Mikhayil Mishaqa: Murder, Mayhem, Pillage, and Plunder; the History of the Lebanon in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

• Author: Schulze, Reinhard

Mikhayil Mishaqa (1800-1888), who portrayed himself as a self-educated politician (pp. 61ff.), composed a history of the Lebanon in 1873 entitled Al-jawab ala iqtirah al-ahbab. An abbreviated edition was published in Beirut in 1955, based on a manuscript believed to be an autograph. W. M. Thackston has now edited an English translation of the text, using the A. U. B. ms 956.9jA as the basic text. Thus we now have at our disposal the complete version of the Jawab, covering the history of Lebanon and partly of Damascus from 1750 to 1873.

Thackston gives a short introduction to the text (pp. 1-8) in which he informs the reader of the specifics of the text, the historical setting of Druze and Maronite societies in the Lebanon, and of the main political factions. The translation itself (pp. 9-272) is divided into five parts by the translator. The first part deals with the late 18th-century history of the Mishaqa family and its role in the rise of the reign of Emir Bashir II (1788-1840). The next three parts contain a description of the history of al-Bashir's emirate from 1804 to 1840, mixed with much anecdotal and autobiographical material. Part five describes the relationship between Christians and Druze under the impact of the 1860 massacre in Damascus, during which the author himself was wounded. Professor Thackston adds three appendices to the text, dealing with terms and titles, and the genealogy of the Shihabi emirs of the Lebanon as well as other households. Notes to the text are kept to a minimum. Here references are made to lacunae and suppressed passages of the 1955 Beirut edition. A short bibliography and indices conclude the book.

The title of the translation is unfortunately somewhat dramatic and misleading. It suggests a history of the Lebanon whose main features were murder and bloodshed. On the contrary, the text of the Jawab contains a great deal of information on peaceful cultural developments, and offers insights into the social worlds of the leading Christian families in the Lebanon and in Egypt and Syria (e.g., on astronomy and the sciences in general, pp. 62ff.). Moreover, the text hardly touches the 18th century, possibly disappointing...