Download Pre-Modern Middle East - UT College of Liberal Arts

Pre-Modern Middle East
From the Prophet Mohammad to Emperor Napoleon
Professor Shahrzad Ahmadi
Email Address: [email protected]
Office Hours: MW 1-2 (also by appointment)
Office Hours will be held at Prufrock’s Cafe in the PCL
Course Description
The purpose of this course is two-fold: one, to examine the history of the Islamic
Middle East; second, to understand the discipline of history and the work of historians. In
this class, we will grapple with questions like: Why did Islam spread so quickly? How were
non-Muslims treated in the Islamic world? Did medieval Muslim women have rights
comparable to their counterparts in the rest of the known world? Were Muslims aware of
homosexuality? Did Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, change depending on the historical
context? as well as other topics that inspire us to think deeply about faith, politics, and
sexuality.
As stated earlier, the other purpose of this course is to teach students the discipline of
history and the work of historians. How do historians analyze primary sources and engage
secondary sources? I forego textbooks in favor of articles that are in conversation with each
other. I also provide primary sources, thereby teaching students the analytic skills used to
produce works of history. In reading primary and secondary sources, this course teaches
students about the history of the Middle East while using the region as a prism through which
to analyze global themes, like the spread of monotheism, the cultural effect of trading
networks, and the development of philosophies and sciences.
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Lectures, Readings, & Discussions
Lectures not only provide information regarding course content but also complement the
assigned texts and facilitate discussions. In addition to academic scholarship, this course
offers primary sources (indicated by an asterisk), which students will engage in final
papers. As this is a summer course, each day of class represents about a week of a regular
semester. You will, therefore, have approximately one hundred and fifty pages of reading
per week.
For each week's topic, the syllabus offers “Thoughts and Questions,” which serve as a
guide for readings and discussions. Essays will demand careful examination and analysis
of assigned texts, which we engage nearly every day in classroom discussions. Please use
Chicago Style Citation for all papers. Late papers are accepted; however, for each day the
paper is late, the student will lose 10 points. Please submit your papers as an email
attachment and I will return them to you via email.
Grades
Two Short Essays: 15% each -- 4-5 pages each
Two Think-Aloud’s: 5% each — 45-90 seconds
Final Essay: 40% -- 10 pages
Participation: 20%
Everyone must come to class prepared to contribute to discussions. Developing an
opinion on various topics and articulating agreement/ disagreement with peers represents
one of the most rewarding experiences of a university education.
On papers, +/- are used but the final grade will not carry that +/-. Grades may be rounded
up. The +/- given to students on individual assignments allows for a better understanding
of the student’s achievements to assign an appropriate final grade.
Absences
Students may be absent once (for any reason, no documentation necessary) but any
subsequent absence will affect your participation grade, even if you do have a legitimate
excuse. (Of course, if something serious takes place -- if you or a parent has a serious
illness, if you are in a serious car accident, etc. -- please do not hesitate to speak with
me.) Missing five class sessions may result in a failing grade in this course.
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Think-Aloud
A think-aloud activity allows me to gauge a student’s analytic skills. Students will be
provided one-think aloud before submitting their own recording. Over the course of the
term, students will listen to several more think-aloud’s. In-class activities will provide
ample opportunity to practice this exercise in groups. At the end of the term, students
provide a final recording so that I may evaluate their progress. A more complete
explanation of think-aloud’s are provided in a separate document.
Paper Topics
Students have the option, for each assigned paper, to select either a historiographic or a
historical prompt. The final paper requires students to conduct their own research by
engaging primary source material, which will be provided throughout the term.
Paper 1, due June 10:
1) How would you approach the extant hadith literature? Do you accept its veracity or do you
not? If not, how else may you construct an understanding of the early Islamic world?
(historiographic)
2) Why did Islamic scholars allow for some flexibility within the Islamic community in terms
of practicing the faith? What did it mean to be a Muslim in the early Islamic world?
(historical)
Paper 2, due June 22:
1) How did Muslims perceive the Christian Crusaders? How and why might the lived
experience of the Crusades differ from portrayals in modern popular culture?
(historiographic)
2) How did the Mongols contribute to and transform Islamic culture? (historical)
Final Paper, due July 7:
1) How have scholars approached Islamic sexuality? Do you believe that their representations
are accurate, considering their sources? How may their descriptions contribute to our
perceptions of Eastern sexuality? (historiographic)
2) Describe the political, trade, and religious influences of the Ottoman Empire on Europe and
vice versa. (history)
3) A paper of your own choosing.
Honor Code
Collaboration is encouraged; however, let me know if you work with a classmate on a
paper so that I do not suspect one student copied another student’s argument/ work. If you
cheat, I will give you a failing grade on that assignment and, likely, in the class.
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Course Readings & Discussions
Course Topic 1. The Advent and Spread of Islam (500s — 750)
Thoughts & Questions: The prophet of Islam, Mohammad, was born and raised in late seventh century
Saudi Arabia. Following the prophet’s death, political infighting gripped the early Islamic community,
leading to the Shi'i-Sunni split. What records we do have of this period? Who are the central figures of
the faith and how do they shape our understanding of Islamic doctrines?
June 2. Lecture 1, Introductions; The Medieval World & the Early Islamic Community
T&Q: History course discussions require us to engage pre-existing knowledge about the material, even if it
might not be wholly accurate. What do we know about the prophet and the faith? Where do we get our
information? What are our biases with respect to the tenets of Islam?
June 3. (No Lecture)
Think Aloud 1 Due.
T&Q: Montgomery Watt’s biography still represents one of the most important texts on the life of Mohammad.
How does Watt describe the life and times of the Prophet Muhammad? Why is it important to consider an
author’s background? How might we understand the frustrations of many readers and Muslim scholars to this
generation of Orientalists?
Discussion:
Montgomery Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 1-2, 13-27,
229-240.
June 6. Lecture 2, The First Civil War & the Shi’i-Sunni Split (656-661)
T&Q: Consider the primary sources at our disposal. Hadith literature, though incredibly useful, also has its
faults. Do they seem reliable? If you doubt their veracity, then what other types of documents might you search
for? What documents are available for early Christian history and how do you think scholars of Christianity
approach those sources?
Discussion:
Jonathan Brown, Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World (New York: Oneworld
Publications, 2009), 2-4, 197-240.
Selections from al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari (New York: SUNY, 1996).*
June 7. (No Lecture)
T&Q: Yesterday, we discussed hadiths, which most historians of the medieval Islamic world use to write their
histories. We also acknowledged the weakness of those sources. What other sources may historians use for a
more creative reading of history, which may depart from or contradict hadiths? Do you prefer these sources to
the hadith literature or do they both seem to present similar issues?
Discussion:
Fred Donner, Muhammad and the Believers (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2010), 56-89, 194-219.
Patricia Crone, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977),
3-34, 73-129.
June 8. Lecture 3, The Umayyad Caliphate (661-750)
T&Q: The Umayyad Caliphate, though not necessarily more decadent or corrupt than its successor, retains a bad
reputation even centuries later. After executing the prophet’s grandson and parading his head on a spike for
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Muslims to see, it is unsurprising that the Umayyad clan would be distrusted. Is this prejudice toward the
caliphate entirely fair? Why is the Umayyad period so important to Islamic history and what is their legacy?
Discussion:
Selections from al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari (New York: SUNY, 1996).*
Montgomery Watt & Pierre Cachia, A History of Islamic Spain (New Jersey: Rutgers University, 1965), 58-69.
Roberto Marin-Guzman, “The abbasid Revolution in Central Asia and Khurasan: An Analytical Study of the
Role of Taxation, Conversion, and Religious Groups in its Genesis,” Islamic Studies (33) 1994, 227-252.
Course Topic 2. The Golden Age of Islam: The Abbasids (750 — 1258)
T&Q: Most in the Abbasid elite did not heed Quranic law. In fact, during this period, poets wrote
openly about sexual relations with women, men, and their love of wine. Artists drew human images
and philosophers expressed doubt in the veracity of the Quran. In the Abbasid period, Muslims ruled
over an exceptionally free realm and made great advances in the arts and sciences. How did the
Abbasids rule over their empire? How did newly converted Muslims practice the faith?
June 9. Lecture 4, The Rise of the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258)
T&Q: Due to the discipline’s prejudice toward written text, the lives of the literate (in other words, the wealthy)
take precedence in historical writing. The rich leave records and historians use those records in order to offer
some understanding of life in the pre-modern period. Though this improves somewhat with the increase in
literacy during the twentieth century, for scholars of the Abbasid and Umayyad worlds, records left by the elite
and court prove indispensable. What was life like for the elite? How may we learn about the lives of the masses
of poor Muslims and non-Muslims during the Abbasid period?
Discussion:
Boaz Shoshan, “High Culture and Popular Culture in Medieval Islam,” Studia Islamica (73) 1991, 67-107.
Richard Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 1-3, 37-66.
June 10. (No Lecture)
T&Q: The privileged elite in the Muslim world was wealthy Muslim men, just as in western society Christian
white males represented the reigning elite. The globally oppressed classes, specifically women and those who
did not follow the state religion, however, were considerably better treated in the Abbasid world then in Europe.
What rights were afforded to non-Muslims and women in the Abbasid Caliphate?
Discussion:
B. F. Musallam, Sex and Society in Islam: Birth Control before the Nineteenth Century (Cambrdige: Cambridge
University Press, 1983), 10-16, 28-38.
Robert Schick, “Christian Life in Palestine during the Early Islamic Period,” The Biblical Archaeologist (51)
1988, 218-221 & 239-40.
June 13. Lecture 5, Intellectuals of the Abbasid Age
Paper 1 Due.
T&Q: Westerners applaud Muslim intellectuals for translating Greek philosophy during the middle ages, just as
Europeans shed their ties to the pre-Christian world. Muslims did far more than preserve Greek thought and
popularize it in Europe, however. Abbasid intellectuals engaged the legacy of Byzantine, Persian, and Christian
traditions in order to develop new philosophies unique to the Islamic world. Far from limiting themselves only
to philosophies affirming Quranic text, Muslims pushed the boundaries and even came to radical, heretical
conclusions about faith. What contributions did Abbasid philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians make?
What new academic fields did they explore? How were their thoughts received by the clerical establishment and
the elite?
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Discussion:
Six groups read one chapter each from Religion, Learning, and Science in the Abbasid Period. Six options, AlKindi, Al-Razi, Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Al-Biruni, and Al-Ghazali.
Hayrettin Yücesoy, “Translation as Self-Consciousness: Ancient Sciences, Antediluvian Wisdom, and the
‘Abbasid Translation Movement,” Journal of World History (20) 2009, 523-557.
Eva Hoffman, “Between East and West: The Wall Paintings of Samarra and the Construction of Abbasid Princely
Culture,” Muqarnas (25) 2008, 107-124.
L.E. Goodman, Religion, Learning and Science in the ‘Abbasid Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), 494-497.
June 14. (No Lecture)
T&Q: We find tremendous evidence of intimate and casual homosexual relations in the Islamic world, from
poetry to elite records. Do you accept the assumption that because the subject was discussed and practiced, it
was therefore accepted? What sources do historians read and what sources appear overlooked?
Discussion:
Sabine Schmidtke, “Homoeroticism and Homosexuality in Islam: A Review Article,” Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies, University of London (62) 1999, 260-1.
Homoerotic poetry, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/homosexuality-iii *
Everett Rowson, “Homoerotic Liaisons among the Mamluk Elite in Late Medieval Egypt and Syria,” Islamicate
Sexualities (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 204- 238.
June 15. Lecture 6, The Fatimids (909-1171) and Buyids (934-1062)
T&Q: How did the Shi’i century influence societal norms in the Iranian plateau and Egypt? How can we gauge
those societal changes?
Discussion:
Christopher Taylor, “Reevaluating the Shi’i Role in the Development of Monumental Islamic Funerary
Architecture: The Case of Egypt,” Muqarnas (9) 1992, 1-10.
Jonathan Bloom, “Facts and Fantasy in Buyid Art,” Oriente Moderno 2 (2004), 387-400.
Course Topic 3. The Crusades
T&Q: The Crusades, a protracted conflict between Christians and Muslims in the middle ages for
control of the Holy Land, has been popularized in the modern age as an existential battle between East
and West. How is this narrative flawed? How did Christians perceive Muslims and vice versa? In what
ways did Christians benefit from the war? During and following the Crusades, how did Europe handle
its own Muslim communities?
June 22. (No Lecture)
Paper 2 Due.
Watch Part 1 of BBC Documentary.
T&Q: The Christian crusaders invaded Islamic land, for the first time exposing Muslims in Palestine to Franks.
What did Muslims think of their invaders? How did Christians perceive Muslims, about whose faith they knew
so little? It is widely accepted that the crusades represented an important experience to the European continent
and that western Christians gained tremendously, both intellectually and commercially, from the encounter. Did
the crusades leave as lasting an impression on Muslims?
Discussion:
Paul Chevedden, “The Islamic View and the Christian View of the Crusades: A New Synthesis,” History (93),
2008, 181-200.
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Bernard Hamilton, “Knowing the Enemy: Western Understanding of Islam at the Time of the Crusades,” Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society (7) 1997, 373-387.
Usama ibn Munqidh, “An Appreciation of the Frankish Character,” 1180s.*
June 23. (No Lecture)
Watch Part 2 of BBC documentary.
T&Q: The Crusades have captured the imagination of the west, from the time of the invasion until modern day.
What is the legacy of the crusades in the west? Do westerners understand the crusades as emblematic of a
political struggle that continues today? How is the conflict represented in popular entertainment?
Discussion:
Watch Kingdom of Heaven.*
Khurram Qadir, “Modern Historiography: The Relevance of the Crusades,” Islamic Studies (46) 2007, 527-558.
Adam Knobler, “Holy Wars, Empires, and the Portability of the Past: The Modern Uses of Medieval Crusades,”
Comparative Studies in Society and History (48) 2006, 293-325.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0919/p12s2-woeu.html *
June 24. (No Lecture)
Watch Part 3 of BBC documentary.
T&Q: During and after the Crusades, European leaders tried to uproot the enemy from within. Muslims
remained in Europe, however, until their final expulsion in the sixteenth century. How were minorities in Europe
affected by the crusades? Based on our readings, what did the BBC documentary miss?
Discussion:
The BBC documentary as a whole
Daniel Lasker, “The Impact of the Crusades on the Jewish-Christian Debate,” Jewish History (13) 1999, 23-36.
Roberto Marin-Guzmán, “Crusade in al-Andalus: The Eleventh Century Formation of the Reconquista as an
Ideology,” Islamic Studies (31) 1992, 287-318.
David Abulafia, “The Last Muslims in Italy,” Dante Studies (125), 2007, 271-78.
Search Umayyad art in Spain online. Send me architecture and art you find particularly compelling and explain
why you consider it unique to Europe. Do you see Christian or European influences?
Course Topic 4. The Turks and the Golden Horde
T&Q: The Abbasid Caliphate officially ended in the thirteenth century and, with that, Arabs lost
control of political power in the Islamic world. Turks from east Asia, who conquered much of the
Middle East and North Africa, shaped the Islamic faith for centuries to come. Though at first not
Muslim, the invading Turkic Mongols eventually adopted the faith and absorbed Persian and Islamic
culture. Their arrival to the Middle East, however, dramatically changed Islam. What aspects of Turkic
culture influenced followers of the faith?
June 16. Lecture 7, The Rise of the Seljuks (1037-1194) & Mamluks (1206-1831)
T&Q: During the long decline of the Abbasid Empire, many dynasties gained power in the region, including the
Seljuks and Mamluks. Why did the Seljuks believe maintaining the veneer of the Abbasid caliphate so
important? How did the rise of Turkic dynasties culturally influence the Middle East? Did Turks build on the
Persian and Arab political and social partnership?
Discussion:
Ira Lapidus, “Mamluk Patronage and the Arts in Egypt: Concluding Remarks,” Maqarnas (2) 1984, 173-181.
Adèle Coulin Weibel, “Seljuk Fabrics,” Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts of the City of Detroit (13) 1935,
41-43.
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Bethany Walker, “Commemorating the Sacred Spaces of the Past: The Mamluks and the Umayyad Mosque at
Damascus,” Near Eastern Archaeology (67), 2004, 26-39.
June 17. (No Lecture)
Watch BBC Documentary on Genghis Khan
T&Q: As mentioned earlier in this syllabus, discussing preexisting knowledge is an important part of class
discussion. What had we already learned about the Mongols? What did we learn from our readings that surprised
us or, at least, seemed new to us? Based on our readings, what is missing from the BBC documentary?
Discussion for June 20:
Charles Halperin, “The Missing Golden Horde Chronicles and Historiography in the Mongol Empire,”
Mongolian Studies (23) 2000, 1-15.
Anne F. Broadbridge, Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), 1-3.
June 20. Lecture 8, The Mongol Legacy
T&Q: Though the Mongols traumatized the Islamic world, they did not remain marauding invaders for long.
Soon, the Mongols busied themselves with administering their vast empire. They thus integrated into the existing
society by adopting their culture and customs, including their faith. Muslims, however, also transformed because
of the court’s Turkic culture. How was this influence reciprocal? How did Islam change because of the Mongols?
Discussion:
Michal Biran, “The Chaghadaids and Islam: The Conversion of Tarmashirin Khan,” Journal of the American
Oriental Society (122) 2002, 742-52.
Denise Aigle, “Iran Under Mongol Domination: The Effectiveness and Failings of a Dual Administrative
System,” Bulletin d’etudes Orientales (57) 2007, 65-78.
June 21. (No Lecture)
T&Q: Sufism, a form of spiritual Islam that condoned drinking and pre-marital sex as expressions of faith,
became very popular after the Mongol invasion. What types of Sufis were considered acceptable in elite Mongol
circles? How were Sufis organized? Why do you think they became so popular, particularly during this period?
Discussion:
Reuven Amitai-Preiss, “Sufis and Shamans: Some Remarks on the Islamization of the Mongols in the Ilkhanate,”
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient (42) 1999, 27-49.
Lawrence Potter, “Sufis and Sultans in Post-Mongol Iran,” Iranian Studies (27) 1994, 77-102.
Ali Asan, “Sufi Poetry in the Folk Tradition of Indo-Pakistan,” Religion & Literature (20) 1988, 81-94.
Course Topic 5. The Ottomans, Mamluks, and Safavids
T&Q: The Safavid and Mughal Empires influenced each other tremendously. The Ottoman Empire,
however, represented the most significant Islamic Empire in history. While the Mughals and Safavids
competed for supremacy, both bowed to the Ottomans in Anatolia. The Ottomans conducted trade,
recruited soldiers, married women, and exchanged ideas with their neighbors to the west. How did
Europe perceive the Ottomans in the medieval period and the Muslims who remained in their midst
until the seventeenth century? When did the balance of power shift to the west?
June 27. (No Lecture)
T&Q: Founded in the thirteenth century, the Ottomans controlled the most powerful empire in the known world.
For centuries, Jews and Christians fled Europe to the Ottoman Empire for religious freedom. At the height of
their power, they threatened to conquer Western Europe. Overwhelmed by the fear of military defeat, the
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Ottomans shaped western notions of the menace of Islam. How do we represent the struggle between the
Ottomans and Europe in popular media today? Why was the Ottoman military so successful in conquering and
ruling territories? How was Islamic law implemented? Is it appropriate to think in binary East/ West terms?
Discussion:
Watch the Ottoman Empire Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8IITumaCdQ & The Turks at the
Gates of Vienna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX7yXw0fpMM
Andre Raymond, “Soldiers in Trade: The Case of Ottoman Cairo,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
(18) 1991, 16-37.
Onur Inal, “Women’s Fashion in Transition: Ottoman Borderlands and the Anglo-Ottoman Exchange of
Costumes,” Journal of World History (22) 2011, 245-270.
Ronald Jennings, “Divorce in Ottoman Sharia Court of Cyprus, 1580-1640,” Studia Islamica (78) 1993, 155-67;
OR Ronald Jennings, “The Office of Vekil in 17th Century Ottoman Sharia Courts,” Studia Islamica (42) 1975,
147-169.
June 28. (No Lecture)
T&Q: Sexual relations were openly discussed in territories ruled by the Ottomans, Persians, and Indians. Though
poets, writers, jesters, common folk, and the elite openly described sexuality, the sharia did not necessarily
reflect society’s open mind. How did the court regulate sexuality? Did clerics successfully curb desire?
Discussion:
Dror Ze’evi, Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2006), 48-98.
June 29. Lecture 9, The Safavids
Watch the Mughal Empire Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fileKe_ydRs
T&Q: The Safavids and Mughals shared more than just Islam. How were they influenced by the legacy of
Timur? Though the Safavids were Shi’i and the Mughals Sunni, did they practice Islam in similar ways? Why is
the consideration of religious similarities between Sunni and Shi’i monarchies so important?
Discussion:
Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2012), 1-55, 211-215.
June 30. (No Lecture)
T&Q: In the modern age, Muslim women suffer in the Middle East and North Africa as second class citizens. It
is important to consider, however, that Muslim women held more rights than their western counterparts in the
medieval period. Did women exercise the rights afforded to them? What affect did their elevated legal position
(relative to the rest of the world) have on Islamic societies and families?
Discussion:
Haim Gerber, “Social and Economic Position of Women in an Ottoman City, Bursa, 1600-1700,” International
Journal of Middle East Studies (12) 1980, 231-244.
Fariba Zarinebaf-Shahr, “Economic Activities of Safavid Women in the Shrine-city of Ardabil,” Iranian Studies
(31) 1998, 247-261 OR Ali Anooshahr, “The King Who Would Be Man: The Gender Roles of the Warrior King
in Early Mughal History,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series (18) 2008, 327-340.
July 1. (No Lecture)
T&Q: From 718, when Muslims first conquered Spain, to 1492, at the fall of Granada, Christian Spain waged the
reconquista to take back historically Christian territories. Even after ousting the Islamic Empire in southern
Spain, the Iberian Peninsula struggled to rid itself of its remaining Moors, or Muslims. Their expulsion in 1609
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came during a time that Christians and Jews continued to flee to the Ottoman Empire for freedom. How did the
reconquista affect Christian Europe, European Jewry, and Muslims internationally?
Discussion:
Ronald Surtz, “Morisco Women, Written Texts, and the Valencia Inquisition,” The Sixteenth Century Journal
(32) 2001, 421-433.
Israel Burshatin, “The Moor in the Text: Metaphor, Emblem, and Silence,” Critical Inquiry (12) 1985, 98-118.
Ruth Lamdan, “Jewish Women as Providers in the Generations Following the Expulsion from Spain,” Nashim: a
Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues (13) 2007, 49-67.
Course Topic 6. The Sick Man of Europe
T&Q: Ottomanists have attempted to pinpoint when the great empire began its slow decline. This
question, in fact, has consumed Muslims since the nineteenth century. Many Muslims asked themselves
how the Middle East, once the most advanced region on earth, failed to enter modernity with Europe.
Historians of the Ottoman Empire read every military loss, every missed opportunity to explore, every
failed political venture as evidence of their eventual and inevitable decline. How is this reading of
history dangerously flawed? How has the notion of the “sick man of Europe” inflected Ottoman
historiography? Why do Middle Eastern peoples reflect on the early modern period so harshly?
July 4. Independence Day.
July 5. Lecture 10, The Slow Demise of the Ottoman Empire
T&Q: The question of decline has dominated Ottoman historiography. How have historians attempted to gauge
their decline? What are some flaws in this narrative?
Discussion:
Douglas Howard, “Ottoman Historiography and the Literature of ‘Decline’ of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries,” Journal of Asian History (22) 1988, 52-77.
Cem Emrence, “Three Waves of Late Ottoman Historiography, 1950-2007,” Middle East Studies Association
Bulletin (41) 2007, 137-151.
Frederick Anscombe, “Islam and the Age of Ottoman Reform,” Past & Present (208) 2010, 159-189.
July 6. (No Lecture)
T&Q: Slavery in western popular imagination is largely colored by the American plantation experience and
African slave trade. This is, of course, radically different than the Islamic experience of slavery (and, indeed,
different than the western experience of slavery before the triangular trade and discovery of the Americas). What
did slavery look like in the Islamic world?
Discussion:
Ehud Toledano, “Late Ottoman Concepts of Slavery (1830s-1880s),” Poetics Today (14) 1993, 477-486.
Yaron Ben-Naeh, “Blond, Tall, with Honey-Colored Eyes: Jewish Ownership of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire,”
Jewish History (20) 2006, 315-322 OR Eve Troutt Powell, Tell This in My Memory: Stories of Enslavement from
Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Empire (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), 7-38.
Eve Troutt Powell, “Translating Slavery,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, (39) 2007, 165.*
July 7. (No Lecture)
T&Q: Talking about final papers.
Final Paper & Think Aloud 2 Due.
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