Suraiya Faroqhi

Anadolu'da Bektasilik

The cultural heritage of the Ottoman Empire has traditionally been presented to us through its monuments and high arts. Our understanding of its culture has thus come from a world created by and for sultans, viziers and the elite of the Empire. But what of the world of the craftsmen and tradesmen who produced the monuments and artefacts? Or the townspeople who prayed in the mosques, drank water from the sebils or passed by the mausolea in the ordinary course of their lives? How did they live and die? To date no book has adequately explored the day-to-day life of the common people during the centuries of Ottoman rule. In this new edition Faroqhi explores the urban world of the Ottoman lands from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century, describing the social significance of the popular arts and crafts of the period and examining the interaction among the diverse populations and classes of the Empire.

Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire

Subjects of the Sultan

In Islamic law the world was made up of the 'House of Islam' and the 'House of War' with the Ottoman Sultan - successor to the early Caliphs - as supreme ruler of the Islamic world. However, in this ground-breaking study of the Ottoman Empire in the early modern period, Suraiya Faroqhi demonstrates that there was no 'iron curtain' between the Ottoman and 'other' worlds but rather a long-established network of connections - diplomatic, trading and financial., cultural and religious. These extended beyond regional contacts to the empires of Asia and the burgeoning 'modern' states of Europe - England, France, the Netherlands and Venice. Of course, military conflict was a constant factor in these relationships, but the overriding reality was 'one world' and contact between cultured and pragmatic elites - even 'gentlemen travelling for pleasure' - as well as pilgrimage and close artistic contact with the European Renaissance. Faroqhi's book is based on a huge study of original and early modern sources, including diplomatic records, travel and geographical writing, as well as personal accounts. Its breadth and originality will make it essential reading for historians of Europe and the Middle East.

The Ottoman Empire and the World Around it

Sevket Pamuk

Bruce McGowan

A major contribution to Ottoman history, now published in paperback in two volumes.

An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire

It is an often ignored but fundamental fact that in the Ottoman world, as in most empires, there were 'first-class' and 'second class' subjects. Among the townspeople, peasants and nomads subject to the sultans, who might be Muslims or non-Muslims, adult Muslim males were first-class subjects and all others, including Muslim boys and women, were of the second class. As for the female members of the elite, while less privileged than the males, in some respects their life chances might be better than those of ordinary women. Even so, they shared the risks of pregnancy, childbirth and epidemic diseases with townswomen of the subject class and to a certain extent, with village women as well. Thus, the study of Ottoman women is indispensable for understanding Ottoman society in general. In this book, the agency of women from a diverse range of class, religious, ethnic, and geographic backgrounds is, for the first time, woven into the social and political history of the Ottoman Empire, from the early-modern period to its dissolution in 1918. Suraiya Faroqhi charts the history of elite and non-elite women in thematic chapters concentrating on urban women, family life, work, slavery, education and survival in times of war. In the process the book introduces readers to the key sources, primary and secondary, necessary to reconstruct and understand the ways that females navigated social, legal and economic constraints, through the central prisms of family relations, work and charity. The first introductory social history of women in the Ottoman Empire, and including a timeline and extended further reading section, this book will be essential reading for scholars and students of Ottoman history and the history of women in the Middle East.

A Social and Political History

Women in the Ottoman Empire

Zülal Kılıç

Osmanlı zanaatkarları

Kate Fleet

Reşat Kasaba

Metin Kunt

A comprehensive four-volume set relating the history of Turkey from Byzantium up to and including modern-day Turkey.

The Cambridge History of Turkey

Christoph K. Neumann

The study of clothes and dressing has great potential for social and cultural history. Typically Ottoman urbanites situated their fellow men after a glance at the clothing worn by the latter. As to the women, such conclusions were more difficult to draw, as all females were to be modestly covered up and ideally almost invisible. Yet in practice, at least from the eighteenth century onwards, it was often possible, at least in Istanbul, to distinguish fashionable from soberly pious women. To be aware of people's modes of dressing thus was part of knowing one's way around in Ottoman society. -- cover.

From Textile to Identity

Ottoman Costumes

Establishing Status, Establishing Control

Stories of Ottoman Men and Women

Examines the social and economic history of one of the major empires of modern times.

An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914

Gilles Veinstein

To a large extent the present volume deals with merchants established on Ottoman territory for a long time. Whether they were subjects of the sultans or not will be considered of secondary importance; but many if not most of them probably fell into that category. 'Hard to pin down' traders also occur; in particular we have included a number of studies discussing people who started their lives as Ottoman subjects but whose business activities took them to Venice or the Habsburg territories, where some of them struck roots. Such situations after all form part of the life stories of merchants anywhere; and given the broad expanses of sea and land that many Mediterranean traders traversed, it makes sense to adopt as broad a perspective as possible.

Merchants in the Ottoman Empire

The cultural heritage of the Ottoman Empire has traditionally been presented to us through its monuments - mosques, mausoleums, palaces, baths - and its high arts, such as court painting and calligraphy. Our understanding of Ottoman culture has thus come from a world created by and for sultans, viziers and the elite of the Empire.

The pilgrimage to Mecca - the Hajj - is a major aspect of the Islamic religion, yet little has been written about its history or of the conditions under which thousands of pilgrims from far flung regions of the Islamic world were able to travel to the heart of the Arabian peninsula. The book concentrates on the pilgrimage in the 16th and 17th centuries, when Mecca was ruled by the Ottoman sultans. At a time when, for the majority of the faithful, the journey was long, arduous and fraught with danger, the provision of food, water, shelter and protection for pilgrims presented a major challenge to the provincial governors of the vast Ottoman Empire. Drawing on documentation left by Ottoman administrators, and on the accounts of contemporary pilgrims, this book deals with such issues as the financing of the pilgrimage and the political problems it posed.

The Hajj Under the Ottomans

Pilgrims and Sultans

Political Conflict and Crime in the Ottoman Empire, 1550-1720

Coping with the State

Halil Berktay

Debates on the world historical place of the Ottoman Empire in the last few decades have been conducted mainly in Turkey, but increasingly concepts have been introduced into the conversation from the study of European, Chinese and Central Asian history. This book, first published in 1992, examines the nature of the Ottoman state from a variety of perspectives, economic, political and social.

New Approaches to State and Peasant in Ottoman History

A state-of-the-art introduction to Ottoman history and sources for students embarking upon their research.

An Introduction to the Sources

Approaching Ottoman History

Elif Akçetin

An exploration how consumer goods in eighteenth-century Qing and Ottoman empires furthered the expansion of social networks, the creation of alliances between rulers and regional elites, and particularly, the expression of elite, urban, and gender identities

Consumption in the Qing and Ottoman Empires of the Eighteenth Century

Living the Good Life

In a concise and colorful style, Suraiya Faroqhi lays out the history of one of the most powerful empires of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern era. At its height, the Ottoman Empire spread over three continents and matched the size of the Roman Empire, covering the territories of modern-day Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and parts of Greece. This text traces the political history of the Ottomans from the 14th century to the dissolution of the empire after World War I and employs a balanced approach that encompasses economic, social, and cultural history. The result is a unique, colorful overview of the Ottoman Empire that depicts soldiers, such as Mehmed II ("the Conqueror") and the Janissary corps; the wars with Persia, Russia, and Venice; court life in Istanbul, including patronage of the arts; the role of the sultan as defender of Sunni Islam; the tax system; agriculture and trade; life in the cities and the country; the relationship between Europe and the Ottoman Empire; the rise of nationalism; and upheaval during the 19th century.

A Short History

The Ottoman Empire

It has often been assumed that the subjects of the Ottoman sultans were unable to travel beyond their localities - since peasants needed the permission of their local administrators before they could leave their villages. According to this view, only soldiers and members of the governing elite would have been free to travel. However, Suraiya Faroqhi's extensive archival research shows that this was not the case; pious men from all walks of life went on pilgrimage to Mecca, slaves fled from their masters and craftspeople travelled in search of work. Most travellers in the Ottoman era headed for Istanbul in search of better prospects and even in peacetime the Ottoman administration recruited artisans to repair fortresses and sent them far away from their home towns. In this book, Suraiya Faroqhi provides a revisionist study of those artisans who chose - or were obliged - to travel and those who stayed predominantly in their home localities. She considers the occasions and conditions which triggered travel among the artisans, and the knowledge that they had of the capital as a spatial entity. She shows that even those craftsmen who did not travel extensively had some level of mobility and that the Ottoman sultans and viziers, who spent so much effort in attempting to control the movements of their subjects, could often only do so within very narrow limits. Challenging existing historiography and providing an important new revisionist perspective, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Ottoman history.

Employment and Mobility in the Early Modern Era

Travel and Artisans in the Ottoman Empire

Far from simply being a centre of military and economic activity, the Ottoman Empire represented a vivid and flourishing cultural realm. The artefacts and objects that remain from all corners of this vast empire illustrate the real and everyday concerns of its subjects and elites and, with this in mind, Suraiya Faroqhi, one of the most distinguished Ottomanists of her generation, has selected 40 of the most revealing, surprising and striking.Each image - reproduced in full colour - is deftly linked to the latest historiography, and the social, political and economic implications of her selections are never forgotten. In Faroqhi's hands, the objects become ways to learn more about trade, gender and socio-political status and open an enticing window onto the variety and colour of everyday life, from the Sultan's court, to the peasantry and slavery. Amongst its faiences and etchings and its sofras and carpets, A Cultural History of the Ottomans is essential reading for all those interested in the Ottoman Empire and its material culture. Faroqhi here provides the definitive insight into the luxuriant and varied artefacts of Ottoman world.

Suraiya Faroqhi

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