Al-Madrasa al-Wataniyya: A model of secularism

England had opened a boys’ school with money from a London committee around September 1862.¹¹⁰ The school was located in Bustani’s house in the Beirut

neigh-106 More on this incident in chapter I, section 2.5.

107 Daniel Bliss to Abby Bliss (March 16, 1874), in: Bliss, Letters from a New Campus, 225. Un-fortunately, the editor did not identify the article under discussion.

108 Daniel Bliss to Abby Bliss (March 18, 1874), in: Bliss, Letters from a New Campus, 227.

109 NECB minutes (June 21, 1878), 32.

110 There are contradictory statements about the year that the school was founded. Secondary lit-erature frequently mentions 1863, as does that year’s annual report (see ABC 16.8.1., vol. 6 [33]). Butrus al-Bustani’s article in al-Jinan (vol. 4, 1873, 626) and Jessup’s memoirs (Fifty- Three Years in Syria, vol. 2, 484) identify 1862 as the year of the school’s founding.

borhood Zoqaq al-Blat.¹¹¹ Soon thereafter, Bustani assumed responsibility for the approximately thirty boys, naming the institution the “National School” (al-Ma-drasa al-Wataniyya).¹¹² According to the Syria Mission’s annual report from 1863, there were already 115 students by the end of the year.¹¹³ To learn more about this school, one must turn to the few eyewitness account that remain.¹¹⁴ Minutes, annual reports, and student rosters – all of which the Madrasa Wataniyya certainly had – can no longer be found and are presumably lost.

Initiative for the school probably did not come from Mrs. Watson alone, but rather from Bustani,¹¹⁵ who had many years of teaching experience in ʿAyn Warqa, as well as at the seminaries in Beirut and ʿAbeih. Since 1856, he was both a mem-ber and secretary of the supervisory board for the English Lebanon Schools.¹¹⁶ He developed course plans for these schools, as well as for the school founded by the Druze governor (mutaṣārrif) of Mount Lebanon, Dawud Pasha, in ʿAbeih in 1862.

Here he earned the honorary title muʿallim (master/teacher), which stayed with him for the rest of his life.¹¹⁷

Jessup reported that in 1861, five years before the founding of the SPC, there was discussion within the mission about cofounding a college with Bustani. An initial plan was to send both Bustani and George Ford to England, in order to col-lect donations for the project. However, some missionaries raised concerns about the binational cooperation, and Ford made the trip alone in 1862.¹¹⁸ It surely is no coincidence that Bustani started the National School in 1862, likewise with English support. As already depicted in chapter I, section 1.5, preparations to establish the SPC under American leadership began in 1862. The Beirut mission station’s an-nual report from 1863 does not indicate any ill will towards Bustani’s institution.

Since members of different religious communities were willing to pay to have their children attend a Protestant school, there seemed to be no further obstacles to estab-lishing the SPC: “It is plain that the movement for a College was not commenced a moment too soon.”¹¹⁹ In the years to come, however, opinions towards Bustani’s institution would change considerably within the mission.

111 Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 270. Without citing his source, Hitti (Lebanon in History, 462) states that Bustani first established the school in ʿAbeih and then moved it to Beirut. According to the Missionary Herald, the school was founded in Beirut in 1863.

112 The translation of the school’s name as “National School” has established itself in the second-ary literature, although Tibawi (“The American Missionaries in Beirut,” 171) notes that, at the time, watan would not yet have been translated as “nation,” but rather “homeland” or “father-land.” With this reservation, I use the familiar translation “National School” here as well.

113 MH 60 (1864), in: ROS 5, 91.

114 Jens Hanssen reviewed these eyewitness accounts in his study of the Beirut neighborhood Zoqaq al-Blat. See Hanssen, “The Birth of an Education Quarter,” 152–54.

115 Jessup also wrote that Bustani founded the school with his own money and with financial assis-tance from America and England. See Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 2, 484.

116 For the Lebanon Schools, see chapter I, section 2.3.

117 Tarrazi, Tarikh al-Sihafa al-ʿArabiyya, 89; Hitti, Lebanon in History, 445; Khuri, Rajul Sabiq li-ʿAsrihi, 53–54.

118 Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 240.

119 “Annual Report of Beirut Station for 1863”: ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 6 (33).

“It is not a Missionary school nor connected with our work,” the 1863 annual report stated, “but the Bible is read at morning and evening prayer which all the pupils are obliged to attend.”¹²⁰ Although the National School was directed by one of the most respected Protestants in the city, it was not religiously oriented. Accord-ing to daya, Bustani was initially uncertain about introducing some reformist ideas within the leadership of the school. He asked for the missionaries’ advice, but he broke off his cooperation with them once he recognized that the Americans had only their own interests in mind. daya writes that the resulting animosities did not bother Bustani.¹²¹ It is questionable whether Bustani needed to seek this kind of help from the missionaries. He moved in the same circles as other important intellectuals and reformers, both Christian and Muslim, who were pursuing similar goals.¹²² Without a doubt, the Madrasa Wataniyya was a bold experiment. The school’s multicon-fessionalism meant that all students received instruction in their own religion, and they could participate in religious services and celebrations with an accompanying instructor.¹²³ Nothing like this had existed before in a Syrian school. Years after the religiously motivated violence of the 1860 civil war, the National School came to represent the ideal of a secular society: “The makeup of our society resembles that of National School. The students … are siblings from a single homeland; differ-ences in religion do not affect how they work, study, and live.”¹²⁴

Teachers and students from Syria’s different religious communities set aside religious animosities to pursue the common goal of education.

The school welcomes students from all religious groups (ṭauwāʾif), creeds (milal), and back-grounds (ajnās), without casting judgment on their convictions or forcing another confession upon them (tajabarhum bi-itbāʿ madhhab ghayr madhhab). … the sons of this nation have earned a place at the forefront of their generation, regardless of their creed or religion. Knowl-edge and progress will allow them to see and hear the damage that has been wrought by re-ligious fanaticism and hostile elements (taʿaṣubāt al-ṭāʾifīyya wa l-ʿanāṣir al-ḍuddīyya). We must be willing to trust those who are different, so that the fatherland will not fall behind and sink into disgrace.¹²⁵ (Figure 8 and 9)

An array of subjects were taught at the school, including the Arabic, Ottoman Turk-ish, French, EnglTurk-ish, Greek, and Latin languages. Creative writing, rhetoric, music, and photography were offered alongside the usual academic subjects.¹²⁶ Well-re-spected scholars made up the national and international faculty, contributing to the

120 Ibid.

121 Daya does not, however, provide a source. He adds that these events led the Maronite metro-politan al-Dabas to state that Bustani would return to the Maronite church before the end of his life. See “al-Muʿallim Butrus al-Bustani 125 ʿAman ʿala Wafatihi,” 2008.

122 Hanssen, “The Birth of an Education Quarter.”

123 Bustani, “al-Madrasa al-Wataniyya,” 627 (TA); Tibawi, “The Genesis and Early History of the Syrian Protestant College,” 275–76. Around thirty students regularly attended the services of the Protestant Beirut Church. See MH 60 (1864), in: ROS 5, 91.

124 “An takūn hayʾatina al-ijtimāʿīyya ka-l-madrasa waṭanīyya. Fa-ʾin ṭulāb … ikhwa waṭanīyīn lā taʾathīr li-ikhtilāf al-adiyān fī aʿmālihim wa durūsihim wa maʿīshatihim.” See Salim Bustani, “Butrus Bustani,” al-Jinan 14 (1883), 321, cited in: Khuri, Rajul Sabiq li-ʿAsrihi, 68.

125 Bustani, “al-Madrasa al-Wataniyya,” 627.

126 Ibid.

school’s outstanding reputation. The renowned poet and author Nasif al-Yaziji, who had worked for the mission for years, taught Arabic at the National School. The same subject was later taught by Yusuf al-Asir, who assisted Van Dyck with the Bible translation. At the beginning of the 1870s, Ahmad ʿAbbas (from Al-Azhar University in Cairo) was hired to teach Islamic theology and philosophy. Many of the students who graduated from the Madrasa Wataniyya “became leading Beirut

Figure 9: al-Madrasa al-Wataniyya (Elementary school and private schools, recreation rooms for summer and winter)

Figure 8: al-Madrasa al-Wataniyya (Dormitories for the young students, entrance hall, auditorium and examination room, office and residence of the president and his family)

intellectuals, working as educators, publishers, journalists and Beirut municipal councillors.”¹²⁷ Bustani was aware of the graduates’ potential as future leaders of their country, and he wanted to prepare them accordingly. In 1873 he founded the Jamʿiyat Zahrat al-Adab (Flower of Arts Society), which sought to promote the acquisition of knowledge as well as oral debating skills. Students and graduates of the National School who participated in the society wrote and performed theatrical works.¹²⁸

Although Bustani’s secular school differed from other religious and missionary schools, it entered into an agreement of cooperation with the SPC in 1865. Jes-sup and the Board of Managers sought a three-year agreement,¹²⁹ so that the SPC could rent space within the National School for its preparatory department.¹³⁰ The National School was to make its instructors and resources available for students preparing to study at the SPC.¹³¹ From the very beginning, the agreement harbored potential for conflict between the headstrong presidents of both institutions, Butrus al-Bustani and Daniel Bliss.¹³² Already in 1864, William Thomson wrote to Bliss (who was away) on behalf of the Board of Managers, stating that cooperation with Bustani would not be possible “unless he will consent to greatly modify his present operations. It is my opinion that matters will very likely take such a turn as will enable us to make a profitable use of his tallents [sic], energy and experience, but things are not yet ripe for such measures.”¹³³

Cooperation between the institutions began in 1865, but it was close to falling apart just two years later. The SPC was justified in its fears that Bustani would not

127 Hanssen, “The Birth of an Education Quarter,” 152; ibid. (note 33): Sulayman al-Bustani (1856–1925), Butrus’s cousin, became a government minister and senator under the Young Turks, and he also translated Homer’s Odyssey. Zaydan, “Tarikh al-Nahda al-ʿIlmiyya al-Ak-hira fi Misr wa l-Sham,” 238: Salim Bek Taqla became the editor of the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram, which still exists today. See also Cioeta, “Islamic Benevolent Societies,” 43 (note 5);

and Hanssen, “Fin de siècle Beirut,” 169–70: ʿAbd al-Qadir al-Qabbani attended the National School. He later founded the Islamic scientific society Jamʿiyat al-Funun (Society of Arts) and edited the society’s journal, Thamarat al-Funun (Fruits of Art).

128 Raffoul, “Butrus al-Bustani’s Contribution to Translation,” 150.

129 Jessup to Anderson (Beirut, January 27, 1865): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 6 (215): “I think appearances strongly indicate that the school will be brought into connection with the college without diffi-culty.” Jessup to Bliss (November 23, 1865): AA.2.3.1.10.2: “Mr. Bistany, is accepted, and I see nothing in the way of cooperation at once …”

130 Penrose, “That they may have life”, 25. Without mentioning any names, Bliss noted briefly in his Reminiscences: “We were housed for two years in four or five rooms of an insignificant building.” Bliss’s aversion to Bustani was evident. See Bliss, Letters from a New Campus, 187.

131 Students at the college also came from other indigenous religious schools, as well as from the mission seminary in ʿAbeih. See Bliss, “A Statement” (Beirut, December 31, 1866):

AA.2.3.1.10.4.

132 As with John Wortabet (see chapter III, section 2), David Stuart Dodge (an English teacher who later served on the SPC’s Board of Trustees) rarely missed an opportunity to disparage Bustani in his correspondence with Daniel Bliss. “Dodge … lambasted Bustani as a tricky and under-handed child of the East. ‘He must be assigned a place and be kept there … and never be re-garded as one whom we can fully trust in any particular.’” See Dodge to Bliss (July 25, 1865):

AA.2.3.1.5., cited in: Makdisi, Artillery of Heaven, 211.

133 Thomson to Bliss (Shimlan, July 20, 1864): AA.2.3.1.10.1.

abide by the college’s principles. Although they shared the same building, students at the Madrasa Wataniyya were subject to different rules than students preparing for the SPC: “Discipline was very hard to maintain, to say the least.”¹³⁴ The dif-ferences in opinion were wide-ranging, suggesting that the SPC’s ability to control the National School was at issue. All this understandably tested Bustani’s patience.

When he hired four new teachers for the preparatory department without consulting the SPC, the Board of Managers responded in protest by withholding the teachers’

promised wages. The SPC also did not fully distribute funds that had been donated by Mrs. Watson, who continued to support the Madrasa Wataniyya. When Bustani complained, the Board of Managers asked him to provide an itemized list of ex-penditures. Finally, at the beginning of March 1867, Bustani sent the SPC a formal letter of complaint. He indignantly brushed aside the college’s criticisms. More-over, he stated that the relationship with the college was harming his own institution, since proselytism and restrictions on freedom were incompatible with the outlook of the National School. Similarities in the curricula of the National School and the SPC meant that they were competitors. He further complained “that the discipline of the College is less strict, in some respects, than that of said Institution, and there-fore demoralizing to it; in that students from said Institution have been covertly enticed to enter the College. …”¹³⁵ In return, the Board of Managers asserted that the existing three-year agreement guaranteed rent only, not services and wages for the director and his staff.¹³⁶ Nevertheless, the college hoped to maintain the pre-paratory department until at least 1869, since it did not have another prepre-paratory school.¹³⁷ Bustani and the Board of Managers came to an agreement about wages at the end of 1867, and cooperation between the institutions appears to have held until 1868 or 1869.¹³⁸ Minutes of the Board of Managers from these two years no longer mention the Madrasa Wataniyya. Jessup’s 1874 book, Women of the Arabs, mentions that around 150 students attended the National School.¹³⁹ Its enrollment, however, declined steadily because of the many new religious schools that were

134 Penrose, “That they may have life”, 29.

135 “Report of the Committee on the Preparatory Department of the Syrian Protestant College, adopted by the Board of Managers” (Beirut, March 8, 1867), in: “Records of the Board of Managers of the Syrian Protestant College”: AA.2.1.2., folder 1, 59–60. The records of the Board of Managers contain an undated memorandum that reads like a list of complaints about the SPC (“4th Seducing the pupils and teachers of the Madrasat Wataneah and Prept. Dept. to leave the same and enter the College,” etc.). The document presumably has to do with Bustani’s complaints from 1867. See AA.2.1.2., folder 8.

136 “Record of the Board of Managers of the Syrian Protestant College” (Beirut, March 8, 1867):

AA.2.1.2., folder 1, 46.

137 A subsequent debate was whether the seminary in ʿAbeih should become a preparatory depart-ment for the college. In 1874, the question remained unresolved. If the seminary was not to be directly integrated within the SPC, Bliss expected the mission to cover its costs: Daniel Bliss to Abby Bliss (Beirut, January 6, 1874), in: Bliss, Letters from a New Campus, 166. “We shall not consent to pay for anything over which we have not absolute control.”

138 Board of Managers to the Executive Committee (Beirut, October 29, 1867): AA.2.1.2., folder 2.

139 Jessup, The Women of the Arabs, 136.

founded in the area.¹⁴⁰ In 1877, Bustani decided to close the school upon the advice of his friends.¹⁴¹ The sudden demise of the National School seems strange, given the high praise – and even a special award¹⁴² – that Bustani had received from the government for the school’s success and unique nature.¹⁴³ The school’s con-tinued existence presumably depended too strongly on Bustani himself. After 1875, he turned his attentions to his ambitious encyclopedia project, Daʾirat al-Maʿarif (see below). Finances may also have played a role. In his article on the Madrasa Wataniyya in the journal al-Jinan, Bustani noted that parents did not always pay the tuition.¹⁴⁴ He once said that he would even sell his own house to keep the school open.¹⁴⁵ In the end, the circle of benefactors for this unique school may not have been as large as its reputation suggested.

4. Ḥubb al-waṭan (Love for the nation): Bustani’s career as an author,