Space, Urban Institutions and Society in Ottoman Bilad al-Sham The Making of an Ottoman Harbour Town: Sidon/Saida from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries

Abstract

The city of Sidon underwent a remarkable boom during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This article elaborates the main principles and steps in the urban development of an Ottoman provincial harbour town and attempts to identify the towns key agents by combining a study of the written records with that of its material culture. Sidon, along with Tripoli, was the most important harbour town of Ottoman Bilad al-Sham . The classical rule of the Empire during the sixteenth century saw a large commercial-infrastructural investment in Sidon from the capital, based on the vision of an extraordinary personality, re-integrating it into a supra-regional network of trade. The citys development was based on maritime trade, its geographical setting, new political entities and perhaps above all on the activities of distinctive social agents: Sokollu Mehmed Pasha in the sixteenth, the Ma'ns in the seventeenth and finally the Hammuds in the eighteenth centuries. Keywords: eighteenth centuries; maritime trade; Ottoman Bilad al-Sham; Ottoman harbour town; Sidon; sixteenth century