Россия и Арабский мир: к 200-летию профессора Санкт-Петербургского университета Шейха ат-Тантави (1810–1861)

213 port cities ― Istanbul, Izmir and Beirut, where the non-Muslim merchants were dominant but where the Muslim merchants played a distinct role in in- ternational and regional trade. 1 Studies on the Muslim tujjār show that a considerable number were en- trepreneurs. Thus, for example, they invested in expanding the cultivation of agricultural produce, including fruit, tobacco and wool in Anatolia, cereal and fruit in Syria, citrus in Palestine, dates in southern Iraq, pearl fishing in the Persian Gulf, and indigo in the Sudan. Muslim tujjār also invested in the production of craft and industrial products. Their initiatives in expanding carpet weaving in Anatolia, shipbuilding in Kuwait and soap production in Palestine and Syria are well known examples of their entrepreneurship. Many of these products, whether agricultural or industrial, were exported to the Asian and European markets. The tujjār also left their mark in the services sector, especially in traditional banking and overland, river and maritime transportation. 2 In all of these activities the tujjār took great business risks that resulted in many cases of heavy losses, but also huge profits. They con- stituted a significant element in Muslim Ottoman communities that was open to change. The innovations they initiated or imported were not restricted to the economic sphere. Their investments in education, from elementary to the highest level, were particularly notable. 3 The plethora of sources on the Muslim tujjār provides us with consider- able information about the business careers of Muslim big merchant- entrepreneurs in Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa, Salonika, Damascus, Aleppo, Beirut, Baghdad, Mosul, Basra, Kuwait, Nablus, Jaffa, Jiddah and al-Matamma, among other locations. There were also tujjār families who went into politics and whose role in this sphere has become part of the national histories of Middle Eastern countries. The Sabancı family in Turkey, Quwatli in Syria, Bayhum and Salam in Lebanon, Khudayri in Iraq, Nabulsi and Masri in Jor- dan, Ghanim in Kuwait and Alireza in Saudi Arabia are well known exam- ples. Tujjār families were part of the local elite in many communities in the Ottoman Empire and later in the Turkish and Arab states. In view of these studies, it is clear that the paradigm of the economic predominance of the non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, along with its variant, is no longer valid. 1 Ibid., pp. 21-24. 2 Ibid., pp. 7-11. 3 Ibid., p.12.