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Tawfiq Canaan

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Nationality
  
Palestinian, Jordanian

Name
  
Tawfiq Canaan

Religion
  
Lutheran

Role
  
Physician

Tawfiq Canaan httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu
Born
  
24 September 1882 (
1882-09-24
)
Beit Jala, Ottoman Empire

Occupation
  
Physician, Ethnographer, author

Known for
  
Pioneer in the field of medicine in Palestine Researcher of Palestinian popular heritage

Parent(s)
  
Bechara Canaan and Katharina Khairallah

Died
  
January 15, 1964, East Jerusalem

Education
  
American University of Beirut

Tawfiq Canaan (Arabic: توفيق كنعان‎) (24 September 1882 – 15 January 1964) was a pioneering physician, medical researcher, ethnographer and Palestinian nationalist. Born in Beit Jala during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, he served as a medical officer in the Ottoman army during World War I. During British rule, he served as the first President of the Palestine Arab Medical Association founded in 1944, and as the director of several Jerusalem area hospitals before, during, and after the 1948 war. Over the course of his medical career, he authored more than 37 studies on topics including tropical medicine, bacteriology, malaria, tuberculosis and health conditions in Palestine, and contributed to research that led to a cure for leprosy.

Contents

Deeply interested in Palestinian folklore, popular beliefs, and superstitions, Canaan collected over 1,400 amulets and talismanic objects held to have healing and protective properties. His published analyses of these objects, and other popular folk traditions and practices, brought him recognition as an ethnographer and anthropologist. The several books and more than 50 articles he wrote in English and German serve as valuable resources to researchers of Palestinian and Middle Eastern heritage.

An outspoken public figure, he also wrote two books on the Palestine problem, reflecting his involvement in confronting British imperialism and Zionism. Despite his arrest by the British authorities in 1939 and the destruction of his family home and clinic in Jerusalem during the 1948 war, Canaan managed to re-establish his life and career in East Jerusalem under Jordanian rule. First taking sanctuary in a convent in the Old City for two years, he was appointed director of the Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives, where he lived with his family through his retirement until his death in 1964.

Folklore and ethnography

  • "Agriculture in Palestine". Globus (in German). 1909. 
  • "Demons as an Aetiological Factor in Popular Medicine". Al-Kulliyeh (Beirut). 1912. 
  • "The Calendar of Palestinian Peasants". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palastinavereins (Journal of the German Palestine Society) (in German). 1913. 
  • Superstition and Popular Medicine. 1914. ISBN 1-871034-01-9. 
  • Haunted Springs and Water Demons in Palestine. Jerusalem: Palestine Oriental Society. 1922. OCLC 187062829. 
  • Tasit ar-Radjfeh ("Fear Cup") (in Arabic). 1923. 
  • Canaan, Tawfiq (1927). Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine. London: Luzac & Co. 
  • Plant-lore in Palestinian Superstition. 1928. 
  • Belief in Demons in the Holy Land (in German). 1929. 
  • Studies in the Topography and Folklore of Petra. 1929. 
  • "Light and Darkness in Palestine Folklore". Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society (JPOS). 1931. 
  • "Unwritten Laws Affecting the Arab Women of Palestine" (PDF). Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society (JPOS). 1931. 
  • The Palestine Arab House: Its Architecture and Folklore. Jerusalem: The Syrian Orphanage Press. 1933. 
  • "Arabic Magic Bowls". Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society. 1936. 
  • "Review of Dalman's Arbeit und Sitte in Palastina". Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society (JPOS). 1934. 
  • "Review of Granquist's Marriage Conditions in a Palestinian Village". Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society (JPOS). 1933 and 1937. 
  • "The Decipherment of Arabic Talismans". Berytus Archaeological Studies 4: 69–110. 1937. 
  • "The Decipherment of Arabic Talismans". Berytus Archaeological Studies 5: 141–151. 1938. 
  • Canaan, T (October 1962). "Superstition and Folklore about Bread". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (The American Schools of Oriental Research) (167): 36–47. ISSN 0003-097X. JSTOR 1355686. 
  • "The 'Azazime Bedouin and Their Region". Arab World Geographer 2 (4). Winter 1999.  (translated from German by William Templer)

    • Politics

  • The Palestine Arab Cause. 1936.  (48-page booklet)
  • Conflict in the Land of Peace. 1936.  (Published in English, Arabic, and French)

    • Medical

  • "Modern Treatment". Al-Muqtataf (Beirut). 1905. 
  • "Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis in Jerusalem". Al-Kulliyeh (Beirut). 1911. 
  • "Beobachtungen bei einer Denguefieberepidemie in Jerusalem ("Observations on an epidemic of dengue fever in Jerusalem")". Archiv fur Schiffund Tropenhygiene (in German) 17: 20–25. 1912. 
  • "Die Jerichobeule". Archiv fur Schiffund Tropenhygiene (in German) 20: 109–119. 1916. 
  • Canaan, T (1929). "The Oriental Boil: An Epidemiological Study in Palestine". Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 23: 89–94. doi:10.1016/S0035-9203(29)90903-2. 
  • "Zur Epidemiologie der Orient in Palastina". Dermatologische Wochenschrift (in German) 29 (91): 1779–1181. 1930. 
  • "Kalazar in Palestine". Festschrift Bernhardt Nocht (in German) 80: 67–71. 1937. 
  • "Topographical studies in leishmaniasis in Palestine". Journal of the Palestinian Arab Medical Association 1: 4–12. 1945. 
  • "Intestinal parasites in Palestine". J. Med. Liban 4 (3): 163–69. 

    • Awards

  • Order of the Red Crescent (in World War I)
  • Iron Cross of 1914
  • Holy Sepulchre Cross with a red ribbon, awarded by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch (1951)
  • Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1951)

    • References

    Tawfiq Canaan Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA