| Tawfiq Canaan | |
|---|---|
| Born | 24 September 1882 Beit Jala, Ottoman Empire |
| Died | 15 January 1964 (aged 81) East Jerusalem, Jordan |
| Nationality | Palestinian |
| Occupation | Physician, Ethnographer, Author |
| Known for | Pioneer in the field of medicine in Palestine Researcher of Palestinian popular heritage |
| Religion | Lutheran |
| Parents | Bechara Canaan and Katharina Khairallah |
Tawfiq Canaan (Arabic: توفيق كنعان) (24 September 1882 – 15 January 1964) was a pioneering physician, medical researcher, ethnographer and Palestinian nationalist. Born in Beit Jala during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, he served as a medical officer in the Ottoman army during World War I. During British rule, he served as the first President of the Palestine Arab Medical Association founded in 1944, and as the director of several Jerusalem area hospitals before, during, and after the 1948 war. Over the course of his medical career, he authored more than 37 studies on topics including tropical medicine, bacteriology, malaria, tuberculosis and health conditions in Palestine, and contributed to research that led to a cure for leprosy.[1][2]
Deeply interested in Palestinian folklore, popular beliefs, and superstitions, Canaan collected over 1,400 amulets and talismanic objects held to have healing and protective properties. His published analyses of these objects, and other popular folk traditions and practices, brought him recognition as an ethnographer and anthropologist.[3][4][5] The several books and more than 50 articles he wrote in English and German serve as valuable resources to researchers of Palestinian and Middle Eastern heritage.[1][3]
An outspoken public figure, he also wrote two books on the Palestine problem, reflecting his involvement in confronting British imperialism and Zionism.[1][6] Despite his arrest by the British authorities in 1939 and the destruction of his family home and clinic in Jerusalem during the 1948 war, Canaan managed to re-establish his life and career in East Jerusalem under Jordanian rule. First taking sanctuary in a convent in the Old City for two years, he was appointed director of the Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives, where he lived with his family through his retirement until his death in 1964.[7]
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Born in Beit Jala, Canaan was the second child of Katharina Khairallah (1851–1923) and Bechara Canaan (كنعان بشارة; c. 1850–1899), PhD.[8][9] Canaan held fond recollections of his early childhood, which he called "the family blessing" that he and his siblings carried with them throughout their lives.[10] His father was the first Arab pastor of the Arab Lutheran Church in the Near East and founder of the Lutheran church, YMCA and first co-ed school in Beit Jala.[11][8] His influence loomed large, with faith and learning serving as family foundations. A description of his childhood shared by Canaan is illustrative: "We used to go with my father on short and long trips all over the country in order to get acquainted with the country and the people. This continuous contact with the people nurtured in all of us, and particularly in me, love for the country and the people. This feeling of belonging and unshaken loyalty remained with me till this day." In the Jerusalem Quarterly, Khaled Nashef suggests Canaan's knowledge of nature in Palestine as exhibited in writings such as "Plant-lore in Palestinian Superstition" (1928) among others were informed by these trips.[10]
His father was an alumnus of the Schneller School, where Canaan completed his own secondary school education. In 1899, Canaan went to Beirut to study medicine at the Syrian Protestant College (today the American University of Beirut). Shortly after his arrival, his father died of pneumonia. To lift the financial burden on his family, he began giving private lessons and undertook other part-time work at the university to supplement his income.[10]
Graduating with honors from the school of medicine, Canaan delivered the valedictory speech for his class on 28 June 1905. Entitled "Modern Treatment", it touched on the medical uses of serums, animal organs, and X-rays, and was published in Al-Muqtataf, likely constituting his first published piece. Canaan began his medical career immediately upon graduation as an assistant to Dr. Grussendorf, the Director of the German Hospital in Jerusalem. When Grussendorf travelled to Germany in 1906, Canaan co-administered the hospital with Dr. Adalbert Einsler (1848–1919).[12] The German-Jewish Hospital (Shaare Zedek) also sought out his services as a manager at this time.[13]
In 1911, Canaan published his first medical article as a practicing doctor on "Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis in Jerusalem", based on studies he conducted with Dr. Wallach, director of the Shaare Zedek hospital. Between 1912 and 1914, he was travelling back and forth between Palestine and Germany to specialize in tropical medicine and microbiology studies with professors Mühlens, Ruge, Otto Huntemüller, and Hans Müch. The latter was the head of a mission to Palestine studying tuberculosis which published a report to which Canaan contributed three research papers in 1913.[14] That same year, Canaan was appointed director of the Malaria Branch of the International Health Bureau, a world center for medical research and microscopic examination founded by The German Society for Fighting Malaria, The Jewish Health Bureau, and The Jewish Physicians and Scientists for Improving Health in Palestine.[15]
Canaan married Margot Eilender, the daughter of a German importer in January 1912, and the following year they moved into the family home they built in the al-Musrarah district of Jerusalem, where three of their four children (Theo, Nada, and Leila) were born. There, Canaan opened a clinic, which was the only Arab clinic operating in Jerusalem at the time.[16]
In August 1914, after a four-month stay in Germany, Canaan returned to work in the German Hospital with Grussendorf. As a citizen of the Ottoman Empire, which administered Palestine at the time, Canaan was drafted as an officer into the Ottoman army with the outbreak of World War I that October. First assigned as a physician to a contingent in Nazareth, he was transferred that same year to 'Awja al-Hafeer. The German chief physician there appointed him Head of the Laboratories on the Sinai Front, a position which afforded Canaan the ability to travel between Bir as-Saba, Beit Hanoun, Gaza, and Shaykh Nouran, as well as Damascus, Amman, and Aleppo. During this period, he collected more than 200 amulets to add to a collection he had begun in the early 20th century.[15]
After the war ended in 1919, Canaan was appointed Director of The Leprosy Hospital (Asylum of the Lepers Jesushilfe, now Hansen Lepers Hospital) in Talbiyyah—the only leprosy hospital in Syria, Palestine, and the Transjordan. Leprosy was considered an incurable disease at the time. Research progress in the field of bacteriology and microscopic examination, to which Canaan contributed, resulted in the discovery of a cure using chaulmoogra oil.[15]
In 1923, the German Hospital reopened and Canaan was placed in charge of the Internal Medicine Division. He held this position until 1940 when the German Hospital could no longer continue smooth operations, since by 1939, most German citizens had either left Palestine or been arrested by the British Mandatory authorities as enemy aliens.[15]
Canaan treated people from all social classes and segments of Palestinian and Arab society over the course of his medical career. He was one of a number of physicians from Jerusalem to examine Sherif Hussein of Mecca in Amman before his death in 1931, and removed a bullet from the thigh of Abu Jildah, a notorious Palestinian rebel, in 1936.[7] Well regarded within the medical community, an entry on Canaan is included in the book Famous Doctors in Tropical Medicine (1932) by Dr. G. Olpp, director of the tropical medicine center in Tübingen.[1]
In 1911, the geographical journal Globus published a German translation of a lecture Canaan first delivered on 22 May 1909 in Arabic. Entitled "Agriculture in Palestine," the work continues to be recognized as a useful basic reference for information on the development of agriculture in Palestine at the time. In this first article outside the realm of medicine, Canaan revealed himself as a well-versed researcher in the field of "Oriental Studies", quoting Schumacher, Bauer, Guthe, and Burckhardt, alongside classical sources, like Strabo and Josephus, and Arab sources like Mujir ad-Din. Canaan's focus on Palestinian peasantry is first apparent here.[13]
Influenced by the Old Testament studies produced by Gustaf Dalman, Albrecht Alt, and Martin Noth, who along with Hans Wilhelm Hertzberg, were all acquaintances of his, Canaan used the Bible and particularly the Old Testament, as a basic source to compare past and present agricultural practices.[7] Canaan and Dalman, who headed The Evangelical German Institute beginning in 1903, apparently shared the idea that it is not possible to understand the Old Testament without studying Palestinian folklore.[14]
Canaan's first work in the field of Palestinian folklore, "The Calendar of Palestinian Peasants," was published by the Journal of the German Palestine Society (German: Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästinavereins) in 1913.[14] In the article, Canaan focused on the agricultural beliefs and practices of Palestinian fellaheen. He found that people in southern Palestine divided the year into 7 periods of 50 days, a type of pentecontad calendar. Subsequent scholars referencing his work traced the origins of this calendar system to Western Mesopotamia circa the 3rd millennium BCE, suggesting it was also used by the Amorites.[17] In 1914, Canaan published his first book, entitled Superstition and Popular Medicine.[14]
According to Salim Tamari, director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies, Canaan was the most prominent of a school of "nativist" ethnographers to publish their works in The Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society (1920–1948). This group was driven by the concern that the "native culture of Palestine", and in particular peasant society, was being undermined by the forces of modernity.[18] Tamari writes that, "Implicit in their scholarship (and made explicit by Canaan himself) was another theme, namely that the peasants of Palestine represent – through their folk norms ... the living heritage of all the accumulated ancient cultures that had appeared in Palestine (principally the Canaanite, Philistine, Hebraic, Nabatean, Syrio-Aramaic and Arab)."[18]
A member of the Palestine Oriental Society, (established in 1920 by Albert Tobias Clay), Canaan was also a member of The American School for Oriental Research (established 1900), the Jerusalem branch of which was headed from 1920 to 1929 by the American archaeologist William Foxwell Albright. In the articles he published for the Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society – such as, "Haunted Springs and Water Demons in Palestine" (1920–1921), "Tasit ar-Radjfeh" ("Fear Cup"; 1923), and "Plant-lore in Palestinian Superstition" (1928) – Canaan exhibited his deep interest in superstition.[19]
Tamari notes that unlike the Canaanite revivalist writings produced by Palestinian writers after 1948, which were in many ways a response to Zionist narratives tracing Jewish connections back to the time of the Israelites (See Canaanite movement), "Canaan and his group, by contrast, were not Canaanites. They contested Zionist claims to biblical patrimonies by stressing present day continuities between the biblical heritage (and occasionally prebiblical roots) and Palestinian popular beliefs and practices."[18]
Meron Benvenisti idenitifies Canaan's "most outstanding contribution to the ethnography of Arab Palestine and to the annals of his country," as Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine (1927).[5] In the introduction to this work, Canaan writes of how, "The primitive features of Palestine are disappearing so quickly that before long most of them will be forgotten...", a change he attributed to Western influence and the European educational models being introduced locally. The study objective was to compare the, "simple, crude, but uncontaminated Palestinian atmosphere" with the customs and practices of earlier times.[5]
Thoroughly documented by Canaan in this work are the shrines ('awlia), sanctuaries (maqamat) and cults that made up popular Islam and popular religion in Palestine. Outlining some of the local Christian, Jewish and Muslim rituals held in common, Canaan's works on this subject portray, "a local magical adaptation of sacred texts," by the peasants to their needs. While local saints worshipped in Palestine can be said to be rooted in Muslim traditions, "they are actually ennobled sheikhs, who after their death, have been elevated to sainthood."[20] Local Muslims, many of whom had never stepped into a mosque, honoured these village saints at awlia, situated by trees, or other natural features. Canaan saw these practices as evidence that the fellaheen were heirs to the practices of the earlier "heathen" inhabitants of Palestine, "who built the first high places."[20] Some awlia are situated at or nearby ancient sites, and may have been a 'Muslim disguise', as John Wilkinson puts it, for "the ancient local Baals of Canaan".[21]
Also covered in this work is the fellah practice of therapeutic bathing to cure fever, fear, or sterility, often carried out at watering spots endowed with a sense of holiness. Canaan noted how people with fevers, many from malaria, would drink from al-Suhada cistern in Hebron and bathe in springs in Silwan, Kolonia (Ein al-Samiya) and Nebi Ayyub (Ein al-Nebi Ayyub) and a well in Beit Jibrin for al-Sheikh Ibrahim. The bathing rituals often related to prayer times, and were variable and complex. Specific swamps were also considered to be sacred healing places, such as al-Matbaa at Tel al-Sammam in the Plain of Esdraelon. Associated with the wali ("saint") al-Sheik Ibrek, al-Matbaa was widely renowned for curing sterility, rheumatism and nervous pains. Canaan noted that after washing in its water, women trying to conceive would offer a present to al-Sheikh Ibrek.[22]
In "Belief in Demons in the Holy Land" (1929, original in German), Canaan gathers together every reference to demons in Palestinian popular belief, detailing their names and classes, food, dress, appearance, and dwellings, such as, for example, the carob tree. Canaan posited that village sanctuaries and rituals to confer protection and blessings were an indication of how supernatural forces are everywhere found, affecting people's lives and bringing good or bad luck and even diseases. He identified the names of some diseases in Arabic as referencing the names of long-forgotten demons, citing examples like, al-khanuq (diphteria), ar-rih al-asfar (cholera or yellow fever), and at-ta'un (plague). Canaan's perception of the origin of demons was in line with the traditional view that they were once deities within polytheistic systems, which Canaan refers to as the "primitive religions." With the advent of monotheism, the status of these gods diminished, subsisting nevertheless in the communal unconscious as demons.[23]
In 1929, during a trip to Petra, Canaan discovered at its northern boundary a Kebaran shelter which he named Wadi Madamagh.[24] Canaan counted among his acquaintances a number of specialists in the field of Palestinian archaeology, including William Foxwell Albright, Nelson Glueck, and Kathleen Kenyon.[7]
Gathered by Canaan beginning in the early 20th century through until 1947, the collection comprises more than 1,400 amulets and other objects related to popular medicine and folk practices.[3] It was donated by Canaan's family to Birzeit University following his death.[25] Canaan collected some of these objects from patients who came from Palestinian cities and villages, as well as those who came from other Arab locales in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen.[3] He also purchased amulets from antiquity dealers, one of these being Ohan, a well-known Armenian who had a shop in ad-Dabbaghah Quarter in Jerusalem until 1948. Sheikhs, fortunetellers, and Sufis who prepared amulets could be counted among Canaan's many acquaintances, including Ibrahim Hassan al-Ansari (Ad-Danaf), a custodian of the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount), Sheikh 'Atif ad-Disy, a Qadiriyyah follower, and Sheikh Mahmoud al-'Askari al-Falakki from al-Dhahiriyyah, a famous fortuneteller in Jerusalem.[26]
Canaan believed there was a close relationship between popular beliefs and superstitions marshalled to cure diseases, and scientific medicine. Interviews he conducted with the individuals who wore talismans constituted an important part of his analysis, complemented by the consulting of specialized sources on sorcery and witchcraft. He wrote about the meanings of the shapes, writings, letters and numbers used, in his attempts at deciphering some of the symbols, and published an article on his findings in a journal produced by Antiquities Museum of the American University in Beirut in 1937.[3]
Drawing upon his medical background, Canaan classifies amulets under the subheadings of etiology, diagnosis, prognosis, prophylaxis, and treatment which constitute chapter headings in his book Superstition and Popular Medicine (1914). Evil spirits, such as the Qarinah, "Mother of Boys", and the evil eye are discussed in the chapter on etiology. In the chapter on prophylaxis, he covers charms, amulets, and beads, such as the blue bead, eyes, and alum. The uses of the branch of the mes-tree (celtis australis) that grows within the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) compound in Jerusalem, for example, are described in detail. Placed in a necklace or on the head, the branch is said to have a special effect if harvested on Laylat al-Qadr (27 Ramadan), which in Islamic belief is the night the Quran was revealed. In the chapter on treatment, which includes a comprehensive listing of all kinds of amulets and talismans, such as "the soul's bead", "the cat's eye", "the milk's bead" (to encourage the production of breastmilk), Canaan also discusses jewelry and the special uses of animal parts, such as al-hitit-horn which he identifies as a useful treatment for poisoning.[16]
Canaan's collection is composed of:
The collection is considered a valuable resource for those interested in manifestations of magic in the popular beliefs underpinning folk medicine practices in Palestinian and Arab societies.[3]
Canaan's political positions and his strong sense of nationalism find clear expression in two of his published works: The Palestine Arab Cause (1936) and Conflict in the Land of Peace (1936). Published in English, Arabic, and French, The Palestine Arab Cause was a 48-page booklet that "resembled a political pamphlet directed at British public opinion".[27] First published as a series of articles in the local and foreign press after the outbreak of the 1936 Arab revolt, the writings were considered by the Mandatory authorities to be subversive.[27] Canaan described British policy as, "a destructive campaign against the Arabs with the ultimate aim of exterminating them from their country."[27] He also questioned the nationality laws enacted by the Mandatory authorities which prevented Palestinian immigrants in the Americas, who had been citizens of the Ottoman Empire, from obtaining Palestinian citizenship in Mandate Palestine.[28]
Conflict in the Land of Peace probes the Palestine problem in greater detail and contains responses to an anonymously authored pamphlet released after the publication of The Palestine Arab Cause that outlined the benefits that Jewish immigration brought to Palestine, such as improvements in agriculture and in the health conditions of the peasantry. Canaan responded to, and deconstructed, the alleged benefits. For example, in addressing the draining of some swamps and streams by Jewish settlers, he concedes that this did contribute to controlling the malaria epidemic in Palestine, but points out that these lands, purchased at a very low prices, were transformed into agricultural land via Arab labour for the sole benefit of the Jewish owners. Recalling that tens of the Egyptian labourers employed to dig the drainage channels died in the process, Canaan writes: "Baron De Rothschild supplied the money and the Egyptians gave their lives."[28] Drawing attention to what the anonymous pamphleteer did not, Canaan further notes that the draining of swamps was carried out by Palestinians and Arabs in tens of sites throughout Palestine, under the supervision of the Department of Health, with Arab financial support and volunteer labour.[28]
Canaan was also co-signatory to a document sent to the Higher Arab Committee on 6 August 1936, and there is reason to believe that Canaan strongly supported providing the Arab rebels with arms.[28] From 1936 onward, Canaan, "clearly expressed his rejection of British and Zionist policies, in particular the policy of open-door Jewish immigration to Palestine."[27]
On 3 September 1939, the day that Britain and France declared war on Germany, Canaan was arrested by the British Mandate authorities. After two court appearances, he was released, but was then imprisoned for nine weeks in Acre at the behest of the Criminal Investigation Department. His wife Margot was also arrested because she was German, and his sister Badra was arrested on the accusation that she was, "inciting Arab women against Britain."[15] Both were imprisoned with Jewish criminal prisoners at a women's facility in Bethlehem; his wife for nine months, and his sister for four years. They were then sent to Wilhelma, a former German colony that had been transformed into a detention camp for German Palestinians.[27]
Margot and Badra were among those who founded the Arab Women's Committee in Jerusalem in 1934. Initially a charitable society, it soon took on a political orientation; by May 1936, the Committee was calling for civil disobedience and the continuation of the general strike that kicked off the 1936 revolt. Badra's political involvement also included serving as the assistant secretary in the Palestinian delegation to The Eastern Women's Conference that was held in support of Palestine in Cairo in October 1938.[27]
Established on 4 August 1944 by way of a decision adopted at the Arab Medical Conference in Haifa in 1934, the Arab Medical Society of Palestine was an umbrella group for medical associations in various cities. Canaan was the first president of the Society which published the first issue of its journal al-Majallah at-Tibbiyyah al-'Arabiyyah al-Filastiniyyah ("The Palestinian Arab Medical Journal") in Arabic and English in December 1945. Canaan was also a member of the journal's editorial board, with Mahmoud ad-Dajani serving as editor-in-chief. The Society organized its first medical conference in Palestine in July 1945; among the invitees was Howard Walter Florey, the Nobel laureate in Physiology and Medicine for isolating and purifying penicillin.[29]
When the political and security situation in Palestine deteriorated, the Society trained and organized relief units and centers to provide medical aid to Palestinian and Arab fighters. Contacting and coordinating with the Red Cross to protect hospitals and other humanitarian institutions, the Society also appealed to medical associations and Red Crescent and Red Cross organizations in the Arab world to send help, and limited medical aid was sent by some. Canaan was also a founding member of the Higher Arab Relief Committee, established on 24 January 1948, to receive aid coming to the country and supervise its distribution.[29]
Bombs and mortar shells hit some Arab houses in al-Musrarah quarter of Jerusalem where the Canaan family home was located on 22 February 1948. Shortly thereafter, the Canaan's children were moved out of the house to a safer location, but Tawfiq, Margot, Badra, and Nora (his sister-in-law) remained there. Canaan had deposited his collection of amulets and 250 icons with an international organization in the western part of Jerusalem earlier that same year for safekeeping. After the house sustained a direct hit on 9 May 1948, Canaan and those who remained went to the Old City where they had arranged to stay at a convent. The Greek Orthodox Patriarch gave the family a room where they lived for two and a half years. Canaan's daughter Leila Mantoura wrote of this time:
"Mother and father would go daily to the top of the Wall of Jerusalem to look at their home. They witnessed it being ransacked, together with the wonderful priceless library and manuscripts, which mother guarded jealously and with great pride. They saw mother's Biedermeyer furniture being loaded into trucks and then their home being set on fire."[30]
Canaan's family home, library, and three manuscripts ready for publication were destroyed in the process.[30]
Continuing his work as physician, treating patients out of his new temporary home, Canaan also continued to head the Arab Medical Society of Palestine and serve his country. After difficult negotiations with the Mandate Government, the Arab Medical Society of Palestine succeeded in taking over operations at the Central Hospital and the Hospice Hospital in Jerusalem, the Infectious Diseases Hospital near Beit Safafa, and the Mental Hospital in Bethlehem. The Central Hospital and its facilities in the Russian Compound (al-Mascobiyyah), together with the Austrian Hospice Hospital, were officially under the Society's administration by May 1948, and both facilities received the wounded and the sick during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. A large Red Cross flag flew over the Central Hospital which was run by one of Canaan's colleagues. Jewish militias nevertheless shelled the hospital, destroying a large section. After the surrounding houses and a part of the hospital were occupied by Jewish militants, who continually shelled the remainder of the medical facility preventing patient access, the Society was finally forced to evacuate in October 1948.[30]
Canaan personally managed the Austrian Hospice, transformed into a hospital in early 1948, with the agreement of the Mandatory authorities. He and the hospital staff were able to keep it running during the battle for Jerusalem until they too were forced to evacuate because of the continuous shelling.[30]
After the war ended, and with the influx of Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) appointed Canaan manager of its medical operations in the area. He helped establish clinics at the Saint John Hospice in the Old City of Jerusalem, and in 'Aizariyyeh, Hebron, Beit Jala, and Taybeh in the West Bank. He also oversaw operations at the mobile clinics established by the LWF in rural areas.[7]
In 1950, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the LWF jointly reestablished the Augusta Victoria Hospital in the same building it had occupied before the war on the Mount of Olives (Jabal al-Tur). Involved in realizing the project, Canaan was appointed its first medical director.[7]
His son Theo's death in 1954 while renovating an archaeological monument in Jerash left Canaan and his wife bereft.[7] When he retired from his position as medical director in 1957 at the age of 75, Canaan was given a home on the hospital grounds of called Gardner's House.[11] He lived there with his family, continuing to write, until his death on 15 January 1964. His last article, "Crime in the Traditions and Customs of the Arabs in Jordan," was published in German in Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästinavereins that same year. Canaan was buried in the Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery in Bethlehem, near Beit Jala, his childhood home.[7]