Young boy and girl harvest farm crops in Egypt

A fellah ( ar, فَلَّاح ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a peasant, usually a

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer m ...

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...

laborer in the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

and

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

. The word derives from the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

word for "ploughman" or "tiller". Due to a continuity in beliefs and lifestyle with that of the Ancient Egyptians, the fellahin of Egypt have been described as the "true Egyptians". A fellah could be seen wearing a simple Egyptian cotton robe called ''galabieh'' (''

jellabiya The jellabiya, also jalabiya or galabeya ( ar, جلابية / ALA-LC: ', Egyptian slang: Galabyia, ; "jelebeeya" in Ethiopia; "jehllubeeya" in Eritrea) is a loose-fitting, traditional Egyptian garment from the Nile Valley. Today, it is associ ...

''). The word ''galabieh'' originated around 1715–25 and derived from the Egyptian slang word ''gallabīyah''.

Origins and usage

"Fellahin," throughout the Middle East in the Islamic periods referred to native villagers and farmers. It is translated as "

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasa ...

s" or "

farmers A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

". Fellahin were distinguished from the '' effendi'' (land-owning class), although the fellahin in this region might be

tenant farmer A tenant farmer is a person (farmer or farmworker) who resides on land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management, ...

s, smallholders, or live in a village that owned the land communally. Others applied the term ''fellahin'' only to landless workers.

In Egypt

After the Arab conquest of Egypt, they called the common masses of indigenous peasants ''fellahin'' (peasants or farmers) because their ancient work of

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...

and connecting to their lands was different from the

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

who were traders and the

Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, ot ...

(''Rum'' in Arabic), 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 ''fellah'' synonymously with "indigenous Egyptian". Also when a Christian Egyptian converted to Islam he was called ''falih'' which means "winner" or "victorious". Today the farmers comprise 60% of the Egyptian population, the fellahin lead humble lives and continue to live in mud-brick houses like their ancient ancestors. Their percentage was much higher in the early 20th century, before the large influx of Egyptian fellahin into urban towns and cities. In 1927, anthropologist

Winifred Blackman Winifred Susan Blackman (1872–1950) was a British egyptologist, archaeologist and anthropologist. She was one of the first women to take up anthropology as a profession. Family and education Blackman was born in Norwich to Rev. James Henry Bl ...

, author of ''The Fellahin of Upper Egypt'', conducted

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...

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.

In the Levant

In the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...

, the term ''fellahin'' also refers to non-Arabic Semitic peoples such as the

Arameans The Arameans ( oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; syc, ܐܪ̈ܡܝܐ, Ārāmāyē) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East, first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. The Aramean ...

. The term ''fallah'' was applied to native people from several regions in the

and the

, also including those of

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ...

In Dobruja

During the 19th century, some Muslim Fellah families from

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 sout ...

settled in

Dobruja Dobruja or Dobrudja (; bg, Добруджа, Dobrudzha or ''Dobrudža''; ro, Dobrogea, or ; tr, Dobruca) is a historical region in the Balkans that has been divided since the 19th century between the territories of Bulgaria and Romania. I ...

, which was then part of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

. They fully intermingled with

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic ...

and

Tatars of Romania The Tatars of Romania ( ro, Tătarii din România; Crimean Tatar and Nogai: Romaniya tatarları), Dobrujan Tatars ( Crimean Tatar and Nogai: Dobruca tatarları) or Nogay (Nogai) Tatars ( Crimean Tatar and Nogai: Noğay tatarları) are a ...

, and were Turkified.

References

External links