the pupils’ mothers and other female neighbors. Many of the BSM clientele

C

D

B

(A) Umm Salim Musawwir, Umm Khalil Shahada, Nur Shahada and Rosa in Zahle. © The British Library Board: One Hundred Syrian Pictures, Illustrating the Work of the British Syrian Mission (London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 1903). (B) British Syrian Mission Biblewomen. Source: Daughters of Syria (January 1901), 25. (C) Nijma ‘Atiq. Source: Daughters of Syria, special Jubilee number (1910), 7. (D) Biblewomen, scripture readers and Miss Werner in Beirut. © The British Library Board, One Hundred Syrian Pictures.

Figure 33  British Syrian Mission Biblewomen

A

286  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE were illiterate, so selling scripture was not a primary focus for the mubashirat. Rather, they offered reading lessons to Syrian women while also reading and interpreting scripture to them, thus extending the BSM’s educational work beyond the mission schools. In other ways, however, Syrian Biblewomen’s activities were similar to the British Biblewomen’s work for women—­ evangelizing and “civilizing” Eastern women in order to transform them into “noble wives and mothers.”45 Like low-caste Biblewomen in India, as well, Syrian mubashirat worked in their own neighborhoods but also crossed social and religious boundaries by visiting elite families and members of all of Syria’s religious sects.46 Depending on the location, they visited Jewish, Druze, Muslim or Christian homes, and, similar to the South Asian “zenana workers,” some Biblewomen became “harem visitors” who focused exclusively on Muslim women.47 Some of the earliest mubashirat, a number of whom were Protestant widows from the Greek Orthodox village of Hasbayya, remained in Beirut and worked with the BSM for decades. Other refugees began their Bible work after returning from Beirut to their homes in Damascus and Mount Lebanon, expanding the BSM’s network of evangelists. One of the first mubashirat, Nakhle al-Reus, returned from Beirut to her home in Hasbayya in 1863 when there was neither a priest nor a Protestant pastor, and the Evangelical Church building was still under repair. There she joined a “native missionary” of the Evangelical Society of Beirut as a spiritual guide for Protestants and others in that community.48 Thompson and her successors in the BSM, Augusta Mott and Caroline Thompson, stressed the instrumentality of such Biblewomen for teaching scripture to women in the private spaces of the home.49 The mubashirat were, in the words of Ellen Ranyard, the “missing link with the daughters of Syria,” the necessary agents to bring the message of the gospel to Syrian women and girls.50 Biblewomen also provided a more personal link between British evangelical women and the mission field. When Ranyard’s LBDFM ceased supporting Bible work in Syria due to budgetary constraints, the BSM drew nearly all of its funds directly from British women or local BSM auxiliaries in England and Scotland that sought adopted pupils as “protégés” and sponsored the work of individual Syrian teachers and Biblewomen.51

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  287 The BSM publications reflected this reality, featuring the personal stories of individual mubashirat in order to give the donors a sense of intimate and enduring connection with the women laboring on their behalf in Syria. Some sponsors conceived of themselves as surrogate mothers for Syrian women and girls. Elizabeth Copley, for example, visited Syria in 1869 and maintained ongoing correspondence with her adoptive daughters, ‘Alya’ ‘Azar ‘Atiya and Taqla Rehan.52 Besides cultivating transnational ties between Western and Middle Eastern Christian women, such coverage of Biblewomen’s lives in printed media and personal letters proved to be an effective strategy for securing funding for newly hired BSM employees. This was the case for the first two Biblewomen who began working in Damascus in 1867, Maryam and Taqla. Maryam Mardu, a refugee who attended Thompson’s school in Beirut, returned to her home city of Damascus and requested to become a Biblewoman there. Thompson explained to her readers that Mardu “said her health was stronger now, and her children able to run about, so that she felt it her duty to do something for the Lord.”53 At that time, the BSM had not yet founded its schools in Damascus. But had there been a teaching position available, Mardu might still have preferred evangelistic work because of the flexible schedule it would afford her as a mother. Thompson related, “It was finally settled that Maryam was to give four mornings a week to visiting and holding little gatherings for needlework, reading the Bible, and prayer; and, on Sundays, to have a Bible-reading with the women who attend Divine service.”54 Thompson soon appointed another Damascus native and former refugee, Taqla, as a second Biblewoman for the city so that she and Maryam might make visits together, with one reading and the other asking questions or making remarks.55 With a husband working as a colporteur for the Irish Mission in Damascus and no children at home, Taqla had also turned to the BSM for employment, and Thompson recalled her saying, “Ah, it makes my heart sad when I see Maryam go forth every morning to read the Bible with poor women, and I have to sit at home idle.”56 By reproducing their conversations, Thompson introduced Maryam and Taqla to British mission supporters upon whom she depended to provide the additional £24 for their combined annual salaries.57 In the early years of the Biblewomen’s movement, the £1 (Sterling) per month that mubashirat earned was a small amount in comparison with

288  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE the £30 per year that colporteurs and male Bible readers received from the BSM.58 This pay scale, in which both gender and race were determinants for the women’s salaries, followed the same pattern as that of the American mission described below. It also matched the practice for societies that employed Biblewomen in places like India, where missionaries sometimes preferred the work of women evangelists because it achieved the same result and cost less than the work of male preachers. This was also the case in South Africa where Biblewomen performed the very same duties as their male counterparts, including leading public worship.59 Although missionaries in Syria did not grant Biblewomen a formal role in preaching or officiating at church services, the reports of Syrian mubashirat revealed that they self-identified as preachers, led Bible study and prayer meetings, and, on occasion, were the primary leaders during worship services. For some Biblewomen, the commitment to such work was so strong that they pursued this career even when it meant living away from their husbands for long periods.60 With support from British donors, the office of the Biblewoman quickly became a legitimate option for Syrian Protestant women who knew how to read and desired employment but who, for a variety of reasons—family commitments, lack of educational training or an interest in direct evangelism—chose not to work in the more formal setting of a mission school. The responsibilities and hours for Biblewomen’s work were flexible. As Mardu’s case suggests, in some instances young children accompanied their mothers on visits, and older women likewise could engage in this work in their own neighborhoods even when age or frailty prevented them from keeping regular hours or traveling far on foot.61 Many of the earliest Syrian Biblewomen were able to continue working for decades, and it was not uncommon for the BSM’s teachers to become mubashirat after retiring from their teaching positions.62 At its height in the early 1890s the BSM employed twenty-four women in its Bible mission, and the mission named more than eighty Biblewomen working between 1860 and 1915. Yet the stories of these mubashirat who shaped the Syrian Protestant community with their work outside church and educational institutions are little known.63 Renamed Lebanon Evangelical Mission (LEM) in the mid-twentieth century and then later subsumed under the Middle East Christian Outreach (MECO), Thompson’s legacy remains alive in Lebanon today.

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  289 The Elusive Identity of the Biblewoman-mother Though some Syrian women like Salma Badr served as mubashirat for only a short period, for many others evangelistic work for the BSM became a lifelong profession. Umm Shakir Dabaghi, for example, took on this office in the late 1860s as a means of supporting her only son, Shakir, after losing her husband, Musa Dabaghi, in the Hasbayya massacres. She worked first in Beirut and then later in her home village, using her earnings to fund Shakir’s education until he graduated from the SPC’s medical department. Shakir returned to Hasbayya to work as a physician, and his mother remained a Biblewoman there until the early twentieth century.64 Another career Biblewoman of a later generation, Jamila Bajjani, began her work in the Jewish neighborhoods of Beirut in the 1890s, continued laboring without steady pay after the British were expelled from Syria during the First World War, and was still engaged in evangelistic work in the 1940s.65 Although the activities and experiences of these and other Biblewomen are essential for a holistic understanding of the Syrian missionary encounter, multiple hurdles emerge when seeking to reconstruct the full history of even one mubashira, like Umm Yusif, whose conversion narrative appeared at the opening of this chapter. Umm Yusif became a BSM Biblewoman in 1862.66 Working in Beirut, she was the first Syrian—and likely also the first Arab—woman to hold such a position for a full decade. In naming this pioneering mubashira in reports, the BSM followed the Syrian cultural convention in which mothers and fathers alike took their son’s names (thus, Umm Yusif was “mother of Yusif”).67 Unlike other Biblewomen-mothers such as Umm As‘ad in Beirut, whom the BSM also identified as Nijma ‘Atiq, Umm Yusif was not called by her given name in British missionary literature.68 My search for Umm Yusif’s full name and her family’s story required the piecing together of British and American writings and Syrian Evangelical Church records with a critical eye for the errors that missionary texts often made when recounting stories about Syrians.69 The Biblewoman known as Umm Yusif was Taqla Yazbek Sabunji, and unlike the mubashirat who fled the massacres and later converted, she was already a Protestant and living in Beirut in 1860. She had two sons and a

290  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE daughter, Sa‘da, during her first marriage to a Greek Orthodox man by the last name of Yazbek. Her conversion likely came before her second marriage to Tannus Sabunji, a founding member of the Evangelical Church of Beirut. In the 1850s, four of their children were baptized in this church.70 Sa‘da Yazbek Sabunji Barakat, Taqla’s oldest daughter, was a student at the Beirut Female Seminary between 1848 and 1852. In 1858, she married Yusif Barakat, a Protestant from Hasbayya and the brother of Sa‘da’s Seminary schoolmates, Hamda and Shahina Barakat.71 Sa‘da, Yusif and their son Amin were living in Damascus when the riots broke out in July 1860, so they fled to Beirut, where Yusif soon died of an illness.72 In Beirut, Sa‘da reunited with Taqla and with her sisters-in-law Hamda and Shahina, who also became refugees in the city after their father and oldest brother died in the Hasbayya massacres.73 The three younger women found employment with the BSM as schoolteachers around the time that Taqla began her work as a Biblewoman.74 Not only was Taqla Sabunji a pioneer for the Biblewomen’s movement that ministered to Christian refugee women in Beirut, she was also the first mubashira to begin visiting families in the city’s Muslim quarter, an activity that received little direct attention from Syrian and American men before the 1890s (see Chapter 2).75 Later, “harem visitors” would build on this work, sometimes taking the place of or dialoguing with shaykhs who taught the women of elite Muslim families in their homes in Beirut and Hasbayya.76 Taqla continued her work as a mubashira and harem visitor until 1872, when she died with her daughter, Sa‘da, by her side. Sa‘da’s account of Taqla’s last days was printed in Ranyard’s London-based magazine The Missing Link, which recorded for women missionary supporters one of Umm Yusif Sabunji’s final expressions of faith: “I am a sinner, and have lived a sinner’s life, but now I can venture to face death without fear, all because that blessed blood was shed for me.”77 Taqla Sabunji may have been known by the name of her son Yusif, but in this period of turmoil following the deaths of so many Christian men in Syria, the women in her extended family also made a name for themselves. Sa‘da and two of her Barakat sisters-in-law took a leading role in the early BSM institutions. Because of her educational qualifications from the Female Seminary, Sa‘da was the first teacher Elizabeth Thompson hired in Beirut in 1860, and she was also the primary author of the

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  291 petition the  teachers and women of Thompson’s refugee school sent to solicit the continued support of the British women at the end of the Relief Committee’s one-year term work.78 Hamda took over the Protestant school for women and girls that Thompson opened in Hasbayya after securing permission from Na‘ifa Jumblatt, the Hasbayyan woman known to the BSM as “Sitt Naify,” the Druze Queen.79 Other members of the extended Sabunji family also followed Taqla’s example in serving the British mission. ‘Aziza Sabunji Sarkis, Taqla’s daughter or step-daughter, was a Biblewoman in the mid-1870s and early 1880s, and ‘Aziza’s daughter Hilana taught in the British school in ‘Ayn Zhalta.80 Masa‘da Sabunji, another member of Taqla’s extended family, worked for the BSM as a Biblewoman and harem visitor in Beirut and ‘Alay from 1878 until 1911.81 Masa‘da’s daughter, Asma’ Sabunji, likewise taught in the early twentieth century at the British mission’s Engannon School in Beirut.82 Sa‘da Barakat was the link between the women of the Barakat and Sabunji families who engaged in Protestant mission work, while her vocational practices blended together the educational and evangelistic aims of the BSM, two branches of work that were not mutually exclusive.83 Biblewomen taught others to read scripture in their homes or during women’s meetings, and teachers found opportunities for preaching the gospel. Although she never took on the office of Biblewoman, Sa‘da found many opportunities to follow her mother’s example as a mubashira, or preacher of good news. The religious instruction Sa‘da offered at Thompson’s first women’s school led Nijma ‘Atiq to embrace Protestantism and become a Biblewoman herself.84 Sa‘da also went beyond her teaching duties to lead a Sunday Bible class for Arab mothers and to visit hospital patients and read scripture to them.85 One Sunday, during a visit to a hospitalized European woman, Sa‘da demonstrated her ability to preach by sharing the message she had just heard Henry Jessup deliver in the Beirut Church. The patient later recounted, “She translated the sermon to me, and in such a forcible way, that I felt with what powerful words the original discourse must have been given.”86 While this statement commended Jessup’s skills as an Arabic preacher, it also revealed one way in which Syrian women might demonstrate their own gifts and calling as preachers in an informal setting. The following section discusses other modes of Syrian women’s preaching and teaching.

292  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE From Scripture Readers to Pastoral Preachers Salma Badr, Maryam Sarkis of Beirut and Shams Shahada of Zahle were among the few Biblewomen who wrote for nahdawi journals.87 Other mubashirat contributed in a different way to the literary production of the modern missionary movement through their visiting journals, reports and letters, which mission magazines published. Although often mediated by British missionaries, these instructive accounts revealed what the Biblewomen hoped to convey about their work to their supporters and missionary supervisors. Beyond what Biblewomen said about themselves, much can also be learned from their vocational practices as described in reports from the 1860s to the early twentieth century. For the BSM Biblewomen, the reading and explanation of scripture were inseparable. Their status as legitimate interpreters of the Bible rested upon their theological claim to follow an evangelical faith that was universally accessible to men, women and children through the reading of scripture. Taqla Sabunji affirmed this belief in her response to a Maronite monk who questioned how she, as a woman, could read the Bible. She stated, “I said, ‘Is the Testament for men, and not for women? Jesus died for all, not only for the men; and we ought to teach the truth that God teaches us, and to beware of false doctrine.’”88 When Biblewomen encountered willing listeners, they moved from reading scripture to exegesis of the text and became evangelistic preachers in the process. This occurred most often among women in Muslim and Christian homes, but when men appeared in these women’s spaces doctrinal debates usually ensued.89 When, in their disputes with priests or shaykhs, Biblewomen criticized the use of icons and statues or questioned the authority of the Prophet Muhammad, they did so with reference to biblical proofs and with certainty in their own knowledge of the Bible. This familiarity with scripture led them far beyond the bounds of “woman’s work for woman” and into the masculine realm of preaching, public discourse and theological disputation, carried out by Syrian men like Yusif ‘Atiya. The Biblewomen’s circumvention of gender norms was also apparent in the fact that although they were commissioned to work among women, their listeners and disputants often included men. While such activities commonly occurred in domestic women’s

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  293 spaces—where men of the household, male neighbors and religious leaders nevertheless frequently appeared—Biblewomen demonstrated their religious leadership in more formal settings as well. An early BSM report from 1865 related that Nakhle el-Reus, the Biblewoman in Hasbayya, “always has family worship at her house, morning and evening, and conducts it herself, even when her husband is present.”90 Before the Evangelical Church in Zahle was formally established, BSM reports noted that one of its Syrian women teachers led a Bible study and prayer meeting there on Sundays for men and women.91 A later report, printed during the First World War, described one of the Biblewomen in Damascus who read to people in the neighborhood, assisted at a weekly women’s meeting and was “the center also of the Sunday service, although a preacher, kindly lent by the Irish Mission, conduct[ed] it.”92 While mubashirat likely found opportunities to deliver “sermons” in such formal settings, their preaching activities might occur in any location to which they had also carried their Bibles. The guidance that the veteran Nijma ‘Atiq offered to younger Biblewomen in a Bible study meeting for BSM employees indicated that these women viewed preaching as part of their vocational calling. Nijma testified to her decision as a former Greek Catholic to give up “all faith in works—and she exhorted them to fully live and preach this only satisfying doctrine.”93 In many of their written reports, Biblewomen subtly defended themselves against the very sort of resistance that their British contemporaries were facing in England from clergy and church members who questioned the legitimacy of Biblewomen’s activities, particularly as they encroached upon the sphere of preaching. When working in the Msaytbeh region of Beirut, Nijma reported that one woman she visited “said that women need not be taught, and that they were not going to become Priests or go about and preach the Bible.”94 Other times, the opposition came from Greek Orthodox or Maronite priests, who entered the homes that the Biblewomen were visiting in order to belittle their work.95 One Biblewoman’s journal recalled an encounter with two priests who arrived while she was reading to some mothers of British mission school pupils. After one priest commented that in the past “the Testament was for the priest alone,” he challenged the Biblewoman, saying, “You are an ignorant woman. You have learnt a few words and lo! You want to preach to the people, to make them irreligious.” In this case, the woman of the house

294  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE rose to the Biblewoman’s defense, exclaiming, “No, father, all that she reads and tells us is from the Book of God: and I must tell you I never heard such words from your reverend fathers!”96 Similar examples abounded in Biblewomen’s accounts throughout this period.97 Shams Salibi recounted that while she was visiting a rich man in Mukhtara, he said to his priest, who had also called on him, “I do not need you, because Christ has died for me; if the Protestants were not here, we should be blind indeed.”98 In such reports, Biblewomen described their work in unobjectionable terms as reading, explaining and teaching the Bible to women, but the words of their Syrian opponents depicted them instead as actually preaching to both men and women. Mubashirat further legitimated their activities as biblical interpreters and gospel preachers by relating how other Syrians recognized Biblewoman as better qualified to preach God’s word than the clerical hierarchy of the Eastern Churches. Yet mubashirat did not always represent priests as their adversaries. Nakhle, for example, defended her work with the comments of one priest who joined the group to whom she was reading scripture and who declined the invitation to read in her place, for, as he said, “There is no difference if you read or I read: come, read on.” Nakhle concluded, “A wonderful word this for a Priest to say to any one: and to say this to a woman made me astonished, and I praised God in my heart.”99 Unlike Salma Badr and Farida ‘Atiya’s articles in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya or Syrian pastors’ sermons that were written in advance, Biblewomen’s expository preaching depended upon their ability to select and immediately apply a Bible passage to the lives of those who were listening. Thus, like the work of itinerant male evangelists, the messages that Biblewomen presented in homes took the form of situational sermonettes, which combined biblical preaching and pastoral caregiving.100 During their visits, they would read and explain scriptural texts that fit the background and circumstances of their listeners. When visiting a widow with many children, for example, one Biblewoman decided to read from Matthew 11, ending with the words of comfort, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden.”101 Although excluded from the pulpit, the mubashirat geared their domestic sermonettes toward the questions, needs and struggles of their listeners in the same way that a minister’s sermon in a church might address concerns relevant to his particular congregation.

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  295 In the intimate setting of the home, these women evangelists also served as pastoral counselors as they were called upon to resolve disputes and serve as matchmakers.102 Maryam Syougne in Hasbayya detailed her efforts to encourage forgiveness in a home where family members were fighting, and she documented her success in convincing a wife to return home after she had left her husband and children.103 Katrine Darwish similarly recalled that she entered a home in Beirut where there was a dispute, and she remained there reading scripture for three hours until the fighting family members had made peace with each other. During another visit Katrine met an elderly Muslim shaykh whose wife and daughter-in-law had quarreled, and he begged her to read to them because the two women would not listen to him. Katrine reported the transformation that occurred in this family after she read and explained the passage on love in 1 Corinthians 13: When they heard these words, they were acted upon by them as if by a miracle, and they soon became reconciled to each other. The sheik was standing with some other men and women close by, and they were all greatly surprised, and asked me to pray [to] God that these two women might not return to their former condition.104

Resolving conflicts among women would not necessarily have been a subversive activity, but in such accounts, Katrine, Maryam and other mubashirat presented themselves not only as mediators but also as pastoral counselors called upon by men and women alike, who recognized that they carried religious authority. While some clergymen and mission supporters in Britain may have questioned the authority of women “Bible readers” to interpret scripture, this evangelistic activity was both encouraged and intended by the women of the BSM, who themselves led prayer and devotional services and offered explanations of scripture. The British missionaries’ publications and reports on Bible work in Syria did not attempt to disguise this component of the Biblewomen’s activities. Neither did they remove the direct references to preaching in the Biblewomen’s journal entries. Nevertheless, like the Syrian women who wrote for al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya, the British and Arab Protestant women in Syria were not religious or social radicals. Their theology upheld complementarity rather than parity regarding the proper place of men and

296  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE women in religious service and in family life. Thus, Syrian Biblewomen urged their Muslim clientele to obey their husbands in all things, even when the husband chose to take a second wife, a practice that Protestants often criticized.105 Syrian Biblewomen did not directly confront patriarchy or demand equality.106 In their vocational practices as mubashirat, however, these women implicitly defied the masculine religious authority upheld in the Protestant community as well as in other Syrian religious traditions. Trusting in scripture as the source of truth for all humanity and empowered by the word of God that they carried wherever they went, the Biblewomen of the British mission embodied their calling to be scripture readers, gospel preachers and pastoral caregivers. BSM reports revealed how these women contested the religious authority of priests and shaykhs, but gave little indication of the interaction between Syrian Biblewomen and the American and Syrian Protestant pastors of whose churches they were members. In the remainder of the chapter, I elucidate what the American Syria Mission’s records on Biblewomen revealed about the gender dynamics of this evangelistic work in Syria. Mubashirat of the American Syria Mission, 1870–1915 As American Presbyterian women had funded the work of local Biblewomen in India, China, Japan, Persia and various parts of Africa since the 1870s, it was only natural for mission supporters to enquire why the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions had appointed so few Syrian women to this evangelistic office.107 Theodosia Jessup ventured an answer to this question in 1903 in the Presbyterian women’s missionary magazine, Woman’s Work for Woman, where she asserted that the BSM had sufficiently supplied the field with Biblewomen. After reminding her readers of the American mission’s principle “not to undertake work already satisfactorily done by others,” she assured them that in Sidon, ‘Abay, Tripoli and Zahle, the mission had employed Biblewomen.108 Jessup’s statement implied that in regions of Syria where the BSM was not present, the Americans actively supported the work of Syrian women evangelists. During the year of her article, however, the American Syria Mission reported only two Biblewomen in their entire field, one in the Lebanon Station and one in Tripoli.109 Mission records indicated further that between 1870 and 1915, the Americans employed no more than

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  297 four Biblewomen in any single year, and then only in the early twentieth century.110 Even in areas like Tripoli and Sidon where the BSM did not send Biblewomen, the Americans invested very little in Syrian women’s evangelistic work, and their reports treated the activities of individual Biblewomen as marginal within the larger mission. Although scarce, the existing documentation on the American mission’s Biblewomen provided answers to the questions that American mission supporters posed to the missionary women in Syria around the turn of the century: who were the American Syria Mission’s Biblewomen? And why did the mission give this office of ministry such minimal attention in comparison with the BSM Biblewomen? Naming and Numbering of Biblewomen What James Taneti said of female evangelists in India was true for the mubashirat of the American Syria Mission: “If mentioned, the Biblewomen were rarely named but were often numbered. Missionaries regarded them as mere additions to their statistics.”111 According to the Presbyterian Ladies Board of Missions in New York, the Syria Mission had begun employing Biblewomen by the year 1871, when the women’s society provided funds to support two “Bible readers” in Syria, Maryam al-Hajj in Beirut and an unnamed woman in ‘Alma.112 The annual reports of the Syria Mission, however, did not address this work in the 1870s and only mentioned Biblewomen three times in the 1880s.113 Mission publications and unpublished statistical tables noted a rising number of Biblewomen in the 1890s, but it was not until the early twentieth century that the Syria Mission identified Biblewomen by name in its published reports. Even then, the missionaries named only a few women, all of whom were assistants to missionary doctors: Liza Tu‘ma, Khushfa Yaziji and Zamurrad Faris. Along with two other Biblewoman-nurses, Durra Ishaq and Katrine al-Shidyaq, these were exceptions among the women whom the Americans employed as Biblewomen. The others, who labored outside the medical field, were the most marginalized figures in the Syria Mission. During most years, the unpublished statistical reports the missionaries submitted to the Presbyterian Board obliterated the identity of these women evangelists by grouping them along with “Other Helpers,” an ambiguous designation that included any mission employee who was not a teacher, pastor or licensed preacher.114 Even on rare occasions when the mission

298  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE counted Biblewomen as a separate category of employees, the numbers did not always match with the salaried mubashirat who were listed, usually generically as “Biblewoman,” in the mission’s budget reports.115 Besides reflecting that these women were the lowest wage-earners on the mission’s payroll, the annual appropriations lists also testified to the Biblewomen’s liminal existence within the mission. Of all the Biblewomen who worked for the American mission outside the medical field between 1870 and 1915, I have unearthed the names and dates of service for only five in BFM, Syria Mission and Presbyterian women’s mission board records:116 1. Maryam al-Hajj in Beirut (s. 1871–2): Maryam soon entered the teaching profession, working at the Beirut Female Seminary and at girls’ schools in Wadi Shahrur, Dayr al-Qamar, Mina and Tripoli.117 2. Luciya Saigh in Wadi Shahrur (1877): Luciya worked as a “Biblewoman and teacher” in Wadi Shahrur alongside her husband ‘Abdullah, who taught in the boys’ school.118 The two were long-time members of the Evangelical Church of Beirut and were among those who left to form the Evangelical Independent Church in 1892.119 3. Umm Mishriq (Mahiba Mishriq Haddad) in Hums (s. 1877–8) and in Batrun (1887):120 Although her name appeared for the first time in unpublished lists of mission employees in 1877, Umm Mishriq Haddad may have been one of the earliest and longest-serving Biblewomen of the American mission with a starting date in the early 1870s. She moved to Hums following the death of her husband in 1871 to join her daughter Layla and son-in-law Yusif Badr, who was installed as pastor of the Evangelical Church in Hums in 1872 (see Chapter 4).121 Around 1890, she moved to Damascus to continue her evangelistic work under the BSM in the Midan region of the city and retired in 1907 or 1908.122 4. Umm Mitry in Hums (1879): Mission records provided no further information on Umm Mitry beyond the name listed on the Hums report in 1879 alongside the names of Layla and Yusif Badr.123 5. Istir (Esther) Mishriq Haddad in ‘Abay (s. 1899–1902):124 Istir taught in American mission schools until 1899, when she became a Biblewoman in ‘Abay.125

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  299 Like the BSM teachers who became Biblewomen after their retirement from teaching, many of these employees of the American mission combined the work of education and evangelism, but the Syria Mission archives offer little other information about the lives of these mubashirat or their contributions to the Protestant community. In contrast to these five Biblewomen and others who remained anonymous in mission records, more can be gleaned from mission materials about mubashirat who supported American missionaries’ medical work between the mid-1890s and 1916. Syrian Biblewomen in the Medical Field The work of medical missions among women was one area in which American men were obliged to relinquish control, and thus they emphasized the necessity for women doctors and Biblewomen-nurses. This was apparent for the itinerant medical practice of Dr. Mary Eddy, whose fluency in Arabic and familiarity with the Syrian landscape enabled her to work in relative independence from male oversight, aided by Syrian colporteurs and Biblewomen.126 Liza Tu‘ma served alongside Dr. Eddy for decades. Although she was often identified only as “Dr. Eddy’s Biblewoman,” Liza did receive recognition for “her faithful, efficient service” in the mission’s reports.127 Eddy herself recalled Liza fondly long after departing from Syria and listed her among those “native friends to be remembered” in her will.128 Liza was the aunt of Julia Tu‘ma al-Dimashqiyya, the pioneer of the women’s press in Beirut, and it may have been this connection with Dr. Mary Eddy’s work that led Julia to give her first public address at the fundraising event for a tuberculosis hospital (see Chapter 3).129 Born in Mukhtara, in the Mount Lebanon region, Liza converted to Protestantism after the example of her brother Jirji, who taught Arabic in Mukhtara and directed a boys’ school in B‘aqlin. Before joining Eddy’s practice, she attended the American School for Girls in Sidon (also known as the Female Seminary).130 Eddy specialized in diseases of the eye, and in her years of touring the Syrian countryside with the missionary doctor, Liza learned how to treat ocular illnesses as well.131 Thus, like Ellen Ranyard’s Biblewomen-nurses in London, Liza not only read and explained scripture to patients, she also capably assisted Eddy as an experienced nurse. The same was true for Helloun, another Biblewoman who assisted Eddy in the 1890s.132 The Syria Mission’s report for 1907 announced

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Figure 34  Dr. Mary Pierson Eddy Source: Mary Pierson Eddy, Foreign Missionary Personal Files, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Foreign Missionary Papers, RG 360.

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  301 that Liza had begun her twenty-eighth year serving the mission, working as a teacher first before she became Eddy’s Biblewoman some time after 1894.133 Therefore, like many of the BSM Biblewomen, Liza moved on to the work of evangelistic preaching after teaching in mission schools.134 The Tripoli medical dispensary was another area where the evangelistic work of a Syrian female was deemed a necessity. In 1891, the missionary doctor in Tripoli, Ira Harris, stressed the need for a Biblewoman to read to female patients—many of whom were Muslim—as they waited for treatment at the medical clinic. According to Harris, such work was essential to the success of the mission because Muslim women were cut off “in great measure from all Christianizing influences, except through the one avenue of the medical art.” Both Biblewomen and female medical missionaries had greater potential for evangelizing Muslim women than male missionary physicians, Harris believed, due to “Eastern customs.”135 Thus, the men of the American mission affirmed the employment of Biblewomen-nurses and the medical practices of missionary women like Dr. Mary Eddy and Dr. Elsie Harris, Ira Harris’ daughter, because of their potential to engage in “woman’s work for woman.”136 After 1895, when Khushfa Yaziji began her work as Biblewoman for the Tripoli dispensary,137 Harris continued to recognize the usefulness of this evangelistic office for his medical practice in Tripoli and its outstations. Although a number of different Biblewomen came and went over the next twenty years, the station did not allow the position to remain vacant for long. New recruits were usually found from among the teachers at the Tripoli Girls’ School. Khushfa had been trained at the Tripoli school and taught at the Protestant school in Maharda, her home village northwest of Hums, before moving back to Tripoli to work in the dispensary.138 She left her position as Biblewoman and then returned to it again off and on over the next decade and a half. Her personal history helps to illuminate the story of the Tripoli Biblewomen and gives insight into the experiences of the other unnamed Biblewomen in the American field. In 1897, Khushfa received 1,975 piasters for her work. In comparison, during that same year the male hospital assistant and chapel leader, Shukri Fakhuri, earned 3,150 piasters. The typical yearly salary for an American missionary man at the time was $888.80, or roughly 24,864 piasters at the

302  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE exchange rate of the late 1890s.139 Like the BSM Biblewomen, the Tripoli Biblewomen accomplished a great deal of work at very low cost to the mission. When Khushfa left her position for the first time around 1897, Zamurrad Faris, a former teacher for the Tripoli Station’s school in Ghazir, continued her work. Zamurrad read the Bible to the women in the dispensary waiting room in the mornings and visited patients in the wards or in their homes in the afternoon. On occasion, she would also assist Dr. Harris during operations.140 The mission paid rent for her to maintain a room in al-Mina, the port of Tripoli and location of the mission hospital, where she would have held meetings and received visits from local women outside Harris’ supervision.141 Zamurrad continued in this position until 1907, with a temporary absence taken for “private reasons,” during which time Durra Ishaq of Minyara filled in.142 When Zamurrad left the Tripoli Station permanently “to take up other work,” Khushfa resumed her position, and then left in 1910, only to return again in 1911.143 Her substitute in the interim was Katrine al-Shidyaq, who had taught for a number of years at the Tripoli Girls’ School and then moved to a village school after her brief time as Biblewoman.144 Of the Tripoli Biblewomen, Khushfa Yaziji was the one about whom the missionaries offered the most personal information, primarily because of her family connections. She was, as Harris explained, the daughter of “Habeeb the Beloved,” the main character in the book of this same name, written by another missionary doctor in Tripoli, William Nelson.145 Khushfa’s father, Habib Yaziji, worked as the mission’s licensed preacher at the Protestant church in Maharda for over thirty years, and her brother Dirgam taught in Maharda, assisted in his father’s work at the church, and later succeeded Habib as pastor.146 Harris defined Khushfa with reference to Habib, saying, “She has many of her father’s characteristics, she is zealous, faithful, and efficient. She has great influence over the minds of the simple women that come to our clinics, and much of her instruction is remembered months, if not years after.”147 While Nelson’s book on Habib Yaziji included a chapter on Dirgam, titled “The Son and Successor,” he mentioned Khushfa only briefly, noting that she and her cousin were the first girls to attend the Protestant school in Maharda. Like Harris, Nelson placed Khushfa’s evangelistic work in the context of her family’s connection to the mission, explaining:

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  303 It was not only the son who followed the father’s path of service. After finishing her school life, Khushfa also gave herself to teaching, and has spent many years in efficient service as a teacher and Bible woman. The whole family and all their possessions have been devoted to the service of the Master.148

Khushfa’s decision to leave and then return to her work as a Biblewoman also related to her father. No reason was given for Khushfa’s first departure from Tripoli in the late 1890s, but after working there from 1907 to 1910, she returned to her home in Maharda out of duty, the report recounted, “to comfort the last days of her father.” Although Habib Yaziji had been asking for his daughter to return, the mission “did not wish to give her up.” Harris explained: She is a very valuable assistant among the patients, especially the women over whom she has great influence, but out of deep regard for her father we reluctantly let her go, with the promise of her services again in the future.149

In 1911, however, Habib “thought he could spare her to work,” and the Tripoli Station welcomed Khushfa back.150 She remained the Biblewoman there until the First World War disrupted the American mission’s operations.151 As the American Syria Mission did not publish visiting diaries or other writings by Biblewomen like the BSM did, it is impossible to determine precisely why each of these women decided to become mubashirat after teaching in Protestant schools or why, at various times, they left this evangelistic work. Khushfa Yaziji’s story indicated that family circumstances were a major factor prompting women to enter into and to retire from missionary employment. Similarly, single or childless women and mothers with older children were most likely to become Biblewomen for the BSM, and younger women were sometimes called away to care for their parents.152 Unlike the BSM, however, which had few male teachers and no Syrian pastors, the American mission often employed entire families, as in the case of the Yazijis of Maharda. Having male family members serving as pastors and preachers may have encouraged women like Khushfa to engage in evangelism, while also legitimizing their work as a family calling.153

304  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Yet the notion promoted by Nelson and Harris’ depictions of Khushfa Yaziji—that Syrian Biblewomen and their fathers or brothers played parallel roles—should not be taken too far, as it implied a clean division between gendered spheres, in which female evangelists among women mimicked the legitimate work of evangelistic preaching modeled by male clergy. Syrian Biblewomen, in fact, were just as likely to look to the example of women missionaries and female evangelists in their own families as models for their work. This was true for the Sabunji women of the BSM and for Umm Mishriq Haddad and the women in her family who worked for the Americans.154 Like the case of Umm Yusif Sabunji, in order to disclose the full identity of Umm Mishriq Haddad we must weave American, British and Syrian sources together. An Arabic obituary in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya in 1912 named her as Mahiba Mishriq al-Haddad, and described her as a mubashira who worked in Hums, Batrun and Damascus, and then retired to Lebanon four years before her death.155 While American mission records noted that Umm Mishriq Haddad was employed in Hums and Batrun, British reports confirmed that she also worked as a Biblewoman for the BSM in Damascus from at least 1890 until her retirement.156 Together, these references from al-Nashra and from the American and British missionaries indicated that the name Mishriq signified neither Mahiba’s son (as the name Um Mishriq might be read as “mother of Mishriq”) nor her father’s given name (as the name Mahiba Mishriq Haddad would usually denote, the second name being the father’s name). In this case, Mishriq was a family name that Mahiba shared with her husband along with the last name Haddad, to designate the Mishriq branch of the Haddad family. Records of the Syrian Evangelical churches confirmed this, while also documenting Mahiba’s movement from her original church in ‘Abay to the churches in Hums and Damascus.157 Another member of the Mishriq Haddad family, the aforementioned Istir, taught for the American mission’s schools, as did Mahiba’s daughters Hannah and Layla. Istir eventually became a mubashira for the American mission in ‘Abay, following in Mahiba’s footsteps along with the younger Salma Badr, Layla Haddad Badr’s niece and author of the sermonette in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya on patience.158 While Mahiba Mishriq Haddad paved the way for women in her family to occupy a paid office of ministry, the obituary in al-Nashra also elevated

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  305 her as an example for the entire Syrian Protestant community. This notice of Mahiba’s death was strikingly distinct from other women’s obituaries published in al-Nashra because it did not locate her identity with reference to the men in her family but recognized her as an independent agent.159 Mahiba’s obituary mentioned that her husband had died young, but did not name him. Neither did it disclose the identity of her son, with whom it said she lived after her retirement. Instead, the anonymous writer in al-Nashra defined Mahiba’s life by her activities as a preacher of the gospel. The piece noted that after she became a widow, she “learned to read and taught the Bible, instructing her people masterfully.” It went on to commend her spiritual faith, piety and submission to Christ, and then concluded with the statement, “She lived her whole life in decisively useful service.”160 While Mahiba Mishriq Haddad’s vocation of evangelistic preaching was memorialized in al-Nashra, many of the Syrian women who followed her example remain unknown. These mubashirat had far fewer opportunities to engage in paid evangelistic work with the American Syria Mission than with the BSM, which employed between ten and twenty-four Biblewomen in any given year. As the British and American mission’s mubashirat came from the same population of Syrian Protestant women, it cannot be the case that the women who attended the American mission’s churches were uninterested in evangelistic service. On the contrary, Theodosia Jessup’s 1903 article on Biblewomen in Beirut revealed that Syrian women actively sought such ­positions. She informed her readers: I have written this explanation because some of our friends in America have been importuned by Syrians in whom they have become interested to intercede with missionaries, on their behalf, to employ them in Beirut. This cannot conveniently be done by our mission, but those who are willing to go anywhere to do the Lord’s work can generally find employment.161

As the example of Mahiba Mishriq Haddad demonstrated, Syrian Protestant women were willing to move long distances to serve as Biblewomen for British missionaries. Other women of the Syrian Evangelical Church found opportunities to work with mission societies closer to their home villages. Masihiyya Berbari is among those Biblewomen whose names may be known today only due to their surviving family members, while the

306  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE evangelistic activities of their fathers, brothers and sons have been recognized and recorded by missionaries and scholars alike. Frequent references to Masihiyya’s uncle Rizqullah Berbari, an instructor in the American mission’s ‘Abay seminary and assistant in the publication of al-Nashra, have appeared in missionary records and in the work of Arab Protestant scholars. Documentation of Masihiyya’s work for the American Syria Mission, however, consisted only of two ‘Abay Station employee reports that listed her as a teacher between 1876 and 1878. Neither report named Masihiyya as a Biblewoman.162 Were it not for the efforts of her grandson, Samir Nasrallah, who wrote a history of the Evangelical Church in Hadath (south of Beirut) where Masihiyya was a member, nothing more would be known of her evangelistic practices. Nasrallah described his grandmother as a pillar for the Protestant community in Hadath, who made her home into a center for prayer services and Sunday worship. She received her high school diploma and teaching certificate at the Beirut Female Seminary in the late 1870s and married Nasrallah Tannus Nasrallah in the early 1880s, under the condition that he would convert to the evangelical faith.163 It is unclear whether the Americans ever employed Masihiyya as a Biblewoman, but it is likely that she engaged in some form of evangelistic preaching in her work as a mission schoolteacher and during the Sunday services she held in her home. Her formal work as a Biblewoman began, however, when she met Louisa Proctor (d. 1907), an Irish woman who arrived in 1879 and worked with the BFM before opening an independent Protestant school in Shwayfat, a village between Hadath and Beirut. Proctor rented a house near Masihiyya’s home in Hadath, and when school was not in session the two worked together as itinerant evangelists in the surrounding region.164 In her itinerant work, Masihiyya offered simple medical care free of charge, and, when her listeners expressed interest, she also read and explained the Bible, a text that was central for her even in later years when she was frail and bedridden. During her ministry, Nasrallah explained, “She would begin reciting stories from the Bible. When those who were present became amazed by her stories and asked about their source, she would take the Bible from under her garments, read from it directly, and present it to them.”165 As a mubashira and as a pillar of the Evangelical Church in Hadath, Masihiyya also raised six children, most of whom engaged in some

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  307 sort of church or mission work. Among these, her daughter Labiba became a teacher and Biblewoman.166 Mubashirat and American Women Evangelists As Biblewomen employed by American and British missionaries, Mahiba Mishriq Haddad, Taqla Sabunji and Masihiyya Berbari all passed on an evangelistic calling to younger women in their families, just as long-time pastors like Habib Yaziji handed down the care of their congregations to their sons. The ways that these and other mubashirat served as examples for the next generation demand more attention, yet the sources available for such a project are sparse, particularly for the unnamed Biblewomen of the American Syria Mission. The consistent neglect of these Biblewomen by heads of American mission stations matched the negative views these American men expressed on the broader subject of women’s evangelism. Although mission reports in the late nineteenth century recognized and supported the contributions of single and married American missionary women to “woman’s work for woman,” the male leaders of the mission hesitated to speak even of American women as evangelists. Married missionary women like Elizabeth Mills Eddy, Theodosia Jessup and Bessy Nelson had been part of local Bible meetings and prayer services for years,167 but it was only through the initiative of Bernice Hunting, beginning in 1910, that the mission finally voted in 1914 to seek an American female evangelist for each of its stations.168 As a single missionary, Hunting spearheaded this work in the Tripoli field by setting up her own evangelistic center in Minyara, but she faced resistance from her male colleagues. She explained in a letter to Stanley White, secretary of the BFM in New York, that certain men in the Tripoli Station believed her activities were “part of the general evangelistic work of the field and should merely be incorporated in the station report.” In Hunting’s assessment, “The gentlemen seem to be afraid of anything that looks like a woman’s superintendence of any part of the work.”169 She advocated, instead, to be treated as an independent agent, hoping to receive the same status and freedom that had been afforded to Mary Eddy in her medical practice.170 Hunting’s statements revealed that although the men of the mission recognized the evangelistic work of American and Syrian women as legitimate when aimed toward women and children and advocated for women’s work

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Figure 35  Bernice Hunting Source: Bernice Hunting, Foreign Missionary Personal Files, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Foreign Missionary Papers, RG 360.

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  309 in the medical field, the separate spheres of male and female ministry were by no means equal and men preferred them not to overlap. Just as mission reports asserted the ultimate religious and administrative authority of male missionaries by depicting women’s work as a small part of “the general evangelistic work of the field” that they controlled, the reduction of the mission’s Biblewomen to voiceless numbers reinforced the religious authority of the American missionary ministers. These men agreed that “woman’s work” was needed for Muslim women at medical dispensaries or pupils at girls’ schools, but Biblewomen inhabited a liminal sphere as women who specialized in the traditionally male activities of scriptural interpretation and evangelistic preaching. When it came to practicing this vocation in Syria, Arab Protestant women found that their services were more readily welcomed by the women of the BSM than by the male leadership of the American Syria Mission. Thus, more easily than the Syrian men who were caught under the tutelage of American men, they found a ready alternative means to participate in evangelistic work.171 Woman’s Work for Woman? The growing emphasis in evangelical Protestant circles on “woman’s work for woman” in the late nineteenth century empowered Syrian women to undertake evangelistic activities beyond the profession of teaching, but, at the same time, it preserved the prevailing gender separation and imbalance in missions and Christian work more broadly. Protestant women in Syria did not openly challenge such gendered conceptions of ministry and religious leadership, or if they did so, documentation of that resistance has been lost. Nevertheless, as they took on the evangelical calling to “preach the gospel to all nations,” their practices of writing, public speaking, Bible reading and scriptural interpretation transcended the realm of “woman’s work for woman,” thereby undermining male authority. At the annual meeting of the American mission in 1910, Bernice Hunting introduced a seemingly novel concept when she argued that the labors of female evangelists should not be “so exclusively for women and children as to shut out any kind of service for men and boys.”172 Yet, as my reconstructed history of the mubashirat reveals, Syrian Protestant women had been doing such ministry for decades.173 In other words, by reading scripture and preaching, Syrian Biblewomen served

310  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE as forerunners for American missionary women to broaden the boundaries of their own evangelistic endeavors. Two final points will elucidate the ways that these Syrian evangelists joined their contemporary nahdawi women writers in subtly upsetting gender norms through their practices of biblical interpretation and preaching. First, just like the women’s articles and published addresses discussed in Chapter 3, evangelistic visits in homes and clinics brought Syrian women into contact with a wide audience of men and women. The idea that the printed word could cross boundaries of religion, culture and gender to enter areas that missionaries could not reach was one impetus behind the work of Protestant missionary presses. Emphasizing the seclusion of women in the Middle East, missionaries championed the idea that literate Muslim women could have access to the gospel by reading the Arabic Bible and evangelistic literature in the privacy of their homes. With regard to Syrian women’s publications in al-Nashra, however, this argument also worked in the reverse, as hundreds or even thousands of men with whom these women otherwise had no contact might read their writings. Mubashirat enacted this concept of boundary crossing at a more personal level by taking the Bible with them wherever they went. As Biblewomen taught other women how to read and study the Bible, in Muslim homes they took the place of the blind shaykhs and the shaykhas (women scholars) who were commissioned to recite the Qur’an to women and girls or to teach them to read. Thus, although the experience of Syrian women differed from that of Dalit women in India who drew upon the practices of female preachers in their former religion, like them Syrian Biblewomen also adapted a cultural practice that was already occurring in Muslim homes.174 As the Biblewomen’s diaries revealed, they also engaged in discussion and preached the gospel to the men of the family or other male visitors whom they encountered during these visits. Reports of confrontations with monks, priests and shaykhs in women’s spaces challenged missionary characterizations of the extreme separation of genders. These records also revealed how Biblewomen used such encounters to transform the domestic sphere into a realm of public debate, in which they addressed the same doctrinal issues that Syrian Protestant men like Ibrahim al-Hurani and Yusif ‘Atiya wrote about in the Arabic press—in a way that was not matched by

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  311 nahdawi Protestant women who steered clear of or who were excluded from religious polemics.175 Second, beyond such chance opportunities for contact with men, ­women’s writings in al-Nashra and the Biblewomen’s journals reflected that the intended audience for their evangelistic message was not exclusively or even primarily female. Taqla Sabunji’s statement that “Jesus died for all, not only for the men” was aimed not just to inform her male opponents that her Bible work with women was legitimate, but also to prove that her teachings were relevant for men as well and, indeed, that for her not to address men would limit the reach of Christ’s salvific work. Like women’s sermonic texts in al-Nashra, which were not concerned with the subject of “woman’s work,” the universal focus of Biblewomen’s messages made them distinct from nahdawi women’s publications on female education and the raising of children. While elite Protestant women employed the Arabic press to distribute their written sermons, mubashirat used the reading of scripture as an entry point into evangelistic preaching. In indirect and in more proactive ways, through their practices of writing, lecturing, biblical interpretation and preaching, and the records they left about these activities, Syrian women revealed that they had answered the calling to become mubashirat long before the American Syria Mission gave either American or Syrian women the official title of “female evangelists.” While an emphasis on “woman’s work for woman” might have been employed to keep women from encroaching upon the closely-guarded religious authority of American missionary men, American, British and Syrian women nevertheless embraced the freedom that such work gave them to explore their gifts as teachers and evangelists. These women also found ways to extend their ministry beyond the confines of the domestic sphere and outside the supervision of missionary men. They subtly undermined patriarchal authority not as proto-feminists, but through their universalistic interpretations of Protestant theology and their commitment to evangelism. It is a harsh irony that while empowering women’s agency, the concept of “woman’s work” also disguised the true nature of Biblewomen’s far-ranging and influential activities. As a result, like the early women preachers of the nineteenth-century revivals in Britain and America, the pioneers of the Syrian Biblewomen’s movement have been largely forgotten in primary and secondary sources that center

312  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE on the writings and activities of American men in Ottoman Syria.176 Yet, as the legacy of the mubashirat stretching back to Taqla Sabunji and the BSM demonstrated, women of the multinational Protestant missionary enterprise in Syria built the Syrian Evangelical Church. Notes 1. Smith, The Daughters of Syria, 153–4. 2. The term “office,” used by the LBDFM, signaled that Biblewomen were commissioned for pastoral care and what ultimately became a vocation of evangelistic preaching. “Our Ministering Women on the Lebanon,” The Missing Link (March 1, 1879), 91. 3. Existing documentation on Biblewomen in Syria includes Lindner, “Esther Mushriq Haddad,” 1–3; Fleischmann, “I Only Wish I had a Home,” 117; Fleischmann, “Our Moslem Sisters,” 313. For early histories of Biblewomen’s work published by the BSM, see Smith, The Daughters of Syria; J. D. MaitlandKirwan, Sunrise in Syria: A Short History of the British Syrian Mission, from 1860 to 1930 (London: British Syrian Mission, 1930); Francis E. Scott, Dare and Persevere: The Story of One Hundred Years of Evangelism in Syria and Lebanon, from 1860 to 1960 (London: Lebanon Evangelical Mission/Camelot Press, 1960). 4. Marian Bowers began her work as the first British Biblewoman in 1857 with the encouragement of Ranyard, the founder of the LBDFM, and the financial support of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS). Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity in Colonial India, 42. 5. Dale Johnson, “Gender and the Construction of Models of Christian Activity: A Case Study,” Church History 73(2) (2004): 257–8, 263–4; Robert, American Women in Mission, 170. 6. Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity, 43; “The Bible-Woman: What is She?” Bible Work at Home and Abroad (December 1, 1884), 348–9. 7. Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity, 47–8, 51. For a selection of the many studies on Biblewomen’s movements around the globe, see Deborah Gaitskell and Wendy Urban-Mead (eds.), “Transnational Biblewomen: Asian and African Women in Christian Mission,” Women’s History Review, SI 17(4) (2008): 489–500; Valarie Griffiths, “Biblewomen from London to China: The Transnational Approach of a Female Mission Idea,” Women’s History Review 17(4) (2008): 521–41; Chou Fang-Lan, “Bible Women and the Development

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  313 of Education in the Korean Church,” in Mark R. Mullins and Richard Fox Young (eds.), Perspectives on Christianity in Korea and Japan: The Gospel and Culture in East Asia (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995), 29–45; Elizabeth Kent, “Tamil Biblewomen and the Zenana Missions of Colonial South India,” History of Religions 39(2) (1999): 117–49; Mrinalini Sebastian, “Reading Archives from a Postcolonial Feminist Perspective: ‘Native’ Bible Women and the Missionary Ideal,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 19(1) (2003): 5–25; Deborah Gaitskell, “Hot Meetings and Hard Kraals: African Biblewomen in Transvaal Methodism, 1924–69,” Journal of Religion in Africa 30(3) (2000): 277–309; Young Lee Hertig, “Without a Face: The NineteenthCentury Bible Woman and Twentieth-Century Jeondosa,” in Dana L. Robert (ed.), Gospel Bearers, Gender Barriers: Missionary Women in the Twentieth Century (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 185–99. 8. Khater, Embracing the Divine; Heyberger, Hindiyya: Mystique et Criminelle. Telugu Biblewomen in India built upon the Dalit religious tradition of women’s preaching. Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity, 71. 9. The Arabic term appeared, for example, in Mahiba Mishriq al-Haddad’s obituary: “Wafa,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2447 (December 13, 1912), 398. Only in the mid-twentieth century did missionaries begin using the English equivalent of mubashira, “woman evangelist” or “one who brings the Gospel.” Scott, Dare and Persevere, 28. 10. As a reminder of this, I use the terms Biblewoman/Biblewomen and mubashira/mubashirat interchangeably. 11. A Biblewomen in Beirut noted that two Muslim sisters she visited had both learned the Qur’an from a shaykh who visited regularly. The Missing Link (May 1, 1876), 147. For a similar example in Hasbayya, see The Missing Link (July 2, 1877), 214. On the teaching of Muslim women by shaykhs and shaykhas, see Russell, Creating the New Egyptian Woman, 77. 12. A woman whose husband refused to allow even a blind shaykh to enter the home obtained his permission for Umm Shakir Dabaghi to teach her to read instead. The Missing Link (July 2, 1877), 212, 214. 13. The BSM files once held in Tunbridge Wells, England, by Middle East Christian Outreach (the successor of LEM) were transferred to the Centre for Muslim–Christian Studies in Oxford. 14. Deborah Gaitskell used a similar method in “Hot Meetings and Hard Kraals,” 282. 15. Sebastian, “Reading Archives,” 9.

314  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 16. Damascus was in the jurisdiction of the Irish Presbyterian mission, but even there the BSM employed members of the Syrian Evangelical churches who relocated to the city. 17. Porterfield, Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries, 6. 18. Jeffrey Cox, The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700 (New York: Routledge, 2008), 17; Susan Thorne, Congregational Missions and the Making of an Imperial Culture in Nineteenth-Century England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 18; Anna Johnston, Missionary Writing and Empire, 1800–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 26–7. See also Beaver, American Protestant Women in World Mission; Patricia R. Hill, The World Their Household: The American Women’s Foreign Mission Movement and Cultural Transformation, 1870–1920 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1985). 19. The BFM annual reports contained a few Syrian women’s names, including Maryam Makarius and Yaqut Sarruf, who led women’s Bible studies, and the Musabany sisters, who hosted women’s meetings in their Beirut home. BFM (1884), 55; BFM (1902), 298. 20. One report on the Female Seminary in Sidon contended, “In many parts of the country girls are never treated as if they possessed minds of their own, and their reasoning faculties are very deficient.” BFM (1898), 252. 21. Jane Smith, “Christian Missionary Views of Islam in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Islam & Christian Muslim Relations 9(3) (1998): 357–73. 22. Jessup, The Women of the Arabs, 18. 23. Ibid., 191, 195. Jessup took the phrase “between barbarism and civilization” from the title of an article in al-Jinan, by Melkite poet Francis Marrash, who advocated for women’s education. Francis Marrash, “al-Mar’a bayn al-khushuna wa-l-tamaddun,” al-Jinan 3 (September 1, 1872), 586–8. 24. For a Syrian Protestant critique of Women of the Arabs, see Salim Sarkis, “Mukatibat,” Kawkab Amirka 1(19) (August 19, 1892), 1; Sarkis, “The Missionary Controversy,” Kawkab America: The Star of America, English edn, 1(24) (September 23, 1892), 1. 25. Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity, 127, 132; Robert, American Women in Mission, 170. 26. Johnson, “Gender and Christian Activity,” 257–8, 263–4. 27. One American report explained, “The British Syrian School Committee has co-operated vigorously with our missionaries in the education of women and girls.” BFM (1881), 41.

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  315 28. This possibility was a concern for the Americans in the 1870s when the Free Church of Scotland’s Foreign Missions Committee took over the work of the Lebanon Schools in Suq al-Gharb and the vicinity, although in this instance the Scots were also Presbyterian. Michael Marten, “The Free Church of Scotland in 19th-Century Lebanon,” CHRONOS: Revue d’Histoire de l’Université de Balamand 5 (2002): 51–105. 29. Scott, Dare and Persevere, 98; Maitland-Kirwan, Sunrise in Syria, 75–6. 30. Henry Wright of the CMS offered this description of the petition when he wrote to Henry Jessup informing him of the BSM request and inquiring whether the Americans would object to this endeavor. Henry Wright to Henry Jessup, December 4, 1876: PHS 115-5-13. Wright assured Jessup that the CMS would decline the offer if it did not meet with the Americans’ approval. 31. Jessup described the series of letters he and Mott exchanged in the reply he sent to the CMS secretary. Henry Harris Jessup to Henry Wright, December 20, 1876: PHS 115-5-13. 32. Augusta M. Mott to Henry H. Jessup, December 14, 1876: PHS 115-5-13. 33. When Jessup refused the modification regarding administration of the sacraments, Mott responded, “The greater frequency of Administration of the Holy Communion in the English Church, and the impossibility of refusing the blessing to worthy recipients desiring to partake—this—and many special circumstances which might arise—makes it most undesirable for us to attempt to tie the hands of any Clergyman working amongst us.” Augusta M. Mott to Henry H. Jessup, December 15, 1876: PHS 115-5-13. 34. Jessup to Wright, December 20, 1876. 35. Augusta M. Mott to Henry H. Jessup, January 31, 1877: PHS 115-5-13. 36. W. W. Eddy to Rev. H. Wright, November 19, 1878: PHS 115-5-13. Eddy insisted that the American Syria Mission had no objection to educational cooperation with the BSM and CMS as long as the American’s ecclesiastical work would not be affected. 37. Henry Wright to Rev. W. W. Eddy, March 4, 1879: PHS 115-5-13. Mentor Mott (d. 1901) founded a school for blind men and boys in Beirut and remained in Syria supervising this school after his wife, Augusta, died in 1891. Maitland-Kirwan, Sunrise in Syria, 31, 75; Scott, Dare and Persevere, 57. 38. Henry H. Jessup to Mrs. A. Mentor Mott, February 19, 1888: PHS 115-5-13. Jessup expressed the mission’s conviction that in the regions “mutually occupied” by the Americans and the BSM, Protestant preaching services should only be held in the churches or buildings of the American mission “so that the

316  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE native churches growing up in and around these places will be on the same basis with the other native Protestant Churches in Syria.” 39. Scott, Dare and Persevere, 98. The Rev. Evan R. Harris of New Zealand was the first chaplain. A second missionary pastor, Kenneth Cragg, joined him soon after. Ibid., 100. 40. Charlotte H. Brown, “Itinerating with a Medical Missionary in Syria,” Woman’s Work for Woman 12(12) (1897), 321. 41. On the way that Western epistemologies influenced Ottoman Christians’ conceptions of gender, see Jean Makdisi, Teta, Mother, and Me, 399; Khater, Embracing the Divine. 42. Ladies Association for the Social and Religious Improvement of the Syrian Females, Visit to Hasbaya and Other Scenes: Massacres in the Lebanon (London: Clay, Son & Taylor, 1863). Courtesy of the Center for Christian–Muslim Studies, Oxford (hereafter CMCS). The BSM (originally known as the Ladies’ Association for the Social and Religious Improvement of Syrian Females) framed its mission as a response to massacres in Hasbayya and elsewhere. 43. Al-Bustani’s Nafir Suriyya (The Clarion of Syria), a series of advice sheets published between 1860 and 1861, made such a pan-Syrian call. These were republished as Butrus al-Bustani, Nafir Suriyya (Beirut: Dar Fikr li-l-Abhath, 1990). The Evangelical Society of Beirut, of which al-Bustani was president, noted sending two men and one woman for a missionary tour of Jabal Lubnan in 1862. A‘mal Jam‘iyyat Bayrut al-Injiliyya, 8. A number of Beiruti women, including Biblewomen, donated to the Evangelical Society (also known as the Beirut Bible Society). Ibid., 12–18. 44. Thompson had lived in the Hauran (southwestern Syria) in the 1850s with her husband, and she returned to Syria after his death in response to the events of 1860. Maitland-Kirwan, Sunrise in Syria, 30. 45. “Preface,” The Missing Link (1867), iv. See also Smith, The Daughters of Syria, 27, 71, 91, 104, 132, 242. 46. Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity, 44–5, 133, 143. 47. Susette Smith, “Notes from a Hareem visitor at Beyrout,” The Missing Link (August 1, 1876), 243–4. Cf. Chad M. Bauman, “Redeeming Indian ‘Christian’ Womanhood? Missionaries, Dalits, and Agency in Colonial India,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 24(2) (2008): 10–11, 19 5-27; Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity, 127, 132. 48. “Women Hiding the Leaven,” Report of the Ladies Association for the Social and

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  317 Religious Improvement of Syrian Females (London: Clay, Son & Taylor, 1864), 32. 49. This letter from Elizabeth Bowen-Thompson to Ellen Ranyard of LBDFM (dated September 30, 1867) was printed in Smith, The Daughters of Syria, 239–40. 50. “Bible-Work in Syria,” The Missing Link (May 1, 1865), 139. 51. Donors paid the fees for students at the BSM’s Training College and in many of the elementary level BSM schools. Each BSM annual report listed the names of the scholars, teachers, Biblewomen and their patrons. 52. Smith, The Daughters of Syria, 329–32; ‘Alya’ ‘Azar to Elizabeth Copley, July 3, 1867, and July 30, 1873: Elizabeth Mary Copley Papers, University of Durham Library Archives and Special Collections, Durham, England (hereafter Copley Papers), GRE/G1/2/3-9; Taqla Rehan to Elizabeth Copley, September 7, 1870: Copley Papers, GRE/G19/3/110. Taqla referred to Copley as “my dear mother.” ‘Alya’, who married BSM employee Ibrahim Nassif ‘Atiya in 1870, signed her letter as “your loving Syrian daughter.” 53. The Missing Link (February 1, 1868), 50–1. A later report by Maryam mentioned her husband, indicating that she was not among those women who were widowed during the massacres in Damascus. The Missing Link (May 1, 1876), 147. 54. The Missing Link Magazine (February 1, 1868), 51. Maryam Mardu joined Thompson’s women’s school in Beirut as soon as it opened and later worked as an assistant teacher in Thompson’s “laundry school.” Smith, The Daughters of Syria, 239. By the turn of the century, a full-time Biblewoman position involved visiting, reading scripture and teaching in homes for five hours a day. DoS (January 1905), 18. 55. Taqla worked for the BSM for years and was named in later reports as “Tagla Hocker.” See Appendix D for the names and dates of service for BSM Biblewomen. 56. “Mrs. Thompson, from Damascus: No. II,” The Missing Link (February 1, 1868), 53–4. Taqla attended Thompson’s Beirut school briefly and was a member of the Protestant Church in Damascus. 57. “Mrs. Thompson, from Damascus,” 52; “Mrs. Thompson, from Damascus: No. II,” The Missing Link (February 1, 1868), 53. 58. Smith, The Daughters of Syria, 239–40; The Missing Link (February 1, 1868), 50–1; “Bible Workers in Syria,” The Missing Link (April 2, 1877), 114–15. The BFBS provided a £12 per year salary for the Biblewomen it supported in

318  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE various regions. “Bible-Women in the East,” Bible Society Monthly Reporter 15(8) (September 1886), 149–51. 59. Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity, 58; Gaitskell, “Hot Meetings and Hard Kraals,” 279. In some cases, Biblewomen led worship for fellow Africans while white male lay preachers directed parallel church services for whites. 60. Umm Khalil Salibi lived apart from her husband while working in Beirut and then relocated her work to Btater so that she might be close enough to see him every other week. Miss Werner, “Bible Mission in Beyrout,” DoS (January 1901), 27. 61. Nijma ‘Atiq and Mahiba Mishriq Haddad were two examples of aging, yet still employed, Biblewomen. M. G. Talbot, “Bible Work in Syria,” DoS 4 (1912), 23–4; “The Bible Mission,” DoS (January 1905), 21. 62. “Visits to Nubian Women in Beyrout,” The Missing Link (June 1, 1880), 182; M. Walker, “The B.S.M. in Damascus,” DoS (March 1916), 23. 63. Maitland-Kirwan, Sunrise in Syria, 38; DoS (October 1892), 3; DoS (October 1893), 3. For statistics on BSM Biblewomen throughout this period, see Appendix D. 64. Macartney, “Our Visitor’s Story,” 43; “Is the ‘Hatti Hamayoun’ Now a Dead Letter?” The Missing Link 8 (January 1872), 8–9; British Syrian Mission FortyEighth Annual Report (hereafter BSM) (October 1908), 14; Yusif Zaydan, Hayati bayn al-Sharq wa-l-Gharb (Beirut, n.p.: 1971), 46–7. Zaydan married Shakir Dabaghi’s daughter Hanna. Umm Shakir’s given name was not referenced, but she was sometimes called “Mart Musa,” the colloquial pronunciation for “wife of Musa” (mar’a Musa). 65. “Biblewomen and Scripture Readers,” DoS (October 1895), 75; DoS (March 1916), 2. The last listing for Bajjani as a Beirut Biblewoman appeared in the British Syrian Mission’s magazine, Under Syrian Skies (April 1942), 129. 66. “Bible and Domestic Missions in Beyrout,” The Missing Link (January 1, 1863), 25; “Bible-Women in Syria: Death of Em Yusef,” The Missing Link (July 1, 1873), 210. Nakhle al-Reus, who worked intermittently in Beirut and Hasbayya between 1861–65, was the BSM’s first Biblewoman. 67. As a transliteration of the region’s Arabic vernacular, mission literature actually called her “Im Yusif,” with “Im” being the colloquial pronunciation for umm, or mother. 68. Nijma fled to Beirut during the 1860 massacres and converted to Protestantism. Beginning in 1867, she worked as a Biblewoman in Beirut, Mukhtara and her native Hasbayya, and also taught in BSM schools in the 1870s. She remained a

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  319 Biblewoman until her death during the First World War. See Appendix D and Figure 33. The BSM also referred to her as “Nigmie Gazelle.” 69. The BSM presented Umm Yusif’s daughter Sa‘da Barakat as a widow from Damascus, wrongly suggesting that Sa‘da had fled the Damascus massacres after her husband was killed in the violence. Smith, The Daughters of Syria, 89, 140. 70. Tannus Sabunji, “Membership entry 3” and Taqla Sabunji, “Membership entry 72”: NECB 9; Christine Lindner, “Syrian Protestant Families,” unpublished manuscript, April 4, 2015. Courtesy of Christine B. Lindner; Jessup, The Women of the Arabs, 85; Zeuge-Buberl, The Mission of the American Board in Syria, 281. Tannus Sabunji worked for the American mission until he was suspected of abusing two students in 1858 and was expelled from the Beirut Church. The record book of the National Evangelical Church of Beirut lists four children born to Tannus and Taqla Sabunji. See Appendix A. 71. Jessup, The Women of the Arabs, 84. 72. A letter from Sa‘da Barakat recounting this history on September 3, 1873, was printed in ibid., 87. Sa’da later married an American Brethren missionary, Benjamin F. Pinkerton. Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 431–2. 73. Shahin Barakat, the father of Mansur, Yusif, Hamda and Shahina, was a member of the Evangelical Church of Beirut until the Evangelical Church in Hasbayya was founded in 1851. “Membership entry 24,” NECB 9; Lindner, “Syrian Protestant Families.” Umm Mansur Barakat and her daughter Shahina lived in Beirut and, along with Sa‘da and her son Amin, became supporting members of the Evangelical Society of Beirut (also known as the Bible Society). A‘mal Jam‘iyyat Bayrut al-Injiliyya, 14; Smith, The Daughters of Syria, 151–2. 74. Smith, The Daughters of Syria, 89, 140. 75. “Women Hiding the Leaven,” 31. In 1864, when this report was written, Taqla had also just started working among Druzes. The Syria Mission’s first Muslim convert was baptized in 1871. BFM (1872), 47. 76. A report from the BSM’s later “harem visitor” recounted that two Muslim sisters were often visited by a shaykh, with whom the Biblewoman had long discussions. “Biblewomen in Beyrout and Damascus,” The Missing Link (May 1, 1876), 147. Umm Shakir Dabaghi described her visit in Hasbayya with a Muslim woman who paid a shaykh to teach her in her home. The Missing Link (July 2, 1877), 214. 77. “Bible-Women in Syria: Death of Em Yusef,” The Missing Link (July 1, 1873),

320  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 210–11; “Death entry 30”: NECB 9.” Taqla Sabunji died on October 12, 1872. She had developed breast cancer. BSM (1872), 96. 78. Smith, The Daughters of Syria, 89. 79. Macartney, Our Visitor’s Story, 38; Smith, The Daughters of Syria, 175–6. The story of Na‘ifa Jumblatt and her role in both the Hasbayya massacres and in postwar efforts of reconciliation was a frequent subject of BSM literature. For further information on the Druze leader see Khairallah, Sisters of Men, 130–2. 80. Lindner, “Syrian Protestant Families”; The Missing Link (January 1, 1880), 14; The Missing Link (April 1, 1882), 123. ‘Aziza Sabunji married Shahin Khattar Sarkis, the brother of Khalil Sarkis. “Marriage entry 3,” NECB 9. 81. BSM (October 1911), 7. 82. Ibid., 5. Asma’, born in 1876, was the daughter of Masa‘da and Yuhanna Sabunji, likely the son of Tannus Sabunji. “Baptismal entry 186,” NECB 9. 83. On the ambiguous boundaries between women’s itinerant preaching and teaching, see Dorothy Lander, “The Itinerant Pulpit of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU): Teachers or Preachers?” in Robert H. Ellison (ed.), A New History of the Sermon: The Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 365–412. 84. M. G. Talbot (trans.), “Nijmie’s Story: Memories of Fifty Years Ago,” DoS, Special Jubilee Number (1910), 9. 85. T. M. E. “A Sunday in Beirut in the Summer of 1873,” The Missing Link (December 1, 1873), 398. 86. Ibid., 397. 87. Shams Shahada, “al-Haqq awla an Yuqal,” al-Muqtataf 8 (1883), 203–7; Shams Shahada, “Madarr al-Tamaddun al-Urubi wa-Manafi‘uhu,” al-Muqtataf 8 (1884), 565–6. See Appendix F for publications by Salma Badr and Maryam Nahas Sarkis. 88. The Missing Link (October 1, 1867), 317. 89. See, for example, the report of a “Hareem Visitor” who visited Muslim ladies in the home of a new bride. The Missing Link (October 2, 1876), 303. 90. “Syria and Its Ancient People: The Gospel in Hasbeiya and Mount Hermon,” The Missing Link (July 1, 1865), 193. 91. The Missing Link (December 2, 1867), 403. 92. M. Walker, “The B.S.M. in Damascus,” DoS (March 1916), 21. 93. Miss Werner, “Bible Mission in Beyrout,” DoS (January 1, 1901), 26. 94. The Missing Link (May 1, 1867), 152–3. 95. Ibid., 153.

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  321 96. This anonymous Biblewoman’s report of 1865 was printed in Scott, Dare and Persevere, 26. 97. Cf. “Bible-Woman’s Report for June 1868,” The Missing Link (September 1, 1868), 283. 98. DoS (January 1904), 21. 99. “Syria and Its Ancient People: The Gospel in Hasbayya and Mount Lebanon,” The Missing Link (July 1, 1865), 192. 100. The BSM colporteur Abu Salim explained how he and Mrs. Mott visited patients in the hospital and “had to choose subjects suited to them” because they were from different religious sects. The Missing Link (April 1, 1873), 117. 101. The Missing Link (September 1, 1868), 283; Bible Work at Home and Abroad (February 1, 1884), 47–8. 102. Talbot, “Nijmie’s Story,” 9. 103. “Miriam’s Diary,” The Missing Link (September 1, 1880), 270. 104. Bible Work at Home and Abroad (June 1, 1887), 185. 105. “Moslem Ladies Thirsting for the Word of God,” The Missing Link (October 2, 1876), 303. Henry Jessup repeatedly condemned polygyny in The Women of the Arabs, 11, 13–14, 37–8, 87. 106. See, for example, my earlier discussion of Augusta Mott’s letters to Henry Jessup on the question of hiring an ordained Anglican clergyman for the BSM. 107. Sixth Annual Report of the Woman’s Foreign Mission Society of the Presbyterian Church (Philadelphia, PA: Press of Henry B. Ashmead, 1896), 63–76. 108. Theodosia Jessup, “Bible Readers in Syria,” Woman’s Work for Woman 12(8) (December 1903), 282. 109. Franklin E. Hoskins, “Table of Statistics for 1900–1904”: PHS 115-12-5. This table also reported two Biblewomen for 1900 (Sidon and Lebanon), one for 1901 (Sidon) and two for 1904 (Lebanon and Beirut). The mission budget for 1903, however, listed a third Biblewoman paid by the Beirut Station. “Syria Mission Expenditures, 1902–1903.” Courtesy of NEST Special Collections. 110. Franklin E. Hoskins, “Table of Statistics for 1905–1909” and “Table of Statistics for 1910–1912”: PHS 115-12-5. See Appendix E for the total number of Biblewomen reported by the First World War. 111. Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity, 8. 112. C. P. Hartt, “Contributions,” BFM (1872), 136–7. In 1873, the Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions of the Synod of Albany sponsored a Biblewoman in Syria as well. Carrie A. Bush, “Annual Report of the Woman’s

322  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions of the Synod of Albany,” in BFM (1873). 113. BFM (1881), 39; BFM (1887), 68; BFM (1889), 67. One Biblewoman labored in the Tripoli region in 1881, another worked for the Sidon Station in 1887 and the third was in Shwayfat in 1889. 114. The Syria Mission employed fourteen “other helpers” in 1883, ten in 1882 and eight in 1881, one of whom was the unnamed Biblewoman mentioned in the 1881 report. In the mission’s unpublished statistical surveys, the category for “Biblewomen” appeared on the forms between 1899 and 1909, but Biblewomen were included in the number of “Other Workers” after 1910. “Table of Statistics, 1899–1912”: PHS 115-12-5. 115. “Syria Mission Appropriations, 1905–1906.” Courtesy of NEST Special Collections; F. E. Hoskins, “Table of Statistics for 1905–1909,” 1909: PHS 115-12-5. To complicate matters further, some Syrian women evangelists who worked with the American mission received their salaries from outside sources. A wealthy American volunteer in Sidon, Mary T. M. Ford, fully supported a Biblewoman in the nearby village of Dibl. Another Biblewoman’s salary was partly supplied by a Syrian-run missionary society. BFM (1905), 405, 407. 116. Annual Report of the Women’s Boards, 1875, 1876; “Beirut Station,” February 1877; “Abeih Station,” 1878; “Tripoli Station Helpers and Wages,” 1880; “Tripoli Station,” 1881: PHS 115-12-5; C. P. Hartt, “Contributions,” BFM (1872), 136–7. The magazine of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Societies of the Presbyterian Church, Woman’s Work for Woman, referenced and often named Biblewomen in India, China and Persia. From 1871 until 1900, the magazine’s published reports from missionary women noted only a few unnamed Biblewomen working with the American Syria Mission: one in the Sidon field in 1886 and one former teacher from the Sidon girls’ school in 1895, likely the same Biblewoman that Dr. Mary Eddy employed to assist her and Helloun, another Syrian woman, during a visit to Ras Baalbek in 1896. Harriette M. Eddy, “Sidon Seminary Watering the Sidon Field,” Woman’s Work for Woman and Our Mission Field 1(12) (December 1886), 153; Mary P. Ford, “Testimony to the Sidon Girls,” Woman’s Work for Woman 10(12) (December 1895), 330; “Syria,” Woman’s Work for Woman 11(8) (August 1896), 221. On Helloun, see n. 132, below. 117. Annual Report of the Women’s Boards, 1875, 1876; “Beirut Station,” February 1877; “Abeih Station,” 1878; “Tripoli Station Helpers and Wages,” 1880;

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  323 “Tripoli Station,” 1881: PHS 115-12-5; C. P. Hartt, “Contributions,” BFM (1872), 136–7. 118. “Beirut Station,” February 1877: PHS 115-12-5. 119. Henry Harris Jessup, “Organized into a church on the old Nizam by H. H. J.,” March 18, 1894: PHS 111-4-3. 120. “Annual Tabular View, No. 1: Tripoli Station,” 1877–1879: PHS 115-12-5. “Tripoli Station 1887: Annual Tabular View”: PHS 115-12-6. 121. Jessup, The Women of the Arabs, 149. According to Jessup, Umm Mishriq’s husband, Abu Mishriq (Abu Najim Mishriq Haddad), died in 1871. See also Sabra, “The Badr Story”; Jean Makdisi, Teta, Mother, and Me, 141, 147, 152–3. 122. “The Bible Mission,” DoS (January 1905), 21; M. Welker, “Damascus,” DoS (January 1908), 19. See Appendix D. 123. “Annual Tabular View, No. 1: Tripoli Station,” 1877–1879: PHS 115-12-5. I could not verify a connection between Umm Mitry and the Mishriq Haddad family in the ‘Abay church records, but Umm Mitry may be another name that missionaries used for Umm Mishriq Haddad. 124. “Appropriations, Syria Mission, May 1900”; “Appropriations, Syria Mission, May 1902.” Both courtesy of NEST Special Collections. On Istir Mishriq, see Lindner, “Esther Mushriq Haddad,” 1–3. 125. Lindner, “Esther Mushriq Haddad,” 1–3. 126. Fleischmann, “I Only Wish I had a Home,” 108–30. 127. BFM (1899), 267. Liza was mentioned in BFM (1907), 428; BFM (1908), 486; “Beirut Station Report, 1902”: PHS 115-4-17; Mary P. Eddy, “Report of Maameltein Outstation, 1910”: PHS 115-8-17. Besides accompanying Mary Eddy on her medical tours and reading the Bible to waiting patients, when stationed at Eddy’s clinic in Juniya, north of Beirut, Liza visited patients in their homes. 128. Eddy’s handwritten note and draft of the will were enclosed with a letter from the Boston firm Choate, Hall, & Stewart. Archibald MacLiesh to Harold B. Hoskins, December 18, 1922: Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library, Harold B. Hoskins Papers, MC221-9-12. 129. Dimechkie, “Julia Tu‘mi Dimashqiyi,” 45–9. This family connection may explain the admiration Julia expressed for Eddy when she published the missionary doctor’s obituary in her magazine, al-Mar’a al-Jadida, in 1923. Julia Tu‘ma al-Dimashqiyya, “al-‘Amilat fi al-Nahda al-Nisa’iyya: al-Duktura

324  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Mary Eddy,” al-Mar’a al-Jadida 3(5) (1923), 149–52. On this obituary, see Fleischmann, “I Only Wish I Had a Home,” 123; Booth, “‘She Herself was the Ultimate Rule,’” 429. 130. Dimechkie, “Julia Tu‘mi Dimashqiyi,” 5, 17–19. 131. Ibid., 18–19. 132. “Syria,” Woman’s Work for Woman 11(8) (August 1896), 221; Fleischmann, “I Only Wish I Had a Home,” 117. Fleishmann documented Eddy’s itinerant journeys and noted her work with the Biblewoman Maalme Helloun. Maalme is the colloquial Lebanese pronunciation for mu‘allima, or teacher. 133. Eddy began practicing medicine in Syria in 1894. Ibid. 134. BFM (1907), 428. Another report, published in 1902, placed her at twenty years of service with the American Syria Mission. Therefore, Liza started her work as a teacher between 1880 and 1882. “Beirut Station Report, 1902”: PHS 115-4-17. Liza taught for the Sidon station in 1887. “List of Native Instructors in Employ of the Sidon Station, American Mission Syria,” October 18, 1887: PHS 115-17-7. 135. BFM (1891), 219. 136. Elsie Harris joined her father, Dr. Ira Harris, in the medical work of the Tripoli Station. As the Tripoli dispensary did not have an American nurse or female physician until Elsie Harris, Biblewomen assisted in operations. 137. The first reference to the Biblewoman at the Tripoli dispensary appeared in the mission’s budget for the operating year ending in the spring 1896. During that year, the Tripoli Station paid 2,250 piasters for “Biblewomen.” “Tripoli: Report of Dr. Ira Harris,” January 1896: PHS 115-19-16; E. G. Freyer, “Expenditures of the Syria Mission, 1895–1896” and “Expenditures of the Syria Mission, 1896–1897”: NEST Special Collections. 138. “Tripoli: Annual Tabular View, No. 1,” for 1891 and 1893–1895: PHS 11512-6. “Tripoli: Report of Dr. Ira Harris,” January 1896. 139. NEST 344: E. G. Freyer, “Expenditures of the Syria Mission, 1895–1896.”; NEST 343: E. G. Freyer, “Expenditures of the Syria Mission, 1896–1897.” On exchange rates, see Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Countries during the Years 1896–1897, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1898), 1156. 140. Tripoli Medical Reports 1900 and 1901: PHS 115-19-16; Tripoli: Annual Tabular Report, No. 1, 1895: PHS 115-12-7; Ira Harris, “Tripoli Medical Report for 1913”: PHS 115-19-16.

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  325 141. “Summary: Syria Mission 1903–1904”; “Summary, Syria Mission, 1905– 1906”: NEST Special Collections. 142. “Appropriations, 1898–1908.” Courtesy of NEST Special Collections; BFM (1908), 491; Ira Harris, “Tripoli Medical Report,” 1899: PHS 115-19-16; E. G. Freyer, “Appropriations for 1900–1901,” 1901: NEST Special Collections. 143. “Tripoli Medical Reports, 1907, 1910–1914”: PHS 115-19-16. 144. BFM (1912), 458; Ira Harris, “Tripoli Station Report,” 1911, and Harris, “Tripoli Station Report,” 1910: PHS 115-19-16. 145. “Tripoli Station Report,” 1914: PHS 115-19-16; William S. Nelson, Habeeb the Beloved: A Tale of Life in Modern Syria (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1913). 146. “Tripoli: Annual Tabular Report, No. 1,” 1893 and 1894: PHS 115-12-7; Nelson, Habeeb the Beloved, 66. 147. “Tripoli Station Report,” 1914. 148. Nelson, Habeeb the Beloved, 67. 149. Harris, “Tripoli Station Report,” 1910. The death of Khushfa’s mother may have been another reason that she returned home in 1910. Nelson, Habeeb the Beloved, 23. 150. Harris, “Tripoli Station Report,” 1911. 151. “Tripoli Medical Reports, 1907”, 1910–1914: PHS 115-19-16; “Tripoli Station Report,” 1914: PHS 115-19-16; BFM (1916), 424. 152. Sophia, the “harem visitor,” wrote a letter to her BSM employers from Cyprus, where she had traveled to care for her sick mother. “Cyprus,” The Missing Link (May 1, 1880), 147. 153. Lindner, “Esther Mushriq Haddad,” 1–2. 154. “Tripoli Station: Annual Tabular View, No. 1, 1877,” and “Tripoli Station Salaries of Native Employees,” 1878: PHS 115-12-5. 155. “Wafa,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2447 (December 13, 1912), 398. An earlier, one-line notice of Mahiba’s death on November 5, 1912, appeared in “Wafa,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2445 (December 6, 1912), 391. 156. BSM reports referred to Mahiba Mishriq Haddad as Umm Khalil Mishriq and Umm Khalil Haddad. “The Bible Mission,” DoS (January 1905), 21; M. Welker, “Damascus,” DoS (January 1908), 19. See also DoS (October 1895), 75; DoS (October 1900), 111; BSM (October 1903), 12; BSM (December 1906), 12. Khalil Mishriq Haddad was the son of Mahiba and Abu Najim Mishriq Haddad. “Member Entry 255” and “Marriage Entry 127,” NECB 6. The marriage entry referred specifically to Khalil Abu Najim Mishriq Haddad.

326  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE 157. Mahiba joined the ‘Abay church in 1865 and in 1887 transferred her membership to the church in Hums. “Member entry 43,” NECB 6. She then joined the Evangelical Church in Damascus in 1898, transferring her membership from the Tripoli field. Mahiba Haddad (at line 5, page 50), “Communicants in Damascus,” Record Book of the Evangelical Church of Damascus, June 19, 1898. Church records from ‘Abay show that other relatives maintained the name Mishriq Haddad for decades afterwards. See NECB 6. 158. Lindner, “Esther Mushriq Haddad,” 2. ‘Abay church records listed Layla Abu Najim Haddad and Hannah, daughter of Abu Najim Mishriq Haddad (bint Abu Najim Mishriq al-Haddad). “Member entries 75 and 191,” NECB 6. Layla married Rev. Yusif Badr and Hannah married Syria Mission employee Iskander ‘Atiya. 159. See examples of typical Protestant women’s obituaries: Sarkis, “Wafat Taqiyya,” 444; “Wafat Fadila,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1685 (May 14, 1898), 158. 160. “Wafa,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2447 (December 13, 1912), 398. 161. Jessup, “Bible Readers in Syria,” 282. 162. “Abeih Station Native Helpers,” 1877; “Abeih Station,” 1877–1878; “Abeih Station,” 1878: PHS 115-12-5. During these years Masihiyya taught in Hadath and Kfar Shima and earned 100 piasters per month. 163. Nasrallah, Al-Kanisa al-Injiliyya al-Wataniyya fi-l-Hadath, 25–6. Nasrallah’s book was based upon his childhood memories before Masihiyya’s death in the 1940s and interviews with family members. 164. Ibid., 26–7; “Obituary: Louisa Proctor, of Syria,” The Missionary Review of the World 30 (1907), 479–80; Louisa Proctor, “Syria,” Woman’s Work for Woman 8(6) (1891), 244. 165. Nasrallah, Al-Kanisa al-Injiliyya al-Wataniyya fi-l-Hadath, 27. 166. Ibid., 30. Masihiyya’s son Elias worked at the BSM’s Training College in Beirut, and another son, Tannius, was employed for forty-five years at the AMP. 167. BFM (1902), 298; BFM (1899), 268. 168. “Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Syria Mission,” December 1911, and “Minutes of the Semi-Annual Mission Meeting, 1914”: PHS 90-1-2. 169. Bernice Hunting to Stanley White, December 19, 1911: PHS 90-1-2. 170. Bernice Hunting to Stanley White, May 25, 1911: PHS 90-1-2. Hunting was only in the first stages of her evangelistic work when the First World War started. She died in an automobile accident in the field in 1920 when the

sy ri a n women wi th a mi s s io n     |  327 mission was still recovering from the war, and thus did not implement her plan for training Biblewomen to aid in her work. BFM (1921), 435. 171. As noted in Chapter 4, As‘ad Zurub’s attempt to do so failed and he moved to the United States to pursue a career in business. Butrus al-Bustani resigned from the mission for a secular career, while John Wortabet sought employment with the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. 172. Bernice Hunting to Stanley White, December 19, 1911: PHS 90-1-2. Hunting recounted the address that she presented to the mission in 1910. 173. American missionary women also found opportunities to evangelize Syrian men, and Hunting’s address alluded to the fact that this was her experience. She argued that because men “are far the most intelligent portion of the community it is almost impossible to avoid conversation with them.” Hunting to White, December 19, 1911. 174. “Biblewomen in Beyrout and Damascus,” The Missing Link (May 1, 1876), 147; The Missing Link (July 2, 1877), 214. 175. In one report the BSM’s “harem visitor” went to visit a young Muslim bride but ended up speaking for an extended period with her father-in-law and with a shaykh who arrived to teach the young woman. Their conversation on the doctrine of the Trinity was apparently so engaging that the girl missed her lesson. Susette Smith, “Notes from a Hareem visitor at Beyrout,” The Missing Link (August 1, 1876), 243–4. 176. Brekus, “Female Preaching,” 28.

CONCLUSION

T

he networks connecting American missionaries, Syrian Protestants and other residents of Ottoman Syria expanded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as mission churches and institutions multiplied, as the American Mission Press advanced the Arab renaissance, and as Syrian Protestants engaged their own society through nahdawi publications and evangelistic activities. Mission school graduates and members of the Syrian Evangelical Church, some of whom appeared in this book, were among the waves of Syrians who emigrated to North and South America before the First World War, thus extending the Syrian community beyond the Arab world. We saw the transnational nature of this missionary encounter in the stories of migrants like Salma Badr and As‘ad Zurub and also in the publications of authors like Yusif ‘Atiya, whose tracts in multiple languages were distributed in the United States, Europe and across the Islamic world. The movement of people, goods and ideas between the Ottoman Empire and the Americas during the Nahda made apparent on a larger scale the enmeshed relationship between Syrians and Americans that also defined local encounters in the mission field. American and Syrian lives increasingly became entwined, both inside and outside the Protestant community in Syria, as the nineteenth century progressed. I explored the 328

conclusi on     |  329 impact of this mutual relationship upon Syrian Protestant expressions of theological identity, religious agency and socio-cultural commitment. Although American missionary writings were also essential to my research, I suggested in this book a more balanced history of the American Syria Mission through the extensive use of a great variety of sources produced by Syrian Protestants. The voices of Syrians, which missionary discourses have buried, sometimes quite deliberately, demand a reconceptualization of mission history in Syria. By the early twentieth century, American missionary men still remained at the center as institutional power brokers and claimants of religious authority. In its daily activities, however, the American Syria Mission had become a hybrid American–Syrian endeavor that depended just as much upon women’s work as upon the labors of men. The stories of Syrian women in this book are especially significant as a corrective to the Eurocentric impulse that operates in missionary discourses and even in feminist studies of women in non-Western societies, rendering them collectively as powerless victims rather than as agents of their own history.1 In the history told in these pages, Syrian Protestant women and men emerged together as the primary agents— numerically and in terms of impact—in the encounter between ­missionaries and broader Syrian society. Syrian Protestant Voices in the Missionary Encounter By attending to Syrian Protestant letters, diaries, reports and publications I have proposed a more holistic view of American Syria Mission history under the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. The work of these Syrian employees and church members was critical to the survival of the mission from the very beginning. After 1860, however, converts and secondgeneration Protestants found new opportunities to use the resources of the American mission and of the British Syrian Mission to promote Protestant church growth and contribute to wide-ranging socio-cultural exchange and transformation in Syria. While sharing theological affinities and common aims with the missionaries, members of the Syrian Evangelical Church also asserted and enacted their beliefs in ways that Western Protestants did not anticipate and could not control. I have revealed both some of the subtle and some of the more overt ways that Syrian Protestant writings challenged the

330  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE established narrative of missionary reports and traditional mission histories and to what end. Converts to Protestantism like Saliba Jarwan, Salim Kassab and Nassim al-Hilu acknowledged the American missionaries’ instrumentality in introducing Syrians to the evangelical faith. At the same time, in their conversion narratives examined in Chapter 1, Syrians employed Protestant theology to point beyond the missionaries to the transformative power of the Bible. The insistence on Christ alone as head of the church was also—much to the missionaries’ consternation—central in Syrian Protestant thinking about their churches’ independence from missionary oversight. In one of the most forthright critiques of American missionary power in the late nineteenth century, members of the Beirut Protestant community rejected the mission’s move toward Presbyterian polity and established an independent, congregationally-governed church. As Chapter 4 demonstrated, although internal Syrian Protestant tensions were also a factor in the Beirut Church schism of 1892, Syrian critiques of their American contemporaries became more pronounced with As‘ad Zurub’s antimissionary pamphlet of the early twentieth century and insistence on congregational polity within the Evangelical Independent Church (1894–1906). For Syrian Protestant men, the exercise of religious authority alongside American men involved questions of ordination, Presbytery oversight, adequate pay and missionary-imposed standards of evangelical masculinity. American and Syrian women’s activities of evangelism, on the other hand, were relegated to the gendered sphere of “woman’s work for woman.” Because the American mission allocated fewer resources for women’s evangelism and missionary men showed little interest in supporting a Biblewomen’s movement, as Chapter 5 indicated, Syrian Protestant women took the initiative and turned to the female-run BSM in order to pursue preaching and teaching vocations. Finally, my examination of nahdawi Protestant writers in Chapters 2 and 3 revealed that missionary reports on American men’s theological publications and managerial roles at the AMP obscured the reality of the mission press as a site of much wider-ranging Nahda production. Beginning in the 1880s, Syrian men and women wrote, edited or translated the vast majority of AMP publications and shaped the content of these texts according to their own theological, scientific, literary or socio-cultural interests. As al-Nashra

conclusi on     |  331 al-Usbu‘iyya became a major forum for intellectuals like Ibrahim al-Hurani to participate in the Nahda, Protestant women also used this periodical and the AMP to launch their careers as journalists and novelists. Writing and public speaking provided a means for such Syrian women to exercise spiritual leadership within the Syrian Protestant community. Although the American– Syrian partnership was often asymmetrical in terms of power and authority, Syrians were indispensable to the American Syria Mission’s goals. Yet they also used mission resources in ways the Americans did not expect to contest prevailing hierarchies of gender and race. My research has highlighted Syrian agency and the tensions that inevitably arose when Syrian and American Protestant aims were not fully aligned. By attending to power dynamics within the mission, however, I do not intend to discount the values and faith commitments that tied together members of the Protestant community in Syria. As‘ad Zurub’s congregation separated itself from Presbytery oversight and financial dependence on the mission, but the seceding members did not reject Protestantism or their historical ties with American missionaries. Similarly, Syrian Biblewomen who turned to the British for employment remained active members of the American mission’s Syrian Evangelical churches and sought to expand that community. Moreover, despite the American missionaries’ hesitance to relinquish complete control, their mission policy named “native” independence as its ultimate aim. Human agency and freedom of conscience were also central concepts in evangelical Protestant thought in Syria and elsewhere.2 Like Protestant missionaries in other parts of the globe, Americans in Syria were gradually forced to relinquish a measure of control to their Syrian colleagues, whose efforts were essential to the character and success of the mission. For a variety of reasons that I explored, missionary reports did not fully attest to the actual level of American vulnerability and dependence upon Syrian Protestants, but this reality became evident in my account of Syrian ­contributions to the mission. Historians’ Entanglements and Interreligious Engagement An enmeshed approach to history requires acknowledging the perspectives of the diverse religious communities involved in the missionary encounter in Syria. Due to my location as a Protestant scholar at a theological seminary

332  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE writing on Protestant history in the Middle East, it is critical not to overlook the ways that Syrians outside the Protestant community viewed the missionary enterprise. Although a comprehensive treatment of multireligious responses to Western missions is beyond the scope of this study, I have sought in a number of ways to counteract the tendency to perpetuate normative Protestant claims when dealing with material written by or about Muslims, Catholics, Greek Orthodox Christians and other communities in Syria who were the objects of Protestant evangelism. Since we all come to our work as socially embodied individuals with cultural assumptions and religious, political or ethical commitments, recognizing the “illusion of objectivity” is a significant first step toward producing more responsible scholarship. As Cynthia Coe explained, “Prejudice itself is not so much the problem as the power those prejudices have, particularly unacknowledged ones.”3 The questions Coe posed in order to bring colonialist impulses under critical scrutiny are also useful for my own study: “What is allowed to ‘address’ us? Which texts and voices are worthy of our notice? How do we allow ourselves to learn from those we might have political investments in not learning from?”4 In the research for this book, I have sought in an “emic” manner to listen to and elevate the unacknowledged Syrian Protestant voices of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This move is necessary to restore balance in historical studies of missions, but it does not imply that Syrian Protestant views corresponded to reality, particularly when it came to reflections on their former religious communities. In this process of addressing my entanglements as a Protestant historian, I approached Syrian Protestant narratives and other primary source materials as expressions of the authors’ views of the world and their place in it rather than as definitive statements of fact—just as I read American and British narratives. By applying this interpretive framework, I detected many disjunctions between Protestant assertions and historical actualities. Chapter 1 noted, for example, that converts emphasized personal Bible study as a defining act of Protestant devotion, over and against the practices of Syria’s traditional Christian communities. Similar views emerged in the nahdawi Protestant writers’ responses to Catholic and Greek Orthodox periodicals, discussed in Chapter 2. However, claims that Bibles were not available at all in Syria before the arrival of Protestant missionaries or that Maronites

conclusi on     |  333 and Greek Orthodox Christians never studied scripture were American and British misrepresentations of Middle Eastern Christian history. Salim Kassab’s conversion story, for example, centered on his reading of the Bible available in his own Greek Orthodox home at the urging of his Orthodox schoolteacher. Similarly, under the assumption that all parties read scripture, the intercommunal debates in al-Nashra, al-Hadiyya and al-Bashir focused on the proper way of translating and interpreting the Bible. In engaging the work of pioneering Syrian Protestant women in the Nahda and early movements of women preachers, I addressed the publications of Protestants like Hanna Kurani alongside the work of Jewish writer Esther Muyal and Shi‘a feminist Zaynab Fawwaz. These and other nahdawi women from diverse religious communities deserve further attention, not only for their literary endeavors and social activism, but also for their religiosity and the way it may have impacted their work. On a related note, I questioned the dynamic of intra-Christian and Protestant–Muslim conflict; whereas missionaries and some Syrian Protestant writers characterized this as primordial and relentless, I instead highlighted the overlooked areas of common interest and cultural exchange between Protestant, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish intellectuals in the Nahda. This book is therefore not merely a story of religious transformation or of American–Syrian Protestant relations, but a history of the enmeshed lives both within and outside the Protestant community in Syria. What lessons can this enmeshed history offer for contemporary approaches to interreligious understanding? Are Syrian Protestants, as religious minorities who operated in intercommunal spaces, models for interfaith dialogue? The concepts of religious “minorities” and “dialogue,” we should note, came into common usage in the twentieth century, with expressions of minority or majority political status emerging after the post-First World War transition of Ottoman regions to Arab nation-states.5 Coordinated efforts for formal dialogue between religious communities came even later, with the sectarian diversity of modern Lebanon making it an ideal site for the World Council of Churches’ first interfaith dialogue session, held in ‘Ajaltun in 1970.6 The Protestants in this study did not conceive of themselves in today’s terms as outnumbered minorities or as practitioners of dialogue, and it is precisely for this reason that their example is significant for us now.

334  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE During the Arab renaissance, educational pursuits, literary-scientific endeavors and commitments to social or religious transformation drew nahdawis of all backgrounds outside of religiously-based enclaves in rural towns and in cities. Persistent interconnections across religious lines became a way of life. This was particularly true for the Protestant ta’ifa, the numerically smallest religious community recognized by the Ottoman government. As converts or children of converts, members of the Syrian Evangelical Church expressed a fluid sense of identity. They often retained family ties to non-Protestants, identified with the region’s large ethno-linguistic Arab population and supported the work of Turkish Muslim authorities. We have seen how Butrus al-Bustani, Rujina Shukri and Farida ‘Atiya upheld Syria’s Arab-Islamic heritage and advocated Ottoman loyalty. The interreligious engagements of such Syrian Protestants challenge contemporary Western assumptions about religious minorities and perpetual conflict in the Middle East. These stories prompt us, instead, to look for similar examples of collaboration in the region today—especially between Christians and Muslims—and to question our presumed categories of division (between faith communities, between ­minority and majority groups, or between religious and secular ideals). Global Christian Interconnections The missionary encounter in Ottoman Syria did not occur in isolation from the global missionary enterprise of the modern period. The periodical of the Syrian Protestant community, al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya, featured articles about and photographs of local people in mission fields around the world, and as Syrian Evangelical schools and churches developed their own evangelistic and charity organizations, many of them raised money for Protestant missions in Asia and Africa.7 When BFM Secretary Arthur Judson Brown arrived in Beirut in 1902, he brought news of Christianity in China, Japan, Korea, Laos and India.8 Through the literature they read, conversations with American missionaries, and visits of international Christian leaders that connected them with the global church, Syrian Protestants became well aware of the growth of new Protestant communities in Africa and other parts of Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This sense of connection with Christians around the world grew, especially in the early twentieth century, through organizations like the YMCA and World Student Christian

conclusi on     |  335 Federation (WSCF) operating in Syria and as Syrian Protestant immigrants settled and joined churches in places like Australia, the Philippines, Brazil and Mexico.9 While focusing on the context within which the very first Arabicspeaking Protestant church emerged in Ottoman Syria, I also situated Syrian Protestantism within the broader history of missions and World Christianity in the modern era. Anthropological studies of conversion in Africa and Southeast Asia and scholarship on Biblewomen in India, China and South Africa were particularly useful for my interpretation of conversions to Protestantism in Syria and the emergence of a Syrian Biblewomen’s movement, as these subjects have received minimal attention from historians of the Middle East. Other themes of this book, such as missionary–Arab relations, evangelical printing in Arabic and women writers in the Nahda have been the subject of recent scholarship. Nevertheless, such regionally focused studies likewise could benefit from attention to the connections between Syrian Protestant and global Christian history. Studies of the Middle East, for example, have represented the American Syria Mission as minimally involved in evangelistic efforts toward Muslims. By attending to Protestant missionary activities outside Syria, however, my research demonstrated that Syrian pastors and mission employees like Yusif ‘Atiya in fact became part of a worldwide movement of Protestant outreach to Muslims. Such activities gained momentum while ‘Atiya was writing at the turn of the century and continued after the First World War with John Mott’s regional “Conferences of Christian Workers among Moslems” in 1924, including one held in Brummana, Lebanon.10 Such global interconnections and ramifications are also significant for the field of World Christianity, which has devoted relatively little attention to Arab church history in comparison with the vast literature on Christianity elsewhere. Recent volumes on World Christianity have recognized the long, rich history of Christianity in the Middle East.11 Yet the center of gravity, so to speak, in studies on global Christian communities rests firmly on those areas of the world with the greatest Christian population growth in the past century. Missionary success was previously measured according to the number of converts in mission churches, but over the last two decades scholars have pointed to the rising number of Christians in the so-called “global

336  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE south.”12 Such demographic studies are instrumental for drawing attention to the diversity of Christian voices around the world narrating their own histories. However, just as an exclusive focus on conversion statistics would prevent historians from considering the unexpected consequences of the missionary enterprise, much potential learning about World Christianity will be lost if scholars allow numbers alone to determine their regions of focus. In framing the history of the missionary encounter in Ottoman Syria in the context of global church history, I join others urging us to reflect more deeply on the values and presumptions that drive the field of World Christianity.13 If the recent shift from studying Western missionary activity to studying global Christianity means attending to marginalized communities, then regions like the Middle East should not be overlooked because of their smaller Christian populations or because existing Christian communities predate the modern missionary movement. By examining the history of Syrian Protestantism, this book therefore offers an alternative vantage point from which to approach the study of World Christianity. Protestantism in Syria, Past and Present The four central stations of the American Syria Mission at the turn of the century—Beirut, Mount Lebanon, Tripoli and Sidon—were located in the regions of Ottoman Syria that became modern Lebanon. Yet with significant outstations in the Tripoli field in cities like Hums, the mission extended into present-day Syria. Strong ties between Presbyterians in both countries exist today in the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, which now includes churches that the BFM founded and congregations that originated with American Reformed Presbyterian and Irish Presbyterian missions in Latakia and Damascus. Similar cross-border connections exist amongst the Armenian Evangelical churches in Syria and Lebanon, the churches that Armenian refugees established after the First World War. These churches share a Congregational affiliation with the National Evangelical Church of Beirut and other Arabic-speaking churches of the National Evangelical Union of Lebanon.14 As I close out this book and the year 2018, I note that the civil war in Syria has made such Lebanese–Syrian interconnections further apparent, both inside and outside the region’s Protestant community. Since the

conclusi on     |  337 conflict began in 2011, Lebanon has become host to hundreds of thousands of refugees from all of Syria’s ethnic and religious groups. Protestants and other Syrians with ties to Protestant institutions are among these refugees and among the internally displaced persons in Syria. I therefore conclude this study of the early Syrian Evangelical Church with the awareness that material evidence of the history I have written—including churches, schools and entire Syrian villages—has been obliterated amidst the war, along with many, many precious lives. In this time of upheaval, I hope some sense of enduring identity may come for all Syrians through remembrance of history, not as a utopian ideal but as a resource for the next generation. As my own contribution to that task, this book is such a resource that reflects on the past and looks to the future by advancing the study of Christian–Muslim relations, shedding light on women’s religious activities in Ottoman Syria and bringing Arab Protestantism into discussions of World Christianity. I offer this book also as a means of preserving the history of the Syrian Evangelical Church and the wider circle of Syrians who shaped and became transformed by the encounters of the Nahda in the late Ottoman period. Notes   1. Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes,” 333–4, 349.  2. Andrew Witmer, “Agency, Race, and Christianity in the Strange Career of Daniel Flickinger Wilberforce,” Church History 83(4) (2014): 884–923.   3. Cynthia D. Coe, “Strangers and Natives: Gadamer, Colonial Discourse and the Politics of Understanding,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 35(8) (2009): 930.   4. Ibid. (added emphasis).  5. Benjamin Thomas White, The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 2–3.   6. S. J. Samartha (ed.), Living Faiths and the Ecumenical Movement (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1971).   7. See my treatment of this subject in Chapter 2, esp. n. 47.   8. Brown, “Diary XVI,” March 8, 1902–April 7, 1902, 97–8.  9. Brown, Report of a Visitation, 85; Deanna Ferree Womack “‘To Promote the Cause of Christ’s Kingdom’: International Student Associations and the ‘Revival’ of Middle Eastern Christianity,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture (forthcoming 2019); Timothy Marr, “Diasporic Intelligences in the

338  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE American Philippine Empire: The Transnational Career of Dr. Najeeb Mitry Saleeby,” Mashriq & Mahjar 2(1) (2014): 77–98. Najib Saleeby (Salibi) was a member of the Evangelical Church of Beirut. “Beirut Church: List of Absent and Emigrants,” 1905: PHS 115-4-4. For reports on church members who had emigrated, see BFM (1898), 245; BFM (1907), 431, 433, 442, 445; BFM (1915), 417, 424. 10. John R. Mott, Conferences of Christian Workers among Moslems, 1924: A Brief Account of the Conferences Together with their Findings and Lists of Members (New York: International Missionary Council, 1924). One of Mott’s regional conferences under the auspices of the International Missionary Council was held in Brummana, Lebanon, and included five Syrian Protestant members. Ibid., 123. 11. Sharkey, “Middle Eastern and North African Christianity,” 7–19. 12. Gina A. Bellofatto and Todd M. Johnson, “Key Findings of Christianity in Its Global Context, 1970–2020,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 37(3) (2013): 157–64; Todd M. Johnson and Sun Yung Chung, “Tracking Global Christianity’s Statistical Center of Gravity ad 33–ad 2100,” International Review of Mission 93(369) (2004): 166–81; David B. Barrett, George Thomas Kurian and Todd M. Johnson (eds.), World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Robert, “Shifting Southward,” 50–8. 13. Much public and media attention, it should be noted, has been given to recent acts of violence against Christian communities in Syria, Iraq and Egypt. Andreas Bandak is one anthropologist of Syrian Christianity who has addressed this situation. Andreas Bandak, “Of Refrains and Rhythms in Contemporary Damascus: Urban Space and Christian–Muslim Coexistence,” Current Anthropology 55(S10) (2014): S248–S261. 14. Bailey and Bailey, Who Are the Christians in the Middle East? 114–19; Haidostian, “Church Communion in the Middle East.”

APPENDIX A SYRIAN PROTESTANT GENEALOGIES 1

(child), m. (marriage), b. (birth), bap. (date of baptism), d. (death) ‘ATIQ, Dib m. Nijma (Nijme) al-Ghazala Khalil

As‘ad m. Hanna

‘ATIYA, Ibrahim Nassif m.1870 ‘Alya’ ‘Azar (d. 1901) Afifa (b. 1873)

Adma (b. 1874)

Michael (b. 1880)

Salma

Mary

‘ATIYA, Yusif Dib m. Hadla (d. 1902) Farida (d. 1917) m. Matta ‘ATIYA Louisa Salim m. Asma’ Ibrahim ‘ATIYA Edward (b. 1903)

Najla (b. 1911)

‘ATIYA, Iskander Niqula (b.1851) m. Hannah HADDAD Farid m.1913 Salma Ibrahim ‘ATIYA

339

Asma m. Salim Yusif ‘ATIYA

340  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE BADR, Michael (d.1888) Jirjis (1840–86) Hanna Antun (d.1884) m2? Zelpha Halabi Khalil Anisa Salma (b.1883) m1. Khattar Qiyami Salwa Victoria Qiyami (b.1905) Salma m2.1923 George Bazergui (b.1881) Yusif (d. 1912) m. Layla Abu Najim Mishriq HADDAD (d.1930) Mabel (Nabiha) (1886–1933) m.1907 Ibrahim Abu Absi al-Jamal Salwa (b.1889) Nellie (Najla) (1893–1971) m. Bob Nimr Abu Absi al-Jamal Melia (Emilia) (1873–1957) Rashid (d.1916) Habib (1877–1953) m.1913 Hana Nimr Abu Absi al-Jamal Nasib (1875–1940) m. Afifa Haddad (d.1926) Munira (1880–1973) m.1905 Shukri Musa BAJJANI, Na‘um m. Jamila Najib (b.1888)

Tawfiq (b.1891)

Mary (b.1894)

Wadad (b.1904)

Adma

Aziz

Salma

Rosa

BARAKAT, Elias (d. 1909) m. Layyah al-Khazin (c. 1858–1940) BARAKAT, Na‘mi Constantine

Yaqut m. Yaqub SARRUF

Badr m. Rizqullah BERBARI

Julia m. Ibrahim AL-HURANI

BARAKAT, Shahin (d.1860) m. “Umm Mansur” Mansur (d.1860)

Yusif (d.1860) m.1858 Sa‘da Yazbek SABUNJI

Hamda

Shahina

Akabir?

appendi x a     |  341 BERBARI Rizqullah (Rizuq) (d.1886) m. Badr Na‘ami BARAKAT Wadia‘ Ni‘matallah (b.1873) William Iskander Nassim “Umm Nasif” Nasif Masihiyya m.1880/81 Nasrallah Tannus Nasrallah Labiba

Sarah

Iskander

Mitry

Elias

Tannius

Al-BUSTANI, Butrus (1819–82) m.1843 Rahil ‘Ata’ (1826–1894) Sarah Marie (1844–66) Salim (1846–84) m.1874 Hannah Ayub TABET Habib (bap.1879)

Julinar (bap.1879)

Sa‘da

Adelaide (Idlid) Martha (1849–1933) m.1873 Amin SARKIS (1845–96) Louisa Katrina (1852–1923) m.1873 Khalil Khattar SARKIS (1842–1915) Asma (b.1874)

Zubayda Fu’ad Fahima (b.1879) (1880– (b.1885) 96)

Emma m.1877 Elias Khaled TABET Maryam Emilia (b.1855) Amin Judson (b.1859) Najib William (1862–1919) Nasib (b.1866) Alice (1870–1926) m. ‘Abdullah al-Bustani Nabil

DABAGHI, Musa m. “Umm Shakir” Shakir Hanna m. Yusif Zaydan

Nada Ramez Rida Salma (1886– (1889– 1906) 1955)

342  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE HADDAD Faris Mishriq Abu Najim Mishriq (d.1871) m. Mahiba Mishriq (d.1912) Khalil Mishriq Hannah Mishriq m.1885 Iskander ‘ATIYA Layla Mishriq m. Yusif BADR Mabel

Munira

Nellie

Melia

Rashid

HARARI, Daud m.1885 Sabat Abu Sa‘di Tawfiq (b.1887)

Adib (b.1889)

Adel

Al-HILU, Nassim m. Farida Sa‘deh AL-HURANI, Ibrahim (d.1915) m. Julia Na‘mi BARAKAT (d.1907) Nasib (bap.1879; d.1895)

Badi‘ (b.1876)

Najla (bap. 1882)

Habib (b.1889)

JARWAN, Saliba (1836–1911) m1. Luciya Shakir; m2. Farida Salibi Amin

Samuel

Shakir

Sarah

Fu’ad

Alice

Edna

KASBANI, Habib m. Martha Hanna (1870–98) m. Amin Kurani

Najib (b.1871)

Amin (b.1873)

Khalil (b.1874)

Adel (b.1876)

Mary (b.1877)

KASSAB, Salim (1841–1907) m.1872 Fumiya Amin (b.1873)

Salma (b.1875)

Elias (bap. 1878)

Shukri (b.1880)

Najla (bap. 1883)

Aziz (bap. 1884)

Marie (b.1887)

Asma

KHAIRALLAH, As‘ad (d.1936) m. Sarah (1852–1947) Fu’ad (1883–1949) m. Mary Salameh (1907–99)

Ibrahim (1885–1971)

Amin (b.1887)

MAKARIUS, Shahin m.1877 Maryam Nimr Salim Jirjis (bap.1878)

Iskander (b.1883)

QANAWATI, Antun Rufail m. Anisa Habib Zurayk Lily (b.1890)

Fu’ad (b.1906)

Shereen (1892–1929)

Salma (1897–1936)

appendi x a     |  343 AL-RASI, Yuwakim Mas‘ud m. Khuzma Anis (b.1878) Nessima m.1909 Bulus Kawli Sumaya m. Fadlu Hurani Albert

Wadia m. Elias Makdisi

Khuzma m. Iskander Nassif

SABUNJI, Tannus m2. Taqla Yazbek Sa‘da Yazbek (stepdaughter of Tannus; d.1906) m1.1858 Yusif BARAKAT Amin Sa‘da Yazbek m2. Benjamin F. Pinkerton (American Brethren missionary) Ibrahim (b.1850) Sarah (b.1852) Rufqa (b.1855) Maryam (b.1859) ? Indicates likely children of Tannus and Taqla

?‘Aziza m. Shahin Khattar SARKIS Hilana ?Nakhla m. Margarita Manuel (bap.1872) George (b.1889) ?Yuhanna (Hanna) m. Mas‘ada Najib (bap. 1872)

Samuel (b.1875, twin)

Adma (b.1875, twin)

Asma (b.1876)

SAIGH, ‘Abdullah m. Luciya Tawfiq (b.1887)

Timuthius (b.1876)

Amin (bap.1879)

Salim (b.1881)

Wadad (bap.1883)

Rosa (bap.1884)

SARKIS, Khattar Ibrahim m.1859 Maryam Jirjis al-Nahas Sarah Amin (1845–1896) m.1873 Adelaide BUSTANI (1849–1933) Shahin m. ‘Aziza SABUNJI Luciya Hanna Katrina (b.1854) m. (b. 1876 Daud al-Hajj 1859)

Hilana

Salim Najib (bap. (b.1867) m. 1870) Bahaja

Khalil (1842–1915) m.1873 Louisa BUSTANI (1852–1923) Asma (b. 1874)

Zubayda Fu’ad Salma Fahima Rida Nada Ramiz (b.1879) (1880– (1882/3– (b. (1886–1906) (1889–1955) 96) 96) 1884)

344  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE SARRUF, Niqula (d.1907) m. Sa‘da (d.1895) Salma (b.1877) Hanna Yaqub m. Yaqut Na‘mi BARAKAT Fuaz Adma (b.1881) Najib (b.1879) Ellen (bap.1884) TABET (THABIT) Elias ‘Issa Khalil Na‘mi (Ni‘matallah) (d.1898) m.1854 Maryam Khalid Elias Tabet (d.1888) Khalil (b.1859) Ibrahim (b.1861) Elias (b.1866) Adma (b.1868) Samuel (b.1871) Constantine (b.1873) Niqula (1877–1952) TU‘MA, Yusif Niqula Liza Jirji m. Farida Nassif Nabiha Rashid Anissa Adib Julia (1882–1954) m.1913 Badr al-Dimashqiyya Salwa Nadim WORTABET, Yaqub Gregory m. Susan Laflufi (d.1868) Yuhanna (John) (1825–1909) m. Salome Mary Carabet (d.1900) AL-YAZIJI, Habib (d. circa 1912) m.? Dirgam Khushfa

appendi x a     |  345 AL-YAZIJI, Nasif Ibrahim Warda m. Francis Shamun Farida (bap.1867)

Salim (bap.1870)

Amin (bap.1872)

Labiba (b.1875)

Asma (b.1878)

ZURUB, As‘ad Daud (ca. 1865–1935) m1. Louise Mattas (d. 1923) (m2. Nabiha) Rashad [Richard] (b.1908, Massachusetts; d.1943, Ohio) m.1932 Opal Koenig Richard

Gloria Louise (b.1935, Hot Springs, AK)

Note 1. This is an extension of the genealogical work done by Christine B. Linder. Sources include church record books NECB 9: Beirut and NECB 6: ‘Abay; Lindner, “Syrian Protestant Families”; Sabra, “The Badr Story.”

APPENDIX B AMERICAN MISSIONARY FAMILIES AND DATES OF SERVICE, 1823–1915

(child); m. (marriage); b. (birth); d. (death); s. (years of service) BARBER, Alice Stillman (s. 1885–1930) BEEKMAN, Jane B. (s. 1907–10) m. 1908 James B. BROWN BIRD, Isaac (s. 1823–35; d. 1876) m. Ann Parker (s. 1823–35; d. 1877) Ann Emily Henry Parker James Martha Jane William (b. 1823; s. 1853–d. 1902) m. Sarah Folsom Gordon (s. 1853–1902) Emily (b. 1853; s. 1879–d. 1910) Alice Mary m. William GREENLEE BLISS, Daniel (1830–1915; s. 1856–63) m. Abby M. (s. 1856–63) Mary Wood Bliss m. Gerald DALE Howard S. Frederick Jones William Tyler BROWN, James Bidford (s. 1907–10) m. Jane B. BEEKMAN (s. 1907–10)

346

appendi x b     |  347 BROWN, Charlotte H. (s. 1885–1925) BROWN, Rebecca McClure (1860–1911; s. 1885–92) BYERLY, Robert Crane (s. 1914–52) m. Jessie Emmeline GLOCKLER (s. 1914–52) Jessie Elizabeth (1915–76)

Margaret Mae (1917–19)

Donald Henry (b. 1918)

Anne (b. 1923)

Warren Robert (b. 1924)

CALHOUN, Simeon Howard (s. 1844–d. 1876) m. Emily P. Reynolds (d. 1908; s. 1844–87) Charles William (b. 1850; s. 1879–d. 1883) Helen Maria (1860–1958) m. William Thomson VAN DYCK (1857–1939) Emily Reynolds (s. 1871–d. 1881) m. Galen DANFORTH (d. 1875) Susan H. (s. 1879–85) m. Charles Ransom CARRUTH, Ellen A. (s. 1868–70) CUNDALL, Fanny (s. 1879–83) DALE, Gerald F. (b. 1846; s. 1872–d. 1886) m. Mary W. BLISS (1857–1930; s. 1879–1904) DANA, Charles Arthur (s. 1913–23) m. Lanice Paton (s. 1913–23) DANFORTH, Galen B., MD (s. 1871–d. 1875) m. Emily R. CALHOUN (s. 1871–d. 1881) DENNIS, James Shephard (s. 1868–92) m. Mary P. (s. 1872–92) DOOLITTLE, George Curtis (s. 1893–1922) m. Carrie Sabine Shaw (s. 1893–1923) EDDY, William Woodbridge (s. 1852–d. 1900) m. Hannah Maria Condit (s. 1852–d. 1904) Harriette Mollison (b. 1855; s. 1878–d.1929) m. 1888 Franklin HOSKINS Mary Pierson, MD (1864–1923; s. 1895–1917) Robert Condit Julia Woodbridge William King (b. 1854; s. 1878–d. 1906) m. Elizabeth NELSON (s. 1881–1927) William Alfred Clarence Ford Herbert H. Condit N. Ruth Margaret Dora Elizabeth (b. 1887; s. 1910–17) m. 1917 Harold W. Close

348  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE ERDMAN, Paul (s. 1900–43) m1. Amanda (Amy) Cleveland JESSUP (s. 1900–d. 1901) Frederick Seward (b. 1901) Paul m2.1905 Gertrude Baker Moore (s. 1905–d. 1924) Paul m3. Mabel Dolores Hendriks (s. 1926–43) EVERETT, Eliza D. (d. 1902; s. 1868–95) FISHER, Helen M. (s. 1873–5) FISK, Pliny (b. 1792; s. 1819–d. 1825) FORD, Joshua Edwards (d. 1866; s. 1848–65) m. Mary Perry (d. 1902; s. 1848–65) George Alfred (1851–1928; s. 1880–1910) m. Katherine Maria Booth (s. 1906–10) Lucia (Lucy) Mary John Jacob Nathan FORD, Mary T. Maxwell (s. 1887–94) FORD, Sarah A. (s. 1883–5) FOWLER, Arthur Boughton (s. 1913–20) m. Katherine A. Bronson (s. 1913–20) FREIDINGER, William Arthur (s. 1911–53) m. Elizabeth Hill MARCH (s. 1914–53) FREYER, Edward Gustav Jacob (s. 1897–1913) m. S. Anna French (s. 1897–1913) GOODELL, William (s. 1823–8; d. 1867) m. Abigail P. (s. 1823–8)

appendi x b     |  349 GLOCKLER, Warren Robert (b. 1850; s.1882–1922) m. Eliza M. Stevenson (1851–1936) Frederick James (1877–1919) Warren Albert (1879–81) Jessie Emmeline (1889–1977) m. 1914 Robert Crane BYERLY Edwin John (1883–1916) Henry Wilfred (1891–1988; s. 1925–61) m. 1931 Annie JESSUP (s. 1920–61) Anthony Stuart (b. 1936)

Robert Henry (b. 1938)

GREENLEE, William M. (s. 1883–7) m. Alice Mary BIRD (s. 1884–7) GREENSLADE, William Gains (s. 1911–50) m. Vivian Ida Slawson (s. 1921–50) HALLOCK, Samuel (s. 1867–82) HARDIN, Oscar Joshua (s. 1871–1919) m. Mary Stuart Dodge (s. 1873–1919) Caroline Hyde m. 1901 Bertram POST Effie Stuart (d. 1910) HARRIS, Ira, MD (s. 1883–d. 1915) m2. Alice L. Edwards (s. 1884–1919) Ara Elsie, MD (b. 1883; s. 1908–14) m. 1914 Burl Tuttle Schuyler Stanley Edwards (b. 1894) HEBARD, Story Hebard (s. 1836–41) m. Rebecca Williams (b. 1806; s. 1835–d. 1840) HOLMES, Caroline M. (d. 1927; s. 1883–95) HORNE, Ottora Mary (1869–1956; s. 1902–39) HOSKINS, Franklin Evans (b. 1858; s. 1888–d. 1921) m. Harriette EDDY (b. 1855; s. 1875–d. 1929) Jeaneatte (b. 1889) Horace Eddy (infant, d. 1891) Clara (b. 1892) Harold Boies Hoskins (b. 1895) Ethel Evans (infant, d. 1899)

350  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE HUNTING, Bernice (s. 1896–d. 1920) HURTER, George C. (s. 1841–64; d. 1895) m. Elizabeth (s. 1841–61; d. 1893) JACKSON, Ellen (s. 1870–83) JESSUP, William m. Amanda Harris Henry Harris (b. 1832; s. 1856–d. 1910) m1.1857 Caroline Bush (1833–64) Anna Harris (1860–1940) Henry Wynans (1864–1934) m. Mary H. Stotesbury William H. (b. 1862; s. 1890–d. 1920) m. Faith Jadwin (b. 1870; s. 1890–d. 1911) Theodosia D. Elizabeth Palmer (b. 1894) Helen Butchart (b. 1895) Henry Harris (1896–7) Faith Henry Harris m2.1868 Harriet Elizabeth Dodge (1836–82) David Stuart Dodge Mary Dodge m. Alfred Ely Day Amanda (Amy) Cleveland (d. 1901) m. 1900 Paul ERDMAN Frederick Nevins Ethel Hyde (1874–1963) m. Franklin T. Moore (1868–1915) John Leonard Moore (b. 1898) Amanda (Amy) Jessup (b. 1901) Carol Gertrude (b. 1903) Henry Harris m3.1884 Theodosia Davenport Lockwood (b. 1839; s. 1884–d. 1907) Samuel (b. 1833; s. 1863–d. 1912) m. Ann Eliza Jay (b. 1840; s. 1863–d. 1895) Fanny Mulford (s. 1895–6) m. 1902 James Ramsay Swain Stuart Dodge (1869–1950; s. 1904–39) m. Amy C. Brigstocke (s. 1904–39; d. 1953) Edith Katharine (b. 1905) Richard Annie Beatrice (1903–86; s. 1920–61) m. Henry GLOCKLER (s. 1925–61) JOHNSTON, W. L. (s. 1879–80) m. Mrs. Johnston (s. 1879–80)

appendi x b     |  351 KING, Jonas (1792–1869; s. 1822–5) KIPP, Mary (s. 1872–5) LA GRANGE, Harriet (b. 1845; s. 1875–d. 1927) LAW, Ellen M. (b. 1865; s. 1892–8) LAW, Louise Mary (b. 1871; s. 1893–d. 1940) LORING, Sophie B. (s. 1870–3) LOWRY, Isaac N. (s. 1867–70; d. 1871) m. Mary E. (s. 1867–70; d. 1872) LYONS, Mary M. (s. 1877–80; d. 1896) MARCH, Frederick William (1847–1935; s. 1873–1924) m. Jennie Hill Grant (s. 1880–1924) May Dale (b. 1880) Anna Louise (1881–2) Arthur William (b. 1882) Ernest Alice Harold (Hal) Amy Gilson (s. 1913–15) m. Douglas Newton Forman Douglas, Jr. Kenneth Catherine Peggy Elizabeth Hill m. William FREIDINGER NELSON, Elizabeth (Bessy) Mills (s. 1881–1927) m. 1885 William K. EDDY NELSON, William Shed, MD (s. 1888–1930) m. Ema Hay (s. 1888–d. 1916)

352  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE NICOL, James Houdon (s. 1904–45) m. Rebecca W. Van Cleve (1884–1977; s. 1904–45) PARSONS, Levi (s. 1819–d. 1822) POND, Theodore S. (s. 1873–89) m. Julia H. (s. 1873–-89) POST, George E., MD (1838–1909; s. 1863–6) m. Sarah Read (s. 1863–6) Arthur Mitchell (1864–5) Robbie Read (1866–9) Francis Read (infant, d. 1873) Alfreda (Freda) m. 1905 C. Carhart Wilfred Bertram (Bertie) m. Carrie Hyde HARDIN Dorothy Isabel (b. 1903) Edwin (1907–9) POTTER, Mrs. Dwight E. (s. 1909–10) SCHERER, George Henry (s. 1912–51) m. Margaret Macgregor Mackie (s. 1912–51) SMITH, Eli (b. 1907; s. 1831–d. 1857) m1. Sarah Lanman Huntington (s. 1833–d. 1836)   m2. Maria W. C. (b. 1919; s. 1841–d. 1842)   m3. Henrietta (Hetty) S. (s. 1846–57; d. 1893) THOMSON, William M. (d. 1894; s. 1833–77) m1. Eliza N. (s. 1833–d. 1834) William H. (b. 1834) William M. m2. Maria Abbot (s. 1835–d. 1873) Emilia A. (b. 1839; s. 1876–1921) Maria Adelaide Henry TOLLES, Rachel E. (s. 1899–1921)

appendi x b     |  353 VAN DYCK, Cornelius V. A., MD (b. 1818; s. 1840–d. 1895) m. Julia Abbott (s. 1844–d. 1918) Eliza (Lizzy) (1851–1936; s. 1875–9) William Thomson (1857–1939) m. Helen Maria CALHOUN (1860–1958) Henry WATSON, W. Scott (s. 1889–92) m. Mrs. Watson (s. 1889–92) WOOD, Frank (b. 1845; s. 1871–d. 1878) m. Sophie R. (s. 1871–8)

APPENDIX C FOUNDING MEMBERS OF THE EVANGELICAL INDEPENDENT CHURCH OF BEIRUT, MARCH 18, 1894 1

The following members seceded from the Evangelical Church of Beirut to form a new congregation under the leadership of As‘ad Zurub, desiring to operate according to the congregational, non-denominational system of church governance rather than the Presbyterian polity of the Syria Mission. Their names appear here as written by Henry Harris Jessup. Khalil Sarkis Louisa Sarkis Amin Sarkis Adele Sarkis Naameh Tabet Admah Tabet Elias Tabet Abdullah Saigh Luciya Saigh Michaiel Mosully Amelia Mosully Liza Mosully Lulu Mosully Amin Abcarius Afifa Abcarius Khalil Meshalany Alice Bustany Daud Harari Sabat Harari

354

appendi x c     |  355 Selim Araman Selma Araman Nellie Araman Lulu Araman Selim Susa Asim Fuaz Khalil Saleh Nusr Salim Saleh Nusr Daud el Khuri Laia Khuri Abdullah Mitwat

Note 1. Notes of Henry H. Jessup, March 18, 1894: PHS 115-4-3. Jessup’s notes read, “Organized into a church on the old Nizam by H.H.J. Sunday Mar. 18, 1894.”

APPENDIX D BIBLEWOMEN EMPLOYED BY THE BRITISH SYRIAN MISSION, 1860–1914

This list reflects the dates of BSM reports documenting the Biblewomen’s employment. In some cases a Biblewoman may have started working during the previous calendar year. Umm means “mother of …” and “Mart” (or mar’a) means “wife of …”

Biblewomen Reported by Surname ‘Abay, Maryam: 1898–1900 ‘Abbud, Katrine: 1883–6 ‘Abbud, Taqla: 1883–91 ‘Abbud, Umm Iskander: 1903–6 ‘Abdullah, Umm As‘ad: 1901–3 Abukalam, Agia: 1896–1900 Abunassar, Myrta: 1884–91 Abu Rehan, Maryam: 1911 Arkle, Hilana: 1878–9 ‘Atiq, Nijma (Umm As‘ad): 1867–72 (intermittent), 1880–1913 Badr, Salma (later Qiyami): 1908–9 Bahna, Salma: 1912 (volunteer) Bajjani, Jamila: 1892–1942 Berbari, Lulu: 1892–8 Dabaghi, Umm Shakir (Mart Musa): 1867–1909 Darwish, Katrine: 1880–1914 Fares, Herma: 1878 Feisul, Layla: 1914

Fraigey, Melia: 1885–7 Frantz, Maryam: 1871–83 Ghazuzi, Fumiya: 1912 Haddad, Mahiba Mishriq (Umm Khalil Mishriq): 1890–1907 Haddad, Sa‘da: 1902–10 Haddad, Umm Yusif: 1885–92 Halib, Shemmur: 1884–7 Hallibi, Sa‘da: 1880 Harari, Sabbat: 1895–1914 Hocker, Taqla: 1867–1900 ‘Id, Maryam: 1895–1925 ‘Id, Neffagie: 1887–99 Jibran, Kherma: 1885 Kassab, Merita: 1881–91 Khairallah, Myrta: 1886–93 Khalil, Emilie: 1911–14 Khudder, Umm Ibrahim: 1893–1914 Khuri, Sa‘da: 1880–3 Kobotan, Farida: 1886–7

356

appendi x d     |  357 Mardu, Maryam: 1867–92 Mughabghab, H. Lulu: 1892–8, 1912–14 Mughabghab, Julia: 1888–93 Mughabghab, Kudsuya: 1898–1900 Munayir, Farida: 1884–9 Munayir, Maryam: 1879–86 Musawwir, Umm Salim: 1871–1900 Nahra, Umm Khalil: 1903–5 Naker, Zahia: 1891–1925 Niqula, Sophie: 1876–85 (intermittent) Raad, Sa‘da: 1881–2 al-Reus, Nakhle: 1861–5 (intermittent) Sabunji, Masa‘da: 1878–1911 Sabunji, Taqla Yazbek (Umm Yusif): 1862–72 Salibi, Shahina: 1889–95 Salibi, Shams: 1884–1905 Salibi, Umm Khalil: 1893–1901

Salibi, Umm Sulayman: 1903 Sarkis, ‘Aziza Sabunji: 1875–85 Sarkis, Maryam Nahas: 1863–4 Saydawi, Hilana: 1899–1900, 1910–13 Sellum, Athena: 1901–2 Semaan, Rahil Khalil: 1872–4, 1878–9 Shabshab, Farida: 1901 Shabub, ‘Afifa: 1908–25 Shahada, Farida: 1890–1 Shahada, Shams: 1880–1911 Shemmur, Halib: 1885–8 Shoresh, Rujina: 1907 Syougne, Maryam (d. 1894): 1867–94 (intermittent) Tabet, Julia (later Azeeze): 1878–91 Twiny, Zarifa: 1887–1909 Zarub, Sa‘da: 1901–2

Biblewomen Reported Without Surnames Hunneh: 1888 Maryam: 1871, 1878 (Zahle) Mussurrah: 1865 (Ashrafiyya) Umm ‘Aziz: 1878–83 (Damascus) Umm Brahim: 1872–82 (Maalaka) Umm Ibrahim: 1892 (Beirut, likely Umm Ibrahim Khudder)

Umm Isbir: 1875–83 (intermittent, Beirut and Baalbek) Umm Jibran: 1862, 1874 (Beirut) Umm Khalil: 1872–83 (Maalaka), 1884–92 (Beirut, likely Umm Khalil Salibi) Umm Layla: 1907–9 (Kana) Umm Musa: 1903 (Dibble)

APPENDIX E STATISTICAL COMPARISON: BIBLEWOMEN OF THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN MISSIONS

Years

BSM Biblewomen

American Mission Biblewomen

1861

Nakhle al-Reus: Beirut

1862

Taqla Sabunji: Beirut Nakhle al-Reus: Beirut

1863

Taqla Sabunji: Beirut Maryam Sarkis: Beirut Nakhle al-Reus: Beirut and Hasbayya

1864

3

1865

Taqla Sabunji: Beirut Nakhle al-Reus: Hasbayya Mussurrah: Ashrafiyya

1866

3

1867

6 Taqla Sabunji: Beirut Maryam Syougne: Msaytbeh (Beirut) Nijma ‘Atiq: Mukhtara Umm Shakir Dabaghi: Hasbayya Maryam Mardu: Damascus Taqla Hocker: Damascus

1868

7

358

appendi x e     |  359 Years

BSM Biblewomen

American Mission Biblewomen

1869

7 reported, including: Taqla Sabunji: Beirut Nijma ‘Atiq: Beirut Umm Shakir Dabaghi: Beirut Maryam Mardu: Damascus Taqla Hocker: Damascus

1871

Taqla Sabunji: Beirut Umm Shakir Dabaghi: Beirut Maryam Mardu: Damascus Taqla Hocker: Damascus Maryam Franz: Damascus Maryam Syougne: Hasbayya Umm Salim Musawwir: Zahle Maryam: Zahle 1 unnamed: al-Sayfeh 1 unnamed: Tyre

1872

10

Maryam al-Hajj: Beirut station 1 unnamed Biblewoman: ‘Alma

1873

10

1 unnamed Biblewoman

1874

10

1875

11

1876

9

1877

11

Luciya al-Saigh: Wadi Shahrur Mahiba Mishriq Haddad: Hums

1878

17

Mahiba Mishriq Haddad: Hums

1879

17

Umm Mitry: Hums

1880

19

1881

20

1882

17

1883

17

1885

23

1886

23

1 unnamed: Sidon

1887

23

Mahiba Mishriq Haddad: Batrun 1 unnamed: Sidon

1888

22

1889

23

1890–1

24

1892

23

1 unnamed: Tripoli

360  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Years

BSM Biblewomen

American Mission Biblewomen

1893

21

1894

18

Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut (with Mary Eddy)

1895

20

Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut 1 unnamed: Sidon

1896

19

Khushfa al-Yaziji: Tripoli Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Helloun (with Mary Eddy) 1 unnamed: Sidon

1897

19

Khushfa al-Yaziji: Tripoli Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut station

1898

21

Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Zamurrad Faris: Tripoli

1899

20

Liza Tu‘ma a: Beirut Durra Ishaq: Tripoli 1 unnamed: ‘Abay

1900

20

Istir Mishriq Haddad: ‘Abay Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Durra Ishaq: Tripoli 1 unnamed: Sidon

1901

23

Istir Mishriq Haddad: ‘Abay Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Durra Ishaq: Tripoli 1 unnamed: Sidon

1902

21

Istir Mishriq Haddad: ‘Abay Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Zamurrad Faris: Tripoli 1 unnamed: Sidon

1903

19

Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Zamurrad Faris: Tripoli 1 unnamed: Lebanon

1904

15

Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Zamurrad Faris: Tripoli 1 unnamed: Lebanon

1905

16

Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Zamurrad Faris: Tripoli 2 unnamed: Lebanon, Sidon

1906

14

Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Zamurrad Faris: Tripoli 2 unnamed: Lebanon, Sidon

appendi x e     |  361 Years

BSM Biblewomen

American Mission Biblewomen

1907

15

Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Zamurrad Faris: Tripoli

1908–09

14

Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Khushfa al-Yaziji: Tripoli

1910

12

Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Katrine al-Shidyaq: Tripoli

1911

11

Liza Tu‘ma: Beirut Khushfa al-Yaziji: Tripoli

1912

10

Khushfa al-Yaziji: Tripoli

1913

11

Khushfa al-Yaziji: Tripoli

1914

9

Khushfa al-Yaziji: Tripoli

1915–16

BSM missionaries were expelled during the First World War

Khushfa al-Yaziji: Tripoli

APPENDIX F PUBLICATIONS OF SYRIAN WOMEN AT THE AMERICAN MISSION PRESS, BEIRUT

‘Abbud, ‘Aziza, “Ta’thir al-Musiqa,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 10 (March 8, 1886), 73–4. ‘Abbud, ‘Aziza, “al-Qudwa al-Hasana,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 9 (March 2, 1889), 66–7. ‘Atiya, Farida, “al-Hidhr wa-l-Intibah,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 6 (February 1, 1888), 41–3. ‘Atiya, Farida, “Jam‘iyyat al-Sayyidat al-Na’ilat al-Shihada min al-Madrasa al-Amirkiyya al-‘Ulya fi Tarabulus,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (May 26, 1888), 163. ‘Atiya, Farida (trans.), “Khutbat al-Duktur Talmij li-Nisa’ Amirka,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (November 17, 1888), 321–3. ‘Atiya, Farida (trans.), “Khutbat al-Duktur Talmij li-Nisa’ Amirka,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (November 24, 1888), 369–71. ‘Atiya, Farida (trans.), “Tarjamat Khitab al-Duktur Talmij al-Thani li-Nisa’ Amirka,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (December 8, 1888), 385–7. ‘Atiya, Farida (trans.), “Tarjamat Khitab al-Duktur Talmij al-Thani li-Nisa’ Amirka,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (December 15, 1888), 392–5. ‘Atiya, Farida, Riwayat Bahjat al-Mukhaddarat fi Fawa’id ‘Ilm al-Banat, 1893/1909. ‘Atiya, Marta, “Ihtifal,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2034 (January 19, 1905), 47. Badr, Salma, “Muntakhabat li-Jam‘iyyat al-Ijtihad al-Ruhi: al-Sabr,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1895 (June 21, 1900), 205. Barakat, Labiba, “Tafdil al-Yad ‘ala Baqiyyat Alat al-Hawas,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (1883), 125–6. Barudi, Hilana, al-Haqa’iq al-Jismiyya wa-l-Daqa’iq al-Sihiyya, 1894. al-Bustani, Alice, “Ihtifal Tidhkar: Khutba,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1475 (May 5, 1894), 137–8. Daghir, Labiba, “Ihtifalat: Madrasat al-Binat al-Amirkiyya fi-l-Ladhiqiyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 30 (July 28, 1888), 234.

362

appendi x f     |  363 Daghir, Labiba, “Jami‘yyat ‘al-Sharita’ al-Bayda’ fi Wilayat Amirka al-Mutahida,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 14 (April 7, 1889), 107–8. Ghabriyl, Hilana Tuma, “Jami‘yyat Ibnat Sahyun fi Sayda,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1849 (July 4, 1901), 218. Gharab, Zahiya, “Ihtifal,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1843 (May 23, 1901), 168. Gharab, Zahiya, “Yubil Fiddi,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1843 (May 23, 1901), 168–9. Haji, Hilana, “Ihtifal al-Jam‘iyya al-Khayriyya al-Injiliyya al-Tarabulusiyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1894 (May 15, 1902), 173–4. Haji, Hilana, “Ihtifal al-Madrasa al-Amirkaniyya fi Tarabulus,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1894 (May 15, 1902), 173–4. Khuri (al-Maqdisi), Amina, “Ihtifal wa-Wada‘,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1486 (July 21, 1894), 225. Khuri (al-Maqdisi), Amina, “Jam‘iyyat al-Ijtihad al-Masihi fi Tarabulus al-Sham,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1783 (March 29, 1900), 109. Khuri (al-Maqdisi), Amina, Hayat arba‘a min shahirat al-nisa’, 1926. Khuri, Christine, [Untitled], al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2551 (December 1, 1915), 187. Kurani, Hanna, al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id, 1891. Kurani, Hanna (trans.), al-Hattab wa Kalbuhu Barud, 1891. Kurani, Hanna (trans.), Faris wa Himaruhu, 1892. Kurani, Hanna (trans.), Qissat Zuqaq al-Miqla, 1892. Lattuf, Katrina Mikhail Ibrahim, “Ihtifal,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1327 (July 3, 1891), 239. Mariya, Maryana, “al-Ta’rikh wa-Fa’idatuhu,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 20 (May 12, 1884), 158–9. Mas‘ud, Rahil, “al-Ghiyra al-Nisa’iyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2459 (March 14, 1913), 87. Sa‘da, Farida, “Mas’altan yutalib haluha bi-l-khutayin,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 13 (March 30, 1888), 102. al-Salibi, Sara, “Bhamdun,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2089 (February 8, 1906), 94. Sarkis, Istir, “Ihtifal Jam‘iyyat al-Ijtihad al-Masihi fi Tarabulus,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1903 (July 17, 1902), 262. Sarkis, Istir, “Wafat Fadila,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1920 (November 20, 1902), 444. Sarkis, Maryam, “Tidhkar: Milad al-Sayyida Elizabeth Bowen Thompson Mu’assisat al-Madaris al-Suriyya al-Inkliziyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 15 (April 7, 1884), 115. Shakir, Rutiba, “Wafat al-Fadila Miss Jacombs al-Inkliziyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1903 (July 10, 1902), 258. Shukri, Rujina, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (1885): 82–3. Shukri, Rujina, “al-Makatib wa-Luzumuha,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 16 (April 20, 1888), 121–3. Shukri, Rujina, “al-Tarbiya al-Hasana,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (1899): 387–90. Tannus, Salma, “Khitab,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (1887): 185–7. Tu‘ma, Julia, “Nisbat al-Muta‘allima ila al-Watan,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2059 (July 13, 1905), 442–4. Zakka, Maryam, “al-Jidd wa-l-Ijtihad,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (August 27, 1887): 373–4. Zakka, Maryam, “al-Amana,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 16 (April 20, 1888), 315–16. Zakka, Maryam, “Madrasat al-Sibyan al-‘Ulya fi Sayda,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (July 28, 1888), 234–5. Zakka, Maryam, “al-Jam‘iyyat,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 1895 (June 21, 1900), 201–3. Zakka, Maryam, “Tadshin Kanisat Sayda al-Injiliyya,” al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (1910), 365. Zakka, Maryam, [Untitled], al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya 2551 (December 1, 1915), 184.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Libraries and Archival Sources American University of Beirut, Jafet Library Archives and Special Collections, Beirut. Andover-Harvard Theological Library Special Collections, Boston. British Library, London. Centre for Muslim–Christian Studies, Oxford (CMCS). Durham University Library Special Collections, Durham. Orient-Institute, Beirut. Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (PHS). Princeton Theological Seminary Library, Special Collections, Princeton. Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton. National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Near East School of Theology Special Collections, Beirut (NEST). Record Book of the Evangelical Church in Damascus. Record Books of the National Evangelical Church of Beirut. Reformed Church of America Archives, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Sijillat al-Kanisa al-Injiliyya al-Wataniyya fi Bayrut, sijill raqm 9: Beirut (NECB 9). Sijillat al-Kanisa al-Injiliyya al-Wataniyya fi Bayrut, sijill raqm 6: ‘Abay (NECB 6). Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library, New Haven, Connecticut (YDS).

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bi bli og raphy     |  365 Arabic Journals Akhbar ‘an Intishar al-Injil fi Amakin Mukhtalifa (Beirut). al-Bashir (Beirut). al-Diya’ (Cairo). Fatat al-Sharq (Cairo). al-Hadiyya (Beirut). al-Hasna’ (Beirut). Kawkab Amirka/The American Star (New York). Lisan al-Hal (Beirut). al-Mar’a al-Jadida (Beirut). al-Muqtataf (Beirut/Cairo). al-Nashra al-Shahriyya (Beirut). al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (Beirut). English Periodicals and Reports Alumni Bulletin of the Near East School of Theology. Annual Reports of the Board of Foreign Missions of the PCUSA (BFM). Annual Reports of the British Syrian Mission (BSM). Annual Reports of the Woman’s Foreign Mission Society of the Presbyterian Church. Annual Reports of the Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Missions of the North-West. The Arabian Mission, Quarterly Letters. Bible Society Monthly Reporter. Bible Work at Home and Abroad. Biblewomen and Nurses. Catalogue of the Syrian Protestant College. The Church at Home and Abroad. Daughters of Syria (DoS). The Foreign Missionary. Illustrated Catalogue and Price List of Publications, Beirut: AMP, 1896 (AMP 1896). Light on Lebanon. The Missing Link. Missionary Herald. The Missionary Review of the World. The Moslem World. Syria News Quarterly. Under Syrian Skies.

366  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE The Woman’s Journal. Woman’s Work for Woman Primary English and Arabic Sources, Missionary Publications and Autobiographies A Historical Sketch of the Anglo-American Congregation, Beyrout, Syria (Beirut: American Mission Press, 1873). ‘Abbud, As’ad, and Jirjis al-Khuri, “Khutab fi Ta’rikh Majma‘ Mashikhat Sayda al-Injiliyya wa-Majma‘ Mashikhat Tarabulus al-Injiliyya” (Beirut: n.p., 1904). American Mission Press (AMP), Illustrated Catalogue and Price List of Publications (Beirut: AMP, 1896). American Mission Press, Price List of Publications of the American Press of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (Beirut: AMP, 1915). American Mission Press, Price List of Publications of the American Press (Beirut: AMP, 1921). American Mission Press, Centennial of the American Press of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., Beirut, Syria, 1822–1922 (Beirut: AMP, 1923). Amin, Qasim, “The Liberation of Women,” in The Liberation of Women and the New Woman: Two Documents in the History of Egyptian Feminism, trans. Samiha Sidhom Peterson (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2002), 1–106. Anthony, Susan B., “National-American Woman Suffrage Convention,” in Harriet Taylor Upton (ed.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Convention of the National-American Woman Suffrage Association held in Washington, DC, February 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20, 1894 (Washington, DC: n.p., 1894). Anthony, Susan B. and Ida Husted Harper (eds.), History of Women’s Suffrage, vol. 4 (Indianapolis, IN: Hollenbeck Press, 1902). ‘Atiya, Farida, Riwayat Bahjat al-Mukhaddarat fi Fawa’id ‘Ilm al-Banat (Beirut: American Mission Press, [1893] 1909). [‘Atiya, Yusif], Bayan al-haqq: Rad ‘ala Russaylat al-Mu‘allim Mishriq al-Gharzuzi (Beirut: [AMP], 1884). [‘Atiya, Yusif], Al-Bakura al-Shahiyya fi al-Riwayat al-Diniyya, 8th printing (Leipzig: [1893] n.d.). Atiyah, Edward, An Arab Tells His Story: A Study in Loyalties (London: John Murray, 1946). Barakat, Layyah A., A Message from Mount Lebanon (Philadelphia, PA: Sunday School Times Co., 1912).

bi bli og raphy     |  367 Barbour, Fannie C. W., “Madame Hanna K. Korany, the Most Famous Syrian Woman of the Day,” The Chautauquan 19(5) (1894): 614–17. Bell, Gertrude Lowthian, Syria: The Desert and the Sown (London: Heinemann, 1907). Bliss, Daniel, The Reminiscences of Daniel Bliss, ed. Frederick Jones Bliss (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1920). Brown, Arthur J., Report of a Visitation of the Syria Mission of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, March 20–April 26, 1902 (New York: Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 1902). al-Bustani, Butrus, Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq: Bakurat Suriyya (Beirut: AMP, 1860); republished in Yusuf Khuri (ed.), Qissat As‘ad al-Shidyaq: munazara wa-hiwar multahib hawla hurriyat al-damir (Beirut: Dar al-Hamra’, 1991). al-Bustani, Butrus, “Khitab fi ta‘lim al-nisa,’” Beirut: 1849, in Yusuf Qizma Khuri (ed.), A‘mal al-Jam‘iyya al-Suriyya li-l-‘Ulum wa-l-Funun, 1847–1852 (Beirut: Dar al-Hamra’, 1995), 45–53. Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Countries during the Years 1896–1897, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1898). Crawford, Archibald Stuart, Reminiscences of the Crawfords and the Wests in the Near East (Beirut: Librarie du Liban, n.d., c. 1976). Dana, Charles A., The American Press, Beirut, Syria: A Brief Review of 93 years of Service to More Than a Score of Denominational Missions (Beirut: AMP, 1915). Edwards, Jonathan, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” in Mr. Edward’s Sermon on the Danger of the Unconverted (Boston, MA: S. Kneeland & T. Green, 1741). Evangelical Society of Beirut, A‘mal Jam‘iyyat Bayrut al-Injiliyya ‘an Sanat 1862 (Beirut: n.p., 1863). al-Hilu, Nassim, Sirati Mundhu Hadathati: wa-Hiyya Mudhakkirat Nassim al-Hilu (Beirut: The Torch Library, 1950). al-Hilu, Nassim, Mudhakkirat al-Mu‘allim Nassim al-Hilu, 1867–1951: Awwal Ra’is ‘Arabi li-l-Madrasa al-Amirkiyya fi Sayda, Hamil Wisam al-Istihqaq al-Lubnani, ed. Adnan Badr al-Hilu (Damascus: Dar Kanaan li-l-Darasat wa-l-Nashar, 2010). al-Hurani, Ibrahim, al-Haqq al-Yaqin fi-l-Radd ‘ala Butl Darwin (Beirut: AMP 1886). al-Hurani, Ibrahim, Manahij al-Hukama’ fi Nafi al-Nushu’ wa-l-Irtiqa’ (Beirut: AMP, 1886).

368  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE al-Hurani, Ibrahim, al-Ruqum, wa-hiya Silsilat Maqalat li-Nasij Burdiha al-Marhum al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani (Beirut: AMP, 1936). Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). Jessup, Henry Harris, The Women of the Arabs (New York: Dodd & Mead, 1873). Jessup, Henry Harris, The Mohammedan Missionary Problem (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1879). Jessup, Henry Harris, The Setting of the Crescent and the Rising of the Cross or Kamil Abdul Messiah: A Syrian Convert from Islam to Christianity (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1898). Jessup, Henry Harris, “Letter Forwarded by the American Missionaries of Beyrout, Lebanon, Tripoli, Sidon, etc., to the Evangelical Native Church of Beyrout; and the answer of the church to it” (Beirut, February 28, 1898). Jessup, Henry Harris, “Introductory Paper,” in S. M. Zwemer, E. M. Wherry and James L. Barton (eds.), The Mohammedan World of To-day, Being Papers Read at the First Missionary Conference on behalf of the Mohammedan World held at Cairo April 4th–9th, 1906 (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1906), 11–20. Jessup, Henry Harris, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vols. 1 & 2 (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1910). Jessup, Henry and Thomas Laurie (eds.), A Brief Chronicle of the Syria Mission 1819–1870 (Beirut: AMP, 1909). Joint Committee on the Survey of Christian Literature for Moslems, Christian Literature in Moslem Lands: A Study of the Activities of the Moslem and Christian Press in All Mohammedan Countries (New York: George Doran, 1923). Kassab, Salim, “Ta’thir al-Walida,” al-Jinan 16 (1885), 138–42, 182–3. Kassab, Salim, Kitab al-Durra al-Farida fi al-Durus al-Mufida (Beirut: al-Matba‘a al-Adabiyya, 1889). Kassab, Salim, “al-Mar’a,” Lisan al-Hal 1653 (July 23, 1894), 2. Kassab, Salim, “al-Mar’a,” Lisan al-Hal 1655 (July 25, 1894), 3–4. Kassab, Salim, “Our Inspector’s Story,” in H. B. Macartney (ed.), Two Stories from the Land of Promise (London: British Syrian Mission, 1906). Khalidi, Anbara Salam, Memoirs of an Early Arab Feminist: The Life and Activism of Anbara Salam Khalidi, trans. Tarif Khalidi (London: Pluto Press, 2013). Korany, Hanna K., “The Glory of Womanhood,” in Mary Kavanaugh Oldham Eagle (ed.), The Congress of Women: Held in the Woman’s Building, World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, U.S.A, 1893 (Chicago, IL: Monarch Book Co., 1894) 359–60.

bi bli og raphy     |  369 Korany, Hanna K., “The Position of Women in Syria,” in May Wright Sewall (ed.), The World’s Congress of Representative Women: A Historical Résumé for Popular Circulation of the World’s Congress of Representative Women, vol. 2 (Chicago, IL: Rand, McNally, 1894), 773–7. Kurani, Hanna, al-Akhlaq wa-l-‘Awa’id (Beirut: AMP, 1891). Kurani, Hanna (trans.), al-Hattab wa Kalbuhu Barud (Beirut: AMP, 1891). Kurani, Hanna (trans.), Faris wa Himaruhu (Beirut: AMP, 1892). Kurani, Hanna (trans.), Qissat Zuqaq al-Miqla (Beirut: AMP, 1892). Macartney, H. B., “Our Visitor’s Story,” in H. B. Macartney (ed.), Two Stories from the Land of Promise (London: British Syrian Mission, 1906). Maitland-Kirwan, J. D., Sunrise in Syria: A Short History of the British Syrian Mission, from 1860 to 1930 (London: British Syrian Mission, 1930). Makdisi, Jean Said, Teta, Mother, and Me: An Arab Woman’s Memoir (London: Saqi, 2005). Mishaqa, Mikhail, Dalil ila Ta‘at al-Injil (Beirut: AMP, 1887). Mott, John R., Conferences of Christian Workers among Moslems, 1924: A Brief Account of the Conferences Together with their Findings and Lists of Members (New York: International Missionary Council, 1924). Muir, William (trans.), The Apology of Al Kindy, Written at the court of al Mamun in Defense of Christianity against Islam, 2nd edn (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1887). Muir, William (trans.), Sweet First-Fruits: A Tale of the Nineteenth Century on the Truth and Virtue of the Christian Religion (London: Religious Tract Society, 1893). Muir, William (trans.), The Beacon of Truth, or Testimony of the Coran to the Truth of the Christian Religion (London: Religious Tract Society, 1894). Muir, William (trans.), The Torch of Guidance to the Mystery of Redemption (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1900). Nawfal, Nawfal Ni‘matullah, Kitab Sawsanat Sulayman fi Usul al-‘Aqa’id wa-l-Adiyan (Beirut: AMP, 1876). Nelson, William S., Habeeb the Beloved: A Tale of Life in Modern Syria (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1913). One Hundred Syrian Pictures, Illustrating the Work of the British Syrian Mission (London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 1903). Presbyterian Church in the USA, The Form of Government, the Discipline, and the Directory for Worship of the Presbyterian Church in the USA (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1841).

370  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Rice, W. A., Crusaders of the Twentieth Century, or the Christian Missionary and the Muslim: An Introduction to Work among Muhammadans (London: Church Missionary Society, 1910). Rihbany, Abraham Mitrie, A Far Journey (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1914). Sanderson, Marjorie Allen, A Syrian Mosaic (Pittsburgh, PA: Board of Education and Publication of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, 1976). Scott, Francis E., Dare and Persevere: The Story of One Hundred Years of Evangelism in Syria and Lebanon, from 1860 to 1960 (London: Lebanon Evangelical Mission/ Camelot Press, 1960). Sewall, May Wright (ed.), The World’s Congress of Representative Women: A Historical Résumé for Popular Circulation of the World’s Congress of Representative Women (Chicago, IL: Rand, McNally, 1893). Sherwood, M. (ed.), Memoirs of Rev. David Brainerd: Missionary to the Indians of North America. Based on the Life of Brainerd Prepared by Jonathan Edwards, D.D., and Afterwards Revised and Enlarged by Sereno E. Dwight, D.D. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884). Smith, Susette H., The Daughters of Syria: A Narrative of Efforts, by the Late Mrs. Bowen Thompson, for the Evangelization of Syrian Females, ed. H. B. Tristram, 2nd edn (London: Seeley, Jackson & Halliday, 1872). Speer, Robert E., Presbyterian Foreign Missions: An Account of the Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1901). Swan, George, “Lacked ye Anything?” A Brief Story of the Egypt General Mission, rev. edn (London: Egypt General Mission, 1932). al-Tannir, Muhammad Tahir, Al-‘Aqa’id al-Wathaniyya fi al-Diyana al-Nasraniyya, ed. and expanded by Muhammad Sharqawi ([Beirut, 1912] Cairo, 1993). The Church in the Mission Field: Report of Commission II, World Missionary Conference, 1910 (Edinburgh and New York: Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier and Fleming H. Revell, 1910). Upton, Harriet Taylor (ed.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Convention of the National-American Woman Suffrage Association held in Washington, D C, February 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20, 1894 (Washington, DC: n.p., 1894). Van Dyck, Cornelius, Kashf al-Abatil fi ‘Ibadat al-Suwar wa-l-Tamathil (Beirut: AMP, [1856] 1889). Wherry, E. M., C. G. Mylrea and S. M. Zwemer (eds.), Lucknow, 1911: Being Papers

bi bli og raphy     |  371 Read and Discussions on the Training of Missionaries and Literature for Muslims at the General Conference on Missions to Muslims held at Lucknow, Jan. 23–28, 1911 (London: Christian Literature Society for India, 1911). Willard, Francis E., Helen M. Winslow and Sallie Elizabeth Joy White, Occupations for Women: A Book of Practical Suggestions for the Material Advancement, the Mental and Physical Development, and the Moral and Spiritual Uplift of Women (New York: Cooper Union, 1897). Zaydan, Yusif, Hayati bayn al-Sharq wa-l-Gharb (Beirut: n.p., 1971). Secondary Sources Abdulrazzak, Patel, The Arab Nahda: The Making of the Intellectual and Humanist Movement (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013). Abou Rjaili, Khalil, “Educating the Nation: The Role of Education in Butrus alBustani’s Thought,” in Adel Beshara (ed.), Butrus al-Bustani: Spirit of the Age (Melbourne: IPhoenix Publishing, 2014), 90–112. Abou-Hodeib, Toufoul, A Taste for Home: The Modern Middle Class in Ottoman Beirut (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017). Abu-Ghazaleh, Adnan, American Missions in Syria: A Study of American Missionary Contributions to Arab Nationalism in 19th-Century Syria (Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books, 1990). Abu-Manneh, Butrus. “The Christians between Ottomanism and Syrian Nationalism: The Ideas of Butrus al-Bustani,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 11(3) (1980): 287–304. Abunnasr, Maria B., “The Making of Ras Beirut: A Landscape of Memory for Narratives of Exceptionalism, 1870–1975,” PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts, 2013. Ahmed, Leila, Women and Gender in Islam (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992). Akarli, Engin Deniz, The Long Peace: Ottoman Lebanon, 1861–1920 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993). Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. edn (London: Verso, 2006). Anderson, Betty S., The American University of Beirut: Arab Nationalism and Liberal Education (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2011). “Anglo-American Cemetery Directory,” Anglo-American Cemetery Beirut, Lebanon, available at: http://anglo-americancemeterybeirut.blogspot.com/p/directory. html, last accessed June 30, 2018.

372  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Antonius, George, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement (Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, 1939). Ashour, Radwa, Ferial J. Ghazoul and Hasna Reda-Mekdashi (eds.), Arab Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide, 1873–1999, trans. Mandy McClure (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2008). Auji, Hala, “Between Script and Print: Exploring Publications of the American Syria Mission and the Nascent Press in the Arab World, 1834–1860,” PhD dissertation, Binghamton University, State University of New York, 2013. Auji, Hala, Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (Leiden: Brill, 2016). Ayalon, Ami, The Press in the Arab Middle East: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Ayalon, Ami, Reading Palestine: Printing and Literacy, 1900–1948 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2004). Ayalon, Ami, “Private Publishing in the Nahda,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 40(4) (2008): 561–77. Ayalon, Ami, The Arabic Print Revolution: Cultural Production and Mass Readership (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Badr, Habib, “Mission to ‘Nominal Christians’: The Policy and Practice of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and its Missionaries Concerning Eastern Churches which led to the Organization of a Protestant Church in Beirut (1819–1848),” PhD dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1992. Badr, Habib, “The Protestant Evangelical Community in the Middle East: Impact on Cultural and Societal Developments,” International Review of Mission 89(352) (2000): 60–9. Badr, Habib, “American Protestant Missionary Beginnings in Beirut and Istanbul: Policy, Politics, Practice, and Response,” in Heleen Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 211–39. Bailey, Betty Jane and J. Martin Bailey, Who Are the Christians in the Middle East? 2nd edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010). Bandak, Andreas, “Of Refrains and Rhythms in Contemporary Damascus: Urban Space and Christian–Muslim Coexistence,” Current Anthropology 55(S10) (2014): S248–S261. Baron, Beth, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994).

bi bli og raphy     |  373 Baron, Beth, The Orphan Scandal: Christian Missionaries and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014). Barrett, David B., George Thomas Kurian and Todd M. Johnson (eds.), World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Bauman, Chad M., “Redeeming Indian ‘Christian’ Womanhood? Missionaries, Dalits, and Agency in Colonial India,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 24(2) (2008): 5–27. Beaver, R. Pierce, To Advance the Gospel: Selections from the Writings of Rufus Anderson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967). Beaver, R. Pierce, American Protestant Women in World Mission: History of the First Feminist Movement in North America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980). Becker, Adam H., Revival and Awakening: American Evangelical Missionaries in Iran and the Origins of Assyrian Nationalism (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015). Bellofatto, Gina A. and Todd M. Johnson, “Key Findings of Christianity in Its Global Context, 1970–2020,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 37(3) (2013): 157–64. Boopalan, S. John, “Harmony, Polyphony, Cacophony: Voices of Dissent and Unfamiliar Vocabulary,” in Peniel Jesudason Rufus Rajkumar, Joseph Prabhakar Dayam and I. P. Asheervadham (eds.), Mission At and From the Margins: Patterns, Protagonists and Perspectives (Oxford: Regnum, 2014), 10–20. Booth, Marilyn, May Her Likes be Multiplied: Biography and Gender Politics in Egypt (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001). Booth, Marilyn, “‘She Herself Was the Ultimate Rule’: Arabic Biographies of Missionary Teachers and their Pupils,” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 13(4) (2002): 427–48. Booth, Marilyn, Classes of Ladies of Cloistered Spaces: Writing Feminist History through Biography in Fin-de-siècle Egypt (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2015). Boyar, Ebru, “The Press and the Palace: The Two-Way Relationship between Abdülhamid II and the Press, 1876–1908,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 69(3) (2006): 417–32. Brand, A. Tylor. “‘That They May Have Life’: Balancing Principles and Pragmatism in the Syrian Protestant College’s Humanitarian Relief Projects during the Famine of World War I,” in Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Lina Choueiri and Bilal

374  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Orfali (eds.), One Hundred and Fifty (Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 2016), 51–62. Brekus, Catherine A., “Female Preaching in Early Nineteenth-Century America,” Christian Reflection: A Series in Faith and Ethics (2008): 20–9. Cabrita, Joel and David Maxwell, “Introduction: Relocating World Christianity,” in Joel Cabrita, David Maxwell and Emma Wild-Wood (eds.), Relocating World Christianity: Interdisciplinary Studies and Local Expressions of the Christian Faith (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 23. Cabrita, Joel, David Maxwell and Emma Wild-Wood (eds.), Relocating World Christianity: Interdisciplinary Studies and Local Expressions of the Christian Faith (Leiden: Brill, 2017). Cioeta, Donald J., “Ottoman Censorship in Lebanon and Syria, 1876–1908,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10(2) (1979): 167–86. Cioeta, Donald J., “Thamarat al-Funun, Syria’s First Islamic Newspaper, 1875– 1908,” PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1979. Coe, Cynthia D., “Strangers and Natives: Gadamer, Colonial Discourse and the Politics of Understanding,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 35(8) (2009): 921–33. Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, vol. 1 (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1991). Commins, David Dean, Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). Copeland, Robert M., The Sesquicentennial History of Community Church, Beirut, Lebanon, 1823–1973 (Beirut: Community Church of Beirut, 1974). Cowan, J. M. (ed.), The Hans-Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edn (Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, 1994). Cox, Jeffrey, The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700 (New York: Routledge, 2008). Dallal, Ahmad, “Appropriating the Past: Twentieth-Century Reconstruction of PreModern Islamic Thought,” Islamic Law and Society 7(3) (2000): 325–58. Deuchar, Hannah Scott, “‘Nahda’: Mapping a Keyword in Cultural Discourse,” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 37 (2017): 50–84. Dimechkie, Hala Ramez, “Julia Tu‘mi Dimashqiyi and al-Mar’a al-Jadida: 1883– 1954,” MA thesis, American University of Beirut, 1998. DiNapoli, Mary Ann Haick, “The Syrian–Lebanese Community of South Ferry from its Origin to 1977,” in Kathleen Benson and Philip M. Kayal (eds.), A

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376  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Engelke, Matthew, “Past Pentecostalism: Notes on Rupture, Realignment and Everyday Life in Pentecostal and Africa Independent Churches,” Africa 80(2) (2010): 177–99. Fahrenthold, Stacy, “Transnational Modes and Media: The Syrian Press in the Mahjar and Emigrant Activism during World War I,” Mashriq & Mahjar 1(1) (2013): 30–54. Fakhuri, ‘Abd al-Latif, “Madaris al-Maqasid al-Islamiyya fi Bayrut: al-Lugha wa al-Din wa al-Huwiyya,” in Julia Hauser, Christine B. Lindner and Esther Möller (eds.), Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19–20th Centuries) (Würzburg: Ergon, 2016), 211–34. Fang-Lan, Chou, “Bible Women and the Development of Education in the Korean Church,” in Mark R. Mullins and Richard Fox Young (eds.), Perspectives on Christianity in Korea and Japan: The Gospel and Culture in East Asia (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995), 29–45. Farah, Mounir, “Syria Reborn: American Missionaries, Education, and the Literary Revival of the Nineteenth Century,” in Adel Beshara (ed.), Butrus al-Bustani: Spirit of the Age (Melbourne: IPhoenix Publishing, 2014), 39–48. Farhadian, Charles E. (ed.), Introducing World Christianity (Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell, 2012). Fleischmann, Ellen L., “‘Our Moslem Sisters’: Women of Greater Syria in the Eyes of American Protestant Missionary Women,” Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 9(3) (1998): 307–23. Fleischmann, Ellen L., “The Other ‘Awakening’: The Emergence of Women’s Movements in the Modern Middle East, 1900–1940,” in Margaret L. Meriwether and Judith E. Tucker (eds.), Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1999), 89–139. Fleischmann, Ellen L., “The Impact of American Protestant Missions in Lebanon on the Construction of Female Identity, c. 1860–1950,” Islam and Christian– Muslim Relations 13(4) (2002): 411–26. Fleischmann, Ellen L., “Evangelization or Education: American Protestant Missionaries, the American Board, and the Girls and Women of Syria (1830– 1910),” in Heleen Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 263–80. Fleischmann, Ellen L., “‘I Only Wish I Had a Home on this Globe’: Transnational Biography and Dr. Mary Eddy,” Journal of Women’s History 21(3) (2009): 108–30.

bi bli og raphy     |  377 Fleischmann, Ellen L., “‘Under an American Roof’: The Beginnings of the American Junior College for Women,” Arab Studies Journal 17(1) (2009): 62–84. Fleischmann, Ellen L., “Lost in Translation: Home Economics and the Sidon Girls’ School of Lebanon, c. 1924–1932,” Social Sciences and Mission 23(1) (2010): 32–62. Fleischmann, Ellen L., “Des filles d’Orient à l’école de la Mission américaine,” Qantara 31 (2011): 37–8. Fleischmann, Ellen L., “Living in an ‘Isle of Safety’: The Sidon Female Seminary in World War I,” Jerusalem Quarterly 56/7 (2013/14): 40–51. Foster, Zachary J., “The 1915 Locust Attack in Syria and Palestine and its Role in the Famine during the First World War,” Middle Eastern Studies 51(3) (2015): 1–25. Gaitskell, Deborah, “Hot Meetings and Hard Kraals: African Biblewomen in Transvaal Methodism, 1924–69,” Journal of Religion in Africa 30(3) (2000): 277–309. Gaitskell, Deborah and Wendy Urban-Mead (eds.), “Transnational Biblewomen: Asian and African Women in Christian Mission,” Women’s History Review, 17(SI 4) (2008): 489–500. Ghazal, Amal, “‘Illiberal’ Thought in the Liberal Age: Yusuf al-Nabhani (1849–1932), Dream-Stories and Sufi Polemics against the Modern Era,” in Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss (eds.), Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Nahda (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 223–7. Glass, Dagmar and Geoffrey Roper, “The Printing of Arabic Books in the Arab World,” in Eva-Maria Hanebutt-Benz, Dagmar Glass and Geoffrey Roper (eds.), Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution (Westhofen: WVAVerlag Skulima, 2002), 177–206. Grafton, David D., “A Critical Investigation into the Manuscripts of the ‘So-Called’ Van Dyck Bible,” Cairo Journal of Theology 2 (2015): 56–64. Grafton, David D., The Contested Origins of the 1865 Arabic Bible: Contributions to the Nineteenth Century Nahda (Leiden: Brill, 2016). Griffith, Sidney, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). Griffiths, Valarie, “Biblewomen from London to China: The Transnational Approach of a Female Mission Idea,” Women’s History Review 17(4) (2008): 521–41. Groiss, Arnon, “Communalism as a Factor in the rise of the Syria idea in the 1800s and the early 1900s,” in Adel Beshara (ed.), The Origins of Syrian Nationhood (New York: Routledge, 2011), 32–6.

378  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Gullvåg, Østein, “Social Theories for Researching Men and Masculinities,” in Jeff Hearn and R. W. Connell (eds.), Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), 15–34. Haidostian, Paul A., “Church Communion in the Middle East: An Armenian Evangelical Perspective,” Reformed World 56(2) (2006): 209–19. Hamzah, Dyala,. “From ‘ilm to Sihafa or the Politics of the Public Interest (maslaha): Muhammad Rashid Rida and his Journal al-Manar (1898–1935),” in Dyala Hamzah (ed.), The Making of the Arab Intellectual: Empire, Public Sphere and the Colonial Coordinates of Selfhood (New York: Routledge, 2013), 90–127. Hanna, Faith M., An American Mission: The Role of the American University of Beirut (Boston, MA: Alphabet Press, 1979). Hanssen, Jens, Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Hanssen, Jens, “Albert’s World: Historicism, Liberal Imperialism and the Struggle for Palestine,” in Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss (eds.), Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Nahda (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 62–92 Hanssen, Jens and Max Weiss, “Introduction: Language, Mind, Freedom and Time: The Modern Arab Intellectual Tradition in Four Words,” in Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss (eds.), Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Nahda (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1–37. Hanssen, Jens and Max Weiss, “The Means and Ends of the Liberal Experiment,” in Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss (eds.), Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Nahda (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 167–73. Harb, Sirène, “Orientalism and the Construction of American Identity in Abraham Mitrie Rihbany’s A Far Journey,” MELUS 33(3) (2008): 131–45. Harding, Susan, “Convicted by the Holy Spirit: The Rhetoric of Fundamental Baptist Conversion,” American Ethnologist 14(1) Frontiers of Evangelism (1987): 167–81. Harris, Paul William, Nothing but Christ: Rufus Anderson and the Ideology of Protestant Foreign Missions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Hauser, Julia, German Religious Women in Late Ottoman Beirut: Competing Missions (Leiden: Brill, 2015). Hauser, Julia, Christine B. Lindner and Esther Möller (eds.), Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19–20th Centuries) (Würzburg: Ergon, 2016).

bi bli og raphy     |  379 Hayek, Ghenwa, “Experimental Female Fictions; Or, The Brief Wondrous Life of the Nahda Sensation Story,” Middle Eastern Literatures 16(3) (2013): 249–65. Hays, Evan Lattea Rogers, “‘Their Object is to Strengthen the Moslem and Repress the Christian’: Henry Jessup and the Presbyterian Mission to Syria under Abdul Hamid II,” MA thesis, University of Maryland, 2008. Hefner, Robert W., “Introduction: World Building and the Rationality of Conversion,” in Robert W. Hefner (ed.), Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), 3–44. Hertig, Young Lee, “Without a Face: The Nineteenth-Century Bible Woman and Twentieth-Century Jeondosa,” in Dana L. Robert (ed.), Gospel Bearers, Gender Barriers: Missionary Women in the Twentieth Century (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002), 185–99. Herzstein, Rafael, “The Foundation of the Saint-Joseph University of Beirut: The Teaching of the Maronites by the Second Jesuit Mission in the Levant,” Middle Eastern Studies 43(5) (2007): 749–59. Heyberger, Bernard, Hindiyya: Mystique et Criminelle: 1720–1798 (Paris: Aubier, 2001). Heyberger, Bernard, Les Chrétiens du Proche-Orient: De la acompassion à la comprehension (Paris: Payot & Rivages, 2013). Heyberger, Bernard and Chantal Verdeil, “The Holy Land in Jesuit Eyes (Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries),” in Heleen Murre-van den Berg (ed.), New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Boston, MA: Brill, 2006), 19–42. Heyrman, Christine Leigh, American Apostles: When Evangelicals Entered the World of Islam (New York: Hill & Wang, 2015). Hill, Patricia R., The World Their Household: The American Women’s Foreign Mission Movement and Cultural Transformation, 1870–1920 (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1985). Hill, Peter, “Early Translations of English Fiction into Arabic: The Pilgrim’s Progress and Robinson Crusoe,” Journal of Semitic Studies 60(1) (2015): 177–212. Hindmarsh, Bruce, “Religious Conversion as Narrative and Autobiography,” in Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 344–68. Hofmeyr, Isabel, The Portable Bunyan: A Transnational History of The Pilgrim’s Progress (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).

380  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Holt, Elizabeth M., “Narrative and the Reading Public in 1870s Beirut,” Journal of Arabic Literature 40 (2009): 37–70. Holt, Elizabeth M., “Serialization and Silk: The Emergence of a Narrative Reading Public of Arabic in Beirut, 1870–1884,” PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 2009. Holt, Elizabeth M., Fictitious Capital: Silk, Cotton, and the Rise of the Arabic Novel (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017). Hopwood, Derek, Russian Presence in Syria and Palestine, 1843–1914: Church and Politics in the Near East (London: Clarendon, 1969). Hourani, Albert, The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Oxford: Macmillan, 1981). Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Hourani, Albert, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1991). Howell, Georgina, Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006). Hubers, John, I Am a Pilgrim, a Traveler, a Stranger: Exploring the Life and Mind of the First American Missionary to the Middle East, the Rev. Liny Fisk (1792–1825) (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2016). Hutchison, William R., Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987). Irvin, Dale T., “World Christianity: An Introduction,” Journal of World Christianity 1(1) (2008): 1–26. Jacobs, Linda K., Strangers in the West: The Syrian Colony of New York, 1880–1900 (New York: Kalimah Press, 2015). Jalabert, Henri, “P. Soleiman Ghanem (1849–1943),” in Jésuites au Proche-Orient (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1987), 222–3. James, William, The Variety of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (New York: Modern Library, [1902] 2002). Jandoora, John W., “Butrus al-Bustani: Ideas, Endeavors, and Influence,” PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1981. Jandoora, John W., “Butrus al-Bustani, Arab Consciousness, and Arabic Revival,” The Muslim World 74(2) (1984): 71–84. Jansen, Willy, “Conversion, Marriage, and Gender: Jordanians and the Christian Mission,” Swedish Missiological Themes/Svensk Missionstidskrift 92(1) (2004): 99–122.

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bi bli og raphy     |  385 Moosa, Matti, The Maronites in History (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986). Moreh, Shmuel, Modern Arabic Poetry, 1800–1970: The Development of its Forms and Themes under the Influence of Western Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1976). Moreh, Shmuel, Studies in Modern Arabic Poetry (Leiden: Brill, 1988). Murre-van den Berg, Heleen, “Nineteenth-Century Protestant Missions and Middle Eastern Women: An Overview,” in Inger Marie Okkenhaug and Ingvild Flaskerud (eds.), Gender, Religion and Change in the Middle East: Two Hundred Years of History (Oxford: Berg, 2005), 103–222. Murre-van den Berg, Heleen, “‘Simply by Giving to Them Macaroni …’ AntiRoman Catholic Polemics in Early Protestant Missions in the Middle East, 1820–1860,” in Martin Tamcke and Michael Marten (eds.), Christian Witness between Continuity and New Beginnings: Modern Historical Missions in the Middle East (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2006), 63–80. Murre-van den Berg, Heleen, “The Study of Western Missions in the Middle East (1820–1920): An Annotated Bibliography,” in Norbert Friedrich, Uwe Kaminsky and Roland Löffler (eds.), The Social Dimension of Christian Missions in the Middle East: Historical Studies of the 19th and 20th Centuries (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2010), 35–53. Murre-van den Berg, Heleen, Scribes and Scriptures: The Church of the East in the Eastern Ottoman Provinces (1500–1850) (Louvain: Peeters, 2015). Nasrallah, Samir, Al-Kanisa al-Injiliyya al-Wataniyya fi Hadath: Ahdath wa-Dhikrayat (Beirut: Private printing, 2007). Nock, A. D., Conversion: The Old and New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (New York: Oxford University Press, 1933). Orlin, Eric, et al. (eds.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions (New York: Routledge, 2016). Park Hyung Jin, “Journey of the Gospel: A Study in the Emergence of World Christianity and the Shift of Christian Historiography in the Last Half of the Twentieth Century,” PhD dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2009. Porterfield, Amanda, Mary Lyon and the Mount Holyoke Missionaries (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Powell, Avril A., “Maulana Rahmat Allah Kairanawi and Muslim–Christian Controversy in India in the mid-19th Century,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1 (1976): 42–63. Powell, Avril A., Muslims and Missionaries in Pre-Mutiny India (Richmond: Curzon, 1993).

386  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Rambo, Lewis R., Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993). Rambo, Lewis R. and Charles E. Farhadian, “Converting: Stages of Religious Change,” in Christopher Lamb and M. Darrol Bryant (eds.), Religious Conversion: Contemporary Practices and Controversies (New York: Cassell, 1999), 23–34. Rambo, Lewis R. and Charles E. Farhadian (eds.), “Introduction,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 1–22. Reeves-Ellington, Barbara, Domestic Frontiers: Gender, Reform, and American Interventions in the Ottoman Balkans and the Near East (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2013). Richter, Julius, A History of Protestant Missions in the Near East (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1910). Robbins, Joel, “On the Paradoxes of Global Pentecostalism and the Perils of Continuity Thinking,” Religion 33(3) (2003): 221–31. Robbins, Joel, “Continuity Thinking and the Problem of Christian Culture: Belief, Time, and the Anthropology of Christianity,” Current Anthropology 48(1) (2007): 5–38. Robert, Dana L., American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996). Robert, Dana L., “Shifting Southward: Global Christianity since 1945,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 24(2) (2000): 50–8. Rodgers, Daniel T., Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). Russell, Mona L., Creating the New Egyptian Woman: Consumerism, Education, and National Identity, 1863–1922 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Ryad, Umar, Islamic Reformism and Christianity: A Critical Reading of the Works of Muhammad Rashid Rida and His Associates (1898–1935) (Leiden: Brill, 2009). Sabra, George F., “The Badr Story,” unpublished manuscript, July 2002. Sabra, George F., Truth and Service: A History of the Near East School of Theology (Beirut: Antoine, 2009). Sadgrove, P. C., “Ibrahim al-Yaziji,” in Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey (eds.), Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, vol. 2 (New York: Routledge, 1998), 281. Şahin, Emrah, Faithful Encounters: Authorities and American Missionaries in the Ottoman Empire (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018).

bi bli og raphy     |  387 Said, Edward W., Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978). Salt, Jeremy, Imperialism, Evangelism, and the Ottoman Armenians 1878–1896 (London: Frank Cass, 1993). Samartha, S. J. (ed.), Living Faiths and the Ecumenical Movement (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1971). Sanneh, Lamin, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989). Schilcher, Linda, “The Famine of 1915–1918 in Greater Syria,” in J. P. Spagnolo (ed.), Problems of the Modern Middle East in Historical Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 229–58. Sebastian, Mrinalini, “Reading Archives from a Postcolonial Feminist Perspective: ‘Native’ Bible Women and the Missionary Ideal,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 19(1) (2003): 5–25. Sedra, Paul, From Mission to Modernity: Evangelicals, Reformers and Education in Nineteenth Century Egypt (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2011). Segal, Alan F., Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990). Sema’an, Wanis, Aliens at Home: A Socio-Religious Analysis of the Protestant Church in Lebanon and its Backgrounds (Beirut: Longman-Libraire du Liban, 1986). Semple, Rhonda Anne, Missionary Women: Gender, Professionalism and the Victorian Idea of Christian Mission (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2003). Seton, Rosemary, Western Daughters in Eastern Lands: British Missionary Women in Asia (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013). Sharkey, Heather J., “A New Crusade or an Old One?” ISIM Newsletter 12 (June 2003), 48–9. Sharkey, Heather J., “Arabic Antimissionary Treatises: Muslim Responses to Christian Evangelism in the Modern Middle East,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 28(3) (2004): 98–104. Sharkey, Heather J., American Evangelicals in Egypt: Missionary Encounters in an Age of Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). Sharkey, Heather J., “American Missionaries and the Middle East: A History Enmeshed,” in Mehemet Ali Doğan and Heather J. Sharkey (eds.), American Missionaries and the Middle East: Foundational Encounters (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2011), ix–xliii. Sharkey, Heather J., “Middle Eastern and North African Christianity: Persisting in the Lands of Islam,” in Charles E. Farhadian (ed.), Introducing World Christianity (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 7–20.

388  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Sharkey, Heather J., “Ambiguous Conversions: The Selective Adaptation of Religious Cultures in Colonial North Africa,” in Nadia Marzouki and Olivier Roy (eds.), Religious Conversions in the Mediterranean World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 77–97. Sharkey, Heather J., “Introduction: The Unexpected Consequences of Christian Missionary Encounters,” in Heather J. Sharkey (ed.), Cultural Conversions: Unexpected Consequences of Christian Missionary Encounters in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2013), 1–26. Sharkey, Heather J., A History of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Shaw, Joey, “Butrus al-Bustani and the American Missionaries: Towards a Harmony of the Understanding of the Advent of the Nahda,” in Adel Beshara (ed.), Butrus al-Bustani: Spirit of the Age (Melbourne: IPhoenix Publishing, 2014), 68–89. Sheehi, Stephen Paul, “Inscribing the Arab Self: Butrus al-Bustani and Paradigms of Subjective Reform,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 27(1) (2000): 7–24 Sheehi, Stephen Paul, Foundations of Modern Arab Identity (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004). Sheehi, Stephen Paul, “Arabic Literary-Scientific Journals: Precedence for Globalization and the Creation of Modernity,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 25(2) (2005): 438–48. Sheehi, Stephen Paul, “The Nahda After-Image,” Third Text 26(4) (2012): 401–14. Sheehi, Stephen Paul, “Towards a Critical Theory of al-Nahdah: Epistemology, Ideology and Capital,” Journal of Arabic Literature 43 (2012): 269–98. Shenk, Wilbert R., “Rufus Anderson and Henry Venn: A Special Relationship?” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 5(4) (1981): 168–72. Smalley, Martha, “Yale–Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity Membership Directory,” unpublished directory, January 5, 2016. Smith, Jane, “Christian Missionary Views of Islam in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Islam & Christian Muslim Relations 9(3) (1998): 357–73. Smith, Sarah Frances, ‘“She Moves the Hands that Move the World’: Antebellum Child-rearing: Images of Mother and Child in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals for Mothers,” PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, 2009. Smith, Ted A., The New Measures: A Theological History of Democratic Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Sommer, Dorothe, Freemasonry in the Ottoman Empire: A History of the Fraternity

bi bli og raphy     |  389 and its Influence in Syria and the Levant (London and New York: I. B. Tauris and Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Spagnolo, John (ed.), Problems of the Modern Middle East in Historical Perspective: Essays in Honor of Albert Hourani (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1992). Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, “Can the Subaltern Speak? Speculations on Widow Sacrifice,” Wedge 7/8 (1985): 120–30. Stanley, Brian, “Conversion to Christianity: The Colonization of the Mind?” International Review of Mission 92(366) (2006): 315–31. Strohmeier, Martin, “Muslim Education in the Vilayet of Beirut, 1880–1918,” in Caesar E. Farah (ed.), Decision Making and Change in the Ottoman Empire (Kirksville, MO/Lanham, MD: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1993), 215–32. Summerer, Karène Sanchez, “Linguistic Diversity and Ideologies among the Catholic Minority in Mandate Palestine: Fear of Confusion or a Powerful Tool?” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 43(2) (2016): 191–205. Tamimi, Azaam, “The Origins of Arab Secularism,” in John L. Esposito and Azzam Tamimi (eds.), Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 13–29. Taneti, James Elisha, Caste, Gender, and Christianity in Colonial India: Telugu Women in Mission (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). di Tarrazi, Philip, Ta’rikh al-Sihafa al-‘Arabiyya, vols. 1 and 2 (Beirut: al-Matba‘a al-Adabiyya, 1913/14). Tejirian, Eleanor H. and Reeva Spector Simon, Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of Christian Missions in the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). Thompson, Elizabeth, “Neither Conspiracy nor Hypocrisy: The Jesuits and the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon,” in Reeva S. Simon and Eleanor Harvey Tejirian (eds.), Altruism and Imperialism: Western Cultural and Religious Missions in the Middle East (New York: Middle East Institute of Columbia University, 2002), 66–87. Thorne, Susan, Congregational Missions and the Making of an Imperial Culture in Nineteenth-Century England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999). Tibawi, Abdul Latif, “The American Missionaries in Beirut and Butrus al-Bustani,” in Albert Hourani (ed.), Middle Eastern Affairs 3, St. Anthony’s Papers No. 16 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1963), 137–82. Tibawi, Abdul Latif, American Interests in Syria, 1800–1901: A Study of Educational, Literary and Religious Work (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966).

390  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Tibawi, Abdul Latif, “Some Misconceptions about the Nahda,” in Abdul Latif Tibawi (ed.), Arabic and Islamic Themes: Historical, Educational, and Literary Studies (London: Luzac, 1976), 304–14. Tibi, Bassam, Arab Nationalism: Between Islam and the Nation-State, 3rd edn (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997). Tjelle, Kristin Fjelde, Missionary Masculinity, 1870–1930: The Norwegian Missionaries in South-East Asia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Trexler, Melanie E., Evangelizing Lebanon: Baptists, Missions, and the Question of Cultures (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016). Trible, Phyllis, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1978). Turtle, Henry John, Quaker Service in the Middle East: With a History of Brummana High School, 1876–1975 (London: Friends Service Council, 1975). Valensi, Lucette, “Inter-Communal Relations and Changes in Religious Affiliation in the Middle East (Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries),” Comparative Studies in Society and History 39(2) (1997): 251–69. Van Sanne, Rima Nasrallah, “Adèle Jureidini Hajjar (1893–1971): The First Ordained Female Minister in Lebanon,” NEST Theological Review 27(2) (2006): 76–90. Verdeil, Chantal, “Between Rome and France, Intransigent and anti-Protestant Jesuits in the Orient: The Beginning of the Jesuits’ Mission in Syria, 1831– 1864,” in Martin Tamcke and Michael Marten (eds.), Christian Witness between Continuity and New Beginnings: Modern Historical Missions in the Middle East (Berlin: Lit, 2006), 23–32. Walls, Andrew F., A History of the Expansion of Christianity Reconsidered: The Legacy of George E. Day (New Haven, CT: Yale Divinity School Library, 1996). Walls, Andrew F., The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996). White, Benjamin Thomas, The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011). Witmer, Andrew, “Agency, Race, and Christianity in the Strange Career of Daniel Flickinger Wilberforce,” Church History 83(4) (2014): 884–923. Womack, Deanna Ferree, “Imperial Politics and Theological Practices: Comparative Transformations in Anglo-American and Russian Orthodox Missions to SyriaPalestine,” ARAM Periodical 25 (2013): 1–18. Womack, Deanna Ferree, “Conversion, Controversy, and Cultural Production:

bi bli og raphy     |  391 Syrian Protestants, American Missionaries, and the Arabic Press, ca. 1870– 1915,” PhD dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 2015. Womack, Deanna Ferree, “Contributions of Women in the Middle East,” in Mark Lamport (ed.), Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South, vol. 2 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 6–22. Womack, Deanna Ferree, “Medical Arts and the Healing of Souls: A Transnational Story of Tuberculosis Care in Early Twentieth-Century Syria and Lebanon,” Practical Matters Journal 11 (2018): 1–17. Womack, Deanna Ferree, “Syrian Christians and Arab-Islamic Identity: Expressions of Belonging in the Ottoman Empire and America,” Studies in World Christianity (forthcoming 2019). Womack, Deanna Ferree, “‘To Promote the Cause of Christ’s Kingdom’: International Student Associations and the ‘Revival’ of Middle Eastern Christianity,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture (forthcoming 2019). Womack, Deanna Ferree, “Yusif Dib ‘Atiyya,” in David Thomas and John Chesworth (eds.), Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History 1500–1900 (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). Womack, Deanna Ferree and Christine B. Lindner, “‘Pick up the Pearls of Knowledge and Adorn Ourselves with the Jewelry of Literature’: An Analysis of Three Arab Women Writers in al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya,” Living Stones Yearbook (2014): 125–57. Wood, Simon A., “Researching ‘The Scripture of the Other’: Niqula Ghabriyal’s Researches of the Mujtahids and Rashid Rida’s Rejoinder,” Comparative Islamic Studies 6(1/2) (2010): 181–216. Woodberry, J. Dudley, “Conversion in Islam,” in H. Newton Maloney and Samuel Southard (eds.), Handbook of Religious Conversion (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1992), 22–41. Woodberry, Robert D., “The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy,” American Political Science Review 106(2) (2012): 244–74. Wuthnow, Robert, “Taking Talk Seriously: Religious Discourse as Social Practice,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50(1) (2011): 1–21. Yaziji, Kamal, Al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani fi Fajr al-Nahda al-Haditha, 1844–1916 (Cairo: Jam‘at al-Duwal al-‘Arabiyya, 1961). Yaziji, Kamal, “Al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani, 1844–1916,” in Ruwwad Injiliyyun (Beirut: Christian Writers Fellowship, 1962), 77–102. Yaziji, Kamal, Al-Shaykh Ibrahim al-Hurani: ‘Asruhu, Hayatuhu, Adabuhu, waMukhtarat min Shi‘rihi wa-Abhathihi (Beirut: Maktaba Ra’is Bayrut, 1963).

392  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Young, Richard Fox, “Enabling Encounters: The Case of Nilakanth-Nehemiah Goreh, Brahmin Convert,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 29(1) (2005): 14–20. Young, Richard Fox, “East Asia,” in Hugh McLeod (ed.), The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 9: World Christianities, c. 1914–c. 2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 451. Young, Richard Fox and Jonathan A. Seitz (eds.), Asia in the Making of Christianity: Conversion, Agency, and Indigeneity, 1600s to the Present (Leiden: Brill, 2013). Zachs, Fruma, “Toward a Proto-Nationalist Concept of Syria? Revisiting the American Presbyterian Missionaries in the Nineteenth-Century Levant,” Die Velt des Islams 41(2) (2001): 145–73. Zachs, Fruma, Making of a Syrian Identity: Intellectuals and Merchants in NineteenthCentury Beirut (Leiden: Brill, 2005). Zachs, Fruma, “Subversive Voices of Daughters of the Nahda: Alice al-Bustani and Riwayat Sa’iba (1891),” Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 9 (2011): 332–57. Zachs, Fruma, “‘Under Eastern Eyes’: East on West in the Arabic Press of the Nahda Period,” Studia Islamica 106(1) (2011): 159–83. Zachs, Fruma, “Muhammad Jamil Bayhum and the Woman Question: Between Social and Political Rights,” Welt des Islams 53(1) (2013): 50–75. Zachs, Fruma, “Cross-Glocalization: Syrian Women Immigrants and the Founding of Women’s Magazines in Egypt,” Middle East Studies 50(3) (2014): 353–69. Zachs, Fruma, “Feminism for Men: A Note on Butrus al-Bustani’s Lecture on the Education of Women (1849),” in Adel Beshara (ed.), Butrus al-Bustani: Spirit of the Age (Melbourne: IPhoenix Publishing, 2014), 113–30. Zachs, Fruma and Sharon Halevi, “From Difa‘ al-Nisa’ to Mas’alat al-Nisa’ in Greater Syria: Readers and Writers Debate Women and their Rights, 1858–1900,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 41 (2009): 615–33. Zachs, Fruma and Sharon Halevi, ‘“The Little Kingdom over Which God made you Queen’: The Gendered Reorganization of a ‘Modern’ Arab Home in late Nineteenth-Century Beirut,” Hagar: Studies in Culture, Polity and Identities 10(2) (2013): 139–56. Zachs, Fruma and Sharon Halevi, Gendering Culture in Greater Syria (London: I. B. Tauris, 2015). Zeidan, Joseph T., Arab Women Novelists: The Formative Years and Beyond (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995).

bi bli og raphy     |  393 Zeuge-Buberl, Uta, “Die Mission des American Board in Syrien im 19. Jahrhundert: Implikationen eines transkulturellen Dialogs,” PhD dissertation, University of Vienna, 2014. Zeuge-Buberl, Uta, “‘I Have Left My Heart in Syria’: Cornelius Van Dyck and the American Syria Mission,” Cairo Journal of Theology 2 (2015): 20–8. Zeuge-Buberl, Uta, “Misinterpretations of a Missionary Policy? The American Syria Mission’s Conflict with Butrus al-Bustani and Yuhanna Wurtabat,” Theological Review 36 (2015): 23–43. Zeuge-Buberl, Uta, The Mission of the American Board in Syria: Implications of a Transcultural Dialogue, trans. Elizabeth Janik (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2017). al-Zirkili, Khayr al-Din, Al-A‘lam: Qamus Tarajim li-Ashhar al-Rijal wa-l-Nisa’ min al-‘Arab wa-l-Must‘aribin wa-l-Mustashriqin (Beirut: Dar al-‘Ilm li-l-Malayyin, 1979).

INDEX OF NAMES

‘Abbud, Salim, 107 Abcarius (family), 236, 354 Abcarius, John (Yuhanna Abkariyus), 231 ‘Abd al-‘Aziz I (Ottoman sultan), 141n ‘Abd al-Hamid II (Ottoman sultan), 11, 112, 136n, 256 dress codes under, 256 missionary writings about, 112 press censorship under, 111, 114, 135n, 137n Syrian Protestant writings about, 113–14, 156, 164, 176, 179 Tanzimat reforms and, 111–12 ‘Abd al-Karim, Mufid, 250–3, 272n ‘Abd al-Nur, Yusif, 231 ‘Abduh, Muhammad, 28, 90, 122, 124n ‘Abdullah, As‘ad see As‘ad ‘Abdullah al-Rasi al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din, 28, 124n Ahmed, Leila, 193n Amin, Qasim, 146 Anderson, Benedict, 90 Anderson, Rufus, 36, 41, 215, 222–3, 225, 262–3n Anthony, Susan B., 155 Antonius, George, 9, 87 Antun, Farah, 90, 121–2, 141n, 195n Araman (family), 236, 355 Araman, Lulu, 236

Araman, Michael, 231 Ashkar, Daud, 272–3n al-Asir, Yusif, 15n, 113 ‘Ata’, Khuzma, 148, 195n ‘Atiq, Nijma al-Ghazala (Umm As‘ad), 4, 12, 239, 285, 289, 291, 293, 318n ‘Atiya, ‘Alya’ ‘Azar, 287, 317n ‘Atiya, Farida, 4 , 11, 112, 114, 116, 143–6, 148, 150–3, 160–4, 172–3, 175–80, 182, 186–7, 190–1, 198n, 294, 334 ‘Atiya, Hadla, 152 ‘Atiya, Hannah Haddad, 304, 326n ‘Atiya, Ibrahim Nassif, 239, 317n ‘Atiya, Iskander Niqula, 80n, 326n ‘Atiya, Matta, 152, 198n ‘Atiya, Yusif Dib, 4, 99–103, 108, 112, 116–21, 140–1n, 152, 225, 262n, 292, 310, 328, 335 Atiyah, Edward, 118–19 Avierno, Alexandra, 147 Ayalon, Ami, 2, 88, 99, 108 Badr (family), 20n, 159 Badr, Anisa, 203n Badr, Antun Mikhail, 159, 203n Badr, Khalil, 203n Badr, Layla Haddad, 298, 304, 326n Badr, Melia, 178

394

i ndex of na mes     |  395 Badr, Munira see Munira Musa Badr, Salma Antun (Qiyami), 20n, 157–60, 181–2, 187–90, 195n, 275, 289, 292, 294, 304, 328 Badr, Yusif Mikhail, 20n, 159, 178, 210n, 226, 230, 234–5, 251, 264–5n, 298, 326n Bajjani, Jamila, 289 Barakat, Amin, 290, 319n Barakat, Hamda, 290–1, 319n Barakat, Julia Na‘mi (al-Hurani) see Julia alHurani Barakat, Labiba, 151 Barakat, Layyah al-Khazin, 30, 61–4, 67n, 162, 193n Barakat, Na‘mi, 129n Barakat, Sa‘da Yazbek Sabunji (Pinkerton), 290–1, 319n Barakat, Shahin, 319n Barakat, Shahina, 290, 319n Barakat, Umm Mansur, 319n Barakat, Yaqut Na‘mi (Sarruf ) see Yaqut Sarruf Barakat, Yusif, 290, 319n Baron, Beth, 7 Barudi, Bishara, 226 Barudi, Hilana, 98, 130n Baz, Jurji Niqula, 124n, 153 Bazergui, George, 159 Bazergui, Salma see Badr, Salma Bell, Gertrude Lothian, 153 Berbari, Masihiyya, 305–7 Berbari, Rizqullah, 92, 262n, 306 bin Husayn, Tahir, 114 Bird (family), 250–1 Bird, Ann Parker, 36, 271n Bird, Isaac, 36, 54, 79n, 271n Bird, Sarah, 65 Bird, William, 65, 271n Bliss, Daniel, 18n Brainerd, David, 34 Brown, Arthur Judson, 213–16, 219, 242, 244, 249–50, 252–8, 271n, 334 Brown, Charlotte, 241, 316n al-Bustani (family), 236, 245 al-Bustani, ‘Abdullah, 152 al-Bustani, Adelaide (Idlid), 148, 195n, 197n al-Bustani, Alice, 148, 151–3, 160, 171, 174–6, 195n, 197–8n, 213, 236, 354 al-Bustani, Butrus, 15n, 26–9, 37, 46–7, 51, 54, 62–3, 71–2n, 80n, 86–7, 112, 114–15, 126n, 128n, 138n, 151, 195n, 206n, 215, 224–5, 234–6, 238, 241, 316n, 327n Nahda and, 9–10, 26–8, 91

Ottomanism and, 29, 114 women’s advancement and, 146, 176, 208n al-Bustani, Louisa see Louisa al-Bustani Sarkis al-Bustani, Mirshid, 273n al-Bustani, Rahil ‘Ata’, 37, 151–2, 174, 208n al-Bustani, Salim, 28, 176, 209n Bustrus, Eveline, 147 Byerly, Robert, 42 Calhoun, Simeon, 240 Cantine, James, 55 Carabet, Dyonysius, 72n Copley, Elizabeth, 287 Cragg, Kenneth, 316n Crawford, John, 77n, 129n Crawford, Mary, 95, 129n Dabaghi, Shakir, 289 Dabaghi, Musa, 289 Dabaghi, Umm Shakir (Mart Musa), 4, 12, 289, 313n, 318–19n Daghir, Shakir, 250 Dale, Gerald, 251 Dana, Charles A., 80n, 85–6, 123n Darwin, Charles, 97–8 al-Dimashqiyya, Badr, 158, 203n al-Dimashqiyya, Julia see Julia Tu‘ma Doolittle, George, 251 Dumit, Jabir, 265n, 270n Eddy, Elizabeth Mills, 307 Eddy, Harriette Mollison see Harriette Hoskins Eddy, Mary Pierson, 158, 219, 261n, 271n, 299–301, 307, 322–4n Eddy, William Woodbridge, 92, 223, 226–7, 240, 244, 257, 262n, 266n, 271n, 283 Edwards, Jonathan, 33–4 Ellinwood, Francis F., 221 Engelke, Matthew, 32, 66, 179 Everett, Eliza, 64–5, 197n Fakhuri, Shukri, 188, 301 Farhadian, Charles, 30 Faris, Zamurrad, 297, 302 Fawwaz, Zaynab, 90, 147, 156, 178–80, 333 Fisk, Pliny, 3, 15n, 34–6, 71n Fleischmann, Ellen, 6, 149, 196n Ford, George Alfred, 241–2, 270n Ford, Mary T. Maxwell, 322n Freyer, Edward G., 124n Fullihan, David, 242

396  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Gairdner, William Temple, 117 Ghabriyal, Niqula, 92, 121 Ghanim, Sulayman, 4, 105–6, 108–9, 111, 134n Gharzuzi, Michael, 231 Gharzuzi, Mishriq, 99, 101–3, 108 al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid, 115 Glockler, Warren R., 124n Goodell, Abigail, 36 Goodell, William, 36, 71n Haddad, Abu Najim Mishriq, 323n, 325–6n Haddad, Hannah see Hannah Haddad ‘Atiya Haddad, Istir (Esther) Mishriq, 298, 304 Haddad, Layla see Layla Badr Haddad, Mahiba Mishriq (Umm Mishriq), 298, 304–5, 307, 318n, 323n, 325–6n Haddad, Murad, 253, 256 Haddad, Rosa Antun, 147–8, 195n al-Hajj, Maryam, 297–8 Hajjar, Adèle Jureidini, 212n al-Hakim, Salim, 226, 262–3n, 266n Hallock, Samuel, 124n Hamawi, Antun, 226 Harari, Sabat, 266n, 354 Harris, Elsie, 301, 324n Harris, Evan R., 316n Harris, Ira, 188, 301–4 Hashim, Labiba, 147, 153 Hazuri, Yacub, 273n Hekekian, Joseph, 7 al-Hilu, Arif Antonius, 52–3 al-Hilu, Hanna Satuf, 52–3 al-Hilu, Nassim, 10, 41, 42, 44–8, 52–3, 57–60, 62–5, 80n, 91, 99, 102, 131n, 134n, 163, 198n, 202n, 330 Hocker, Taqla, 287, 317n Hopkins, Samuel, 34 Hoskins, Franklin (Frank) Evans, 74n, 92, 214, 219–20, 230, 237, 244–5, 247, 251, 261n, 271n Hoskins, Harriette Mollison Eddy, 219–21, 261n Hourani, Albert, 9, 27–8, 68n, 87 Hourani, Fadlu ‘Issa, 68n Hunting, Bernice, 307–9 al-Hurani, Ibrahim ‘Issa, 4, 10, 87–8, 92–8, 104, 107–8, 111, 113, 122, 129–30n, 151, 182, 196–7n, 216, 231, 251–2, 256, 266n, 270n, 310, 331 al-Hurani, Julia Na‘mi Barakat, 129–30n, 196–7n

al-Hurani, Nasib, 266n Hurter, George C., 124n Ibn Khaldun, 114–15 Ibrahim, Mikhail, 266 Ishaq, Durra, 297, 302 ‘Itani, Kamil (‘Abd al-Masih), 10, 41–7, 49–52, 55–6, 60, 62–5, 75n, 79n, 113, 120 Jackson, Ellen, 197n James, William, 31 Jarwan, Luciya Shakir, 43 Jarwan, Saliba, 10, 41–4, 46–8, 51, 53, 56–8, 60, 62–5, 76n, 79–80n, 226, 330 Jessup, Henry Harris, 44, 48–52, 55, 79–80n, 92–3, 112–13, 116, 118–20, 124n, 140n, 202n, 214, 230, 232, 234–6, 238, 240–7, 251, 264n, 266–7n, 271n, 279, 282–3, 291, 315n Jessup, Samuel, 92, 124n, 244, 266n Jessup, Theodosia Davenport, 210n, 219, 261n, 266n, 296, 305, 307 Jessup, William, 271n Jibran, Khalil, 96 Jirjir, Yusif, 226 al-Jisr, Husayn, 120–1 Jumblatt, Na‘ifa, 291, 320n Karam, ‘Afifa, 147 Kasbani (family), 154, 156 Kasbani, Habib, 154, 199n Kasbani, Hanna see Hanna Kasbani Kurani Kasbani, Marta, 154, 199n Kassab, Fumiya, 77n Kassab, Najla, 212n Kassab, Salim, 4, 10, 41–9, 51–2, 57–8, 60, 62–5, 77n, 80–2n, 163, 213, 231, 237–9, 244, 249, 269–70n, 283, 330, 333 Khairallah, As‘ad, 251, 270–2n Khairallah, Fu’ad, 251–6 Khalidi, ‘Anbara Salam, 147 al-Khansa’, 146 Khater, Akram, 9, 17n Khazin, Luwis, 96 Khuri, Amin Fahd, 226 al-Khuri, Khalil, 92, 194n al-Kindi, ‘Abd al-Masih, 116, 118–19 King, Jonas, 36, 47, 50, 54, 71n, 132n Kohen, James, 273n Kurani, Amin, 154–5, 200n

i ndex of na mes     |  397 Kurani, Hanna Kasbani, 4, 11, 90, 98, 112–13, 148, 152, 154–7, 173–4, 176–80, 195n, 199–202n, 206n, 209–11n, 333 La Grange, Harriet, 59, 80n, 197n Latourette, Kenneth Scott, 4 Lewis, Edwin, 97 Lindner, Christine B., 6, 149, 195n, 218 Luther, Martin, 106–7 Macartney, H. B., 42, 75n, 81n, 238, 245, 267n Mackie, G. M., 266n Makarius, Maryam Nimr, 148, 196n, 211n Makarius, Shahin, 196n Makdisi, Jean Said, 178, 264n Makdisi, Ussama, 5, 26 Malik, Charles Habib, 68n al-Maqdisi, Jirjis al-Khuri, 270n March, Frederick, 59, 92, 95 Mardu, Maryam, 287–8, 317n Mariya, Maryana, 151 Marrash, Francis Fathallah, 97, 314n Marrash, Maryana, 97 Martyn, Henry, 117 Masarrah, Jerasimus, 103–8, 111 Mehmed II (Ottoman sultan), 179 Meyer, Birgit, 32 al-Mishalani, Faris, 270n al-Mishalani, Khalil, 270n, 354 Mishaqa, Mikhail, 95, 133n Mohanty, Chandra, 10 Mott, Augusta, 280–3, 286 Mott, John, 335 Mott, Mentor, 315n Mughabghab, Khalil, 226 Muhammad (Prophet) 86, 114–15, 117, 119, 146, 292 Muir, William, 113, 116–19 Musa, Munira Badr, 178, 209n Musawwir, Fida, 252, 256 Musawwir, Umm Salim, 285 Muyal, Esther Azhari, 18n, 147, 153, 179 al-Najjar, Shakir, 92, 128n Nasrallah, Nasrallah Tannus, 306 Nasrallah, Samir, 306 Nawfal, Nawfal Ni‘matullah, 112, 115–16, 138–9n Nelson, Elizabeth (Bessy), 219, 307 Nelson, William S., 219, 302, 304 Nimr, Faris, 28, 91, 97–8, 130n, 154 Nock, Arthur Darby, 31

Parsons, Levi, 3, 34–6 Pfander, Karl, 116–17, 119, 121 Pinkterton, Benjamin F., 319n Pinkerton, Sa‘da see Sa‘da Barakat Pond, Theodore, 223 Post, George, 240 Proctor, Louisa, 306 al-Qairanawi, Ramatullah, 121, 139n, 141n Qanawati, Antun, 237, 245–6, 249 Qiyami, Khattar, 159 Qiyami, Salma see Salma Badr Qiyami, Salwa, 159 Rambo, Lewis, 30–1, 39–40, 44, 47 Ranyard, Ellen, 276, 286, 299 al-Rasi, As‘ad ‘Abdullah, 226, 248, 251, 266n, 270n al-Rasi, Yuwakim Mas‘ud, 59, 106–8, 134n Rehan, Taqla, 287 al-Reus, Nakhle, 286, 293–4, 318n Rida, Muhammad Rashid, 28, 121–2, 124n, 141–2n al-Rihani, Amin, 96 Rihbany, Abraham Mitrie, 217, 223, 242 Robbins, Joel, 31–2 Rodgers, Daniel T., 7 Sabunji, Asma’, 291, 320n Sabunji, ‘Aziza see ‘Aziza Sarkis Sabunji, Louis, 126n Sabunji, Masa‘da, 291 Sabunji, Tannus, 290, 319n Sabunji, Taqla Yazbek (Umm Yusif ), 274–5, 279, 289–92, 304, 307, 311–12, 319–20n Sa‘d, Tanius, 226 Said, Edward, 7, 20n, 217, 260n Saigh, ‘Abdullah, 230, 234–5, 265n, 298, 354 Saigh, Luciya, 298, 354 al-Saigh, Mitri, 52–3 Salibi, Shams, 294 Salibi, Umm Khalil, 318n, 357 Sallum, Jabbur, 273n Sanneh, Lamin, 74n Sarkis, Amin, 264n, 266n, 354 Sarkis, ‘Aziza Sabunji, 291, 320n Sarkis, Fu’ad, 266n Sarkis, Ibrahim, 92, 127n Sarkis, Khalil Khattar, 4, 11, 91, 152, 213, 230, 233–6, 245, 247–9, 256, 264n, 266n, 268n, 320n, 354

398  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Sarkis, Louisa al-Bustani, 152, 213, 230, 233, 236, 245, 354 Sarkis, Maryam Jirjis al-Nahas, 150, 292, 320n, 343, 357 Sarkis, Nada, 264n Sarkis, Salim, 268n Sarkis, Salma, 264n Sarkis, Shahin Khattar, 320n Sarruf, Yaqub (Ya’qub) 28, 91, 97–8, 129–30n, 154, 197n Sarruf, Yaqut Na‘mi Barakat, 129–30n, 148, 197n, 201n, 211n, 314n Sedra, Paul, 6–7 Shadudi, As‘ad, 92 Shahada, Nur, 285 Shahada, Shams, 292 Shahada, Umm Khalil, 285 Shahrazad, 146 Shamun, Francis, 110, 124n, 136n, 195n, 231 Shamun, Jirjis, 87, 124n Shamun, Warda al-Yaziji see Warda al-Yaziji Sharkey, Heather, 7, 9 Shartuni, ‘Afifa, 147 Shartuni, Anisa, 147 Shaykhu, Luwis (Louis Cheikho), 90, 122, 142n Sheehi, Stephen, 28, 67n, 86, 89 al-Shidyaq, As‘ad, 9, 26, 29, 36, 41–2, 44, 46–8, 50–1, 54–5, 60, 62–5, 163 al-Shidyaq, Faris, 126n al-Shidyaq, Katrine, 297, 302, 361 Shukri, Rujina, 148, 151, 153–4, 160, 164, 166–77, 179–80, 195n Shumayyil, Shibli, 97 Sleiman, Rola, 212n Smith, Eli, 15n, 36, 80n, 124, 240 Smith, Sarah Huntington, 36, 260n Smith, Susette Harriet, 282 Syougne, Maryam, 295 Tabet (Thabit) (family), 236, 354 Tabet, Admah, 266n, 354 Tabet, Na‘mi, 230, 234–6, 265n, 267n, 354 Tahtawi, Rifa‘a, 115, 146 al-Tannir, Muhammad bin Tahir, 4, 121–2 Tannus, Salma, 148, 154, 160, 164–7, 176, 180, 195n Tanzimat, xv, 2, 86, 111–12 Taymur, ‘A’isha, 147, 152 Temple, Daniel, 124n Thompson, Caroline, 238–9, 244, 286

Thompson, Elizabeth Maria Bowen, 58, 280–1, 284, 286–8, 290–1, 316n Thomson, William McClure, 47, 57, 240 Tibawi, Abdul Latif, 5–6, 17n, 26, 87, 123 Tisdall, William Saint Clair, 122, 139n Tobbajy, Nicola, 231 Trexler, Melanie, 5 Tu‘ma, Farida Nassif, 203n Tu‘ma, Jirji, 158, 202n, 299 Tu‘ma, Julia (al-Dimashqiyya), 11, 148, 153, 157–60, 167– 9, 172, 176, 181, 195n, 202–3n, 206n, 255, 299 Tu‘ma, Liza, 158, 297, 299, 301, 324n al-‘Ujaymi, Hindiyya, 276 Umm Mishriq see Mahiba Mishriq Haddad Umm Yusif see Taqla Sabunji Upson, Arthur, 139n Van Dyck, Cornelius, 3, 15n, 47, 53, 57, 76, 92, 98, 104, 106–7, 113, 118–19, 121, 124n, 134n, 139n, 230, 232, 234, 240–1, 254, 264n, 266–7n, 273n Venn, Henry, 261n White, Stanley, 307 Willard, Francis, 155 Wolcott, Samuel, 78n Wortabet, John (Yuhanna Wurtabat), 41, 74n, 79n, 127n, 215, 225–6, 238, 262–3n, 266n, 327n Wortabet, Yaqub Gregory, 72n Wright, Henry, 282–3, 315n Yarid, Nassim, 273n Yaziji, Dirgam, 302 Yaziji, Habib, 302–3, 307 al-Yaziji, Ibrahim, 110, 126n, 195n Yaziji, Khushfa, 297, 301–4 al-Yaziji, Nasif, 15n, 87, 110, 127n, 195n al-Yaziji, Warda (Shamun), 110, 124n, 136n, 147–8, 195n Zakka, Maryam, 153–4, 158, 160, 163–4, 166–8, 176–7, 180, 182–6, 190–1, 195n, 198n, 206n Zaydan, Jurji, 89, 90, 94, 121 Zaydan, Yusif, 318n Zurub (Zu‘rub), As‘ad Daud, 213, 226, 235–8, 241–7, 249, 254, 259n, 265–6n, 327n Zwemer, Samuel M., 55, 112, 116–17, 122, 142n

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

‘Abay (Abeih), 39, 53, 56–7, 62, 65, 72–3n, 79n, 95, 101, 134n, 159, 202n, 226, 250, 253, 271n, 296, 298, 304, 306, 326n adornment with jewelry, 96, 164, 168, 173, 206n Africa Biblewomen in, 288, 296, 318n Christianity in, 6–7, 31–2, 66, 82n, 94, 179, 334 missions in, 74n, 128n, 183 traditional religions in, 31 al-Ahwal (periodical), 153 Akhbar ‘an Intishar al-Injil fi Amakin Mukhtalifa (periodical), 92 ‘Alay, 291 Aleppo, 12, 95, 97 ‘Alma al-Sha‘b, 37, 72n, 265n American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), 3, 5, 15–16n, 22n, 34–8, 41, 71n, 92, 111, 215, 218, 227, 235, 238, 240, 254, 267n, 278 American Mission Press (AMP) in Beirut, 1, 3–4, 25, 46, 48, 53, 67n, 85–123, 143–91 1865 Arabic Bible translation of, 3, 15n, 41, 78n, 105–6, 113 history of, 87, 92, 94 Majmu‘ Fawa’id (periodical) printed at, 127n missionary staff of, 87, 92, 95, 123–4n

al-Muqtataf (periodical) printed at, 98, 130n Syrian employees of, 4, 9, 92, 95–8, 121, 306 translations produced by, 3–4, 9, 15n, 33, 87–8, 91–2, 95, 150–1, 153, 155–6 see also al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya, al-Nashra alShahriyya American Syria Mission, 11–13, 66, 111, 217–18 ABCFM oversight of, 3, 15–16n, 34–8, 218, 235, 278 Biblewomen and, 11–12, 275, 277, 296–309 donors and, 229, 237, 240, 242–3 geographical region of, 1, 12–14, 22n, 296 history of, 3, 5–6, 33–9, 230 mission stations of, 39, 72–3n, 336 Presbyterian BFM oversight of, 3, 16n, 37–8, 218–19, 223, 227, 240, 261n, 278 racism and ethnocentrism of, 215, 218, 222, 224, 226, 240, 258, 277, 283 salaries and, 47, 219, 223, 225–7, 229, 236–7, 242, 247, 261–3n, 268n, 270n, 275, 288, 301–2, 322n see also American Mission Press, education American University of Beirut (AUB) see Syrian Protestant College Andover Theological Seminary, 15n

399

400  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Anglicans, 117, 238, 276, 282 Presbyterian missionary territorialism and, 282–4 Anglo-American Church, Beirut, 36, 72n, 210n, 269n apologetics, 99–103, 116–18, 121, 131n Arab renaissance see Nahda Arabian Mission, 44, 55 Arab-Islamic civilization, 86, 114, 167, 179 Armenian Apostolic Church (Armenian Orthodox), 13, 23n, 36, 45, 76n Armenian Evangelical Church, 22n, 37, 271n, 336 Armenians, 5, 7, 13–14, 22–3n, 36, 72n as Syrian Evangelical Church members, 13–14, 32, 36, 45 Assyrians, 5, 13, 22n Australia, 42, 159, 204n, 267n, 335 ‘Ayn Zhalta, 226, 291 baptism, 32–3, 36, 39, 42, 45, 55, 79n, 189, 225, 319n al-Bashir (periodical), 98, 104–11, 116, 128n, 133–4n, 333 Baynu (Beino), 80n, 99, 101, 118, 152, 198n Bedouin, 55 Beirut, 2–3, 12–13, 25, 165 church schism in, 213–58 Nahda in, 8–10, 25, 85, 87–94, 148, 166, 217, 251 see also Syrian Evangelical Church Benevolent Society in Beirut (Evangelical), 231, 234, 265n Bible 1865 Arabic translation of see American Mission Press power of, 38, 41, 51, 66, 296, 330 Protestant emphasis on, 38, 41, 47, 51, 59–60, 64, 87, 101–2, 115, 119, 121, 182, 246, 276–7, 279, 310 reading of, 49–54, 65–6, 119–20, 162, 167, 177, 187, 201n, 252, 286–8, 292–4, 301–2, 306 Biblewomen, 4, 11, 13, 91, 158–9, 189, 239, 274–312 medical missions and, 299–303, 306 salaries of, 275, 287–8, 301–2, 317–18n terminology for, 276 Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (BFM) see Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions

British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), 312n, 317n British Syrian Mission (BSM), 6, 11, 13, 42, 58, 222, 238–9, 280–4; see also education Biblewomen and, 275–6, 284–96, 305, 309 donors and, 286–8, 317n history of, 58, 284, 286–8 Brooklyn, 159 Brummana, 158, 335 Cairo, 2–3, 85, 89, 117, 120–1, 130n, 148, 159, 253 Catholics as converts to Protestantism, 32, 41–5, 51, 54–5, 62, 73n, 95, 195n, 293 and disputes with Greek Orthodox Christians, 103–11 and disputes with Protestants, 99, 103–11, 292–3 European Catholic missionaries, 6, 78n, 87, 104, 109–10, 135n France and, 46, 107, 109–10, 135n Nahda and, 90, 96–9, 103–8, 122, 128n, 147 Protestant views of, 41, 47, 50, 54, 66, 106–11, 185, 279 women and, 144, 147, 276, 279, 292–3 see also clergy, Jesuits, Maronite Christians, Melkite Christians, Université Saint-Joseph Chicago World’s Fair see World Columbian Exposition child-rearing (al-tarbiya), 144–5, 149, 153, 157, 160, 169–76, 180, 187, 189 China, 39, 128n, 296, 322n, 334 Christian Endeavor Society, 188, 191 Church Missionary Society (CMS), 117, 282–3, 315n church petitions, 224–5, 234–5, 247, 250 civilization, as missionary theme, 110, 252, 255, 279, 286 civilization, as Nahda theme, 11, 86, 110, 144, 161, 164, 167, 175, 178 clergy Catholic and Greek Orthodox priests as, 292–4, 310 Protestant ministers (ordained pastors and evangelists) as, 57, 74n, 181, 189, 212n, 218, 223, 225–9, 236, 241, 263n clothing headgear and, 216, 256–7, 273n men’s fashions and, 43, 216, 256–7, 273n

i ndex of subjects     |  401 Western attire and, 43, 178, 216, 256–8 women’s fashions and, 167–8, 178, 206n colonialism, 6, 30, 222 colporteurs, 287–8, 299, 321n commandments (biblical), 103–7 congregational governance, 227, 230, 235–6, 240, 354 Congregationalists, 12, 16n, 22n, 29, 34, 71n, 189, 227, 236, 243, 248, 271n, 336 Constantinople see Istanbul conversion, Protestant, 8, 24–66, 118–20, 162–3, 242, 274, 279 children and, 170 missionary views of, 39–41 models for studying, 30–3, 44 statistics on, 39, 70n, 336 terminology for, 25, 62–5 see also Catholics, Druze, Greek Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, women Damascus, 4, 12, 42, 48, 58, 95, 118, 120–1 1860 massacres in, 1, 24, 114, 275, 290, 317n, 319n Biblewomen in, 278, 286–7, 293, 298, 304 missions in, 13, 48, 77n, 129n, 283, 314n, 336 Darwin Affair, 97–8 Darwinism, 94, 97 divorce, 154–5, 159, 180, 203n al-Diya’ (periodical), 110 domestic space, 149–50, 160–1, 163, 169, 185 Biblewomen in, 276, 279, 286, 290–5, 302, 306, 310–11 nahdawi discourses and, 144, 146, 158, 166, 172, 175, 191, 199n Druze, 22n, 67n, 291, 319n as converts to Protestantism, 39, 45, 48, 63, 73n, 195n in 1860 conflicts, 1, 4, 24, 320n ecumenism, 40–1 education, 10, 26, 40, 53, 89, 94, 110, 112, 147, 251–2, 256 American missionaries and, 11, 48, 52, 150, 154, 255–6, 298–9; ‘Abay, 53, 56–7, 62, 95, 101, 134n, 159, 202n, 262n, 306; American Boys’ Academy in Sidon (Gerard Institute), 42, 59, 80n, 106, 202n, 250; American School for Girls in Beirut see Beirut Female Seminary; American School for Girls in Sidon (Female Seminary), 128n, 153–4, 158, 184, 299; American

School for Girls in Tripoli, 80n, 152, 154, 195n, 301–2; Beirut Female Seminary (American School for Girls in Beirut), 62, 64, 81n, 128n, 153–4, 165–6, 171, 174, 179, 198n, 207n, 210–11n, 224, 290, 298, 306; Female Seminary in Sidon see American School for Girls in Sidon; Gerard Institute see American Boys’ Academy in Sidon; Suq al-Gharb, 52, 55, 223, 262–3n; Theological Seminary, 57, 101, 134n, 159, 202n, 262–3n, 265n, 306 British Syrian Mission and, 13, 58, 150, 154, 159, 203n, 280–4, 287, 291, 315n; British Syrian Training College, Beirut, 150, 159, 208–9n, 317n Catholics and, 147 Greek Orthodox Christians and, 46, 48, 52 Muslims and, 147; Maqasid Islamic Schools, 147, 158; National Islamic School, Tripoli, 120 National School in Beirut and, 115 Quakers and, 158 women and, 147, 150, 160–70, 172–3, 177 see also Near East School of Theology, Syrian Protestant College, Université Saint-Joseph Egypt, 246, 254 migration to, 81n, 112, 152, 203n missions in, 7, 70n, 81n, 111, 117, 119, 121, 142n Muslim authors in, 115, 138n, 146–7 Nahda in, 89–90, 94, 123, 129–30n, 141n, 148, 169, 176, 253, 256 Eucharist see Lord’s Supper Evangelical Benevolent Society see Benevolent Society Evangelical Independent Church, Beirut, 152, 213–15, 230–49, 255, 259n, 298, 330, 354–5 Evangelical Society of Beirut (Jami‘yyat Bayrut al-Injiliyya), 115, 286, 316n, 319n evangelism, 38–9, 41, 119, 181, 183, 291, 299 literature used for, 26, 53, 85, 99, 116–22 women and, 181–91, 275–6, 280, 303, 307, 311; see also Biblewomen feminism, 90, 156, 177–8, 193n, 311, 329 First World War, 3, 5–6, 12, 15n, 24, 92, 140n, 222, 248, 289, 303, 333, 335 freedom of conscience, 38, 51, 120, 252, 331 freedom, Reformed doctrine of, 29

402  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE gender, 4, 8–9, 11, 143, 222, 229, 241–2, 278–84 complementarity or equality, 172, 178–81, 184, 201n, 295–6, 309 missions and, 6, 180, 215, 217–22, 238, 283, 309 norms, 143, 148, 177, 180, 277, 292, 310 spheres of activity divided by, 175, 280, 284, 292, 304, 309, 330 Greek Catholics see Melkite Christians Greek Orthodox Christian Education Society, Beirut, 103 Greek Orthodox Christians, 13, 23n, 24–5, 36, 45, 48, 76n, 110, 206n, 286 Arabic Bible translation of, 78n, 106 as converts to Protestantism, 32, 37, 42, 52, 59, 107, 118, 158, 274, 279 and disputes with Catholics, 103–11 and disputes with Protestants, 48–9, 99–111 Nahda and, 99, 103–9, 111, 122, 147 Protestant views of, 41, 66, 102, 109–10, 185 Russians and, 46, 48, 52, 57, 78n, 110 women and, 144, 147, 150, 276, 279 see also clergy Hadath, 271n, 306 Hadiqat al-Akhbar (periodical), 92, 196n, 271n Hadith, 114, 119, 138n al-Hadiyya (periodical), 99, 103–10, 132–3n harem visitors, 286, 290–1, 319n, 325n, 327n Hasbayya, 4, 24, 37, 74n, 76n, 263n, 286, 291, 293, 295, 318–19n 1860 massacres in, 284, 289–90, 316n, 320n al-Hasna’ (periodical), 128n, 153, 198n, 203n al-Hilal (periodical), 89, 94, 96, 129n home see domestic space, household management homeland (watan), xv, 60, 114–15, 144, 165, 167, 169, 176 household management, 146–7, 149, 154, 163, 168, 175, 178, 199n humanitarian relief, 3, 15n, 248 Hums, 12–13, 59, 95, 152–4, 183, 226, 298, 301, 304, 326n, 336 icons, 103–7, 185, 292 idolatry, 103–8, 121–2, 243 immigrants see migration imperialism, 5, 7, 216 India, 111, 335 Biblewomen in, 286, 288, 296–7, 310, 322n missions in, 35, 117, 121, 128n

indigenous agency, 3–4, 6, 9, 31–2, 123, 223, 249, 255–8, 329 Irish Presbyterian Mission, Damascus, 13, 77n, 129n, 287, 293, 314n, 336 Islam, 28, 63–5, 115 missionary discourses on, 7, 35–6, 38, 50, 55, 112–13, 116–17, 279 Syrian Protestant writings on, 112–20 women and, 143–7, 158, 178–80, 276–7, 279, 286, 290, 292, 296, 301, 309–10, 319–20n, 327n see also Muslims Islamic reformism, 4, 7, 28, 86, 88–9, 120–2, 124n Istanbul (Constantinople), 2, 11, 37, 86, 110, 112, 141n al-Janna (periodical), 128n Japan, 128n, 296, 334 Jerusalem, 34, 110 Jesuits (la Compagnie Jésuite), 4, 10, 49, 51, 90, 98, 103–10, 122, 128n, 134n Arabic Bible translation of, 78n, 104, 110, 133n Jews, 22n, 45, 86, 145 as converts to Protestantism, 36, 39, 76n Nahda and, 27, 147, 153, 179 Protestant missions to, 33, 35–6, 111, 275, 289 al-Jinan (periodical), 9, 94, 96, 126n, 128–9n, 138n, 144, 155, 195n, 314n al-Junayna (periodical), 128n Juniya, 96, 323n Kawkab Amirka (periodical), 242, 268n Kawkab al-Subuh al-Munir (periodical), 195n Kfar Shima, 154, 156, 199n, 271n, 326n Latakia, 13, 336 Lebanon, 1, 3, 5, 12, 22n, 26, 109, 212n, 271n, 333, 335–7 Lebanon Evangelical Mission (LEM), 288, 313n Lebanon Presbytery, 227, 230, 235–6, 248, 266n libraries, 90, 166–7, 179 Lisan al-Hal (periodical), 91, 94, 128–9n, 144, 155, 201n, 207n literacy, 2, 48, 53, 66, 78n, 89, 149, 161–3, 251, 253, 275, 277, 279, 286, 310 London, 58, 119, 160, 276, 282, 290, 299 London Bible and Domestic Female Mission (LBDFM), 276, 286

i ndex of subjects     |  403 Lord’s Supper (Eucharist), 48, 50, 102 Lubnan (periodical), 156 Maharda, 301–3 Malta, 53, 87 al-Manar (periodical), 121–2, 141n manners, 156–7, 160, 165, 170–1, 173–80, 202n, 211n Maqasid Islamic Benevolent Society, 147, 158, 168 al-Mar’a al-Jadida (periodical), 159, 323n Maronite Christians, 2, 5, 9, 13, 23n, 24, 36, 42, 46–7, 49–50, 54–5, 62, 96, 99, 109, 135n, 147, 276, 279 marriage, 45, 143, 146, 154, 158–9, 161, 219, 279 and expectations for wives, 144, 149, 165, 172, 177, 286, 296 see also divorce al-Mashriq (periodical), 90, 122 Mashta, 48, 52, 58–9, 102 massacres, 1, 24, 37, 67n, 115, 275, 284, 289–90, 316–20n al-Matba‘a al-Adabiyya, 91, 152 al-Matba‘a al-Amirkaniyya, 25, 99; see also American Mission Press medical missions, 158, 188, 240–1, 297, 299–303, 323n Melkite Christians (Greek Catholics), 2, 13, 23n, 42, 57, 95, 97, 104, 110, 128n, 195n, 293, 314n men as fathers, 113, 149, 164, 170, 172–3, 175, 216, 222–3, 234, 240, 246, 250, 254, 303–4 and male spheres of activity, 11, 88, 143, 179, 180–1, 191, 218–19, 222, 280, 292, 304, 309 and power, 8, 88, 214, 218–19, 221–2, 229–30, 241–2 and Protestant masculinity, 216, 256–7 supporting women’s advancement, 58, 146, 151 see also paternalism, patriarchy Middle East Christian Outreach (MECO), 288, 313n Middlebury College, 34 migration, 39, 89, 157, 242, 252, 284, 328, 335 from Syria to Egypt, 90, 112, 121, 141n, 253 from Syria to the United States, 30, 59, 62, 96, 154–6, 159, 199n, 215, 217, 223–4, 237, 242–3, 246–7, 252, 268n, 272n

millet system, 45–6 Minyara, 302, 307 al-Misbah (periodical), 99 missionaries, American see American Syria Mission missionaries, British see British Syrian Mission missionaries, Catholic see Catholics, Jesuits missionaries, Dutch Reformed, 16n, 55, 71n, 264n missionaries, German, 62, 116 missionaries, Irish, 13, 77n, 129n, 287, 293, 306, 314n, 336 missionaries, Russian, 46, 48, 52, 57, 78n, 110 missions, critiques of, 6–7, 121–2, 215, 223, 242, 246, 268n; see also pamphlet controversy of 1902 modernity and modernization, 2, 10–11, 86, 89, 110, 112, 144, 146, 160, 168, 173, 175–6, 178–9, 190–1, 254 Mount Lebanon, 13, 62, 227, 230, 241, 286, 299, 336 1860 conflict in, 1, 4, 24, 37, 67n, 114, 275, 284 mubashirat see Biblewomen Mukhtara, 158, 202n, 294, 299, 318n al-Muqtataf (periodical), 91–2, 94, 96–8, 127n, 130n, 144, 147, 150–1, 154–8, 196, 201n, 203n al-Muraqib (periodical), 153 music, 115, 165, 182–3, 210n Muslims, 22n, 45, 55–6, 63, 113, 158 Christian relations with, 24–5, 96, 112, 116, 123, 145, 333–4 as converts to Protestantism, 33, 35–6, 39, 42, 45, 50, 56, 63–5, 70n, 73n, 76n, 79n, 118, 120, 319n Nahda and, 2, 9, 27–8, 85–7, 94, 120–3, 146–8, 202n Protestant missions to, 35, 55–6,108, 111, 116–20, 275–6, 286, 290, 295, 301, 310, 335 responding to Protestant missions, 36, 38, 117, 121–2, 139n, 141n see also Islam, Islamic reformists Nahda (Arab renaissance), 1–3, 26–9, 85–91 literary societies and salons during, 90, 146, 158, 168, 187 press production statistics, 89–90, 92, 94, 127–8n printed debates of, 4, 10, 90–1, 97–9, 103–8, 111, 122, 126n, 156, 178–9

404  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE Nahda (Arab renaissance) (cont.) readership during, 85, 88–91, 106, 146, 156 religious facets of, 10, 26–9, 85–9, 96–123, 178–9, 181–91 al-nahda al-nisa’iyya see women’s awakening Nahda Studies, 26–7, 29, 67n, 111, 122 nahdawis, 21n, 28, 99, 111, 122; see also Nahda al-Nakhlah (periodical), 126n al-Nashra al-Shahriyya (periodical), 92 al-Nashra al-Usbu‘iyya (periodical), 11, 48, 87, 91–8, 104–10, 114, 127n, 150–1, 160, 163–71, 174–6, 181–90, 194n, 202n, 237, 253, 304–6 National Evangelical Church of Beirut (NECB), 22n, 248, 268n, 271n, 336 National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, 127n, 212n, 271n, 336 nationalism, 13, 29, 87 Near East School of Theology (NEST), 91, 157, 263n New York, 155, 159–60, 213–14, 241–2, 246, 249, 268n, 297, 307 al-Nil (periodical), 156 novels, 90–1, 117–20, 143–6, 148, 151–3, 160–3, 168, 186–7, 195n ordination see clergy, women Orientalism 20n, 178, 217, 284 Ottoman Empire, 12, 14, 45–6 First World War and, 6, 15n, 22n, 289, 333 laws of, 111, 120, 154 millet system in, 45–6 missionary discourses about, 35, 111–13, 119, 214 modernizing reforms of, 2, 11, 86, 111–12, 146, 179, 256 Protestant millet authorized in, 46 sultans of, 11, 111–12, 136n, 141n, 179, 256 Syrian Protestant loyalty to, 113–14, 138n, 144, 156, 164, 176, 179 Ottomanism, 29, 113–14, 179 Palestine, 35, 90, 158, 214, 282 pamphlet controversy of 1902, 213–15, 218–19, 237–47 paternalism, 7–8, 222–9, 234–5, 237, 247, 257 patriarchy, 8, 88, 177–8, 222–30, 234, 250, 258, 296, 311 Persia, 6, 13, 19n, 35, 71n, 122, 296, 322n

photographs, 94, 107, 256–7, 334 The Pilgrim’s Progress, 33, 53, 60, 78n, 91 poetry and poets, 87, 94, 96–7, 110, 115, 127n, 146, 151, 157, 166, 175, 250, 314n polemics, 98–9, 102–3, 108, 112, 131n, 311 polity see Presbyterians, Congregationalists, congregational governance postcolonial critiques, 6–7, 178, 216–17, 260n, 332 Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions (BFM), 3, 5, 16n, 19n, 37–9, 71n, 213–14, 218–19, 221–3, 227, 238, 240, 249–50, 254, 257, 278, 296–7, 306–7 published reports of, 38–9, 41, 87, 112, 214, 219, 221, 255, 260n, 265n, 278–9, 298, 306–7, 314n Presbyterian Church in the Unites States of America (PCUSA), xiii, 3, 37, 226 Presbyterians as Calvinists, 35, 38 church polity of, 219, 226–7, 230, 234–7, 240–1, 244, 247–8, 263–7n Old and New Schools of, 16n, 38, 72n women’s mission societies and, 261n, 296–8, 321–2n see also Irish Presbyterian Mission, National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, United Presbyterian Church in North America presbyteries, 227–30, 235–7, 240, 248 Protestants and preaching the gospel, 38, 41, 60, 64, 97, 145, 224, 276, 291, 309 terminology on, 13, 64–5 and vernacular Bible reading, 10, 40–1, 66, 102 and views of salvation, 36, 38, 41, 49, 102, 171, 187, 189 Puritans, 35–7, 60, 178 Qal‘at al-Husn, 153 Quaker missions, 136n, 158, 195n Qur’an, 50, 56, 81n, 86, 114–16, 119–22, 138n, 179, 276, 310, 313n al-Ra’is (periodical), 96, 129n Reformation, Protestant, 13, 36, 101–2, 105–7 Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, 13, 336 Reformed Tradition, 29, 41, 66, 188 religiosity, 9–10, 27–9, 88, 111, 145, 160, 169

i ndex of subjects     |  405 religious sects (ta’ifas), 22–3n, 27, 45–6, 76n Religious Tract Society, 119, 160 revivalism in New England, 15n, 25, 33–4 sacraments, 102, 225, 282, 284; see also baptism, Lord’s Supper Saint George Press, 101, 132n Saint Joseph University see Université SaintJoseph saints, 50, 77n, 103, 106 al-Salt, 107, 282 al-Sayyidat wa-l-banat (periodical), 195n Scotland and Scots, 113, 262n, 286, 315n, 327n secularism, 10, 28–9 sermonettes see sermons sermons, 94, 144, 159, 181–3, 187–9, 291, 293–4 shaykhas, 147, 276, 310 shaykhs, 147, 276–7, 290, 292, 295–6, 310, 313n, 319n, 327n Shimlan, 150, 154 Shwayfat, 158, 226, 306, 322n Shwayr, 159, 226, 271n Sidon, 12, 39, 42, 47, 53, 56, 59, 72n, 76n, 80n, 106, 128n, 134n, 150, 153–4, 158, 183–4, 221, 226–8, 241, 250, 265n, 296–7, 299, 321–2n, 324n, 336 Spiritual Endeavor Society, 187 Sunday schools, 48, 115, 155–6, 187, 191, 210–11n Syria, modern, 13, 22n, 271n, 336–7 Syria, Ottoman, 1, 12, 24, 45–6 Syrian, 12 Syrian Evangelical Church, 3, 12–14, 39 of Beirut, 3, 37, 213, 224–5, 230, 234–7, 246–8 membership in, 37–9 ordained ministers of, 226 Syrian Protestant College (SPC), Beirut, 3, 5–6, 18n, 80n, 94–7, 121, 135n, 238, 240, 242, 253, 264–5n, 268n, 289 Syrian Protestants see Syrian Evangelical Church Syrian Society of Arts and Sciences, 146 al-Tabib (periodical), 128–9n ta’ifas see religious sects Tanzimat, xv, 2, 86, 111–12 al-tarbiya see child-rearing Thamarat al-Funun (periodical), 94, 202n “three-self ” theory, 223

Tripoli, 12, 39, 48, 59, 72n, 80n, 101, 115–16, 120–1, 141n, 150–2, 154, 188, 194–6n, 227–8, 271n, 296–8, 301–3, 307, 324n, 326n, 336 tuberculosis, 156, 158, 201n, 219 typhoid, 237, 266n Tyre, 13 United Church of Christ, 248 United Presbyterian Church in North America (UPCNA), xiii, 77n, 117, 139n Université Saint-Joseph (Saint Joseph University), Beirut, 49, 51, 77n, 135n Virgin Mary, 50, 108, 118, 135n Wadi Shahrur, 298 watan see homeland Western influence, 86, 111, 121, 164, 178, 216–17, 256–7 Westminster Catechism, 48, 51 Woman’s Temperance Union, National Christian, 62, 81n Woman’s work for woman, 187, 276, 278–80, 283–4, 292, 296, 307, 309, 311, 330 women anonymous and pseudonymous publications by, 151, 156, 178, 201n Bible study meetings for, 211n, 291, 293, 314n converts to Protestantism, 29–30, 62, 64, 162–3, 274, 291 independent agency of, 221, 278–9, 286, 296, 305, 307, 311 liberation of, 146, 158 missionaries, 11, 13, 59, 218–19, 221, 275–6, 278–80, 301, 307–9, 327n as mothers, 58, 149, 170–7, 187, 286–91, 293, 303 Nahda press publications by, 143–91 ordination of, 181, 189, 212n, 218 piety and, 149, 178, 305 preaching by, 145, 181–2, 186–90, 274, 276–7, 284, 288, 291–6 public speaking by, 145, 147, 150, 154–5, 157–8, 163, 165–6, 169, 171, 174, 176–7, 179–80, 186–7, 190, 309 seclusion of, 160–1, 179, 187, 204n, 209n, 279, 310 sermonic texts by, 145, 181–91 sermons and sermonettes by, 144, 159, 186–9, 291–4, 311

406  |  PROTESTANTS, G ENDER AN D TH E A R A B R E NA IS S A N CE women (cont.) sewing and needlework of, 150, 163, 284, 287 suffrage and, 155, 180 veiling of, 155, 158 and women’s mission societies, 128n, 261n, 276, 278, 297, 322n see also Biblewomen, child-rearing, clothing, domestic space, education, evangelism, feminism, gender, marriage women’s awakening (al-nahda al-nisa’iyya) 143–91, especially 145–8

World Christianity, 5–6, 8, 12, 258, 334–6 World Columbian Exposition (Chicago World’s Fair, 1893), 155, 179 World War I see First World War World’s Congress of Representative Women, Chicago, 155, 179–80, 207n Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), 191 Zahle, 13, 39, 73n, 251–3, 285, 292–3, 296