Ottoman Cairo Research Articles

Chahinda Karim, Menna M. El Mahy, Ottoman Cairo: religious architecture from Sultan Selim to Napoleon

Chahinda Karim, Menna M. El Mahy, Ottoman Cairo: religious architecture from Sultan Selim to Napoleon

Humanism, Transculturalism and Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Jews

This article explores the evidence for Transculturalism and Humanism, in the early modern sense of the concepts, amongst Jews of the Ottoman Empire. In the first part of the article, attention is paid to the growing numbers of humanist European travelers to the Ottoman Empire and their relations with Istanbul Jews. The second section of the article is concerned with Ragusa, part of the Ottoman orbit since the fifteenth century. Here, attention is paid to Didacus Pyrrhus, member of an Ottoman Jewish family and the only great Jewish Neo-Latin poet of his age. The third section focuses on Ottoman Cairo and the discoveries and identifications of fragments of works for the theatre in Spanish in Hebrew characters. They attest to an interest in humanist texts. Finally, by way of conclusion, the article examines a specific case of cultural transfer and common ground between Christian humanists and Jewish traders.

Searching for the Last Genizah Fragment in Late Ottoman Cairo: A Material Survey of Egyptian Jewish Literary Culture

AbstractThe Cairo Genizah is well known as a repository for hundreds of thousands of manuscripts that the Jewish residents of Fustat (Old Cairo) produced and consumed in the premodern period. Foreign “collectors” acquired most of these manuscripts for European libraries in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the majority arriving at the Cambridge University Library in 1897 under the auspices of Solomon Schechter. Less well known is the fact that hundreds of Genizah fragments were produced in the late nineteenth century, even as European collectors were scouring Cairo for ancient texts. This later corpus includes witnesses to the social and economic history of late Ottoman Cairo and provides copious evidence for the material history of Egyptian Jewish literary activity at that time. Despite this, it remains understudied for both Ottoman and Jewish history. Late Genizah material also raises questions about the integrity of “Cairo Genizah” manuscript collections around the world, as some fragments postdate Schechter's Genizah “discovery,” and others were never in Egypt at all.

Sharia and the Making of the Modern Egyptian: Islamic Law and Custom in the Courts of Ottoman Cairo, written by Reem A. Meshal, 2014

Sharia and the Making of the Modern Egyptian: Islamic Law and Custom in the Courts of Ottoman Cairo, written by Reem A. Meshal, 2014

Islamic Law and Empire in Ottoman Cairo, written by James E. Baldwin, 2017

Islamic Law and Empire in Ottoman Cairo, written by James E. Baldwin, 2017

Bibliography of Books, Articles, and Chapters Published in English on Colonialism and Imperialism in 2017

Bibliography of Books, Articles, and Chapters Published in English on Colonialism and Imperialism in 2017 Lisa Sweeney, comp. Books Agmon, Danna. A Colonial Affair: Commerce, Conversion, and Scandal in French India. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2017. Aissaoui, Rabah and Claire Eldridge. Algeria Revisited: History, Culture and Identity. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. Aitken, Ian and Camille Deprez, eds. The Colonial Documentary Film in South and SouthEast Asia. New York: Edinburgh UP, 2017. Allan, William. The Last Empires: Governing Ourselves, Our Nations, and Our World. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Antov, Nikolay. The Ottoman "Wild West": The Balkan Frontier in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2017. Asaka, Ikuko. Tropical Freedom. Climate, Settler Colonialism, and Black Exclusion in the Age of Emancipation. Durham: Duke UP, 2017. Assadi, Jamal, Saif Abu Saleh, Michael Hegeman, and Simon Jacobs. Short Fiction as a Mirror of Palestinian Life in Israel, 1944–1967: Critique and Anthology. New York: Peter Lang, 2017. Baer, Elizabeth Roberts. The Genocidal Gaze: From German Southwest Africa to the Third Reich. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2017. Bahri, Deepika. Postcolonial Biology: Psyche and Flesh after Empire. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2017. Baldwin, James. Islamic Law and Empire in Ottoman Cairo. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2017. Bancel, Nicolas, Pascal Blanchard, and Dominic Thomas, eds. The Colonial Legacy in France: Fracture, Rupture, and Apartheid. Translated by Alexis Pernsteiner. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2017. Bangura, Joseph J. The Temne of Sierra Leone: African Agency in the Making of a British Colony. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2017. Barclay, Paul D. Outcasts of Empire: Japan's Rule on Taiwan's "Savage Border," 1874-1945. Oakland: U of California P, 2017. Barkawi, Tarak. Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in World War II. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2017. Barnd, Natchee Blu. Native Space: Geographic Strategies to Unsettle Settler Colonialism. Corvallis: Oregon State UP, 2017. Barnes, Andrew E. Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic: Tuskegee, Colonialism, and the Shaping of African Industrial Education. Waco: Baylor UP, 2017. Beaman, Jean. Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France. Oakland: U of California P, 2017. Beaule, Christine D. Frontiers of Colonialism. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 2017. Bell, James B. Anglicans, Dissenters and Radical Change in Early New England 1686-1786. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Bentancor, Orlando. The Matter of Empire: Metaphysics and Mining in Colonial Peru. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 2017. Bentlage, Björn, Marion Eggert, Hans Martin Krämer, and Stefan Reichmuth, eds. Religious Dynamics under the Impact of Imperialism and Colonialism: A Source Book. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Benton, Bradley. The Lords of Tetzcoco: The Transformation of Indigenous Rule in Postconquest Central Mexico. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2017. Benton, Lauren, Adam Clulow, and Bain Attwood, eds. Protection and Empire: A Global History. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2017. Bertella Farnetti, Paolo and Cecilia Dau Novelli, eds. Images of Colonialism and Decolonisation in the Italian Media. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017. Bewell, Alan. Natures in Translation: Romanticism and Colonial Natural History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2017. Bidnall, Amanda. The West Indian Generation: Remaking British Culture in London, 1945–1965. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2017. Biedermann, Zoltán and Alan Strathern, eds. Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History. London: UCL P, 2017. Biedermann, Zoltán, Anne Gerritsen, and Giorgio Riello, eds. Global Gifts: The Material Culture of Diplomacy in Early Modern Eurasia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2017. Billings, Warren M. and Brent Tarter, eds. "Esteemed Bookes of Lawe" and the Legal Culture of Early Virginia. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2017. Black, Jeremy. Plotting Power: Strategy in the Eighteenth Century. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2017. Botkin, Frances R. Thieving Three-Fingered Jack: Transatlantic Tales of a Jamaican Outlaw, 1780-2015. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2017. Bowan, Kate and Paul A. Pickering. Sounds of Liberty: Music, Radicalism and Reform in the Anglophone World, 1790-1914. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2017. Buchet, Christian, Michel Balard, Gérard Le Bouëdec, and N. A. M. Rodger, eds. The Sea in History: The Modern World. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2017. Bullock, Steven C. Tea Sets and Tyranny: The Politics of Politeness in Early America. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2017. Burns, Adam D. American Imperialism: The Territorial Expansion of the United States, 1783-2013. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2017. Burton, Antoinette M. An ABC...

The Ottoman Tiles of the Fakahani Mosque in Cairo

In this paper, the author presents a chronological overview of Ottoman-period tilework in Cairene buildings with an emphasis on a detailed study of the tilework of one specific building: the Fakahani Mosque Complex in the historic city center of Cairo. The lack of a critical overview of tiles from various production centers used in Cairene architecture regularly leads to inaccurate attributions. Tiles, often automatically attributed to Iznik, frequently have more diverse origins both in place and period of production. The overview in this paper intends to raise awareness of this situation and to provide a timeline of tiles from various production centers which can be used for more focused studies of the tilework in individual buildings. In the second part of the paper the author deals with the tilework of the Fakahani Mosque Complex. All tiles used in the 1735–1736 renovation of this, originally, Fatimid mosque were produced in Istanbul by the Tekfur Saray? workshops in the late 1720s and early 1730s. They probably belonged to a larger batch of tiles which were used to decorate a number of buildings built or renovated by two Cairene amirs, Uthman Katkhuda al-Qazdaghli and Ahmad Katkhuda al-Kharbutli. The use of tiles from the royal workshops not only illustrates that these amirs had good contacts with the center of power in Istanbul but also shows that tiles played an important role in the construction of political legitimacy and social status in mid eighteenth-century Ottoman Cairo. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5913/jarce.53.2017.a015The complete set of photographs and figures can be found online at: https://opencontext.org/projects/2bc1f77d-fe36-41eb-99b9-c0261edb4f18.

Making Tools for Transmission: Mamluk and Ottoman Cairo’s Papermakers, Copyists and Booksellers

Abstract A growing body of scholarship regarding the nature of book production and ownership has greatly aided in advancing understandings of the intellectual and cultural history of the Middle East. The majority of these studies, however, focuses on the technical and art historical aspects of book production. This article seeks to take such scholarship a step further and explore the nature of the actual places where books were obtained in Mamluk and Ottoman Cairo. Using chronicles and annalistic sources, it will show that the traditionally understood paper markets had a far more extensive role in book production. Furthermore, the article will show that multiple centers in medieval Cairo were engaged in various tasks related to the creation of texts. A discussion of the extant corpus of secondary literature will be offered on the basis of these conclusions.

Geognostic Investigation on Damage and Deterioration Evolution of Soil and Architectural Materials of Mekaad Radwan, Ottoman Cairo, Egypt (Case Study)

This study determines which factors play roles of deterioration in Mekaad Radwan. The study also makes it possible to know the real response of the masonry structure to the deformation imposed at the base of the foundation condition. The used methodology included the identification of the seismicity situation and the possible damage effects of the Cairo (1992) earthquake through discussion of situation before and after earthquake as well as the controlling factors, in addition to the analysis and determination of the types, geometry of the types, deformation and other deterioration patterns, using the direct observation and primitive monitoring evaluation.

Alternative Lime Based Grouts Used in Re-pointing of Deteriorated Ancient Mortars and their Structural Effects on Composite Unreinforced Masonry Walls of Mekaad Radwan, Ottoman Cairo, Egypt (Case Study)

Mortars and plasters of Mekaad Radwan are badly affected by decay hazards, therefore; they were studied by means of XRD and polarized microscope to detect their chemical composition, physical and petrographic properties, in addition to identify their characteristics. The analyses revealed gypsum mixed with lime as dominant component with some aggregates of sand particles, sodium chloride was detected in all the studied samples. Standardized alternative mortars were prepared, exposed to artificial aging and tested in order to select the most suitable type to replace the old mortars and plasters at Mekaad Radwan.

نصوص جديدة حول القلاية البطريركية بحارة الروم

The aim of this paper is to introduce and edit texts about the residence of the Coptic Orthodox patriarchs at Ḥārat al-Rūm in Cairo. These texts might contribute to reconstruct the troubled and, sometimes, contradictory narratives of the residence(s) of the Coptic patriarchs in Cairo. On the other hand, they shed light on the archeological details of an important building in Ottoman Cairo, which is the residence of the Coptic patriarch at Ḥārat al-Rūm; how this residence was prepared and equipped. These details might be useful for those who study the Ottoman architecture. Since it was the residence of the leader of a religious community, one of the questions that could be posed is: was there, what so called, a Coptic architecture in the Ottoman period? If yes, what were its elements and characteristics? If no, it could be an affirmation of certain social and historical studies assumptions, which suggested that a new cultural norm was drawn, a process in which religion did not play an important role.

Musafirkhana Palace: the lost architectural treasure

This study provides an analytical historical and architectural account of the Musafirkhana Palace. The architectural configuration of this palace represented a rare and complete specimen of the upper-middle class homes in Mamluk and Ottoman Cairo (thirteenth to eighteenth centuries). This architectural treasure was burnt to the ground in 1998. The purpose of this study is to develop preliminary guidelines for the potential reconstruction of the Musafirkhana Palace or house. It includes a rich photographic catalogue of the house's different spaces before they were destroyed by fire. The study also contextualises the Musafirkhana within a broader typological framework that encompasses a range of elite and bourgeois houses which developed over several centuries in pre-modern Cairo. The study finally examines the house's concept of space and its relationship to the surrounding urban context. It questions the prevalent religious and climatic arguments that explain the introverted character of the Cairene house. This study argues that the courtyard configuration of the Cairene house was as much the result of cultural and urban form dynamics as religious and social traditions.

Antagonistic Sharilhringas and the Construction of Orthodoxy in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Cairo

In the bourgeoning field of Ottoman studies, there remains surprisingly little on the impact of the conquest upon the largest Arabic-speaking province, Egypt, in the long sixteenth century. Although the conquest of Mamluk Egypt in 1517 ushered in a period of extensive legal reforms, we have yet to fully analyse, classify or quantify the impact of these reforms on law and society in the sixteenth century. While it is widely acknowledged that the reforms triggered opposition from Egyptian ulema, the prevailing view in the secondary literature is that tensions eased soon thereafter. Drawing on al-Damīrīʾs biography of sixteenth-century judges, as well as on Ibn Iyāsʾ well-known chronicle of the conquest, this paper challenges the conventional wisdom on both the duration and substantive consequences of the reforms. The picture that emerges is one which resists the traditional paradigms generally assigned to such conflicts, i.e. ‘juristic orthodoxy’ versus ‘state heterodoxy’. Turning this paradigm on its head, the evidence reveals that the real agent of legal ‘orthodoxification’, understood as a homogenizing, or streamlining process in which correct opinion is emphasized, was the state. Conversely, it is Egyptian jurists, guardians of a legal tradition which emphasized orthopraxy (correct conduct) over and above orthodoxy, who formed a bulwark against it. What is at stake is in this empire-wide debate/conflict is not only the definition and function of qānūn and its relationship to fiqh, as assumed by many, but the very definition of the Sharīʿa itself. As an abstraction of the perfected moral cosmos, the Sharʿa could and did undergo a radical reimagining, producing not only a consciously Ottoman qānūn, but a consciously Ottoman Sharīʿa, to be distinguished from that of rival Sunni powers, past and present. To avoid the conceptual confusion generated by the labels traditionally attached to such matters, the intervention I propose includes an alternative paradigm centered on the notion of ‘antagonistic Sharīʿas’, or antagonistic legal utopias.

Soldiers in trade: the case of Ottoman Cairo

(1991). Soldiers in trade: the case of Ottoman Cairo. British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Bulletin: Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 16-37.

Sufi Architecture in Early Ottoman Cairo

Sufi Architecture in Early Ottoman Cairo

Popular Revolt in Ottoman Cairo

Popular Revolt in Ottoman Cairo