Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, History

This is a study of Ottoman historical productions of the pre-1700 period that deal directly with narratives of early Islamic history. It specifically deals with the representations of the formative events of early Islamic history. Through the lenses of universal histories, biographies of Muhammad, religious treatieses and other narrative sources, this study examines Ottoman intellectuals' perceptions of the events that occurred after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 C.E. It particularly provides a perspective on issues such as the problem of succession to Muhammad as leader of the Muslim community; the conflict between `Ali ibn Abi Talib and Mu`awiyah and the Umayyad dynasty's assumption of the position of successor (caliph); and Ottoman views of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs and significant events and persons during the reigns of these two dynasties. Since the great schism between the Sunnis and Shiites began because of their different stances on the issue of succession to Muhammad, studying these perceptions can help to tell us whether the Ottomans were strict Sunnis who favored a rigidly Sunni interpretation of the formative events of Islam. After the death of Muhammad, the Muslim community was divided over how his successor as leader of the community should be chosen. This division resulted in the emergence of the Sunni-Shiite schism. The Ottomans have traditionally been regarded as strict Sunnis. In this study, which utilizes Ottoman Turkish and Arabic manuscript sources, many of which have never been studied before, it is argued that Ottoman Sunnism was not as monolithic as has been conventionally assumed and that there were many intellectual currents competing to shape the nature of Sunnism in the Empire. The study covers a wide range of historians, from the earliest representatives of Ottoman universal history-writers, such as Ahmedi (1334-1412), Enveri (d, 1460), and Sukrullah (1388-1461), to comparatively well-known later intellectual luminari (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jane Hathaway (Advisor); Stephen Dale (Committee Member); Dale K. Van Kley (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Islamic Studies; Middle Eastern History; Middle Eastern Studies; Near Eastern Studies; Religion; Religious History; World History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, History

This dissertation explores how a modern historical consciousness developed during the late Ottoman and early Republican Turkish periods (roughly between the 1840s and the 1930s). By examining the transformation of modern history writing from an imperial context to a national one, this study analyzes how institutionalization, professionalization and the gradual nationalization of Ottoman and Turkish history writing shaped historical production in this period. Existing scholarship on late nineteenth and early twentieth century history writing has long argued that the emergence of modern history writing in the Ottoman Empire and early Republican Turkey was a mere adaptation of European historiographical trends. This dissertation, however, evaluates the role of both internal and external conditions that played a major role in the development of modern history writing. It argues that internal political and cultural dynamics, including constitutional and nationalist movements, changes in the state's educational policies and the emergence of learned societies, as well as external factors, such as the arrival of Muslim emigre intellectuals from the Russian Empire, affected historiographical trends in late Ottoman and early Republican Turkish society. Additionally, by focusing on how late Ottoman historical institutions and intellectual trends were appropriated by the newly founded Turkish Republic, this study accentuates the continuity of history writing practices between the Ottoman Empire and Turkey.

Committee: Jane Hathaway (Committee Chair); Morgan Liu (Committee Co-Chair); Scott Levi (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Middle Eastern History; Middle Eastern Studies; Modern History; Near Eastern Studies; World History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, History

Scholarship on modern Egyptian history supports a narrative that depicts Egypt emerging as an independent political entity in the mid-19th century and steadily marching towards becoming a sovereign nation-state in the first decades of the 20th century. The Ottoman cultural context, within which Egypt operated at this time, is usually nowhere to be found in this story. This dissertation remedies this gap in the literature and “remembers” Egypt's Ottoman past between 1841, when Mehmed Ali Pasha was granted the hereditary governorship of Egypt, and 1914, when Egypt's remaining political ties to the Ottoman Empire were severed by the British Empire. Primarily based on a variety of sources produced in Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, it argues that even though the political ties between Istanbul and Cairo were weakening and a more distinct Egyptian identity was on the rise at this time, the Ottoman cultural consciousness continued to provide an important framework for the ruling and intellectual elite of Egypt, as well as the wider segments of the Egyptian public, until World War I. Taking a thematic approach to the subject, the dissertation demonstrates how the Ottoman imperial court culture provided a blueprint for the ruling elite in Egypt. Moreover, it asserts that Arabic-speaking intellectuals of Egypt, both male and female, continued to self-identify as “Ottomans” in their reactions to some of the momentous events that the Ottoman Empire was facing at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Additionally, it demonstrates how these Arabic-speaking intellectuals utilized the idea of Ottoman consciousness in their efforts to resist European imperialism, which became particularly urgent after Britain occupied Egypt in 1882. Finally, my dissertation asserts that wider segments of the public in Egypt continued to demonstrate a sense of Ottoman consciousness in their reactions to the aforementioned events that the Ottoman Empire was going through at the time.

Committee: Carter Findley (Advisor); Jane Hathaway (Committee Member); Scott Levi (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Islamic Studies; Middle Eastern History; Middle Eastern Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, History

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Ottoman state sought to exploit Iraq's natural resources and address its ecological vulnerabilities as part of a broader effort at modernization. In doing so, it was informed by an “environmental imaginary” of Iraq's supposed environmental decline when compared to its perceived past prosperity. That fact, along with Iraq's frontier dynamics, incentivized an already expanding and growing Ottoman government to further solidify its rule in the region through a set of imperial policies aimed at effective environmental management. This dissertation examines this development as it unfolded between the years 1831 and 1909, a period in Ottoman history characterized by rapid government expansion and the state's use of modern forms of governmentality. It draws on an array of Ottoman, British, and French archival sources to demonstrate how irrigation, flood control projects, epidemics, provisioning operations, cash crop cultivation, and climate irregularities all shaped Ottoman imperial policy in Iraq in previously unappreciated ways. Ultimately, this dissertation suggests that, in the Iraqi frontier, late Ottoman state building was a symbiotic process informed by central government priorities and on-the-ground environmental realities.

Committee: Carter Findley (Advisor); Jane Hathaway (Committee Member); Scott Levi (Committee Member); Sam White (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Studies; History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, History

This dissertation comparatively analyzes the role of Islam, secularism and reform in the development of feminism in Egypt and Turkey in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Based on two years of archival research in Turkey, Egypt, and the United Kingdom, my work establishes a dialogue between Turkish and Egyptian feminisms, compares secular and Islamic trends within them, and takes stock of their interactions with and resistances to western feminisms. As the modern period opened, what are now Turkey and Egypt were still parts of the multiethnic Ottoman Empire. The main center of Turkish-language cultural production was Istanbul, and the main center of Arabic-language cultural production was Cairo. The feminist movements of the region developed accordingly. I argue that in Turkey, feminist endeavors gradually carved out a congenial secular space—bypassing religion, or at least loosening the rigid understandings of Islam—where older traditions and more modern structures continued to coexist but with little connection between them. In contrast, Egyptian feminists' modes of approach and analysis tended to conform to traditional and legalistic norms that governed the discussion of the women's role in society. Although Egyptian feminist thought expanded with concepts like humanism and secularism, these concepts were constantly and carefully modulated with a native, vernacular, Islamic discourse. The material that I present in this dissertation suggests that in societies with a strong heritage of secular liberal reform, wherein progressive tradition is engineered by intellectual and official cadres, such as in the Ottoman center and in the Turkish Republic, feminism becomes a state-centric political project and an intellectual exercise in which more conservative manifestations of feminism are side-lined for the sake of a swift rate of progress. But in societies with a strong heritage of Islamically grounded modernization and social advances, such as in Eg (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Carter Vaughn Findley (Advisor) Subjects: Gender; Gender Studies; History; Islamic Studies; Middle Eastern History; Middle Eastern Studies; Religion; Religious History; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, History

This dissertation examines how the Ottoman state incorporated Bosnians and Hercegovinians, and how Bosnians and Hercegovinians incorporated themselves, into the Ottoman bureaucratic, military, and social apparatus. This was a multilayered and multilateral process of Ottomanization and Islamization that involved the state and its subjects, two groups that were not mutually exclusive. I focus on the devshirme institution, a levy of mostly Christian young men from among Ottoman subjects in Anatolia and the Balkans. These youths were converted and trained as elite slaves of the sultan, instrumental in the governance and defense of the empire. I argue that the devshirme was a tool of integration and socialization used by the state and its subjects. I contend that the peculiar ways in which it functioned in Bosnia and Hercegovina, and the ways in which its products were mythologized, contributed to the establishment of Ottoman Bosnian and Hercegovinian communities and identities that still resonate. Chapter 1 explores how the Kingdom of Bosnia, following the Ottoman conquest in 1463, made the transition into the provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina. This is the origin point of the provinces' Muslim populations. Chapter 2 focuses on Bosnian and Hercegovinian Muslims in the Ottoman military and administration during the sixteenth century, a period of ascendancy for these groups in the Ottoman state. I analyze how this ascendancy shaped Bosnian and Hercegovinian identity and how and why particular individuals from these provinces came to prominence. Chapter 3 is devoted to the period of empire-wide crisis in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Military rebellions by devshirme elements were a hallmark of this crisis, and Bosnians and Hercegovinians, along with other devshirme recruits, were denounced by rival factions within the military and administrative elite. During this period, an origin myth emerged rationalizing the distinctive and privileged status (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jane Hathaway (Advisor); Theodora Dragostinova (Committee Member); Scott Levi (Committee Member) Subjects: Ethnic Studies; European History; Folklore; History; Islamic Studies; Medieval History; Middle Eastern History; Middle Eastern Studies; Military History; Near Eastern Studies; Slavic Studies; World History

BA, Oberlin College, 1980, History

As the central focus of my senior thesis at Oberlin College, I have chosen to edit Stanley Kerr's correspondence of 1919-1920. This correspondence of nearly 300 pages is a detailed observation by a young American relief worker of the aftermath of the Armenian genocide and deportations in Allied occupied post-war Turkey. My purpose is not to provide a commentary on the correspondence. Rather, it is to reproduce the letters in their original form in order present new primary material for historians. I also envision a possible M.A. or Ph.D. thesis using this collection. Therefore, I feel that I have only begun to scratch the surface in terms of what can be learned from the archives.My presentation of the correspondence includes a paper which provides a historical background to the position of the Armenians in Turkey during World War One. I seek to explain the historical events which brought about the Armenian opposition to the government of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the reasons for which the Ottoman Turks found it necessary to systematically deport all of Turkey's Armenian population and why two-thirds of the Armenians were massacred in the process. The purpose of the paper is to provide a historical background to the Armenian Question in Turkey and a setting for post World War One Marash and the situation my grandfather encountered there.

Committee: Steven Mintz (Advisor) Subjects: History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, History

Although it is universally acknowledged that Islam was one of the pillars of the Ottoman Empire, modern scholars have placed little emphasis on Muslim scholars or the contested interpretations of sacred law (shari'a) in describing the empire's political dynamics. In the early nineteenth century, however, both played a significant role in the debates that pervaded the empire and its provinces, especially those surrounding European-inspired military reform. Indeed, although often studied without regard for the Ottoman context, the case of early nineteenth-century Egypt exemplifies many of these trends. After the withdrawal of Napoleonic forces from Egypt in 1801, a series of Ottoman governors sought to impose a local analog to the reforms known as the nizam-i cedid (new order), spearheaded in Istanbul by Sultan Selim III. Due partly to the opposition of many Muslim scholars (ulama), these efforts lacked legitimacy and fell victim to a popular uprising in 1805, led by scholars such as Umar Makram. Rather than advocating a rejection of Ottoman rule by native Egyptians, the protestors acted on Ottoman religio-political ideology and opposed the ostensibly arbitrary rule of the reformists, for reasons similar to those of the rebels who overthrew Selim III in 1807. Many believed that the next governor, Mehmed Ali (governor of Egypt, 1805-1848), would govern in a more limited and just fashion, but Mehmed Ali's regime was much more radical and invasive than any before. He succeeded in defanging public opinion by turning elite scholars against populist ones, particularly Umar Makram, a man of obscure background who had become the head of the Prophet's descendants in Egypt (naqib al-ashraf). Imposing military reform and peasant conscription, Mehmed Ali depended on sympathetic scholars to woo public opinion, which they did through manuscript chronicles and treatises; these treatises, written according to the logic of Islamic scholarship, attempted to convince a skeptical public (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jane Hathaway (Advisor); Carter Findley (Committee Member); Scott Levi (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Islamic Studies

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2015, Arts and Sciences: History

This dissertation examines the politics of punishment and application of Ottoman prison reform in the three major port cities, Izmir, which receives the greatest attention, Istanbul, and Salonica in the late Ottoman Empire. This work explores Ottoman prisons on a daily scale and in a larger imperial frame by re-thinking the idea of social control and surveillance in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the ways in which the Ottoman government dealt with the prisons as `modern' and `European' legal institutions. By using primary sources drawn from Ottoman archives, and relying heavily on Ottoman and British newspapers and journals, this dissertation examines Ottoman prison reform from various angles such as sustenance of prisoners, health and hygiene; the usage of cannabis (esrar) in Ottoman prisons; prison work; prison architecture; and urbanization. Until the first half of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was using various buildings as prisons, including old fortresses, such as Baba Cafer Zindani and Yedikule in Istanbul; military barracks; shipyards, such as Tersane Zindani (Bagnio); khans, such as Cezayir Hani in Izmir; and local notables' (ayan) palace dungeons. The bureaucratization and centralization attempts of the Tanzimat reformers and, more importantly, the promulgation of the criminal codes of 1851 and 1858 not only paved the way for the shift from corporal and capital punishment to imprisonment but also allowed for the establishment of a new set of definitions in terms of crime and punishment. However, the establishment a modern prison remained merely an ideal until 1871 when the first general prison (hapishane-i umumi) was built in Istanbul. The construction of purposefully built prisons continued in the major cities of the Empire, including Izmir and Salonica, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Izmir as one of the major port cities of the Empire saw immense and fluctuating flows of people due to wars, migration, and (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Elizabeth Frierson Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Kent F. Schull Ph.D. (Committee Member); Evangelos Kechriotis Ph.D. (Committee Member); Raja Adal Ph.D. (Committee Member); Robert Haug Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Middle Eastern History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, History

This dissertation examines the Muslim community of Dobruca, an Ottoman territory granted to Romania in 1878, and its transformation from a majority under Ottoman rule into a minority under Romanian administration. It focuses in particular on the collective identity of this community and how it changed from the start of the Ottoman reform era (Tanzimat) in 1839 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. This dissertation constitutes, in fact, the study of the transition from Ottoman subjecthood to Romanian citizenship as experienced by the Muslim community of Dobruca. It constitutes an assessment of long-term patterns of collective identity formation and development in both imperial and post-imperial settings. The main argument of the dissertation is that during this period three crucial factors altered the sense of collective belonging of Dobrucan Muslims: a) state policies; b) the reaction of the Muslims to these policies; and c) the influence of transnational networks from the wider Turkic world on the Muslim community as a whole. Taken together, all these factors contributed fully to the community's intellectual development and overall modernization, especially since they brought about new patterns of identification and belonging among Muslims. Teachers, religious leaders, journalists, and political activists among the region's Muslims proved to be essential in this process due to their power of example and capacity of mobilizing fellow coreligionists. During the Ottoman period, Muslims asserted their imperial identity at the expense of religious, ethnic, and local sub-identities whenever community projects were at stake. In contrast, during the Romanian period they emphasized their national identity, even if for a similar purpose. Displays of loyalty were part of a well-thought-out strategy to attract the benevolence of state officials, and in the process, Muslims became active agents in the making of state policies of the empire and of the nation-state, (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Carter Findley (Advisor); Jane Hathaway (Committee Co-Chair); Theodora Dragostinova (Committee Member); Scott Levi (Committee Member); Richard Pogge (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2011, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

This work deals with the nasihatname genre of the Ottoman Empire. While I discuss the intellectual predecessors to this genre in Ottoman political literature, I locate Mustafa Ali's Counsel for Sultans of 1581 as the first nasihatname and a seminal work that influenced subsequent works in the genre. I engage an intertextual reading of both Counsel for Sultans and the anonymous work Kitabu Mesalihi'l Muslimin written in the mid-17th century in order to establish the nature of the genre and the boundaries, albeit sometimes porous, between the nasihatname genre and akhlak literature. A major part of this process is elucidating consciousness on the part of these authors as participating in a specific genre and therefore it is important to reconstruct the genre from the point of view of the authors, including their moral framework through which they make sense of the Ottoman system. I conclude that there was authorial consciousness in the nasihatname genre, and that it was representative of a burgeoning discursive space in which ordinary members of the bureaucracy were able to express their understanding of how the Ottoman system should function in a way that was previously inaccessible before Mustafa Ali's Counsel for Sultans.

Committee: Snjezana Buzov PhD (Advisor); Parvaneh Pourshariati PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Near Eastern Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, History

My dissertation, entitled “Science versus Religion: The Influence of European Materialism on Turkish Thought, 1860-1960,” is a radical re-evaluation of the history of secularization in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. I argue that European vulgar materialist ideas put forward by nineteenth-century intellectuals and scientists such as Ludwig Buchner (1824-1899), Karl Vogt (1817-1895) and Jacob Moleschott (1822-1893) affected how Ottoman and Turkish intellectuals thought about religion and society, ultimately paving the way for the radical reforms of Kemal Ataturk and the strict secularism of the early Turkish Republic in the 1930s. In my dissertation, I challenge traditional scholarly accounts of Turkish modernization, notably those of Bernard Lewis and Niyazi Berkes, which portray the process as a Manichean struggle between modernity and tradition resulting in a linear process of secularization. On the basis of extensive research in modern Turkish, Ottoman Turkish and Persian sources, I demonstrate that the ideas of such leading westernizing and secularizing thinkers as Munif Pasha (1830-1910), Besir Fuad (1852-1887) and Baha Tevfik (1884-1914) who were inspired by European materialism provoked spirited religious, philosophical and literary responses from such conservative anti-materialist thinkers as Sehbenderzade Ahmed Hilmi (1865-1914), Said Nursi (1873-1960) and Ahmed Hamdi Tanpınar (1901-1962). Whereas the westernizers argued for the adoption of western modernity in toto, their critics made a crucial distinction between the “material” and “spiritual” sides of western modernity. Although the critics were eager to adopt the material side of western modernity, including not only the military and economic structures but also the political structures of Europe, they had serious reservations when it came to adopting European ethics and secular European attitudes toward religion. The result was two different and competing approaches to modernity in Turkish intellectual (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Carter V. Findley PhD (Committee Chair); Jane Hathaway PhD (Committee Member); Alan Beyerchen PhD (Committee Member); Douglas A. Wolfe PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies; European History; History; Islamic Studies; Middle Eastern History; Middle Eastern Literature; Middle Eastern Studies; Near Eastern Studies; Religion; Religious History; Science Education; Science History; World History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, History

This dissertation examines the changing dynamics of power and patronage relations at the Ottoman sultan's court in Istanbul between the 1570s and the 1610s. This was a crucial period that many scholars today consider the beginning of a long era of “crisis and transformation” in the dynastic, political, socio-economic, military and administrative structures of the early modern Ottoman Empire. The present study focuses on the politics of factionalism and favoritism at the higher echelons of the Ottoman ruling elite who were situated in and around Topkapi Palace, which served as both the sultan's royal residence and the seat of his imperial government. It is an effort to shed light on the political problems of this period through the prism of the paramount ruling figure, the sultan, by illustrating how the Ottoman rulers of this era, namely, Murad III (r. 1574-95), Mehmed III (r. 1595-1603) and Ahmed I (r. 1603-17), repositioned themselves in practical politics vis-a-vis alternative foci of power and networks of patronage, and how they projected power in the context of a factional politics that was intertwined with the exigencies of prolonged wars and incessant military rebellions. My main contention is that, under new political circumstances, these three sultans employed new ruling strategies in order to impose their sovereign authority on the business of rule, an end which they achieved, with varying degrees of success, mainly through the mediation of their royal favorites and the court factions led by them.

Committee: Jane Hathaway (Committee Chair); Howard Crane (Committee Member); Stephen F. Dale (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, History

This dissertation focuses on the local administrative practices in Vidin County during 1860s and 1870s. Vidin County, as defined by the Ottoman Provincial Regulation of 1864, is the area that includes the districts of Vidin (the administrative center), ‛Adliye (modern-day Kula), Belgradcyk (Belogradchik), Berkofca (Bergovitsa), Yvraca (Vratsa), Rahova (Rahovo), and Lom (Lom), all of which are located in modern-day Bulgaria. My focus is mostly on the post-1864 period primarily due to the document utilized for this dissertation: the copy registers of the county administrative council in Vidin. Doing a close reading of these copy registers together with other primary and secondary sources this dissertation analyzes the politics of local administration in Vidin as a case study to understand the Ottoman governmentality in the second half of the nineteenth century. The main thesis of this study contends that the local inhabitants of Vidin effectively used the institutional framework of local administration in this period of transformation in order to devise strategies that served their interests. This work distances itself from an understanding of the nineteenth-century local politics as polarized between a dominating local government trying to impose unprecedented reforms designed at the imperial center on the one hand, and an oppressed but nevertheless resistant people, rebelling against the insensitive policies of the state on the other. Without denying that a certain level of violence was prevalent, I argue, first, that the distinction between the state and society was not as clear as presumed, second, that the local administrative branch of the state was not a monolith body of state agents and third, that the society was not always oblivious and rebellious to the reform policies.

Committee: Carter Findley (Advisor) Subjects: History, Middle Eastern

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, History

This dissertation represents an attempt to fill a troubling gap in the secondary scholarship on Islamic, and more specifically, Ottoman intellectual history. It examines the role of a prominent Islamic religio-mystical (Sufi) order, known from the fourteenth century onward as the Halveti, in the religious and intellectual life of the Ottoman Empire during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Initially famed for their extended periods of ascetic withdrawal into remote areas for the purpose of breaking their carnal desires and engaging in undistracted worship of God, the Halvetis proved to be one of the more durable and influential Sufi brotherhoods in Anatolia, the Balkans, and the Arab lands. Unfortunately, the existing scholarship on the Halvetis is limited to specific geographical regions and/or to one of these three periods of Halveti prominence. In addition, scholars of the Halvetis have used hagiographical and biographical sources produced within the order without adequate contextualization. As a result, existing scholarship incorporates erroneous assumptions about the order's practices and the nature of its social and political role throughout the Ottoman Empire. In order to challenge the received wisdom about the Halveti order and the history of Islamic mystical thought as a whole, this study tracks the consolidation and development of the Halveti order from the end of the fifteenth century through the first half of the eighteenth century, focusing in particular on a provincial sub-branch of the order known as the Shabaniyye. The development of this sub-order serves as a window onto developments among the Halvetis as a whole, since each Halveti sub-branch remained autonomous and incubated its own peculiar practices and traditions. Founded in the city of Kastamonu, a venerable Islamic center in northern Anatolia, and centered on the historical figure of Shaban-i Veli, the Shabaniyye were seldom recognized by influential Halveti shaykhs and inte (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jane Hathaway (Advisor) Subjects: