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The extraordinary tapestry of Cairo's past and present comes vividly to life in this magisterial study by one of the top social historians of the Arab world. This deeply observed account shows Cairo from the glimmer of its beginnings in the Arab conquest of Egypt in 640 through its transformation into the modern center of Middle Eastern life today. 63 halftones. Maps & tables.
In fine detail, the author explores economic influences on culture during periods of plenty and poverty. She examines the bond between commerce and escalating literacy via the building of schools, the availability of cheap paper, and the proliferation of books. And she assesses coffeehouses, storytellers, and phantom plays as a principal circuit for the spread of oral middle-class culture. Drawing on both published and unpublished sources, Hanna unveils a full-fledged Cairene middle-class culture that bridges the gap between the salons (majalis) of the elite and the common people. A major contribution to Egypt’s cultural record, this book sets a high standard for future research on the history of the Middle East.
Professor Raymond deals here with the evolution of the great Arab cities of the Ottoman period (1516-1800) - with questions of organisation, social life and the built space - looking in particular at Aleppo, Algiers, Constantine and, above all, at Cairo. These studies form part of a movement, in which the author’s work has played a significant role, aiming to re-examine the traditional Orientalist view of ’Muslim cities’. Contrary to the negative perception one so often finds, of decadent and chaotic towns, it can be seen that they had a coherent internal structure and that, far from being in decline, they enjoyed renewed prosperity in the Ottoman era, benefiting from the strength of the empire and flourishing Mediterranean trade. This in turn was reflected in the important and original architectural activity of the period.
This urban and architectural study of Aleppo reconstructs the city's evolution over the first two centuries of Ottoman rule and proposes a new model for the understanding of the reception and adaptation of imperial forms, institutions and norms in a provincial setting.
The conscious construction of urban space
Here Molly Greene moves beyond the hostile "Christian" versus "Muslim" divide that has colored many historical interpretations of the early modern Mediterranean, and reveals a society with a far richer set of cultural and social dynamics. She focuses on Crete, which the Ottoman Empire wrested from Venetian control in 1669. Historians of Europe have traditionally viewed the victory as a watershed, the final step in the Muslim conquest of the eastern Mediterranean and the obliteration of Crete's thriving Latin-based culture. But to what extent did the conquest actually change life on Crete? Greene brings a new perspective to bear on this episode, and on the eastern Mediterranean in general. Sh...
Taken together the essays in this work not only provide new research essential to the study of Islamic societies and Muslim peoples, but also set a new standard for the concrete study of local situations and illuminate the forces shaping the history of modern Muslim societies. This collection is unique in its sophisticated interpretation of the social protest and political resistance movements in Muslim countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The contributors take two principal approaches to the study of their subject. Utilizing "new cultural history," they explore how particular movements have deployed the cultural and religious resources of Islam to mobilize and legitimize insurgent political action. Others rely on "new social history" to study the economic, political, and social contexts in which movements of anti-colonial resistance and revolution have developed. This work brings together contributions from specialists on Islamic North Africa, Egypt, the Arab fertile crescent, Iran and India.