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This collection of papers in honour of Professor V. L. Ménage contains articles written by many leading Ottoman historians from around the world in English, French and Italian.

This collection of papers by various scholars discusses a wide range of practices and beliefs relating to saints in Islam. The studies also demonstrate the influence of sainthood on political structures in many societies.

The collected papers of Sir Henry A. Layard, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, arranged and edited by Sinan Kuneralp.

This collection of papers describes the transition of the Ottoman Greek community into nation states (Greece and Cyprus). The author explores the relationship between the religious and the national in the Ottoman context.

I Kath'imas Anatoli is a collection of papers by Richard Clogg on the Greeks inhabiting Ottoman Anatolia.

This volume is a collection of the private papers of Ali Ekrem Bey, the governor of Ottoman Jerusalem at the beginning of the twentieth century.

A collection of papers on the discovery of Istanbul and the Sephardic Jews by Spanish travellers in the 19th century.

A collection of articles on the Eastern Question by a former Spanish envoy to the Ottoman Empire, originally published in the influential Madrid paper La Epoca during the 1880s and 1890s.

No detailed description available for'The Life of Theodotus of Amida'.

The reign of King Khusrō I (531–579 CE) was a key chapter in the history of the Persian Empire, but it was also an important period for the development of the Church of the East. The Martyrdom of Mar Grigor Piran-Gušnasp and the Martyrdom of Mar Yazd-panah offer a panoramic perspective onto the social, religious, and political life of Christians in the Sasanian Empire at this time. According to these contemporary accounts, the death of Grigor, the general of the Sasanian king's armies and a convert from Zoroastrianism to Christianity, triggered the conversion of other Zoroastrian notables, including the courtier ʿAwira and Yazd-panāh, a judge who also died as a martyr three years after Grigor. This volume provides a critical text and commentary, as well as the first translation into English, of these two East Syrian texts, which have received little scholarly attention, although they are among the few Syriac martyr accounts from this period. These texts demonstrate how Persian Christians, despite sporadic persecution, were able to maintain a distinct identity while simultaneously acculturating to the norms of Iranian society, even taking on significant offices within the Sasanian administration.

'This is not a conventional history book. It is rather a study of the sociology of historical writing about a period that, although quite distant in time (330 B.C. to A.D. 670), still influences political discourse about the Arab world, and especially the relationship between the West and the Middle East. This book focuses on the riddle of the disappearance of the Arabs from history before Islam, their sudden appearance behind the banners of the Prophet, and the powerful and traumatic effect this emergence into world history has had on the relationship between the Arabs and the West'--

No detailed description available for'Seeing Islam as Others Saw It'.

'The fact that many features are standard to the oldest surviving mosques suggests that a canonical type, mostly a courtyard surrounded by four porticoes, did exist early in Islamic history. Such a template would have been copied by the builders of later mosques, combined with modifications inspired by the varying local architectural heritage. The evolution of such a universally-endorsed prototype, and the many influences that shaped it, have been copiously discussed. In the absence of reliable archaeological evidence, nonetheless, the question of how the mosque was made represents a real challenge. Its origin remains moot despite many attempts to settle the question. However, the devotional prompts for the mosque institution are either underestimated or totally dismissed by most writings, mainly because of the belief that the Prophet did not fundamentally know the mosque type. The idea that the creation of the mosque has only little to do with the Prophet's career is supported by formulaic views on Arabia and Islam (a region of poor architectural and artistic heritage; a religion dismissive of building and decoration). While the structure built by the Prophet in Madina, soon after the Hijra in 622 AD, is believed by many to have later provided the prototype of the mosque, the dominant theory that it was only a private residence casts doubt on that belief. The current study provides fresh evidence, based on the Qurʼ¿n, ḥadīth and early poetry, that this structure was indeed built to be a mosque. This finding is decisive for a number of undecided issues such as the immediate origin of the mosque type and the kind of impulses that shaped its design. A mosque founded and approved by the Prophet would constitute a religious context for the development of the mosque and give the big number of mosque-related ḥadīths more point and more reliability'--

The history of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study dates back to 1935, and it is the one area of scholarship that has been continuously represented at the Institute ever since. The volume opens with a historical sketch of the study of the Near and Middle East at the Institute. The second part of the volume consists of essays and short studies by IAS scholars, past and present, covering fields such as the ancient Near East and early Islamic history, the Bible and the Qurʼān, Islamic intellectual history within and beyond denominational history, Arabic and other Semitic languages and literatures, Islamic religious and legal practices, law and society, the Islamic West, the Ottoman world, Iranian studies, the modern Middle East, and Islam in the West.

In the present edited volume, a serious of internationally recognised scholars adopt an inter-disciplinary approach to the study of ‘religious nationalism'and the ‘nationalization'of religion, through focusing on case studies and the religious affiliations and denominations of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The aim of this book is to reconsider the ongoing debate between different communities of the so-called Islamic World regarding the nature of the nation and state, and the role of religion in a nation-state's institutional ground, both as a viable integrative or segregating factor. It is through focusing on the state dimension, as the subject of collective action or socio- cultural and political representation, that the book proposes to reconsider the relationship between religion, politics and identity in the perspective of ‘religious nationalism'and the ‘nationalization'of religion in the contemporary Islamic World.

The book addresses the history of Syrian Orthodoxy during a critical juncture of its history that spans the late Ottoman period and treads well beyond to witness remarkable revival, indeed renaissance. The work uniquely utilizes over 6000 uncatalogued and unpublished archival documents that were made available for it.

Middle Eastern Minorities and the Arab Spring: Identity and Community in the Twenty-First Century examines eleven minority groups in the early years of the so-called Arab Spring. Wide-ranging in scope, minorities of diverse religious and ethno-linguistic backgrounds are included from North Africa, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. Each has experienced the Arab Spring differently and uniquely depending upon their context. Of particular concern to the international team of scholars involved in this volume, is the interaction and reaction of minorities to the protest movements across the Arab World that called for greater democratic rights and end to respective autocratic regimes. While some minorities participated in the Arab Spring, others were wary of instability and the unintended effects of regime change – notably the rise of violent Islamism. The full effects of the Arab Spring will not be known for years to come, but for the minorities of the Middle East, the immediate future seems certainly tenuous at best.

For believers in a resurrection of the body, there arises the question of what happens after death but before the Last Day: the intermediate state. For most Muslims, the intermediate state is the barzakh. It is a fantastical and frightening time in the grave. The present study will examine where the belief in the barzakh comes from through a study of the Qur'an.

The Short Chronicle is an eyewitness report on the demise of the Sasanian and Byzantines Empires and the beginning of the Islamic period. It uses official Sasanian sources and Syriac church documents and mentions for the first time new Arab cities, including Mosul, Kufa, and Baṣra.

How Do We Want the Past to Be? The question is not purely rhetoric: rather, it points out the importance of how archaeologists deal with the interpretation and visualization of the past that they excavate and study. The essays in this book offer a contribution to the current debate on archaeology and the contemporary methodological approaches to the study of ancient Near Eastern architecture.

Morony compares conditions in late Sasanian and early Islamic Iraq in the seventh century AD and depicts both the emergence of a local form of Islamic society, and the interaction of Muslim conquerors from Arabia with the native population.

Morony compares conditions in late Sasanian and early Islamic Iraq in the seventh century AD and depicts both the emergence of a local form of Islamic society, and the interaction of Muslim conquerors from Arabia with the native population.

Patricia Crone reassesses one of the most widely accepted dogmas in contemporary accounts of the beginnings of Islam: the supposition that Mecca was a trading center. In addition, she seeks to elucidate sources on which we should reconstruct our picture of the birth of the new religion in Arabia.

This article provides some new information about the role of snakes in relation to Nabataean religion, presenting a small group of unknown snake monuments from Petra.

The book is the history of reform attempts in the Ottoman Empire and the internal and external difficulties in implementing them. Imperialist aggression towards the Empire and bloody janissary revolts hampered the reforms, and although some successes in governance were achieved, there were many failures, and these contributed to the demise of the Empire at the end of the First World War. Reforms began in 1718 during the period known as the Tulip Era, which ended in 1730 with a bloody janissary uprising. Sultan Selim III, who reigned from 1789 to 1807, then tried to engage with domestic and military reform. His reform efforts conflicted with the interests of both the janissaries and the religious leaders and made the sultan a victim of another janissary uprising. Mahmud II, successor to Selim III, strove to change the paradigm of governance with his personal administration. His most daring action was the eradication of the unruly janissary organisation. The concept of a constitutional monarchy penetrated the Empire, first in the form of Tanzimat in 1839, and subsequently with the issuance of a constitution in 1876. The sultan of the time, Abdülhamid II, became convinced that he could run the Empire alone and suspended the constitution. He was dethroned by a military coup in 1909. The janissaries had disappeared from the Empire, but their mentality had not. A new constitution was declared by amateur politicians and military officers, members of a revolutionary committee known as'Union and Progress', also known in the West as the'Young Turks'. They were well intentioned, but faced two disastrous wars, one in Libya, the other in the Balkans. Their administration quickly degenerated into a dictatorship and they had hardly enough time to carry out any meaningful reforms. In 1914 the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War together with Germany, the death knell of an empire that had lasted seven hundred years.

A critical study of how Iranian nationalism, itself largely influenced by Orientalist scholarship first undertaken by the European Orientalists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has shaped modern conceptions of Iran and Iranian identity, as well as narratives of Iranian history, leading to the adoption of a broad nationalist construction of identity to suit Iranian political and ideological circumstances. This book argues that such a broad-brushed approach and the term “Iranian” could not have applied to the large multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural populations in the vast territory of Iran over so many distinct historical periods.

This book provides the first history of the old Syrian community of Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1890-1945, focusing on the slow process of ethnic acculturation during which community members developed a hybrid culture. Unlike some Middle Eastern immigrant groups, these Syrians were able to maintain their identity by establishing their own churches, which still exist today. At every opportunity this group is situated within the larger historical context, the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the French Mandate in Syria, the Progressive Movement, the Americanization program of the 1920s, the Great Depression and the two world wars.

In the turbulent political and economic atmosphere of the eighteenth century when the Ottoman Empire was enfeebled and deeply wounded by internal corruption and attacked on three fronts by the Persian, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires, local leaders far from Istanbul began to take matters into their own hands. At first, these leaders only regulated local trade and tax collection, but soon, leaders like Shaykh Zahir al-‘Umar — a district tax collector in Palestine for the Ottoman government — saw opportunities to amass great wealth and power while providing autonomous government and safer roads to their local followers. Zahir first spread his control over northern Palestine, and later allied himself with Ali Bey of Egypt, a semi-independent leader who dreamed of re-establishing the Mamluk sultanate. When challenged by the Ottoman government, which was at the time at war with Catherine the Great's Russia (1768–74), Zahir and Ali Bey did not hesitate to ally themselves with Imperial Russia. A gripping and fascinating read, Dr. Ahmad Joudah's biography of Shaykh Zahir is crucial for scholars seeking to contextualize developments in modern Palestinian history within the power politics of the late Ottoman Empire.

In the turbulent atmosphere of the eighteenth century when the Ottoman Empire was enfeebled, local leaders far from Istanbul took matters into their own hands. At first, these leaders only regulated local trade and tax collection, but soon, leaders like Shaykh Zahir al-‘Umar — a district tax collector in Palestine— saw opportunities to amass great wealth and power while providing autonomous government and safer roads to their local followers. A gripping and fascinating read, Ahmad Joudah's biography of Shaykh Zahir is crucial for scholars seeking to contextualize developments in modern Palestinian history within the politics of the late Ottoman Empire.

Excavations in the Lower Market in Petra (Jordan), capital of the ancient kingdom of Nabsataea, uncovered the remnants of a monumental pool-complex at the heart of the ancient city. It played an important role in the socio-political life of Petra during the Nabataean and Roman periods. The mere presence of a paradeidos in Petra symbolized the Nabataean king's power and helped to legitimize his place among contemporary rulers. The paradeisos is an example of a gratuitous display of conspicuous consumption, a symbol of the flourishing status of Petra during its Classical era.

This book presents an English translation of Ali Paşa's political testament with an introduction on the political events of his time.

In this volume, Father Joseph Naayem, based on his experiences and conversations with others, narrates the horrors experienced by the Chaldean Christians prior to World War I at the hands of the Turks.

This book investigates the socio-cultural and maritime history of 18th century – early 19th-century Southern Iran and the Persian Gulf in terms of the merchants, mariners and captains who lived and died in the turbulent waters of the western Indian Ocean. This “uncertain frontier” between a revitalized Ottoman Empire to the west and an emergant British India to the east became a testing grounds for the communities of the Gulf. Generally assumed to be a period of anarchy, the 18th-century maritime peoples resolved differences by marriage, forged alliances, and adapted their mercantile skills to the emerging age of global power.

This volume in honour of Colin Imber (University of Manchester) contains essays by many leading Ottoman historians.

A study on the role of sunni-orthodox Islam in the Ottoman Empire between 1826 and 1876.

A collection of articles by Svat Soucek about the naval history of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th to 18th centuries.

A glossary of Ottoman historical terms by Gustav Bayerle.

A collection of essays by Sina Aksin about the later years of the Ottoman Empire and the early years of the Turkish Republic within the wider context of Europe and the Middle East.

This book is a collection of newspaper reports documenting the massacres and genocides of Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrian minorities who inhabited Asia Minor for many millennia, by the Ottoman Turks and later the Kemalists. These reports, emanating from English sources, show that there was a systematic and organized campaign by Turkish authorities to eliminate all traces of the memories of these minorities from the face of the earth.

A collection of articles by Géza Dávid on the demographic and administrative history of the Ottoman Hungary.

This book is a case study of British diplomatic activities at several of its consulates in the Ottoman Empire, focusing on the reports files from the stations to the Foreign Office.

A study on the social and economic history of the Jewish communities of the Ottoman Empire during the 16th to 18th centuries with a particular interest in their day-to-day relations with the Muslims.

A comprehensive study on Varlik Vergisi (the Capital Tax) which was implemented on the minorities of the Turkish Republic in 1942–43 and affected their lives as well as conceptions of their place in the society.

This rich collection of articles illustrates the range of Stanford J. Shaw's more than forty years of research. Topics covered include the nineteenth-century Tanzimat reforms, Turkey in the World Wars, and the Ottoman archives.

This collection of articles concentrates on the Karamanli people and the Karamanlidika Press of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It presents and discusses formerly unknown material from the Ottoman archives.

A collection of articles by Martin van Bruinessen on Kurds, Kurdish history and identity from the perspective of nationalism and nation-building in the Middle East.