An Ottoman Portrait

2008 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-373
Author(s):  
Nancy Micklewright

This carefully composed portrait of a high-ranking Ottoman bureaucrat is striking for several reasons. First, at nearly 16 by 13 inches, it is at least four times larger than most portraits of this period and lacks the ornamental cardboard frame into which portraits were commonly placed, instead being pasted directly onto a cardboard support. Second, although there is a long tradition of documenting men at work or places of business in the photography of the late Ottoman Empire, these images tend to privilege traditional occupations (e.g., itinerant merchants or craftsmen) and sites of commerce, such as outdoor markets, the covered bazaar, or shops along the Grande Rue de Pera in Istanbul. Third and finally, in its setting, the objects chosen to be included on the desk, and the pose of the central figure, the portrait insists upon the modernity of the subject as its primary message, raising questions about its intended audience.

1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-413
Author(s):  
Mohsen Saleh

This book consists of six chapters, endnotes, a glossary, a bibliography,and an index. Although fairly short vis-a-vis the long period that itcovers (from the Ottoman era to 1988), this book is in fact a very valuablereference work on the subject. The author made considerable efforts tocollect, compare, and analyze the data. However, it seems that the maintitle, Islam and Israel, is rather ambiguous and misleading. The subtitle,Muslim Religious Endowments and the Jewish State, reveals the book'scontents adequately. This title may have been coined by the publisher formarketing purposes.The book explores Israeli policy toward Palestinian Muslim religiousendowments (awqtif, sing. waqf) and studies the methods employed toconfiscate and transfer most of them so that they eventually becameexclusively Jewish property. The waqf system played a very significantsocioeconomic, religious, and educational role in the history of Muslimsociety. About 15 percent of the agricultural land in Palestine is waqf (1.2million dunums), as are many buildings, shops, and other structures inurban areas. The revenue derived from these sources finances importantnetworks of welfare and charitable services in Palestine, such as schools,orphanages, and soup kitchens.The first chapter tackles the Palestinian Muslim waqf system duringthe late Ottoman empire and the British Mandate. It indicates the importanceof waqf for the notable families in Palestine and their administrationof it in ways designed to enhance their power and influence. It also studiesthe arrangements made by the Ottomans during the nineteenth centuryto set up a waqf administrative structure and to develop it under their closesupervision. During the British Mandate (1918-48), however, a new structure,known as The Supreme Muslim Council, was created in 1922. It wasdominated by the Palestinian religious elite and notables and took a"national character" under the leadership of Hajj Am1n al ijusayn1. In1937, the British mandatory government suspended the council's centralcommittee and replaced it with a government-appointed commission.These measures undermined the waqf institution and its role in politics andthe national struggle.The second chapter discusses the Muslim waqf system in Israel from1948 to 1965 and explains how the Zionist state managed to control andconfiscate waqf properties and resources. In the parts of Palestine that ...


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-117
Author(s):  
ALPER BILGILI

I am a Turkish student of [the] History of Science and have been working on the subject within the last six years for the preparation of a History of Science [book] in Turkish.


Author(s):  
Taner Akçam

Introducing new evidence from more than 600 secret Ottoman documents, this book demonstrates in detail that the Armenian Genocide and the expulsion of Greeks from the late Ottoman Empire resulted from an official effort to rid the empire of its Christian subjects. This book goes deep inside the bureaucratic machinery of Ottoman Turkey to show how a dying empire embraced genocide and ethnic cleansing. Although the deportation and killing of Armenians was internationally condemned in 1915 as a “crime against humanity and civilization,” the Ottoman government initiated a policy of denial that is still maintained by the Turkish Republic. The case for Turkey's “official history” rests on documents from the Ottoman imperial archives, to which access has been heavily restricted until recently. It is this very source that the book now uses to overturn the official narrative. The documents presented here attest to a late-Ottoman policy of Turkification, the goal of which was no less than the radical demographic transformation of Anatolia. To that end, about one-third of Anatolia's 15 million people were displaced, deported, expelled, or massacred, destroying the ethno-religious diversity of an ancient cultural crossroads of East and West, and paving the way for the Turkish Republic. By uncovering the central roles played by demographic engineering and assimilation in the Armenian Genocide, this book will fundamentally change how this crime is understood and show that physical destruction is not the only aspect of the genocidal process.


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