The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule assesses the effects of Ottoman rule on the Arab Lands of Egypt, Greater Syria, Iraq, and Yemen between 1516 and 1800.
Drawing attention to the important history of these regions, the book challenges outmoded perceptions of this period as a demoralizing prelude to the rise of Arab nationalism and Arab nation-states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As well as exploring political events and developments, it delves into the extensive social, cultural, and economic changes that helped to shape the foundations of today's modern Middle and Near East. In doing so, it provides a detailed view of society, incorporating all socio-economic classes, as well as women, religious minorities, and slaves. This second edition has been significantly revised and updated and reflects the developments in research and scholarship since the publication of the first edition.
Engaging with a wide range of primary sources and enhanced by a variety of maps and images to illustrate the text, The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule is a unique and essential resource for students of early modern Ottoman history and the early modern Middle East.
Introduction: Rewriting Arab History, 1516-1800
The Arab Lands
Sources for the study of the Ottoman Arab lands
"Decline" and decentralization
State and society
Local notables and localization
Households
Households and localization
Artisans
Rural populations
Non-Muslims and non-Sunnis
Underrepresented populations
Conclusion
Chapter 1: Land and Peoples
Regions and nomenclature
Geographical features
Peoples
Religious minorities
Conclusion
Chapter 2: The Ottoman Conquest of the Arab Lands
The rise of the Ottomans
The Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1517)
The Safavids
The Portuguese
Conquest of the Mamluks
Süleyman I’s conquest of Iraq
Yemen
North Africa
Conclusion
Chapter 3: The Organization of the Ottoman Provincial Administration
Administrative subdivisions
Land tenure
Early challenges to Ottoman rule
Chapter 4: Crisis and Change in the Seventeenth Century
The "decline" paradigm
The crisis of the seventeenth century
Competing households
Janissary hegemony in the Arab provinces
Jelali governors and their equivalents
The loss of Yemen
The Köprülü reforms
Chapter 5: Provincial Notables in the Eighteenth Century
Ayan
The ayan household
Georgian mamluks in ayan households
Eunuchs
Conclusion
Chapter 6: Religious and Intellectual Life
The religious milieu
Religious institutions and personnel
The ulema
Sufism
Changes to religious and intellectual life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Conclusion
Chapter 7: Urban Life and Trade
Arab provincial cities
Urban change in the Ottoman era
Government regulation of markets
Guilds
Long-distance trade
The Red Sea coffee trade and its cultural effects
Conclusion
Chapter 8: Rural Life
Land tenure
Village life
Cash crops
Migration and change
Tribes
Conclusion
Chapter 9: Non-Normative Populations I: Non-Muslims; the Poor and Disabled
Religious minorities
Jews
Syrian Catholics
Jews and Christians in financial service
Twelver Shia
Druze, Alawis (Nusayris), Yazidis
The poor and disabled
Conclusion
Chapter 10: Non-Normative Populations II: Women, Non-Elite Slaves, Eunuchs
Stereotype and reality: veiling and the harem
Women in the household
Marriage
Inheritance
Occupations
Non-elite slavery
Eunuchs
Conclusion
Chapter 11: Ideological and Political Changes in the Late Eighteenth Century (and
Afterward)
Agricultural crisis
Military challenges and attempted reform under Selim III
Nineteenth-century reforms
European imperial encroachment
Sufism and anti-imperialism
Conclusion: The Ottoman Arab provinces after 1800
Conclusion: Transformations under Ottoman Rule
The effects of Ottoman rule
Turk vs. Arab, Balkan vs. Arab? Persistent scholarly dichotomies
Present-day relevance
Ottoman Sultans
Political Chronology
Glossary
Index
Biography
Jane Hathaway is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of History at Ohio State University. Her previous publications include The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt: The Rise of the Qazdağlis (1997); A Tale of Two Factions: Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen (2003); Beshir Agha, Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Imperial Harem (2006); and The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem: From African Slave to Power-Broker (2018).
'I am very pleased to see a new edition of The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516-1800, an essential text for courses on the history of the Ottoman Empire and the early modern Middle East. In addition to introducing readers to the political structure and developments in the region, this clearly written and engaging text offers rich descriptions of the social and cultural lives of a wide range of people in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Hathaway's revisions include the careful incorporation of recent scholarship and restructuring of several chapters; her expansion of the discussion about non-normative populations, which is now two chapters, is especially welcome.'
Corinne Blake, Rowan University, USA.
