Syria And Bilad Al Sham Under Ottoman Rule

This volume brings together some thirty essays in a Festschrift in honour of Abdul-Karim Rafeq, the leading historian of Ottoman Syria, touching on themes in socio-economic history which have been Rafeq's principal academic concerns.

The Ottoman state administered vast and complex territories and its main task was the maintenance of justice – _adalet_ – the key concept of government in the Ottoman view of society and state. Rulers who stepped beyond the bounds of the law were judged guilty of tyranny. By the late eighteenth century, this huge state was in decline, its capabilities were limited and its resources and manpower scarce. Consequently, the Ottoman Empire relied increasingly on a policy of coercion. In no province of the Empire was this more marked than in Syria. _The Ottomans in Syria_ examines the administration of the Syrian interior from 1785 to 1841 and shows how the Empire established independent local power bases and how their rule over the peasantry was based on oppression and extortion. This reached its apogee under the reformist governor of Egypt, Muhammad 'Alî Pasha, who rebelled against the Sultan and occupied all Syria. Dick Douwes investigates the local administration of the time, its political instability and factionalism, the oppressive nature of Ottoman taxation and the financial problems extending through the region and explores the emergence of military households. _The Ottomans in Syria_ will prove essential to historians of the Ottoman Empire and of the Middle East in general.

This volume brings together some thirty essays in a Festschrift in honour of Abdul-Karim Rafeq, the leading historian of Ottoman Syria, touching on themes in socio-economic history which have been Rafeq's principal academic concerns.

The essays discuss continuity and change in Bilad al Sham (Greater Syria) during the sixteenth century, examining to what extent Egypt and Greater Syria were affected by the transition from Mamluk to Ottoman rule. This is explored in a variety of areas: diplomatic relations, histories and historiography, fiscal and agricultural administration, symbolic orders, urban developments, local perspectives and material culture. In order to rethink the sixteenth century from a transitional perspective and thus overcome the conventional dynasty-centered fields of research Mamlukists and Ottomanists have been brought together, shedding light on the remarkable sixteenth century, so decisive for the formation of early modern Muslim empires.

Based principally on local judicial archives, this book is a social history of Hama during the last two centuries of Ottoman rule. It examines the social and economic structures that defined people's lives and that conditioned their participation in the historical changes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

"Der Band behandelt das geographische Syrien im 18. und 19. Jh. Dieser Zeitraum war von tiefgreifenden wirtschaftlichen Veranderungen gepragt, insbesondere der allmahlichen Integration des Osmanischen Reiches in den Weltmarkt. Die hier vorgestellten neuen Fragen und Forschungsrichtungen, die zu einem differenzierteren Bild der osmanischen Herrschaft beitragen, beziehen wesentliche Impulse aus sozial- und wirtschaftsgeschichtlichen Ansatzen. ... Je ein Index fur Personen- und Ortsnamen sowie Begriffe runden den Band ab. Man kann nur hoffen, daa diese Art der sozial- und wirtschaftshistorischen Nahostforschung, die sich bislang weitgehend im anglo-amerikanischen und arabischen Raum entwickelt hat, auch in Deutschland weitere Verbreitung finden wird." Orientalistische Literaturzeitung "athe book is a major contribution to the study of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Syria. The authors, the editors, and the publisher are to be commended for producing this important publication." Journal of Near Eastern Studies . (Franz Steiner 1998)

"The present volume emanated from a conference on the Syrian land which was held in the summer of 1989 in Erlangen"--P. xi.

The First World War quickly escalated from a European war into a global conflict that would cause fundamental changes in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Its end signalled the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which had controlled most of the Arab Middle East. Over the wartime period, millions of people across the Empire died as a result of warfare, epidemics, famines and massacres. However, for the Ottoman leaders their entry into the war was not just a response to a life-or-death struggle, but rather presented them with an opportunity to transform the empire into a new type of state. Syria in World War I brings together leading scholars working with original Turkish, Arabic, Armenian and German sources, to present a comprehensive examination of this key period in Syria’s history. Together, the chapters demonstrate how the war represented a radical break from the past for the Syrian lands, which underwent crucial political, economic, social and cultural transformations. It contextualises various facets of the then Unionist ruler of Syria, Djemal Pasha, as well as exploring the impact of the Ottoman leaders’ divergent policies on the Syrian lands and people, which would undergo a series of political, economic and ecological catastrophes whose traces are still evident in the region’s collective memory. Introducing a significant body of new information and considerably expanding the parameters of current debates, Syria in World War I is of key interest to students and scholars of Middle East History, as well as History of the Late Ottoman Empire and World War I History.