Nakba Diaries: Unsettling the Scale and Temporality of Historical Writing

Authors

  • Author

  • Alex Winder

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31430/almuntaqa.2.2.0024

Keywords:

Palestinian, Historiography, Nakba Diaries, Palestinian History

Abstract

This paper argues that diaries are in themselves a kind of history—individual in scale and scope, but wide-ranging in content and style. Reading diaries as histories rather than as historical documents, offers new perspectives from which to understand Palestinians’ experiences of the Nakba. In particular, this paper draws on the Nakba-era diaries of Khalil al-Sakakini and Muhammad ‘Abd al-Hadi al-Shrouf, to suggest potential contributions of reading diaries as history rather than texts from which fragments can be mobilized to augment, confirm, or illuminate narrative histories. Khalil al-Sakakini was one of the giants of Palestinian intellectual and political life in the twentieth century, and his diaries encompass nearly half a century, extending from 1907 to 1953. Meanwhile, Muhammad ‘Abd al-Hadi al-Shrouf (1913–1994) was of a different generation and a different milieu than Sakakini. Though far less prominent, and less prolific, than Sakakini, Shrouf’s diaries nevertheless provide an extensive record of the life of a Palestinian villager and subaltern during a crucial period of social, political, and economic transformation. Overall, the assessment of these two works will place Sakakini’s and Shrouf’s diaries within the context of Palestinian and Arab diaries, discussing their generic distinction from other kinds of personal accounts and even other published diaries, before discussing what in particular may be gained by reading these diaries as Nakba histories.

References

  1. This study was originally presented at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies’ conference titled “Seventy Years Since the Nakba: Memory and History”, which was held in May 12-14, 2018. It is set to be released in an Arabic book by the same title.
  2. Palestinian Studies Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University.
  3. Khalil al-Sakakini, Kadha ana ya dunya [Such Am I, O World] (n.p.: al-Matba‘a al-tijariyya, 1955).
  4. Salim Tamari, Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 113. Jerusalem Quarterly 59 (2014): 68–85; Tamari, Mountain against the Sea , 113–132, 176–189. Class in 1948: The Case of Qatamon,” Middle Eastern Studies 43, no. 6 (2007): 961–982. Politics and Society in the District of Jerusalem, 1872–1908 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 194–210. 1953, implies that he maintained a diary during these years as well, but that these calendars have been lost, destroyed, or are otherwise inaccessible. The Diaries of Muhammad ‘Abd al-Hadi al-Shrouf] (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-dirasat al-Filastiniyya, 2016). Alex Winder, “With the Dregs at the Sambo Café: The Shrouf Diaries, 1943–1962,” Jerusalem Quarterly 54 (Summer 2013): 31–55.
  5. See: Nadim Bawalsa, “Sakakini Defrocked,” Jerusalem Quarterly 42 (2010): 5–25; Emanuel Beska, “Khalil al-Sakakini and Zionism before WWI,” Jerusalem Quarterly 63–64 (2015): 40–53; Yusuf Ayyub Haddad, Khalil al-Sakakini: hayatuhu, mawaqifuhu, wa-atharuhu [Khalil al-Sakakini: His Life, His Ideas, and His Patrimony] (Beirut: al-Ittihad al-‘amm li-l-kuttab wa al-suhufiyyin al-Filastiniyyin, 1981); Elie Keddouri, “Religion and Politics: The Diaries of Khalil Sakakini,” St. Antony’s Papers 4 (1958): 77–94; Adel Manna‘, “Between Jerusalem and Damascus: The End of Ottoman Rule as Seen by a Palestinian Modernist,” Jerusalem Quarterly 22–23 (2005): 117–120; Kamel Moed, “Educator in the Service of the Homeland: Khalil al-Sakakini’s Conflicted Identities,”
  6. In his 375-page book about Sakakini, for example, Yusuf Ayyub Haddad dedicates only about 5 pages to this period: Haddad, 85–91. The exception to this has been the work of Itamar Radai, who has used Sakakini’s diaries as a key source in his work on the fate of al-Qatamon neighborhood in 1948. See: Itamar Radai, “Qatamon, 1948: The Fall of a Neighborhood,” Jerusalem Quarterly 46 (2011): 6–14; and Itamar Radai, “The Collapse of the Palestinian-Arab Middle
  7. For the historical significant of the ‘Amleh family in Jabal al-Khalil in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Johann Büssow, Hamidian Palestine:
  8. Nine of these calendars remain. The lack of entries from 1947 and 1950, despite Shrouf’s prolific diary-keeping for the remainder of the period from 1946 to
  9. Alex Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa wa jabal al-Khalil: yawmiyyat Muhammad ‘Abd al-Hadi al-Shuruf (1943–1962) [Between Jaffa and Mount Hebron:
  10. On the diary’s contributions, see: Alex Winder, “After the Nakba in Nuba: A Palestinian Villager’s Diary, 1949,” Biography 37, no. 2 (Spring 2014): 24–76;
  11. See: Kimberly Katz, ed., A Young Palestinian’s Diary: The Life of Sami ‘Amr (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009); Thomas M. Ricks, ed., Turbulent Times in Palestine: The Diaries of Khalil Totah, 1886–1955 (Ramallah: Institute for Palestine Studies and PASSIA, 2009); Salim Tamari, ed., Year of the Locust: A Soldier’s Diary and the Erasure of Palestine’s Ottoman Past (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011); Akram Zu‘aytir, Yawmiyyat Akram Zu‘aytir: al-haraka al-wataniyya al-Filastiniyya, 1935–1939 [The Diaries of Akram Zu‘aytir: The Palestinian National Movement, 1935–1939] (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-
  12. Sameeh Hammoudeh, “Yawmiyyat al-nukhba al-Filastiniyya fi ‘ahd al-intidab al-Britani: qadaya bahthiyya” [Diaries of Palestinian Elites in the British Mandate Era: Research Issues], in Zakariya Muhammad et al., eds., Awraq ‘a’iliyya: dirasat fi al-tarikh al-ijtima‘i al-mu‘asir li-Filastin [Family Papers: Studies
  13. See Gish Amit, “Salvage or Plunder? Israel’s ‘Collection’ of Private Palestinian Libraries in West Jerusalem,” Journal of Palestine Studies 40, no. 4 (Summer dirasat al-Filastiniyya, 1980). in the Modern Social History of Palestine] (Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies), 224–26. 2011): 6–23; Hannah Mermelstein, “Overdue Books: Returning Palestine’s ‘Abandoned Property’ of 1948,” Jerusalem Quarterly 47 (Autumn 2011): 46–64.
  14. Hala Sakakini, Jerusalem and I: A Personal Record (Amman: Economic Press, 1987), 110–133.
  15. Bahjat Abu Gharbiyya, Fi khidamm al-nidal al-‘Arabi al-Filastini: mudhakkirat al-munadil Bahjat Abu Gharbiyya, 1916–1949 [In the Midst of the
  16. Philippe Lejeune, On Diary , ed. Jeremy D. Popkin and Julie Rak (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009), 182. Emphasis in original. the Armies’ Shock: Palestine 1948 War Diaries] (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2000).
  17. Hassan Hathut, Yawmiyyat tabib Misri: Filastin, al-nakba al-ula 1948 [Diaries of an Egyptian Doctor: Palestine, the First Catastrophe, 1948] (Cairo: Kitab al-hilal, 1988); Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, ed., al-‘Urush wa al-juyush: kadhalik infajara al-sira‘ fi Filastin, 1948–1998: qira’a fi yawmiyyat al-harb [Thrones and Armies: Thus Erupted the Conflict in Palestine, 1948–1998: A Reading of War Diaries] (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1998); Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, ed., al-‘Urush wa al-juyush 2: azmat al-‘urush, sadmat al-juyush: yawmiyyat al-harb (Filastin 1948) [Thrones and Armies 2: The Thrones’ Crisis and Palestinian Arab Struggle: Memoirs of the Fighter Bahjat Abu Gharbiyya, 1916–1949] (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-dirasat al-Filastiniyya, 1993).
  18. This language is drawn from Cemal Kafadar’s study of the diary of Seyyid Hasan, a seventeenth-century Ottoman dervish. See Cemal Kafadar, “Self and
  19. On the “networks of companionship” in Sakakini’s and Shrouf’s respective diaries, see, for example: Tamari, Mountain against the Sea , 176–189; Winder,
  20. Sakakini had been informed earlier of his nomination, and included a warm anecdote in his diary entry for the week of 8–17 January 1948, recounting Sari kitab al-thamin: al-khuruj min al-Qatamun, 1942–1953 [The Diaries of Khalil al-Sakakini: Diaries, Letters, Reflections: Volume Eight: Exile from al-Qatamun, Others: The Diary of a Dervish in Seventeenth Century Istanbul and First-Person Narratives in Ottoman Literature,” Studia Islamica 69 (1989): 148. “With the Dregs.” reading aloud the report of the nomination from al-Ahram newspaper. Akram Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini: yawmiyyat, risalat, ta’ammulat: al- 1942–1953] (Ramallah: Institute for Jerusalem Studies and Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center, 2010), 239.
  21. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 244.
  22. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 246.
  23. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 250.
  24. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 255.
  25. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 255.
  26. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 91.
  27. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 91.
  28. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 93.
  29. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 93.
  30. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 94.
  31. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 94.
  32. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 93.
  33. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 97. to the Middle East Studies Association annual meeting, Washington, DC, 19 November 2017.
  34. Winder, “With the Dregs.” See also, Alex Winder, “Family, Social, and Professional Networks in Mount Hebron Before and After 1948,” paper presented
  35. On the Vagabond Café of Jerusalem, see Tamari, Mountain against the Sea , 176–189.
  36. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 267.
  37. Sakakini, Jerusalem and I , 124. publisher, trader, doctor, and a significant number of retirees.
  38. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 268–69. The professions listed for members of the Palmyra circle include pharmacist, lawyer, journalist,
  39. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 277.
  40. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 279.
  41. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 277.
  42. Tamari, Mountain against the Sea , 119.
  43. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 278. “ Ayyatuha al-aqdar ruwaydaka fa-innana ad‘af min an nahtamil mithla hadhihi al-masa’ib.”
  44. This characteristic of Sakakini’s pre-1948 writings has been identified and examined by ‘Adania Shibli. Hisham ‘Awda, “‘Adania Shibli: harakat al-kalimat rahinat jughrafiya al-makan,” al-Dustur , 10 May 2010, online at addustour.com/articles/451926 (accessed 18 February 2018).
  45. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 237.
  46. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 238.
  47. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 248.
  48. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 248.
  49. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 255.
  50. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 126–7.
  51. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 127.
  52. See Winder, “With the Dregs,” 44–49.
  53. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 93, 98, 107–8, 111–13, 115, and 123. Swedenburg, “The Palestinian Peasant as National Signifier,” Anthropological Quarterly 63, no. 1 (Jan. 1990): 18–30. Claims of Memory , ed. Ahmad H. Sa’di and Lila Abu-Lughod (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 54.
  54. On the longstanding importance of Jerusalem in Palestinian nationalist thought, see, for example: Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), especially 35–62. On rural Palestine as a nationalized space, see Ted
  55. Rochelle Davis, “Mapping the Past, Re-creating the Homeland: Memories of Village Places in pre-1948 Palestine,” in Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the
  56. Fatma Kassem, Palestinian Women: Narrative Histories and Gendered Memory (London: Zed Books, 2011), 130.
  57. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 252.
  58. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 256.
  59. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 256. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 105.
  60. The only real record of affect in Shrouf’s diaries from this period is—notably—in reaction to an interpersonal, not geopolitical, development. Although the actual cause is unclear, on 19 November 1948, Shrouf writes: “At 12:30 in the afternoon today, I became angry with [my wife] Halima and her brother Mahmud.”
  61. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 97.
  62. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 113.
  63. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 266.
  64. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 266.
  65. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 266.
  66. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 99. “rainy and cold” (25 February, 26 February). Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 108–9.
  67. See, for example, various entries from February 1949, in which the weather is described as “very cold” (5 February); “rainy and very cold” (7 February);
  68. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 107.
  69. Winder, ed., Bayna manshiyat Yafa , 110.
  70. Kassem, Palestinian Women , 130.
  71. Lejeune, On Diary , 208.
  72. Lejeune, On Diary , 179.
  73. As Elias Khoury writes: “The nakba is a continuous process. Its major event was 1948, but it never ended. It has gone through different phases and taken different shapes.” Elias Khoury, Rethinking the Nakba ,” Critical Inquiry 38, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 256.
  74. Musallam, ed., Yawmiyyat Khalil al-Sakakini , 261.
  75. Lejeune, On Diary , 183.
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Citing articles from external sources (1)

  1. Rowa Nabil (2026) Yawmiyyāt al-Wāḥāt: Reading Precarity in the Prison Diaries of Sonallah Ibrahim (1962–1964). Life Writing, 23(1), 113 https://doi.org/10.1080/14484528.2025.2584382

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