Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World
The Roots of Sectarianism

History and evolution of Christian and Jewish communities in the Ottoman empire over 400 years.

Bruce Masters (Author)

9780521005821, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 March 2004

240 pages
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.5 cm, 0.372 kg

'… a valuable contribution to our understanding of the relationship of religion, identity, and politics in the Arab Middle East.' Rebecca Bryant, Ethnic and Racial Studies

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. His book will make a major contribution to an understanding of the political and religious conflicts of the modern Middle East.

Introduction: 1. The limits of tolerance: the social status of non-Muslims in the Ottoman Arab lands
2. The Ottoman Arab world: a diversity of sects and peoples
3. Merchants and missionaries in the seventeenth century: the West intrudes
4. New opportunities and challenges in the 'long' eighteenth century
5. Intercommunal dissonance in the nineteenth century
6. After the 'events': the search for community in the twilight of empire
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Judaism [HRJ], Islam [HRH], Christianity [HRC], Religion: general [HRA], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Asian history [HBJF]