The Origins of the term “Palestinian”

The Origins of the term “Palestinian” (“Filasṭīnī”) in late Ottoman Palestine, 1898–1914 by Zachary J Foster and Emanuel Beška, 2021, Academia Letters

Introduction 

When did Arabs start to use the word Palestinian, or “Filasṭīnī” to refer to the people of Pales- 

tine? The question has attracted a great deal of interest among the general public. Ted Cruz, 

Mike Huckabee, Sheldon Adelson and Newt Gingrich have all expressed their opinions about 

the historical usage of the word, “Palestinian.” Media brands like Arutz Sheva, Haaretz, Fox 

News, AJ+, the Guardian and the Washington Post have chimed in as well, while social media 

platforms abound with misinformation on the topic. Thus, in this paper, we explain when and 

in what contexts the word “Palestinian” spread in the 20th century. 

The word “Palestinian” gained acceptance as a description of Palestine’s Arabic speak- 

ers during the frst decade and a half of the 20th century. Khalīl Baydas first used the term 

in 1898, followed by Salīm Qub‘ayn and Najīb Naṣṣār in 1902. Then, after the 1908

Ottoman Constitutional Revolution eased press censorship laws, dozens of periodicals appeared 

in Palestine, and the term “Palestinian” exploded in usage as result. 

The newspapers 

al-Quds (1908–14), 

al-Munādī (1912–1913), 

Filasṭīn (1911–1914), 

al-Karmal (1908–1914) and 

al-Nafīr (1908–1914) 

use the term “Filasṭīnī” (in the available issues) about 170 times in more 

than 110 articles from 1908–1914 (see Appendix 1). The phrases “the people of Palestine” 

(“ahl/ahālī Filasṭīn”) and “sons of Palestine” (“abnā’ Filasṭīn”) appeared dozens of times as well. 

The “Palestinians” surfaced in articles about Zionism, migration and politics, the print 

media and the Orthodox Renaissance. The writers themselves came from a range of Muslims, 

Christians and Jews from Palestine, Palestinian expatriates, and Arabs from Lebanon, Egypt 

and elsewhere. Moreover, these newspapers circulated around the region and played a key 

role in explaining the emergence of a modern Palestinian identity.

Before the Revolution 

In 1898, the Nazarene Khalīl Baydas translated A Description of the Holy Land from Russian to Arabic. 

“The Arabic geography books on the topic were insufcient,” he believed, and “the 

people of Palestine needed a geography book about their country.” As Baydas explained, the 

book was “a description of the land of Palestine,” referring to the people of Palestine as Pales- 

tinians in multiple places. “The ancient inhabitants of Palestine used limestone to whitewash 

the walls of their buildings,” Baydas wrote, “while the modern Palestinians also whitewash 

the inside, and occasionally the outside, of their homes with it as well.” Soon enough, though, 

“modern Palestinians” became simply Palestinians. “The Palestinian peasant,” Baydas noted 

elsewhere, “waits impatiently for winter to come, for the season’s rain to moisten his fossilized 

felds” after many rainless months following the May summer wheat and barley harvest. The 

book was likely taught in classrooms across the region from the late 19th century onwards, 

although details on its usage and circulation are unknown. By the turn of the 20th century, 

the Palestinian peasant was born. 

In 1902, Salīm Qub‘ayn and Najīb Naṣṣār both published articles titled “A Palestinian 

Describes Palestinian Towns” in Faraḥ Anṭūn’s  al-Jāmi‘a, a magazine printed in Alexandria, 

Egypt. Qub‘ayn compared his observations of the towns Kafr Kanā and Tiberias to those of 

the famous French scholar Ernest Renan three decades earlier. Qub‘ayn agreed with Renan 

that Tiberias was a thriving city during Biblical times but was as pitiful (circa 1902) as it was 

a few decades earlier when Renan observed it. A few months later, Najīb Naṣṣār published an 

article in the same magazine with the same title: “A Palestinian Describes Palestinian Towns.” 

Naṣṣār similarly compared his own observations to Ernest Renan’s, reviewing the geography, 

demography and current state of Wādī Mūsā. Although  al-Jāmi‘a’s circulation fgures are not available,

 similar publications attracted between 1,000–1,500 subscribers. By the early 20th century,

a Palestinian identity was spreading. Source: https://www.academia.edu/49925414/The_Origins_of_the_term_Palestinian_Filas%E1%B9%AD%C4%ABn%C4%AB_in_late_Ottoman_Palestine_1898_1914?email_work_card=view-paper

https://www.academia.edu/49925414/The_Origins_of_the_term_Palestinian_Filas%E1%B9%AD%C4%ABn%C4%AB_in_late_Ottoman_Palestine_1898_1914