Mikhail Mishaqa or Michael Mishaka (March 20, 1800 – July 19, 1888; ar, ميخائيل مشاقة, gr, Μιχαήλ Μισάκα), also known as Doctor Mishaqa, was born in Rashmayyā, Lebanon, and is reputed to be "the first historian of modern

Ottoman Syria Ottoman Syria ( ar, سوريا العثمانية) refers to divisions of the Ottoman Empire within the region of Syria, usually defined as being east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Arabian Desert and south ...

"Zachs (2001). as well as the "virtual founder of the twenty-four equal

quarter tone A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which itself is half a whole tone. Quarter tones divide the octave by 50 cents each, a ...

scale".Maalouf (2003). Mishaqa's memoir of the

1860 Mount Lebanon civil war The 1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus (also called the 1860 Syrian Civil War) was a civil conflict in Mount Lebanon during Ottoman rule in 1860–1861 fought mainly between the local Druze and Christians. Following decisive Druze ...

is valuable to historians, as it is the only account written by a survivor of the massacre of

Syrian Christians Syrian or Syriac Christians may refer to * Adherents of Christianity in Syria * Adherents of Syriac Christianity, various Christian bodies of Syriac traditions, especially: ** Syriac/Assyrian/Aramean people, Christian neo-Aramaic speakers througho ...

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. In 1859 he was appointed vice-consul of the United States in Damascus.

Personal life

Mikhail's great-grandfather, Jirjis Mishaqa I, converted to

Greek Catholicism The term Greek Catholic Church can refer to a number of Eastern Catholic Churches following the Byzantine (Greek) liturgy, considered collectively or individually. The terms Greek Catholic, Greek Catholic church or Byzantine Catholic, Byzantine Ca ...

. Jirjis' father, Youssef Petraki, an ethnic

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and Christian Orthodox, moved from Corfu, Greece to

Tripoli, Lebanon Tripoli ( ar, طرابلس/ALA-LC: ''Ṭarābulus'', Lebanese Arabic: ''Ṭrablus'') is the largest city in northern Lebanon and the second-largest city in the country. Situated north of the capital Beirut, it is the capital of the North Gove ...

to pursue the silk trade. As such, Petraki, named himself after an Arabic term describing the process of filtering silk fibres, ''mishaqa'' (). Mikhail's father, Jirjis Mishaqa II, moved to

Deir al-Qamar Deir al-Qamar ( ar, دَيْر الْقَمَر, lit=Monastery of the moon, translit=Dayr al-qamar), is a city south-east of Beirut in south-central Lebanon. It is located five kilometres outside of Beiteddine in the Chouf District of the Mount Le ...

, then controlled by the

Shihabs The Shihab dynasty (alternatively spelled Chehab; ar, الشهابيون, ALA-LC: ''al-Shihābiyūn'') was an Arab family whose members served as the paramount tax farmers and local chiefs of Mount Lebanon from the early 18th to mid-19th centu ...

, to escape the religious repression of

al-Jazzar Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar ( ar, أحمد باشا الجزّار; ota, جزّار أحمد پاشا; ca. 1720–30s7 May 1804) was the Acre-based Ottoman governor of Sidon Eyalet from 1776 until his death in 1804 and the simultaneous governor of ...

, the

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Sidon Sidon ( ; he, צִידוֹן, ''Ṣīḏōn'') known locally as Sayda or Saida ( ar, صيدا ''Ṣaydā''), is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, of which it is the capital, on the Mediterranean coast. ...

. In 1848, Mikhail Mishaqa converted from Greek Catholicism to

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

, after coming in contact with American Protestant missionaries and reading a translation of ''Evidence of the Truth of the Christian Religion...'' by Alexander Keith.

Career

Mikhail Mishaqa began his career as a

goldsmith A goldsmith is a Metalworking, metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Nowadays they mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, goldsmiths have also made cutlery, silverware, platter (dishware), pl ...

but became a

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

and then chief

treasurer A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance. Government The treasury o ...

for the

Amir Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or cerem ...

Mount Lebanon Mount Lebanon ( ar, جَبَل لُبْنَان, ''jabal lubnān'', ; syr, ܛܘܪ ܠܒ݂ܢܢ, ', , ''ṭūr lewnōn'' french: Mont Liban) is a mountain range in Lebanon. It averages above in elevation, with its peak at . Geography The Mount Le ...

Bashir II Emir Bashir Shihab II () (also spelled "Bachir Chehab II"; 2 January 1767–1850) was a Lebanese emir who ruled Ottoman Lebanon in the first half of the 19th century. Born to a branch of the Shihab family which had converted from Sunni Islam, t ...

's household.Zachs (2005). According to

Leila Fawaz Leila Fawaz is a Lebanese historian and academician. She is the founding director of The Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies from 2001 to 2012. Fawaz was born in Sudan to Greek-Orthodox Lebanese parents and raised in Lebanon. She too ...

, Mikhail was well-educated;

''"At the first opportunity he showed off his knowledge and the ignorance of the offender. In such ways, Mishaqa continued to educate himself. He taught himself medicine and became a doctor."''

According to Touma,Touma (1996), p. 19. Mishaqa was the first

theorist A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...

to propose a division of the

octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

into roughly twenty-four equal intervals (24-tone

equal temperament An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning system, which approximates just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into equal steps. This means the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, wh ...

quarter tone scale A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which itself is half a whole tone. Quarter tones divide the octave by 50 cents each, a ...

, ), this being the current basis of the

Arab tone system The modern Arab tone system, or system of musical tuning, is based upon the theoretical division of the octave into twenty-four equal divisions or 24-tone equal temperament (24-TET), the distance between each successive note being a quarter tone ( ...

. However, Mishaqa's work ''"Essay on the Art of Music for the Emir Shihāb''" (, ''al-Risāla al-shihābiyya fī 'l-ṣinā‘a al-mūsīqiyya'') (c. 1840) is devoted to the topic but also makes clear his teacher Sheikh Muhammad al-‘Attār (1764–1828) was one of many already familiar with the concept, although al-‘Attār did not publish his writings on the subject. Mishaqa's most important works as a historian include the much quoted ''"A Response to a Proposition by Beloved Ones"'' (1873) (, ''al-Jawāb `alā Iqtirāḥ al-Aḥbāb'') and ''"History of events which took place in Syria on its coast and the Mount in 1782-1841"'' (1843) ( ''Ta’rih Hawadit Jarat bil-Sham wa-Sawahil Barr al-Sham wa-l-Jabal, 1782-1841 m'').

Notes

Sources

Habib Hassan Touma Habib Hassan Touma ( ar, حبيب حسن توما) (12 December 1934 – 10 August 1998) was a Palestinian composer and ethnomusicologist, born in Nazareth, who lived and worked for many years in Berlin, Germany. Touma authored a number of boo ...

(1996). ''The Music of the Arabs'', trans. Laurie Schwartz. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. . *Maalouf, Shireen (2003). "Mikhā'il Mishāqa: Virtual Founder of the Twenty-Four Equal Quartertone Scale", ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'', Vol. 123, No. 4. (October–December 2003), pp. 835–40. *Zachs, Fruma (2001). "Mikhail Mishaqa - The First Historian of Modern Syria", ''British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies'', Vol. 28, No. 1 (May 2001), pp. 67–87. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mishaqa, Mikhail 1800 births 1888 deaths Music theorists Historians of the Ottoman Empire Musical tuning Historians of the Middle East Lebanese Protestants Protestantism in Lebanon Syrian Christians Arab Christians Converts to Protestantism from Roman Catholicism Lebanese people of Greek descent 19th-century musicologists

Personal life

Career

See also

Notes

Sources