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SHIʿI HISTORIANS IN A WAHHABI STATE: IDENTITY ENTREPRENEURS AND THE POLITICS OF LOCAL HISTORIOGRAPHY IN SAUDI ARABIA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2015

Toby Matthiesen
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Abstract

This article analyzes how Saudi Shiʿi historians have adapted tools associated with nationalism to create distinct historical narratives for the Shiʿa of Eastern Arabia. State-sponsored narratives have either left out Shiʿi Muslims or cast them as unbelievers and alien to the Saudi body politic. In contrast, historical narratives written by Shiʿi authors emphasize the Shiʿa's long history of sedentarization, their cultural heritage, and their struggles against foreign occupation. The article is based on fieldwork in Saudi Arabia and a close reading of hundreds of articles and books on local history published mainly since the 1980s. Through the Saudi Shiʿi case, I show that “identity entrpreneurs,” or activists who create, politicize, and profit from identities to further political aims, understand local historiography to be crucial to their overall projects.

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Articles
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International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 25 - 45
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

NOTES

Author's note: I thank the many Saudi historians who shared their writings with me and allowed me to interview them, particularly Hamza al-Hasan, Muhammad al-Hirz, Fuʾad Ibrahim, and Habib Al Jumayʿ, as well as members of the al-Khunayzi family.

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16 Harneit-Sievers, Axel, “Introduction: New Local Historiographies from Africa and South Asia: Approaches and Issues,” in A Place in the World: New Local Historiographies from Africa and South Asia, ed. Harneit-Sievers, Axel (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 1–27Google Scholar.

17 Many Sunni and Shiʿi authors deal with similar topics, such as the Qarmatians: Al Mulla, ʿAbd al-Rahman bin ʿUthman, Tarikh al-Harakat al-Fikriyya wa-Ittijahatuha fi Sharq al-Jazira al-ʿArabiyya wa-ʿUman (History of the Intellectual Movements and Their Trends in the East of the Arabian Peninsula and Oman) (Khubar, Saudia Arabia: Dar al-Wataniyya al-Jadida li-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawziʿ, 1994)Google Scholar. The publishing house has also long published its own books on local history: Al Mulla, ʿAbd al-Rahman bin ʿUthman, Tarikh Hajar: Dirasa Shamila fi Ahwal al-Juzʾ al-Sharqi min Shibh al-Jazira al-ʿArabiyya: al-Ahsaʾ-al-Bahrayn-al-Kuwayt wa-Qatar (History of Hajar: A Comprehensive Study on the Situation of the Eastern Part of the Arabian Peninsula: al-Ahsaʾ-Bahrain-Kuwait and Qatar)Google Scholar, 2 vols. (Hufuf, Saudi Arabia: Maktabat al-Taʿawun al-Thaqafi, 1990).

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20 For example, see the following texts taken from the book Tarikh Al Suʿud (History of the Al Saʿud) by the Nasserist opposition activist Nasir al-Saʿid: al-Thawra al-Islamiyya 26 (June 1982): 19; al-Thawra al-Islamiyya 27 (July 1982): 23; al-Thawra al-Islamiyya 28 (August 1982): 15; al-Thawra al-Islamiyya 29 (September 1982): 15.

21 Al-Thawra al-Islamiyya 39 (July 1983), 32–35.

22 In order to relate the Shirazi historiography to earlier local history works, the article is illustrated with a picture of the cleric and local historian Faraj al-ʿUmran (1904–78) and the cover of Muhammad Saʿid al-Muslim's seminal book on the history of Eastern Arabia, Black Gold Coast. Al-Thawra al-Islamiyya 45 (January 1984): 37–39.

23 Al-Thawra al-Islamiyya 100 (July 1988): 15–22.

24 al-Hajiri, Yusuf, al-Baqiʿ: Qissat Tadmir Al Suʿud li-l-Athar al-Islamiyya fi al-Hijaz (The Story of the Destruction of Islamic Archaeological Sites in the Hijaz by the Al Saʿud) (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Baqiʿ li-Ihyaʾ al-Turath, 1990)Google Scholar.

25 al-Labad, ʿAdil, al-Inqilab: Baiʿ al-Wahm ʿala al-Dhat (The Coup: The Selling of the Illusion to the Self) (Beirut: Dar al-Jamal li-l-Tibaʿa wa-l-Nashr, 2009), 350fGoogle Scholar.

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27 Habib Al Jumayʿ, author’s interview, Damascus, August 2008.

28 Al Jumayʿ, Habib, Muʿjam al-Muʾallafat al-Shiʿiyya fi al-Jazira al-ʿArabiyya (Bibliography of Shiʿi Writings in the Arabian Peninsula), 3 Vols. (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Baqiʿ li-Ihyaʾ al-Turath, 1997–2013)Google Scholar.

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30 The literature on the relationship between nationalism and historiography is too voluminous to be cited here. For an example, see Breuilly, John, “Nationalism and Historians: Some Reflections. The Formation of Nationalist Historiographical Discourse,” in Nationalism, Historiography, and the (Re)Construction of the Past, ed. Norton, Claire (Washington, D.C.: New Academia Press, 2007), 1–25, esp. 10–20Google Scholar.

31 Davis, Rochelle A., Palestinian Village Histories: Geographies of the Displaced (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

32 al-Salih, Zaki ʿAli, al-Awwamiyya: Tarikh wa-Turath (Awwamiyya: History and Heritage), 2nd ed. (Beirut: Dar al-Kunuz al-Adabiyya, 1998), 19–30Google Scholar. Other authors put forward a similar narrative in a special issue of al-Waha: “Min al-Zara ila al-Awwamiyya . . . Safahat min Tarikh al-Bahrayn” (From Zara to Awwamiyya . . . Pages from the History of Bahrain), al-Waha 4 (1996): 64–139.

33 Al-Thawra al-Islamiyya 102 (September 1988): 43–46.

34 Some Sunni authors also write about the lands of Bahrain without, however, discussing religion and Shiʿism. al-Qadir al-Ansari al-Ahsaʾi, Muhammad Al ʿAbd, Tuhfat al-Mustafid bi-Tarikh al-Ahsaʾ fi al-Qadim wa-l-Jadid (A Beneficial Masterpiece in the History of al-Ahsa in the Old and New), vol. 1 (Riyadh: Matabiʿ al-Riyad, 1960), 4–45Google Scholar; Khalil, Muhammad Mahmud, Tarikh al-Khalij wa-Sharq al-Jazira al-ʿArabiyya al-Musamma Iqlim Bilad al-Bahrayn fi Zill Hukm al-Duwaylat al-ʿArabiyya 469–963 A.H./1076–1555 (History of the Gulf and the East of the Arabian Peninsula that Is Called “Lands of Bahrain” Region in the Shadow of the Rule of Arab States, 1076–1555) (Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 2006)Google Scholar.

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38 Al-Ahsaʾi, Tuhfat al-Mustafid, 1:98.

39 Al-Jazira al-Jadida, nos. 5–7, 1973.

40 al-Muslim, Muhammad Saʿid, Sahil al-Dhahab al-Aswad: Dirasa Tarikhiyya Insaniyya li-Mintaqat al-Khalij al-ʿArabi (Coast of Black Gold: A Historical-Humanitarian Study of the Arabian Gulf Region), 2nd ed. (Beirut: Manshurat Dar Maktabat al-Haya, 1962), 136–54Google Scholar.

41 Jones, Dogma, 10.

42 Al-Thawra al-Islamiyya 105 (December 1988): 22. In the late 20th century, however, al-Muslim became the director of the Bank Riyadh branch in Tarut. He also wrote a book on the history of Qatif that was published inside Arabia, Saudi: al-Qatif Waha ʿala Difaf al-Khalij (Qatif: An Oasis on the Shores of the Gulf), 2nd ed. (Riyadh: Matabiʿ al-Farazdaq, 1991)Google Scholar.

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47 Al-Muslim, Sahil al-Dhahab, 174n171.

48 al-Fadli, ʿAbd al-Hadi, “Taqdim,” in ʿAli bin Ibrahim al-Darura, Tarikh al-Ihtilal al-Burtughali li-l-Qatif, 1521–1572 (The History of the Portuguese Occupation of Qatif, 1521–1572) (Abu Dhabi: Majmaʿ al-Thaqafi, 2001), 1–6Google Scholar. The uprisings are later termed “revolutions.”

49 The text on the back of the first volume reads: “Literature and writers as well as religious learning and clerics were flourishing in Qatif and its sisters al-Ahsa and Bahrain in past centuries.” Al-ʿAwwami presents al-Khatti as just one of a number of writers, clerics, and politicians from Qatif and al-Ahsa, and argues that “we see him at the forefront of the national struggle with the revolutionaries for the liberation of his homeland from Turkish Despotism.” al-Khatti al-Qatifi, Sharaf al-Din al-Shaykh Jaʿfar bin Muhammad, Diwan Abi al-Bahr al-Khatti: Tahqiq ʿAdnan al-ʿAwwami, vol. 1 (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Intishar al-ʿArabi, 2005), 29–133Google Scholar.

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68 al-Bahrani, Yusuf bin Ahmad, Luʾluʾat al-Bahrayn fi al-Ijazat wa-Tarajim Rijal al-Hadith (The Pearl of Bahrain in the Licenses and Biographies of the Men of the Hadith) (Najaf: Matbaʿat Al ʿUthman, 1966)Google Scholar.

69 Al-Bahrani, Anwar.

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71 The original fifteen-volume edition was printed from 1962/63 to 1975 in Najaf by Matbaʿat al-Najaf. It was reprinted in six volumes in 2008. al-ʿUmran, Faraj, al-Azhar al-Arajiyya fi-l-Athar al-Farajiyya (The Aroma Blossoms of the Faraji Legacy), 2nd ed., 6 vols. (Beirut: Manshurat Dar Hajar, 2008)Google Scholar. On al-ʿUmran, see also Ibrahim, Shiʿis, 173; and al-ʿUmran, Faraj, Majmuʿa Muʾallafat al-Shaykh Faraj al-ʿUmran (A Collection of Writings of Shaykh Faraj al-ʿUmran), vol. 1 (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Khutt li-l-Tahqiq wa-l-Nashr, 2010)Google Scholar.

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77 See, for example, al-Mushaykhas, ʿAbd al-ʿAzim, al-ʿAwwamiyya: Majdun wa-Aʿlam (Awwamiyya: Honour and Symbols) (Beirut: Dar al-Khalij al-ʿArabi li-l-Tibaʿa wa-l-Nashr, 1999)Google Scholar.

78 Matthiesen, Toby, “Hizbullah al-Hijaz: A History of the Most Radical Saudi Shiʿa Opposition Group,” Middle East Journal 64 (2010): 189CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

79 Author's interview, Saudi Arabia, November 2008; al-Hijji, Salman bin Husayn, Hakadha Wajadtuhum (This is How I Found Them) (Beirut: Jawatha li-l-Nashr, 2008), 331–35Google Scholar.

80 Al-Shakhs, Aʿlam, vol. 1 (Beirut: Muʾassasat Umm al-Qura li-l-Tahqiq wa-l-Nashr, 1996), 145–297Google Scholar.

81 They also focus on other famous clerics of Qatif, such as Ibrahim al-Qatifi (died after 951 A.H./1544), whom they also portray as part of a distinctively Saudi Shiʿi religious heritage. Al-Sahil 3 (Summer 2007): 136–60; al-Waha 1 (June 1995): 161–71. For more on the shaykhiyya, see Matthiesen, Toby, “Mysticism, Migration and Clerical Networks: Ahmad al-Ahsaʾi and the Shaykhis of al-Ahsa, Kuwait and Basra,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 34 (2014): 386–409CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Al-ʿUthaymin, Tarikh al-Mamlaka, 1:117–23.

83 Personal Oberservations, Riyadh, 2011; Determann, Historiography in Saudi Arabia, 117–27.

84 Al-Hasan, al-Shiʿa, 2:13; al-Rasheed, “The Shia,” 133.

85 Al-Hasan, al-Shiʿa, 1:108; Ibrahim, Shiʿis, 18–23.

86 Hamza al-Hasan, author's interview, London, 2008; author's interview with Saudi Shiʿa, Eastern Province, November 2008.

87 Al-ʿUthaymin, Tarikh al-Mamlaka, 2:135.

88 India Office Records (hereafter IOR): R/15/5/27: Draft from Captain Shakespear to Political Resident, Bushire, 8 April 1911.

89 IOR: R/15/5/27: From Captain W.H.I. Shakespear Political Agent Kuwait to the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, Bushire, 15 May 1913.

90 The interview is from the Carmelite journal Lughat al-ʿArab. Quoted in Nakash, Reaching, 20; al-Zirikli, Khayr al-Din, Shibh al-Jazira fi ʿAhd al-Malik ʿAbd al-ʿAziz (The Arabian Peninsula in the Era of King ʿAbd al-ʿAziz), vol. 1 (Beirut: Matabiʿ Dar al-Qalam, 1970), 209–10Google Scholar.

91 IOR: R/15/2/31: From Abdul Aziz bin Abdur Rahman al-Faisal es Saud to H.B.M.'s Consul-General at Bushire, 13 June 1913 (translation).

92 Nakash, Reaching, 21.

93 IOR: R/15/5/27: Extract from Bahrain Diary no. 22 for week ending 7 June 1913.

94 Al-Waha 50 (2008), 62–78; al-Hirz, Muhammad ʿAli, Ahsaʾiyyun Muhajirun (Hasawi Emigrants) (Beirut: Dar al-Mahajja al-Baydaʾ, 2010)Google Scholar.

95 Muhammad al-Hirz, author's interview, Eastern Province, November 2008; al-Hirz, al-Shaʿir ʿAli al-Ramadan: Taʾir al-Ahsaʾ al-Muhajir (The Poet ʿAli al-Ramadan: The Migratory Bird of al-Ahsa) (Beirut: Dar al-Bayan al-ʿArabi, 1993), 75–76, 84Google Scholar.

96 Muhammad Musa al-Qarini, “Awjah min al-Muqawama fi al-Ahsaʾ li-l-Siyasa al-ʿUthmaniyya fi Dawʾ al-Wathaʾiq” (Facets of the Resistance in al-Ahsa to Ottoman Policy in Light of the Sources), Majallat al-Khalij li-l-Tarikh wa-l-Athar 2 (April 2006): 83–99. See also n. 12.

97 Al-Hasan, al-Shiʿa, 1:227; al-Rasheed, “The Shia,” 132.

98 Muhammad al-ʿAwwami, al-Zaʿim Ahmad bin Mahdi Nasr Allah: Hayatuhu wa-Shiʿruhu (The Leader Ahmad bin Mahdi Nasrallah: His Life and His Poetry) (London: Dar al-Jazira li-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawziʿ, n.d.). Al-ʿUmran calls ʿAbd Allah Nasr Allah the “leader of the homeland” (zaʿīm al-waṭan). Al-ʿUmran, al-Azhar, 2:285–89.

99 Al-Hasan, al-Shiʿa, 1:230.

100 Steinberg, Guido, Religion und Staat in Saudi-Arabien: Die wahhabitischen Gelehrten 1902–1953 (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2002), 487Google Scholar.

101 Al-Ahmad, al-Shaykh Hasan, 102.

102 Cetinsaya, Gökhan, “The Ottoman View of the Shiite Community of Iraq in the Late Nineteenth Century,” in The Other Shiites: From the Mediterranean to Central Asia, ed. Monsutti, Alessandro, Naef, Silvia, and Sabahi, Farian (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 19–40Google Scholar.

103 Frederick F. Anscombe, The Ottoman Gulf: The Creation of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 85–86; Saldanha, Jerome Anthony, The Persian Gulf Précis, vol. 5, Précis of Turkish Expansion on the Arab Littoral of the Persian Gulf and Hasa and Katif Affairs (Simla: 1904; Gerrards Cross: Archive Editions, 1986), 78–99Google Scholar.

104 Al Suʿud, al-Awdaʾ al-Amniyya, 92.

105 IOR/L/PS/10/134: From Captain A. P. Trevor, First Assistant Resident, Bushire, to S. H. Butler, Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department, Simla, 9 August 1908.

106 File 395/1908 Pt 2 Persian Gulf: Katif; disturbances in 1908 IOR/L/PS/10/134, Pt 2 1908.

107 Al-Waha 1 (June 1995): 32–54, esp. 32. One Sunni account also discusses the confrontations in Qatif as a badū-ḥaḍar conflict. See al-Qahtani, Hamad Muhammad, al-Awdaʾ al-Siyasiyya wa-l-Iqtisadiyya wa-l-Ijtimaʿiyya fi Iqlim al-Ahsaʾ, 1871–1913 (The Political, Economic, and Social Circumstances in the al-Ahsa Province, 1871–1913) (Kuwait: Dhat al-Salasil li-l-Tibaʿa wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawziʿ, 2012), 144–47Google Scholar.

108 Al-Rasheed, “The Shia,” 128.

109 Al-Waha 1 (June 1995): 32–54, esp. 32, 34, 37.

110 Hamza al-Hasan, author's interview, London, November 2009.

111 Dessouki, Assem, “Social and Political Dimensions of the Historiography of the Arab Gulf,” in Statecraft in the Middle East: Oil, Historical Memory, and Popular Culture, ed. Davis, Eric and Gavrielides, Nicolas E. (Miami, Fl.: Florida International University Press, 1991), 104–9Google Scholar.

112 Al-Waha 3 (1995): 28–39.

113 Ibid., esp. 33. Furthermore, he points out that his granduncle Jaʿfar bin Hasan ʿAli al-Khunayzi was also killed, while his other granduncle Ahmad bin Hasan ʿAli al-Khunayzi was injured, in the Sharba Battle. Ibid., 37.

114 Al-Hasan, al-Shiʿa, 1:111. See IOR: R/15/2/31: Report of Yusuf bin Ahmed Kanoo regarding Bin Saud's treatment of Abdul Hussain bin Juma.

115 Hamza al-Hasan, al-ʿAmal al-Matlabi fi Miʾat ʿAm: Tajribat ʿAmal Wujahaʾ al-Shiʿa fi al-Suʿudiyya (Hundred Years of Petitions: The Experience of the Work of the Shiʿi Notables in Saudi Arabia) (n.p.: Dar al-Multaqa, 2010).

116 Again, waṭan is used with reference to Qatif only. See Ahmad al-ʿAli, shaʿb al-Qatif fi al-Qarn al-Hadi wa-l-ʿAshrin: Dirasa Tahliliyya li-Hadir wa-Mustaqbal al-Mujtamaʿ al-Islami al-Shiʿi fi al-Alfiyya al-Thalitha (The People of Qatif in the 21st Century: An Analytical Study of the Present and the Future of the Shiʿi Islamic Society in the Third Millenium) (n.p.: Dar al-ʿArab, 2007), 28–36.

117 Al-Ahmad, al-Shaykh Hasan; al-Thawra al-Islamiyya 84 (March 1987): 46–50.

118 Ibrahim, Shiʿis, 172.

119 Al-Thawra al-Islamiyya 57 (January 1985): 38–39.

120 al-ʿAwwami, Muhammad, Thaʾir min Ajl al-Din: Malamih min Hayat al-ʿAllama al-Mujahid al-Shaykh Muhammad bin Nasir al-Nimr (A Revolutionary for Religion: Features of the Life of the Most Learned Fighting Shaykh Muhammad bin Nasir al-Nimr) (London: Dar al-Jazira li-l-Nashr, 1987), 52Google Scholar.

121 Al Suʿud, Jawahir bint ʿAbd al-Muhsin bin Jiluwi, al-Amir ʿAbd Allah bin Jiluwi Al Suʿud wa-Dawruhu fi Taʾsis al-Dawla al-Suʿudiyya al-Thalitha (Prince ʿAbd Allah bin Jiluwi Al Saʿud and his Role in the Foundation of the Third Saudi State) (Dammam: Matabiʿ al-Nimri, n.d.), 64–83Google Scholar.

122 See Determann, Historiography in Saudi Arabia, chap. 2 and 4.