View source for Fellah

{{short description|Farmer or agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa}}
{{About||the Arabic word for "success" or "victory" in the context of Islam|Falah|the star|67 Ophiuchi}}{{original research|date=March 2019}}[[File:Young boy and girl harvest farm crops in Egypt.jpg|thumb|Fellahin children harvesting crops in Egypt]]A '''fellah''' ({{langx|ar|فَلَّاح}} {{transl|ar|fallāḥ}}; feminine {{lang|ar|فَلَّاحَة}} {{transl|ar|fallāḥa}}; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', {{lang|ar|فلاحين}}, {{transl|ar|fallāḥīn}}) is a peasant, usually a [[farmer]] or [[Agriculture|agricultural]] laborer in the [[Middle East]] and [[North Africa]]. The word derives from the [[Arabic language|Arabic]] word for "ploughman" or "tiller".
Due to a continuity in beliefs and lifestyle with that of the [[Ancient Egypt]]ians, the fellahin of Egypt have been described by some as the "true Egyptians".<ref name="pate">{{cite book|author=Pateman, Robert & Salwa El-Hamamsy|title=Egypt|date=2003|publisher=Marshall Cavendish Benchmark|place=New York|page=54|isbn=9780761416708|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2FIvzA6RIHsC&q=fellahin&pg=PA54}}</ref>
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 Arabic|Egyptian slang]] word ''gallabīyah''.
==Origins and usage==
[[File:Egyptian Fellaheen from Cairo Governate.jpg|thumb|249x249px|An Egyptian farming family from the [[Cairo Governorate]]]]
"Fellahin", throughout the Middle East in the Islamic periods, referred to native villagers and farmers.<ref>{{cite book|title=Yemen Into the Twenty-First Century: Continuity and Change|first1=Kamil A. |last1=Mahdi |first2=Anna |last2=Würth |first3=Helen |last3=Lackner |publisher=Garnet & Ithaca Press|year=2007|page=209|isbn=9780863722905 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v1Mebwe9R_AC&q=fellahin&pg=PA209}}</ref> It is translated as "[[peasant]]s" or "[[farmer]]s".<ref name="dictionary" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Masalha |first=Nur |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xYWNCX-eYRcC |title=Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel and the Internal Refugees: Essays in Memory of Edward W. Said (1935–2003) |publisher=Zed Books |year=2005 |page=78|isbn=978-1-84277-623-0 }}</ref>
Fellahin were distinguished from the ''[[effendi]]'' (land-owning class),<ref>Warwick P. N. Tyler, ''[https://books.google.com/books/about/State_Lands_and_Rural_Development_in_Man.html?id=HTzSDHxSck4C&redir_esc=y State Lands and Rural Development in mandatory Palestine, 1920–1948]'', Sussex Academic Press, 2001, p. 13</ref> although the fellahin in this region might be [[tenant farmer]]s, smallholders, or live in a village that owned the land communally.<ref>[[Hillel Cohen]], ''[[Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948]]'', University of California Press, 2008, p. 32</ref><ref>Sandra Marlene Sufian, ''[https://books.google.ne/books?id=Zt9Do3WEUQoC Healing the Land and the Nation: Malaria and the Zionist Project in Palestine], 1920–1947'', University of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 57</ref> Others applied the term ''fellahin'' only to landless workers.<ref>Michael Gilsenan, ''[https://books.google.co.tz/books/about/Lords_of_the_Lebanese_Marches.html?id=WHQ2ebMllGIC&redir_esc=y Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in an Arab Society]'', I. B. Tauris, 1996, p. 13</ref>
==In Egypt==
[[File:Egyptian Fellahs.tif|thumb|A group of Egyptian fellahs, 1955]]
The Fellahin of Egypt are indigenous people, they are the direct descendants of [[Ancient Egypt|Ancient Egyptians]]. The Fellahin are the wide masses of rural villagers mostly living in the Nile Valley.<ref name=library.ubc>{{citation|title=Fellahin also known as “Egyptians (Rural)”|url=https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubccommunityandpartnerspublicati/52387/items/1.0375649}}</ref>
After the [[Arab conquest of Egypt|Muslim conquest]], the rulers 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 Byzantine [[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 term ''fellah'' synonymously with "indigenous Egyptian". So all the Fellahin, Copts, and Nubians are the direct descendants of [[Ancient Egyptians]].<ref name=library.ubc/> And when a Christian Egyptian (''copt'' or ''qibt'') converted to Islam, he was called ''falih'' which means "winner" or "victorious".<ref name="dictionary">{{Citation |url=https://www.maajim.com/dictionary/فلاحين/6/معجم%20اللغة%20العربية%20المعاصرة|title= Fellahin - Fallahin - Falih - Aflah'|website=maajim.com |publisher=maajam dictionary}}</ref>
[[File:Fellah women, Egypt.jpg|thumb|263x263px|Fellah women in Egypt, 1860s-1920s]]
The [[Egyptologist]] [[E. A. Wallis Budge]], wrote with regards to the Egyptian fellah: “...no amount of alien blood has so far succeeded in destroying the fundamental characteristics, both physical and mental, of the ‘dweller of the Nile mud,' i.e. the fellah, or tiller of the ground who is today what he has ever been."<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Lefkowitz |first1=Mary R. |author-link=Mary Lefkowitz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AClFWV6PE8wC |title=Black Athena Revisited |last2=Rogers |first2=Guy MacLean |date=1996 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-0-8078-4555-4 |pages=159 |language=en}}</ref> He would rephrase stating, "the physical type of the Egyptian fellah is exactly what it was in the earliest dynasties. The invasions of the Babylonians, Hyksos, Ethiopians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Turks, have had no permanent effect either on their physical or mental characteristics."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Budge |first=Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MvFKAQAAIAAJ |title=The Nile: Notes for Travellers in Egypt and in the Egyptian Sûdân |date=1910 |publisher=T. Cook & son (Egypt), Limited |pages=143 |language=en}}</ref>
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.<ref name="note5">{{cite news|first=Caryll|last=Faraldi|title=A genius for hobnobbing |date=11–17 May 2000 |work=[[Al-Ahram Weekly]] |url=http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2000/481/bk3_481.htm|access-date=30 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201080842/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/Archive/2000/481/bk3_481.htm|archive-date=1 December 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref>
In 2003, the fellahin were still leading humble lives and living in [[Mudbrick|mud-brick]] houses, like their ancient ancestors.<ref name="pate" /> In 2005, they comprised some 60 percent of the total Egyptian population.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080514092415/http/www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=312 "Who Are the Fellahin?"] ''Biot'' #312: December 24, 2005. SEMP, Inc.</ref>
==In the Levant==
In the [[Levant]], specifically in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], [[Jordan]] and [[Hauran]], the term ''fellahin'' was used to refer to the majority native peasantry of the [[countryside]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Syria and the Holy Land|first1=George Adam|last1=Smith|publisher=George H. Doran company|year=1918|page=[https://archive.org/details/syriaandholylan01smitgoog/page/n45 41]|url=https://archive.org/details/syriaandholylan01smitgoog|quote=fellahin syria.}}</ref>
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]].{{Citation needed|date=August 2024}}
==In Dobruja==
{{Main|Dobrujan Arabs}}
During the nineteenth 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 [[Turkish people|Turks]] and [[Tatars]], and were Turkified.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.academia.edu/2540987 | title=George Grigore. "Muslims in Romania", ISIM Newsletter (International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World) no. 3, Leiden. 1999: 34 | last1=Grigore | first1=George }}</ref>
==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Egypt, Fellahin in the Fields, Cairo.jpg|''Fellahin'' with [[Hoe (tool)|hoes]] in the fields near [[Cairo]]
File:Egypt, Plowmen and Team, Cairo.jpg|''Fellahin'' using a [[Ancient Egyptian agriculture|traditional agricultural]] plow
</gallery>
==See also==
*[[Copts]], Egyptian Christian Orthodox
*[[Peasant]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
{{Commons category|Fellahs}}
* [http://www.egyptindependent.com/opinion/egypts-forgotten-fellahin Egypt's forgotten fellahin]
{{Authority control}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2024}}
[[Category:Egyptian farmers]]
[[Category:Indigenous peoples of North Africa]]
[[Category:Social history of Egypt]]
[[Category:Israeli farmers]]