Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab world

Cambridge University Press

2001

XIII, 222 p.

Cambridge studies in Islamic civilization

Bibliogr.: p. 202–217

9780521803335

The limits of tolerance: the social status of non-Muslims in the Ottoman Arab lands -- The Ottoman Arab world: a diversity of sects and peoples -- Merchants and missionaries in the seventeenth century: the West intrudes -- New opportunities and challenges in the "long" eighteenth century -- Intercommunal dissonance in the nineteenth century -- After the "events": the search for community in the twilight of empire -- Conclusion: The changing boundaries of political community in the Ottoman Arab world.

"Masters explores the history of Christians and Jews in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman empire and how their identities as non-Muslims evolved over four hundred years. At the start of this period, in the sixteenth century, social community was circumscribed by religious identity and non-Muslims lived within the hierarchy established by Muslim law. In the nineteenth century, however, in response to Western influences, a radical change took place. Conflict erupted between Muslims and Christians in different parts of the empire in a challenge to that hierarchy. This marked the beginning, as the author illustrates, of the tensions which have to a large extent inspired the nationalist and religious rhetoric in the empire's successor states throughout the twentieth century. In this way, Masters negotiates the present through the past.

Английский