Arab Dragomans in Palestine & Greater Syria

Working Papers of the BMBF project “Europe from the outside – Formations of Middle Eastern views on Europe from inside Europe”, no. 1, 2013

This is an updated version of the list and bibliography included in my paper "Ottoman travel accounts to Europe. An overview of their historical development and a commented researchers' list".

Travellers in Ottoman Lands II, 2024

This list was published in Travellers in Ottoman Lands II. This volume has a special focus on the Ottoman Balkans and Anatolia as seen and described by travellers from both within and outside the region. 26 papers were selected for inclusion in the publication but there were many more excellent papers given at the Seminar in Sarajevo in 2022 that all combined to shed valuable light on the topics of Christian-Muslim and East-West relations, and the transition from the Ottoman Empire to successor nation-states in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The three-day seminar was organised by the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE) in conjunction with the Faculty of Islamic Studies, University of Sarajevo, with additional support from Cornucopia magazine. This multi-disciplinary event attracted a wide range of participants from around the world, including Europe, the United States of America, the Balkans, Türkiye and other parts of the Middle East.

The Levantines though originally a given name for the people of the Eastern Mediterranean by the Europeans began to cover the Europeans who resided permanently in significant port cities of the Ottoman Empire such as Izmir, Istanbul, Mersin, and Alexandria following the capitulations granted to European countries from the sixteenth century onwards. The privileges granted by the capitulations allowed Europeans to expand their commercial activities within the Ottoman Empire, positioning the Levantines as pivotal players in the commercial life and cultural mosaic of Eastern Mediterranean port cities. These Europeans, through extensive cultural exchanges with local Turks, Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, developed a unique cultural identity distinct from traditional European norms in aspects such as language, lifestyle, religion, dress, and living spaces. In the first half of the nineteenth century, British travelers visiting the Ottoman Empire documented their observations of the Levantine communities in their travelogues. This study examines the observations of British travelers regarding the Levantines residing in Izmir and Istanbul during this period. The primary objective is to analyze the formation of the Levantine identity, the factors contributing to this identity, and how the British perceived and evaluated this unique cultural identity. Within this framework, the study will evaluate the social, cultural, and economic lives of the Levantines in the Ottoman Empire and how these aspects were perceived and interpreted by British travelers. This examination aims to elucidatev how the Levantines developed their distinctive identity as part of the multicultural fabric of the Ottoman Empire and how this identity was assessed by British travelers.

MEDITERRÁN TANULMÁNYOK ÉTUDES SUR LA RÉGION MÉDITERRANÉENNE XXX. UNIVERSITÉ DE SZEGED DÉPARTEMENT D'HISTOIRE MODERNE ET D'ÉTUDES MÉDITERRANÉENNES SZEGED 2020, 2020

After the disappearance of feudality and the development of central governments, from the 16th century onwards, states wanted to control the movements of their citizens by several documents. These documents were a kind of passports, which were also used as identity documents, and their arrangements varied from country to country. With the undisputed triumph of capitalism and nation-state in 19th century Europe, the state’s control over the people was predominantly considered as an internal matter. Competition between states in the economic and military fields revealed the importance of centralization. Statesmen, who wanted to take advantage of this competition, went on to increase control over the activities of their populations. In the Ottoman Empire, the state-control over the movements of its citizens dates back well before the 19th century. Due to the manorial system in the Ottomans, the peasantry remained attached to their lands and the State imposed criminal sanctions on those who left their lands. There were serious migration waves to Western Anatolia and especially to Constantinople until the 20th century, and therefore it was necessary to prevent the entry of beggars and unemployed people without guarantees to the city. The obligation to have “yol hükmü” (road provision), whose name was changed to “mürur tezkeresi” (passing compass), was also one of these considerations. In this study, it is aimed to shed light on the state-control over the people by making use of the Ottoman Archives and the memories of the travellers who visited the Ottoman Empire and aimed to give information about the travel permits and travel documents which were subject to an arrangement since the 19th century.

Arab Perspectives, 1985

Overview of Western writing about the Arab World before the modern period.

T he First World War brought an end to what scholars have called the fi rst wave of globalisation. 1 Since the 1850s the world had turned into a more connected place, as breakthroughs in transportation and communication technology compressed time and space in unparalleled ways, enabling faster travel and more condensed experiences of temporality. 2 In this age of steam and print, not only did ideas and diseases spread more easily across the world, 3 but also goods, capital and labour-all in all circuits of capital-penetrated 1 For two prominent surveys on globalisation, see C.

Travellers in Ottoman Lands II, 2024

This book contains a selection of peer-reviewed papers that were presented at a pioneering international Seminar on ‘Travellers in Ottoman Lands: the Balkans, Anatolia and Beyond’ (TIOL2) held at the Faculty of Islamic Studies of the University of Sarajevo in August 2022. We are particularly indebted to Professor Aid Smajić and his colleagues for their assistance in arranging the Seminar and for all their kindness and hospitality during the event. We are also grateful for the financial and logistical support we received for the Seminar from the association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE), and to Cornucopia and for the hard work of the TIOL2 committee members, publications subcommittee and peer-reviewers who contributed to organising the Seminar and to the making of this volume. The event, which followed the successful ‘Travellers in Ottoman Lands: the Botanical Legacy’ TIOL1 seminar in Edinburgh in 2017, combined a fascinating series of presentations and discussions with a visit to Mostar on the final day. It was a truly interdisciplinary gathering, with experts ranging from anthropologists and historians to journalists and literature specialists. From 24 to 26 August 2022, following a delightful plenary lecture by Jason Goodwin, we heard papers on topics as varied as Traders and diplomats through Ottoman lands; Ottoman cities through the eyes of travellers; Spiritual journeys; Christian-Muslim Relations in the late Ottoman Balkans; Botany and Medicine; Women Travellers; Ottoman Orientalism; Fictional journeys and fictional characters; and The Eastern Question: colonialism, imperialism and the nineteenth-century Balkans. Our second plenary speaker, Dr Dženita Karić, spoke on Ottoman Bosnians on the Ḥajj, and we also enjoyed screenings, generously sponsored by Cornucopia magazine, of two films by Didem Pekün relevant to recent Bosnian history, Like the Seminar itself, the resulting book discusses travel and travellers from, to and across the Balkans and beyond from a wide variety of viewpoints and theoretical perspectives. As Ines Aščerić-Todd wrote in the Seminar booklet: ‘This is the region through which the Ottoman Empire first expanded into Europe, and which heralded its eventual downfall; it is a region through which Western travellers often passed on their way further East and the location in which they often first encountered the Oriental ‘other’. Moreover, the region remains crucial to building a better understanding between the ‘East’ and the ‘West’, between former Ottoman lands and their Western European neighbours, and between Islam and Christianity.’

Turkish Historical Review, 2018

Using archival documents in the Ottoman archives related to British travellers in the Ottoman empire who were travelling under the protection of the capitulations, this article examines the yol emri (travel permit) issued to travellers by the Ottoman state and focuses specifically on the case of Edward Wortley Montagu. In so doing it seeks to highlight the importance of Ottoman archival sources for an understanding of the diplomatic and commercial relations between Britain and the Ottoman empire, an importance that is often overshadowed by a heavy reliance on British sources.

Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East & North African Migration Studies

Studies on Modern Orient. 36, 2022

This volume brings together twenty-two authors from various countries who analyze travelogues on the Ottoman Empire between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. The travelogues reflect the colorful diversity of the genre, presenting the experiences of individuals and groups from China to Great Britain. The spotlight falls on interdependencies of travel writing and historiography, geographic spaces, and specific practices such as pilgrimages, the hajj, and the harem. Other points of emphasis include the importance of nationalism, the place and time of printing, representations of fashion, and concepts of masculinity and femininity. By displaying close, comparative, and distant readings, the volume offers new insights into perceptions of “otherness“, the circulation of knowledge, intermedial relations, gender roles, and digital analysis.

Publication Date: 2014 Publication Name: Journal of Ottoman Studies

This article investigates efforts by the Hamidian-era Ottoman state to rely on its document-based internal mobility control regime, the mürûr tezkeresi system, to prevent overseas mobility from Mount Lebanon on the Levantine coast and the province of Mamuretülaziz in eastern Anatolia. It also contrasts Hamidian-era mobility control efforts with those of the Ottoman state following the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, revealing points of both convergence and divergence. It asserts that these efforts reveal many of the broader contradictions and tensions of the Ottoman modernization process of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and argues for understanding the Ottoman case as part of the broader global story of mobility and migration control.

2015

This document contains a list of travelers and the relevant accounts, painstakingly composed while researching Habsburg-Ottoman diplomatic relations. It is presented without any guarantee on completeness. On the other hand, it might contain some value, since it digs up some previously unknown or lesser known travel accounts.

globalization, material culture, mobility, ottoman empire