State and Provincial Society in the Ottoman Empire
Mosul, 1540–1834

An interpretation of relations between the central Ottoman Empire and provincial Iraqi society in the early modern period.

Dina Rizk Khoury (Author)

9780521590600, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 January 1998

272 pages, 3 maps
23.6 x 16 x 2.3 cm, 0.575 kg

"...this book occupies a significant position alongside those challenging once-accepted characterizations of total decline during the empire's later centuries. This work greatly benefits from the author's efforts to recognize the plurality of interests at play in defining the conduct of the central state's and local actors' varied relationships, a significant departure from existing reductionist approaches, which have yielded dualistic stereotypes. Khoury's work yields a critical study of the political and socioeconomic contexts of life in a late-Ottoman provincial setting, which meaningfully enhances existing scholarshipo and would be of great utility to academics engaged in social and other histories of the early modern Middle East." Religious Studies Review

Dina Rizk Khoury's book, which spans three centuries of Ottoman history, offers an interpretation of relations between the central Ottoman empire and the frontier city of Mosul during the early modern period. Basing her work on Ottoman and Iraqi archival sources, the author demonstrates that, contrary to the accepted view, the links between the central state and provincial social groups in fact grew stronger throughout the period. The development and expansion of the system of tax farms and entitlements, for example, bound the provincial service gentry, drawn from mercantile, military and bureaucratic provincial families, to the Ottoman state structure, notwithstanding the apparent weakening of administrative controls. This comparative and broad-ranging book will be of interest to Middle East historians and Ottomanists, as well as to those concerned with the process of state formation in the early modern period. Prizewinner - The British-Kuwait Friendship Society prize in Middle Eastern studies

1. Introduction
2. The making of a regional economy
3. War and provincial society
4. When Osmalis ate the crumbs and left the bread behind: tax farming and provincial society
5. Between Khassa and 'Amma: elites and commoners in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Mosul
6. The language of politics: views on sultans, corruption, and land taxes
7. The practice of politics
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Asian history [HBJF]