1st Edition
Trade and Enterprise The Muslim Tujjar in the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran, 1860-1914
Until recently, the historiography of Middle Eastern economic elites during the first globalization has ignored the significant role played by Muslim tujjār (big merchant-entrepreneurs). Foreign firms and local minorities were considered the prime agents of economic change and the initiators of economic growth.
The 12 studies in this volume show that the Muslim tujjār played a major economic role in various regions of the Middle East during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their investments, mainly in commercial agriculture, resulted in economic growth and changed economic structures and social relations in many Middle Eastern communities. They were also involved in political developments, some of which had a dramatic effect on the history of their countries, as for instance in late Qajar Iran. They also played a unique role in the process of cultural change. Although they supported the ʿulamāʾ financially, they also contributed to the establishment of new educational and cultural institutions. The story of the tujjār is unique in the sense that it was the only indigenous elite group in the pre-World War I Middle East to bridge between traditional forces and concepts and Western attitudes and practices. (CS 1108).
Part One
1 The Muslim Big Merchant-Entrepreneurs of the Middle East, 1860-1914 Die Welt des Islams, 43 (2003): 1-36
2 Muslim tujjar of the Middle East and their Commercial Networks in the Long Nineteenth Century Studia Islamica, 100/101 (2005): 183-202
3 The Qadi, the Big Merchant and Forbidden Interest (riba) British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 39 (2012): 115-136
4 Images of the tujjar: Between Shechrazad and Ibn Khaldun
Not previously published
Part Two
5 Paradigms of Trade and Finance in Ottoman Historiography: The 19th and 20th Centuries Russia and the Arab World, St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University, 2010: 202-214
6 Changing Patterns of Economic Ties: The Syrian and Iraqi Provinces in the Long 19th Century
The Syrian Land in the 18th and 19th Century, ed. Thomas Philipp, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992: 55-66
7 The Growing Economic Involvement of Palestine with the West, 1865-1914 Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period, ed. David Kushner, Jerusalem and Leiden: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and E.J. Brill, 1986: 188-210
Part Three
8 The Opening up of Qajar Iran: Some Economic and Social Aspects
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 49 (1986): 76-89
9 Resistance to Economic Penetration: The Karguzar and Foreign Firms in Qajar Iran International Journal of Middle East Studies, 43 (2011): 5-23
10 The Mysterious Death of a Commercial Agent and the Karguzar of Mashhad, 1890 Iran and the Caucasus, 15 (2011): 79-98
11 The Rise and Fall of the tujjar Councils of Representatives in Iran, 1884-85 Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 51 (2008): 639-674
12 The tujjar and the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906 Asian and African Studies, 11 (1976/77): 275-303
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Gad G. Gilbar is Professor Emeritus of Economic History of the Middle East in Modern Times at the University of Haifa, Israel. His publications include: The Economic Development of the Modern Middle East (Hebrew, 1990); (ed.), Ottoman Palestine, 1800–1914: Studies in Economic and Social History (1990); Population Dilemmas in the Middle East (1997); The Middle East Oil Decade and Beyond (1998); (co-ed.), The Baha'is of Iran, Transcaspia and the Caucasus, 2 vols. (2011).
