46 • cHAPTeR 2
Fortunately, Walid Khalidi located both Ruhi al- Khalidi’s original— a
set of small notebooks containing somewhat scrawled, antiquated Ar-
abic script^23 — as well as the copyist’s 123 numbered pages of neatly
written text in more modern handwriting, thereby permitting scholars
to analyze both.^24
Al- Khalidi’s composition may be divided into six chapters.^25 The first
offers an introduction to Zionism and lays out the general narrative
to be explored in greater detail in the course of the book. The second
chapter deals with the religious roots of Zionism in the Bible and the
Talmud. Next, al- Khalidi offers a survey of the history of the Jews from
the death of King Solomon through the destruction of the Second Tem-
ple. This is followed by a chapter on the dispersion of the Jews and the
places in which they took refuge and settled over the ensuing centuries.
The fifth chapter returns to the subject of Zionism, outlining the history
of the modern movement. The final chapter looks at the major Jewish
organizations of al- Khalidi’s time, explaining the various religious and
ideological positions found among them.
In constructing large portions of his book, al- Khalidi followed the
basic outline of Gottheil’s twenty- one- page entry on “Zionism.” At
points, al- Khalidi’s text is simply an Arabic translation of Gottheil’s
words. That a Muslim Arab notable from Late Ottoman Palestine was
familiar with the new JewishEncyclopedia points to the often over-
looked intellectual interchange between Jews and Arabs during this
period. While it is not known where al- Khalidi found the copy of the
JewishEncyclopedia that he used (it is not currently present in the Kha-
lidi Library, but it was presumably available in the nearby Jewish Na-
tional Library^26 in Jerusalem), it is possible that Gottheil himself shared
(^23) comparing writing known to be from al- Khalidi’s own hand to the text of these
smaller notebooks, Walid Khalidi has concluded that these are Ruhi al- Khalidi’s original
composition.
(^24) The variations between the two versions are generally only minor, and, according
to Rashid Khalidi, the copyist’s version was probably created during Ruhi al- Khalidi’s
lifetime and supervised by al- Khalidi himself, permitting the scholar to use the more
legible and organized version with reasonable confidence that it represents al- Khalidi’s
work.
(^25) Here I follow Walid Khalidi’s chapter divisions, in “Kitāb as- sayūnīzm aw al- masʾala
aṣ- ṣahyūniyya li- Muḥammad Rūḥī al- Khālidī al- mutawaffā sanat 1913,” 42– 43.
(^26) The first Jewish public library in Jerusalem (Midrash Abravanel) was founded in
1892 by the B’nai Brith organization. The Jewish National Library in Jerusalem was
founded in 1894; this latter institution united the B’nai Brith library as well as the then-
defunct library of eliezer Ben- Yehuda (beit ha- sfarim li- vnei yisraʾel). On these Jewish
libraries of Late Ottoman Jerusalem, see Salmon, “ha- Yishuv ha- ashkenazi ha- ʿironi be-
ereẓ yisraʾel (1880– 1903),” 590– 92.