The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1788
The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1788

Author: Stefan Winter

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-03-11

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1139486810

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The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman Rule provides an original perspective on the history of the Shiites as a constituent of Lebanese society. Winter presents a history of the community before the 19th century, based primarily on Ottoman Turkish documents. From these, he examines how local Shiites were well integrated in the Ottoman system of rule, and that Lebanon as an autonomous entity only developed in the course of the 18th century through the marginalization and then violent elimination of the indigenous Shiite leaderships by an increasingly powerful Druze-Maronite emirate. As such the book recovers the Ottoman-era history of a group which has always been neglected in chronicle-based works, and in doing so, fundamentally calls into question the historic place within 'Lebanon' of what has today become the country's largest and most activist sectarian community.

Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire
Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire

Author: Madeline Zilfi

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-03-22

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0521515831

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This book examines gender politics through slavery and social regulation in the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Empires and Bureaucracy in World History
Empires and Bureaucracy in World History

Author: Peter Crooks

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-08-03

Total Pages: 497

ISBN-13: 131672106X

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How did empires rule different peoples across vast expanses of space and time? And how did small numbers of imperial bureaucrats govern large numbers of subordinated peoples? Empires and Bureaucracy in World History seeks answers to these fundamental problems in imperial studies by exploring the power and limits of bureaucracy. The book is pioneering in bringing together historians of antiquity and the Middle Ages with scholars of post-medieval European empires, while a genuinely world-historical perspective is provided by chapters on China, the Incas and the Ottomans. The editors identify a paradox in how bureaucracy operated on the scale of empires and so help explain why some empires endured for centuries while, in the contemporary world, empires fail almost before they begin. By adopting a cross-chronological and world-historical approach, the book challenges the abiding association of bureaucratic rationality with 'modernity' and the so-called 'Rise of the West'.

The Long Peace
The Long Peace

Author: Engin Akarli

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1993-07-16

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 9780520913080

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Long notorious as one of the most turbulent areas of the world, Lebanon nevertheless experienced an interlude of peace between its civil war of 1860 and the beginning of the French Mandate in 1920. Engin Akarli examines the sociopolitical changes resulting from the negotiations and shifting alliances characteristic of these crucial years. Using previously unexamined documents in Ottoman archives, Akarli challenges the prevailing view that attributes modernization in government to Western initiative while blaming stagnation on reactionary local forces. Instead, he argues, indigenous Lebanese experience in self-rule as well as reconciliation among different religious groups after 1860 laid the foundation for secular democracy. European intervention in Lebanese politics, however, hampered efforts to develop a correspondingly secular notion of Lebanese nationality. As ethnic and religious strife increases throughout much of eastern Europe and the Middle East, the Lebanese example has obvious relevance for our own time.

Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire
Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire

Author: Selim Deringil

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-08-27

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 1139510487

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In the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire traditional religious structures crumbled as the empire itself began to fall apart. The state's answer to schism was regulation and control, administered in the form of a number of edicts in the early part of the century. It is against this background that different religious communities and individuals negotiated survival by converting to Islam when their political interests or their lives were at stake. As the century progressed, however, conversion was no longer sufficient to guarantee citizenship and property rights as the state became increasingly paranoid about its apostates and what it perceived as their 'denationalization'. The book tells the story of the struggle between the Ottoman State, the Great Powers and a multitude of evangelical organizations, shedding light on current flash-points in the Arab world and the Balkans, offering alternative perspectives on national and religious identity and the interconnection between the two.

The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt
The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt

Author: Jane Hathaway

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2002-04-04

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 9780521892940

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In a lucidly argued revisionist study of Ottoman Egypt, first published in 1996, Jane Hathaway challenges the traditional view that Egypt's military elite constituted a revival of the institutions of the Mamluk sultanate. The author contends that the framework within which this elite operated was the household, a conglomerate of patron-client ties that took various forms. In this respect, she argues, Egypt's elite represented a provincial variation on an empire-wide, household-based political culture. The study focuses on the Qazdagli household. Originally, a largely Anatolian contingent within Egypt's Janissary regiment, the Qazdaglis dominated Egypt by the late eighteenth century. Using Turkish and Arabic archival sources, Jane Hathaway sheds light on the manner in which the Qazdaglis exploited the Janissary rank hierarchy, while forming strategic alliances through marriage, commercial partnerships and the patronage of palace eunuchs.

Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period
Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period

Author: Roger Allen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-04-13

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 1139936468

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The final volume of The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature explores the Arabic literary heritage of the little-known period from the twelfth to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Even though it was during this time that the famous Thousand and One Nights was composed, very little has been written on the literature of the period generally. In this volume Roger Allen and Donald Richards bring together some of the most distinguished scholars in the field to rectify the situation. The volume is divided into parts with the traditions of poetry and prose covered separately within both their 'elite' and 'popular' contexts. The last two sections are devoted to drama and the indigenous tradition of literary criticism. As the only work of its kind in English covering the post-classical period, this book promises to be a unique resource for students and scholars of Arabic literature for many years to come.