Critique of Ottoman Rule in the Arab Lands 2 13 09

in Matthias Middell (Ed.), Cultural Transfers, Encounters and Connections in the Global 18th Century, Leipzig, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2014, pp. 231-260., 2014

In his 1954 address to the American Philosophical Society on the role of the Ottoman Empire in world history, Arnold Toynbee emphasized the importance of the year 1453. The subsequent centuries he envisioned as merely a series of splendours and failures leading inevitably to the collapse of the Empire and the creation of the modern Turkish state. For many years, the process was seen as follows: the Ottoman Empire was a counterpoint to great global frescoes which had little to do with the methodological progress to be accomplished later in the field of history, now tackled from a global perspective. Even in this framework, as will be seen, the place of the eighteenth century cannot be taken for granted. The Ottoman Empire’s important position is recognised, of course, in valuations of the interlaced cultural and institutional spheres which have shaped the world; it is conceded that the Empire incarnated certain crucial aspects of the evolution of these spheres and their interstices at the moment when modernity emerged, the fundamentals of which are to be discussed on a solid base, beyond cumbersome ideological wreckage. Nevertheless, in the field of Ottoman studies, the common era eighteenth century is rarely considered as a key period. Work has tended to focus on Ottoman expansion in earlier period, as well as on the decline, portrayed as irremediable, of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, for the Ottoman Empire – and in particular for its Arab provinces, the eighteenth century represents a crucial moment. (This is not to ignore other aspects of the Empire nor non-Ottoman areas of the Arabic cultural domain). From a global historical perspective, the study of these provinces is a crucial area for current research. The same is true for work in connected history. It is only from this angle that the Ottoman Empire will be able to find its rightful place in reflections on the destiny of empires and on the characteristics of the societies to which they have given birth

International Journal of Middle East Studies 46 (2014): 828-30

What is the origin of the Middle Eastern state? Although social scientists have traditionally emphasized the role of the European colonial experience, especially the British and French mandates following World War I, the late Ottoman era from the Edict of Gülhane in 1839 that inaugurated the Tanzimat reforms until World War I represents a period at least as critical to understanding origins of the state in the region. Certain Ottoman provinces known as Eyalet-i Mümtaze or exceptional/special provinces developed under the aegis of the Ottoman Empire that acquired many statelike attributes without becoming independent polities. Moreover, the nature of the Ottoman Imperial center changed to become more similar to that of a territorially delimited state as opposed to the classic multifaceted polity that had been the earlier norm. These developments resulted in a blurring of lines that had traditionally defined state and empire during the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. To illustrate this change, economic, administrative, and political examples are presented from Egypt and Turkey. This comparative analysis will identify ways the evolution of the two states was similar as well as critical differences such as the extent of foreign intervention and the role played by representative assemblies. The formation of imperial states within the empire as well as the transformation of the empire to become more statelike resulted in strong state institutions in places such as Egypt and Turkey that long preceded the main European colonial intervention in the region after World War I.

NETSOL: New Trends in Social and Liberal Sciences, 2019

Cem Emrence’s, Remapping the Ottoman Middle East, is an ambitious effort to cultivate a new analytical framework to the field of Ottoman Studies that addresses variables of socio-economic and political diversity that are often overlooked in previous studies of the Ottoman Middle East. The application of this new analytical framework functions both as a mean of explaining the uneven development witnessed in specific regions of the Ottoman Empire and revealing multiple, alternative paths to modernity in the region. Emrence’s call to implement his multi-disciplinary, intra-empire perspective is necessary, according to the author, in order to understand the variations of historical paths in the Ottoman world. Subsequently, Emrence identifies three distinct historical paths spatially situated within the Empire: the Coast, the Interior, and the Frontier. Moreover, while focus is placed on discerning these alternative paths to modernity, Emrence can address the much larger question concerning the disposition of Ottoman rule from the eighteenth century to the Empire’s demise following the War of 1914-18 and, by extension, address the implications of the empire’s demise on Middle Eastern social constructs.