Ottoman Damascus Research Articles

Late Ottoman Damascus: Investments in Public Space and the Emergence of Popular Sovereignty

In the half century from 1860 to the First World War, the city of Damascus was transformed physically and conceptually from an Ottoman provincial center defined by its Islamic heritage to an arena ...

The Mysterious Power of Words: Language, Law, and Culture in Ottoman Damascus (17th-18th Centuries)

Like other aspects of social life, speech and conversation have their own rich and intricate history. But even in fairly recent scholarship, they remain subjects which have gone largely unexplored, mostly due to the limitations in sources which face all researchers and grow ever more intractable as one travels further back in time. This article takes a fresh look at these problems by examining literary and legal materials from Ottoman Damascus in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It reconstructs patterns of speech and manners, and links them with different sets of ideals and social norms that prevailed throughout urban society in the early modern Middle East. Of particular interest are habits of cursing and swearing, which have left residual traces even in written sources. One critical issue is the relationship between language and law, which turns up most vividly in the use of oaths, which were very much a part of everyday speech. They demonstrate how townspeople treated words virtually as deeds, regarding them with a degree of literalism which may not have been present in other cultures such as Western Europe, where their use had become more restricted.

Perceptions of a New Era? Historical Writing in Early Ottoman Damascus

AbstractThe year 922/1516-7 is usually treated as an important turning point in the history of Bilād al-Šām. The Ottoman conquest initiated change in various fields which has been the focus of much scholarly attention. However, it is still difficult to understand in what ways the new Ottoman subjects perceived these changes, especially in terms of allegiance to the ruling dynasties. To trace the attitudes of different persons and groups, scholars have often turned to the rich body of contemporary historical writing and used it as a source of information. In this article, which is centred on Ottoman Damascus, I argue that chronicles and biographical collections themselves are important witnesses of change and worth to be studied in their own right. As a step towards a more comprehensive understanding of the social uses of knowledge, I suggest that we need to enquire further into the significance of melancholy and solitude in Ottoman historical writing.

Reading Al-Sha'rani: The Sufi Genealogy of Islamic Modernism in Late Ottoman Damascus

Reading Al-Sha'rani: The Sufi Genealogy of Islamic Modernism in Late Ottoman Damascus

I TZCHAK W EISMANN , Taste of Modernity, Sufism, Salafiyya, and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus, Islamic History and Civilization (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001). Pp. 355. $86.00 cloth.

Itzchak Weismann's recent book on reform movements in late Ottoman Damascus illustrates how contemporary Islamic reform movements such as the Salafiyya have their origins in the efforts of Damascene religious men of learning and mysticism. These men attempted to construct reform movements that adhered to Islamic ideals while accommodating changed circumstances brought about by Western penetration into the region. Sufi ulama movements that made claims to both orthodoxy and reform in this early period provided much of the intellectual and social fodder for what Weismann calls modern Islamic movements. The combination of עilm and taṣawwuf , according to Weismann, allowed these early scholars to carve a reformist, yet orthodox, path that avoided the rigidity of the traditional ulama, who ignored mystic thought, and the popular Sufis, who neglected religious learning. Further, the story of these early reform movements illustrates how the path to modernity in the Muslim world is not simply the tale of an all-out adoption of Western rationalism by a centralized Ottoman bureaucracy; rather, it reflects a deep commitment by local Muslim intellectuals to contend with their changing world in terms that reflect the depth of their Islamic tradition. Through an investigation of the teachings and participants of three distinct reform movements in late Ottoman Damascus, Weismann illustrates the tensions within the movements and with the central Ottoman government—all of which pushed many of these reformers gradually to rely on more local avenues of expression, thereby paving the way for the rise of Arab nationalism.

Litigants and Neighbors: The Communal Topography of Ottoman Damascus

Litigants and Neighbors: The Communal Topography of Ottoman Damascus

Taste of Modernity: Sufism, Salafiyya and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus

Modernization in the Muslim world was determined by the two interrelated processes of indigenous state formation and European economic penetration. These drove governments to enlist the orthodox and the masses in support of the consolidation of their central authority, and religious reformers to seek, partly through Western devices, checks on their autocracy. Concentrating on late-Ottoman Damascus, a focal point in the modernization of Islam in the Arab world, this study analyses the conceptual and social evolution among the three consecutive reform trends of the period: the Khalidi branch of the Naqshbandiyya order, the Akbari interpretation of Ibn 'Arabi's theosophy, and the Salafi adaptation of Ibn Taymiyya's teaching. Through these reform trends, the study traces the emergence of modern Islam from its pre-modern Sufi reformist tradition. It also examines the relationship of Islamic modernization to the rise of Arab nationalism.

Dhimmīs in the Muslim Court: Legal Autonomy and Religious Discrimination

This article will examine the legal status of dhimmīs (non-Muslims) as documented in thesijillsof the shariʿa courts of Ottoman Damascus in the 18th and 19th centuries. It will focus on two related aspects ofdhimmīlegal life: the extent of the judicial autonomy granted to non-Muslims and the kind of justice thatdhimmīsobtained at the Muslim court.

The Creation of Ottoman Damascus

The Creation of Ottoman Damascus

A Room of "Splendor and Generosity" from Ottoman Damascus

A Room of "Splendor and Generosity" from Ottoman Damascus

Property, Status, and Class in Ottoman Damascus: Case Studies from the Nineteenth Century

Relying mainly on data from sharica law-court registers, the article examines the relationship between status-group affiliation and property ownership and interests in four branches of the Damascus economy in the middle and latter parts of the nineteenth century. These branches are grain wholesaling, primary food processing, services, and spinning and weaving of textiles. The data suggest only a tenuous relationship between status-group affiliation and economic interests and activities. In each of the four branches persons of widely varying backgrounds and origins had similar interests. This finding supports the hypothesis that the social order of Damascus, like that of other Middle Eastern towns in the same period, was in transition from one based on ascribed status to one based on property ownership.

Public Morality in the 18th Century ottoman Damascus

Rafeq Abdul Karim. Public Morality in the 18th Century ottoman Damascus. In: Revue du monde musulman et de la Mediterranee, n°55-56, 1990. Villes au Levant. pp. 180-196.

New Light On the 1860 Riots in Ottoman Damascus

New Light On the 1860 Riots in Ottoman Damascus

New Light on the 1860 Riots in Ottoman Damascus

New Light on the 1860 Riots in Ottoman Damascus