Fellah

A fellah (Arabic: فَلَّاح fallāḥ; feminine فَلَّاحَة fallāḥa; plural fellaheen or fellahin, فلاحين, fallāḥīn) is a peasant, usually a farmer or agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic word for "ploughman" or "tiller".

For the Arabic word for "success" in the context of Islam, see Falah. For the star, see 67 Ophiuchi.
Fellahin children harvesting crops in Egypt
A group of Egyptian fellahs, 1955

Due to a continuity in beliefs and lifestyle with that of the Ancient Egyptians, the fellahin of Egypt have been described as the "true Egyptians".[1]

A fellah could be seen wearing a simple Egyptian cotton robe called galabieh (jellabiya). The word galabieh originated around 1715–1725 and derived from the Egyptian slang word gallabīyah.

Origins and usage
Fellah women in Egypt
Fellahin with hoes in the fields near Cairo

"Fellahin", throughout the Middle East in the Islamic periods, referred to native villagers and farmers.[2] It is translated as "peasants" or "farmers".[3][4]

Fellahin were distinguished from the effendi (land-owning class),[5] although the fellahin in this region might be tenant farmers, smallholders, or live in a village that owned the land communally.[6][7] Others applied the term fellahin only to landless workers.[8]

In Egypt
Fellahin in Cairo using a traditional agricultural plow

After the Arab conquest of Egypt, they called the common masses of indigenous peasants fellahin (peasants or farmers) because their ancient work of agriculture and connecting to their lands was different from the Jews who were traders and the Greeks, who were the ruling class. With the passage of time, the name took on an ethnic character, and the Arab elites to some extent used the fellah synonymously with "indigenous Egyptian". Also when a Christian Egyptian converted to Islam he was called falih which means "winner" or "victorious".[3]

The percentage of fellahin in Egypt was much higher than it is now in the early 20th century, before large numbers migrated into urban towns and cities. In 1927, anthropologist Winifred Blackman, author of The Fellahin of Upper Egypt, conducted ethnographic research on the life of Upper Egyptian farmers and concluded that there were observable continuities between the cultural and religious beliefs and practices of the fellahin and those of ancient Egyptians.[9]

In 2003, the fellahin were still leading humble lives and living in mud-brick houses, like their ancient ancestors.[1] In 2005, they comprised some 60 per cent of the Egyptian population.[10]

In the Levant

In the Levant, specifically in Palestine, Jordan and Hauran, the term fellahin was used to refer to the majority native peasantry of the countryside.[11] The term fallah was also applied to native people from several regions in the North Africa and the Middle East, also including those of Cyprus.

In Dobruja

During the 19th century, some Muslim Fellah families from Ottoman Syria settled in Dobruja, a region now divided between Bulgaria and Romania, then part of the Ottoman Empire. They fully intermingled with the Turks and Tatars of Romania, and were Turkified.[12]

See also

References
  1. Pateman, Robert & Salwa El-Hamamsy (2003). Egypt. New York: Marshall Cavendish Benchmark. p. 54. ISBN 9780761416708.
  2. Mahdi, Kamil A.; Würth, Anna; Lackner, Helen (2007). Yemen Into the Twenty-First Century: Continuity and Change. Garnet & Ithaca Press. p. 209. ISBN 9780863722905.
  3. "Fellahin - Fallahin - Falih - Aflah'", maajim.com, maajam dictionary
  4. Masalha, Nur (2005). Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel and the Internal Refugees: Essays in Memory of Edward W. Said (1935–2003). Zed Books. p. 78.
  5. Warwick P. N. Tyler, State Lands and Rural Development in mandatory Palestine, 1920–1948, Sussex Academic Press, 2001, p. 13
  6. Hillel Cohen, Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948, University of California Press, 2008, p. 32
  7. Sandra Marlene Sufian, Healing the Land and the Nation: Malaria and the Zionist Project in Palestine, 1920–1947, University of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 57
  8. Michael Gilsenan, Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in an Arab Society, I. B. Tauris, 2003, p. 13
  9. Faraldi, Caryll (11–17 May 2000). "A genius for hobnobbing". Al-Ahram Weekly. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 30 November 2017.
  10. "Who Are the Fellahin?" Biot #312: December 24, 2005. SEMP, Inc.
  11. Smith, George Adam (1918). Syria and the Holy Land. George H. Doran company. p. 41. fellahin syria.
  12. Grigore, George. "George Grigore. "Muslims in Romania", ISIM Newsletter (International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World) no. 3, Leiden. 1999: 34".
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