Mhallami

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The Mhallami , Mahallami or Mardelli ( high Arabic الْمَحَلَّمِيَّة, DMG al-maḥallamīya orالْمَارْدَلِّيَّة, DMG al-mārdallīya , Arabic Mhallami dialect مْحَلَّمِي, DMG mḥallamī orمَرْدَلِّي, DMG mardallī , Aramaic ܡܚܠܡܝ̈ܐ Mḥallmāye or Mḥallmoye , Kurdish Mehelmî , Mihelmî or Mîhêllemî , Turkish Mahalmi or Mıhellemi ) are an Arabic-speaking ethnic group in Turkey and Lebanon .

etymology

The name Mhallami or Mhallamiya should come from محل / maḥall  / 'place' andمائة / miʾa  / derive 'hundred', which means "place of hundred"محل المائة / maḥall al-miʾa should mean. According to a second theory of the origin of the name, the name Mhallami is said to derive from the Semitic Ahlamū , who have been living since 1805 BC Chr. Tur Abdin inhabited derived.

The name Mardelli is derived from the region of origin Mardin .

Settlement area

Until the 20th century, the Mhallami lived mainly in one area in what is now the Turkish province of Mardin:

“… The dialect of Rashmel is already more closely related to the following dialect group, which I call Mhallami-Arabic, following local usage. Mhallamiarabisch can be found in about 40 to 50 villages, which are in the triangle between the district towns es-Shor (Turkish: Savur ) in the west, Medyad (Turkish: Midyat ) in the east and Ma'sarte (Turkish: Ömerli ) in the south. "

- Otto Jastrow : The Arabic dialects of the Vilayets Mardin (Southeast Turkey), ZDMG Suppl 1 XVII Dt. Orientalist Day. Lectures Part II, Section 6, Wiesbaden 1969, p. 684

To this day, the Mhallami in Turkey live mainly in the big cities such as Adana , İskenderun , İstanbul , İzmir and Mersin as well as 41 places in the southeast Anatolian provinces of Batman and Mardin.

The migration of the Mhallami from Turkey to Lebanon began in the 1920s. In the 1940s, tens of thousands more came to Lebanon, mostly in the cities of Beirut and Tripoli . Some of them were naturalized, while the other part lived statelessly in Lebanon.

There is no reliable information on the total number of mhallami. Before the Lebanese Civil War that broke out in 1975, it was estimated at 70,000 to 100,000. In 1984, according to the Lebanese security authorities, 27,142 people had the personal documents specially issued for Mhallami (travel document with the label Laisser-passer ; entry for nationality: à l'étude ), an estimated 15,000 more were naturalized in Lebanon; the number of emigrants at that time was estimated at 45,000.

Because Christian militias expelled them from their residential areas in eastern Beirut, the Mhallami were drawn into the Lebanese civil war. Most of them joined the Murabitun militia , some also fought in the Palestinian militias of the PFLP , DFLP or with the communists . They hoped that these parties would improve their political and social status. They fought against the Shiite Amal militia since 1984, and after Syrian troops marched in in 1987 and sided with the Amal, many Mhallami were arrested or had to flee.

The Mhallami were among the civil war refugees from Lebanon who came to the Federal Republic of Germany and other European countries such as the Netherlands , Denmark and Sweden during the Lebanese civil war since 1976 and have since been partially tolerated or have been living as asylum seekers . In Berlin consists of about 8,000 people, the largest community of mhallami in Europe (June 2003).

Origin and history

It is still very controversial whether the Mhallami are Arabs , Arameans or Kurds . There are three different theories about the ancestry of the Mhallami:

  • According to the first theory, the Mhallami Arabs were resettled under the caliph Hārūn ar-Raschīd in the 8th century on his military expeditions as fighters from the northern Iraqi region of Kirkuk to the region of Mardin in order to monitor the Christian population there. The name Mhallami or Mhallamiya should come fromمحل / maḥall  / 'place' andمائة / miʾa  / derive 'hundred', which means "place of hundred"محل المائة / maḥall al-miʾa should mean. This theory of descent is supported by most of the mhallami and some scholars. Some also see themselves as descendants of the Banu Hilal .
  • According to the second theory, their ancestors were the Semitic Ahlamū , who had existed since 1805 BC. Chr. Tur Abdin inhabited. Like the rest of the Aramaic tribes in Mesopotamia , they did not convert to Islam during the Arab-Islamic expansion in the 7th and 8th centuries . The Ottomans conquered Eastern Anatolia under Selim I at the beginning of the 16th century, and the Mhallami then adopted Islam. After converting to Islam, the Mhallami learned the Arabic language. The Arabs called them Mḥallamī and the Ottomans Mahalmi or Mıhellemi . Several spellings corresponding to the meaning of Ahlamū appeared in the course of the history of the tribe, until the current Arabic name Mḥallamī finally prevailed. In archives of the Ottoman Empire from 1525, the Mhallami are mentioned as Müslüman Mahalmi Cemaati (German "Muslim community of the Mhallami"). Other authors report that the Mhallami converted to Islam as early as the 14th century because they wanted to interrupt Lent because of a famine and their patriarch refused to do so.

“Mahalemi. 800 families. This tribe has a peculiar history. They state that 350 years ago they were Christians ... They speak a bastard Arabic, and the women wear red clothes and do not veil. Ibrahim Pasha says they are now a mixed race of Arabs and Kurds. Some families still supposed to be Christians. "

“[The] Mahalemi. 800 families. This tribe has a peculiar history. They claim that they were Christians 350 years ago [...] They speak mixed Arabic and the women wear red clothes and are not veiled. Ibrahim Pasha says they are now a mixed race of Arabs and Kurds. Some families are said to still be Christians. "

- Mark Sykes : Caliph's Last Heritage, London 1915, p. 578
  • According to a third theory, the Mhallami are viewed as Kurds who over time adopted Islam and then learned the Arabic language, but kept their Kurdish culture. Most of the Kurds themselves regard the Mhallami but not as Kurds.

Culture

Language and writing

The Mhallami speak the Arabic Qultu dialect . The Qultu dialect of the Mhallami is based on standard Arabic and increasingly incorporated Kurdish elements. Their culture is shaped by Arabic with Kurdish influences.

The Mhallami in Turkey use the Latin alphabet , sometimes also the Arabic alphabet, as written language, in Lebanon mainly the Arabic alphabet.

religion

The Mhallami are mainly Sunni Muslims who follow the Shafiite school of law .

organization

There are some Mhallami associations in Turkey, Lebanon and the diaspora. The Mhallami in Turkey are organized in the Mhallami Association for Religious, Language and Cultural Dialogue (Turkish Mıhellemi Dinler, Diller ve Medeniyetler Arası Diyalog Derneği ), which was founded in 2008 by Mehmet Ali Aslan in Midyat . The Mhallami in Germany are organized in the Familien Union eV association, and the Mhallami in the Netherlands in the MIM association .

Surnames

In Turkey, the Mhallami had Arabic names that did not include surnames in the western sense. The Turkish names introduced by Ataturk were only used in dealing with Turkish authorities. In Lebanon they used their Arabic names again. Because family names are used in Lebanon, they added a “clan name” to the first name, which was probably mostly chosen after a male ancestor or a special traditional position of the family, place of origin or region. This probably happened between 1925 and 1935. The equality or similarity of the surnames does not necessarily mean that the families must be related to one another. Rather, the names were freely chosen after entry, probably based on relatives who were already resident. It also happened that a male member of a family got his own family name based on this model due to internal family disputes and thus founded a new clan.

Mhallami names themselves and others

In Turkey they are counted among the Arabs , as well as in Lebanon, where they are also classified according to their region of originماردلي / Mārdallī orمردلي / Mardallī . Only in Beirut are they called Kurds by the Lebanese. For this reason they are referred to in Germany as "Lebanese Kurds", "Kurds from Lebanon" or "Mhallamiye Kurds". The Mhallami consider themselves Arabs, some as Arabic-speaking Kurds and to a lesser extent as Arabic-speaking Arameans.

Well-known Mhallami

literature

  • Ralph Ghadban : The Lebanon refugees in Berlin. For the integration of ethnic minorities. (2000) 2nd edition, Das Arabische Buch, Berlin 2008, sv chapter: Die Mḥallamiyya (The Kurds) , pp. 86–95
  • Otto Jastrow: The Arabic dialects of the Vilayets Mardin (Southeast Turkey) . ZDMG Supplement 1, XVII. German Orientalistentag (1968), Lectures Part II, Section 6, Wiesbaden 1969, pp. 683–688 ( digitized version , PDF)
  • Laurenz W. Kern: Kurds, Arabs, pseudo-Lebanese: The multilayered ethnicity of the Mḥallami. In: Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Volume 105, 2015, pp. 189–202

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Ralph Ghadban : The Mhallamiyya. In: ders .: The Lebanon refugees in Berlin. For the integration of ethnic minorities . Berlin 2000, pp. 86-95. Chapter as book excerpt (PDF) ( Memento from August 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ a b c Ralph Ghadban , The Lebanon Refugees in Berlin. Berlin 2000. ISBN 3-86093-293-4 , reprint 2008, pp. 71, 87, 89, 238
  3. ^ Lokman I. Meho, Farah W. Kawtharani: The Kurdish Community in Lebanon . (In: International Journal of Kurdish Studies , Vol. 19, No. 1–2, 2005, pp. 137–160) American University of Beirut, pp. 1–34, here p. 23f
  4. ^ Heinrich Freckmann, Jürgen Kalmbach: Stateless Kurds from Lebanon or Turkish citizens? (Result of an investigation from March 8th to 18th 2001 in Beirut, Mardin and Ankara) ( Memento of July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 43 kB), Hannover, Hildesheim, 2001; Pp. 3-4
  5. ↑ a b Something has to happen urgently ; the daily newspaper, June 6, 2003.
  6. ↑ a b c d Fred Donner: Tribe and state in Arabia . Princeton University Press 1981. pp. 123-130
  7. ^ John Anthony Brinkman: A political history of post-Kassite Babylonia, 1158-722 BC 1968. ISBN 88-7653-243-9 , pp. 260-278
  8. ↑ TC Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü: Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi Rehberi . 1995. ISBN 9-7519-124-74 , pp. 54-59. (Turkish)
  9. ^ Lokman I. Meho, Farah W. Kawtharani: The Kurdish community in Lebanon (PDF; 139 kB); Pp. 2-3.
  10. ↑ Jonathan Owens: A linguistic history of Arabic . Oxford University Press 2006; S. 144. (English)
  11. ↑ Uluslar Arası Mıhellemi Konferansı . ( Memento of March 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (“International Conference of the Mhallami”) Midyat Sesi Haber, August 13, 2008 (Turkish)
  12. ^ Claudia Keller: Family Union: The clan bosses ask for tea ; Der Tagesspiegel, February 26, 2011.
  13. ↑ Beate Krafft-Schöning, blood ties. Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-86883-314-0 , introduction, online
  14. ^ Regina Mönch: The Lebanese Problem ; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 14, 2007.