Nakba

Abstract Contrary to the prevailing assumption, the genealogy of nakbadoes not begin in 1948 Palestine but stretches far back into the Ottoman past. This study examines the formation of nakba in Arabic as a concept of disaster and a social practice of catastrophic ideation. In the nineteenth century, intellectual constructions of nakba referred to famed medieval episodes of downfall. Diverse Arab intellectuals and the genre of social science redeployed these centuries-old constructions during the Hamidian massacres of 1894–97 and the Armenian Genocide of 1915 as well as subsequent colonial wars, including the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925 and the Great Arab Revolt of 1936–39. These events, among others, entrenched a malleable image, a mode of interpellation, and a structure of catastrophic ideation profoundly shaping how nakba became enmeshed with social formation and political action in echo with a wider conceptual landscape. The Nakba of 1948 Palestine prompted a generation of Arab intellectuals to redefine standards of selfhood, sovereignty, and objectivity. The layered genealogy of nakba prior to 1948 reveals how catastrophic ideation foregrounded persistent idioms in Arabic, Turkish, Armenian, and English beginning in the nineteenth century to mark varying degrees of political urgency and exceptionality.