The Arab Lands Under Ottoman Rule: 1516-1800

The Arab Lands Under Ottoman Rule 1516-1800

Jane Hathaway with contributions by Karl Barbir

 

In this seminal study, Jane Hathaway presents a wide-ranging reassessment of the effects of Ottoman rule on the Arab Lands of Egypt, Greater Syria, Iraq and Yemen - the first of its kind in over forty years.

 

Challenging 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, Hathaway depicts an era of immense social, cultural, economic and political change which helped to shape the foundations of today’s modern Middle and Near East.  Taking full advantage of a wide range of Arabic and Ottoman primary sources, she examines the changing fortunes of not only the political elite but also the broader population of merchants, shopkeepers, peasants, tribal populations, religious scholars, women, and ethnic and religious minorities who inhabited this diverse and volatile region.

 

With masterly concision and clarity, Hathaway guides the reader through all the key current approaches to and debates surrounding Arab society during this period. This is far more than just another political history; it is a global study which offers an entirely new perspective on the era and region as a whole.

 

Jane  Hathaway is Professor of History at Ohio State University. Her previous publications include The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt :  The Rise of the Qazdaglis (1997); A Tale of Two Factions:  Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen (2003); and Beshir Agha, Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Imperial Harem (2006).   

This is an essential addition to the shelves of any student of Middle Eastern and Ottoman history.  The first comprehensive English-language survey of the pre-modern Arab world to be published in forty years.

• The first comprehensive English-language survey of the pre-modern Arab world to appear in 40 years.
• Lucidly written
• Extensive bibliographic essay
• Includes a glossary, maps and illustrations

Designed as the successor to P.M. Holt's classic 1966 book Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, here for the first time in forty years is a comprehensive survey of the Arab Lands under Ottoman rule.

 

This book is written for students of Middle Eastern and Ottoman history, as well as scholars and general readers looking for historical background on the Arab world.  It presents a knowledgeable, unbiased and insightful guide to the diversity and complexity of society in the Arab lands during the centuries between the region’s incorporation into the Ottoman Empire and the wrenching socio-political changes of the 19th century.

 

Lucidly written, the book introduces the diverse groups who made up Ottoman Arab society – government officials, merchants and shopkeepers, peasants, religious scholars, women, ethnic and religious minorities.  It shows how their fortunes changed during these pivotal centuries and demonstrates how Ottoman rule transformed the region’s political, economic, intellectual and religious life.

Professor of history at Ohio State University, Jane Hathaway has written and researched extensively on Egypt and Yemen under Ottoman rule and on the Ottoman Chief Harem Eunuch.  Previous titles include: The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt:  The Rise of the Qazdaðlýs (1997) and Beshir Agha, Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Imperial Harem (2006). 

Acknowledgements

Note on transliteration and dates

List of figures

List of maps

 

Introduction: Rewriting Arab history, 1516-1800

 

1. Lands and peoples
2. The Ottoman conquest of the Arab lands
3. The organization of the Ottoman provincial administration
4. Crisis and change in the seventeenth century
5. Provincial notables in the eighteenth century
6. Religious and intellectual life
7. Urban life and trade
8. Rural life
9. Marginal groups and minority populations
10. Ideological and political changes in the late eighteenth century
11. Transformations under Ottoman rule

 

Bibliographical essay

Ottoman sultans to 1839

Political chronology

Glossary

Index