The culture of recreation in early modern Damascus: shadow theatre and coffeehouses
Date
2025
Authors
Qasqas, Hala
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Abstract
The concept and periodization of ‘early modernity’ remain relatively underexamined in Islamic contexts, particularly in Bilād al-Shām. In this region, early modernity is best situated in the 18th century under Ottoman rule—a period that, while receiving increasing scholarly interest, has yet to be systematically explored. This dissertation contributes to the study of early modernity in Bilād al-Shām, and in Damascus specifically, by analyzing two emergent forms of recreation (tarfīh): coffeehouses (buyūt al-qahwa) as vital social institutions and shadow theatre (khayāl al-ẓill) as a medium of cultural production and transformation. Through these case studies, the study illuminates how leisure practices shaped public discourse and urban identity in Ottoman Damascus, thereby offering a critical reappraisal of early modernity in the Arab-Ottoman context.
While the Arabic term for ‘recreation’ gained currency only in the 19th century, this study argues that the social and cultural practices associated with recreation were already taking form in the 18th century. On this basis, it proposes that early modernity in Bilād al-Shām should be understood as spanning the 18th and 19th centuries. During this transformative era, coffeehouses and shadow theatre catalyzed new modes of public interaction and political engagement that would later become foundational to modern urban life in the region.
Methodologically, this study is distinguished by its integration of material and textual analysis to reconstruct the cultural and spatial dynamics of recreation in 18th-century Damascus. It centers the material remains of shadow puppets and coffeehouse architecture as key artifacts through which public sociability, expression, and everyday life were shaped. These objects and spaces are analyzed through visual interpretation, spatial mapping, and architectural documentation, positioning them as primary sources for understanding how recreation contributed to broader processes of social and cultural change. To complement this material approach, the study draws on a wide range of textual sources produced across the 18th and 19th centuries. The diaries include those by Ibn Kannān, Ibn Budayr, and Burayk; the historical and legal discourse includes those by al-Jazīrī, al-Nābulsī, and al-Qāsimī; and accounts of European travels include Russell and Littmann. The study employs theoretical frameworks developed by Henri Lefebvre, Jürgen Habermas, and James Scott, adding another layer of reflective analysis of the primary Arabic sources to provide a fresh reading enabled by the concepts of ‘public sphere’, ‘cultural resistance’, and ‘production of space’. This approach enables a rethinking of coffeehouses not merely as spaces of recreation, but as dynamic institutions embedded in the political, spatial, and cultural transformations of early modern Damascus.
Overall, the significance of the study lies in rethinking Ottoman Damascus as an important cultural hub in Bilād al-Shām and a key site of early modern change by showing how coffeehouses and shadow theatre functioned as intertwined practices of recreation that shaped public life and cultural expression.
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Keywords
Damascus, 18th century, coffeehouses, shadow theatre, public sphere, urban culture, recreation, cultural history, Bilād al-Shām, Ottoman Syria