Borderlands in Islamic and Ottoman History

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Level: 
Doctoral
Course Status: 
Elective
CEU credits: 
4
Academic year: 
2010/2011
Academic year: 
2011/2012
Semester: 
Winter
Start and end dates: 
9 Jan 2012 - 30 Mar 2012
Co-hosting Unit(s) [if applicable]: 
Department of History
CEU Instructor(s): 
Tolga U. Esmer
Learning Outcomes: 
Aims: This course will provide students, both specialists and non-specialists in Islamic history, with a basic working knowledge of Islamic imperial history and the spread of Islam. It will also provide students with methodological and theoretical frameworks to study borderlands, borderland populations, and the cultural, social, and religious boundaries that revolve around these contested spaces. Thus, thematically the issues and scholarship discussed in this class can be applicable to students who work on different geographical borderlands other than those studied in this class. Our approach to borders and boundaries will acknowledge a profound diversity within the Islamic world and study specific social groups that lived in these borderlands, such as the fighters of “greater jihad” (mystics, Sufis) who in the early Muslim ribats shared space with the fighters of “lesser” jihad (frontier soldiers), the futuwwa and ahi brotherhoods of pre-Ottoman Anatolia, the gazis and the akritai on the Ottoman-Byzantine border, the vast Muslim and Christian groups whose loyalties the Ottomans competed for with Christian imperial rivals in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Europe, the Crimea, as well as the greater Black Sea and Mediterranean worlds in general – and beyond. This course will focus on select case studies ranging from Spain to Central Asia. Students will be introduced to the historical and anthropological literature on the concept of “frontiers” and “borderlands,” as well as to the concepts of “conversion,” “syncretism,” “hybridity” and “creolization” crucial to studying inter-confessional contact zones. Being a course on borderlands and frontier milieus, this course will naturally compare and contrast Empires – especially the Ottomans with their Islamic predecessors as well as the Ottomans and their Byzantine, Safavid/Qajjar, Hapsburg, and Russian rivals.
Assessment : 
• Attendance in all class meetings is mandatory. Any unexcused absence will result in an automatic decrease of the final grade. • Participation and Discussion Leading of weekly readings: 20% • One Mid-Term Examination based primarily on the lectures as well as readings: 20% • 3 Response Papers: 60% – 1st 3-4 pages (10%); 2nd – 5-6 pages (20%); 3rd 10-12 pages (30%).
Full description: 

January 13: Frontiers in Question—Models of Inquiry

--D. Power. “Frontiers: Terms, Concepts, and the Historians of Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” in D. Power and N. Standen (eds.), Frontiers in Question: Eurasian Borderlands, 700-1700 (London: Macmillan Press, 1999), 1-12. [savepdf /1st part]

--D. Jones. “The Significance of the Frontier in World History,” History Compass 1/1 (2003), 1-3. [savepdf]

--K. Pratt Ewing. “Crossing Borders and Transgressing Boundaries: Metaphors for Negotiating Multiple Identities,” Ethos 26(2) 1998: 262-67 [savepdf]

--C. Heywood. “The Frontier in Ottoman History: Old Ideas and New Myths,” in D. Power and N. Standen (eds.), Frontiers in Question: Eurasian Borderlands, 700-1700 (London: Macmillan Press, 1999), 228-250. [savepdf]

--A.C.S. Peacock. “The Ottoman Empire and Its Frontiers,” in A.C.S. Peacock (ed.), The Frontiers of the Ottoman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009): 1-30.

--A. Rieber. “Triplex Confinium in Comparative Context,” in D. Roksandić and N. Štefanec (eds.), Constructing Border Societies on the Triplex Confinium (Budapest: Central European University, 2000), 13-29.

Further Readings:

--R. W. Brauer. “Boundaries in the Arabo-Islamic Geographic and Historical Texts” in Boundaries and Frontiers in Medieval Muslim Geography, New Series, Vol. 85, No. 6 (1995), 1-73. [savepdf]

-- F. J. Turner. The Frontier in American History (Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1921).

--P. Wittek. The Rise of the Ottoman Empire: Studies on the History of Turkey, 13th-15th Centuries (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1938).

--N. Standen. “Nine Case Studies of Pre-modern Frontiers,” in D. Power and N. Standen (eds.), Frontiers in Question: Eurasian Borderlands, 700-1700 (London: Macmillan Press, 1999), 13-31. .[savepdf /2nd part]

Unit 1: Arab-Byzantine Frontier 7th-13th Centuries

January 20: The Emergence of the thughur

Readings:

--M. Bonner. “Introduction: Byzantine-Arab Relations,” in M. Bonner (ed.), Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times (London: Ashgate Variorium, 2005), xiii-xliii (i.e., 30 pp.) [savepdf]

--J.F. Haldon and H. Kennedy. “The Arab-Byzantine frontier in the 8th and 9th centuries: military organization and society in the borderlands,” in M. Bonner (ed.), Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times (London: Ashgate Variorium, 2005), 141-178 [savepdf]

--T. Sizgorich, “Narrative and Community in Islamic Late Antiquity,” Past & Present 185 (2004): 9-42 [savepdf]

Further Readings:

--F. Donner. “Muhammad and the Caliphate: Political History of the Islamic Empire up to the Mongol Conquest,” in J. Esposito (ed.), The Oxford History of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 199), 1-62. [Recommended for Background] [savepdf]

--M. Bonner. Aristocratic Violence and Holy War: Studies on the Jihad and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier. New Haven: American Oriental Society Monograph Series, 1996

--M. Bonner. Chapter 1 “ Introduction” and Chapter 8 “Empires, Armies, and --Frontiers,” in his Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practices (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 1-19 and 118-156. [savepdf]

--H.A.R.Gibb. Arab-Byzantine relations under the Umayyad Caliphate” in M. Bonner (ed.), Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times (London: Ashgate Variorium, 2005), 65-79 [savepdf]

January 27: Cultural Exchange along the Arab-Byzantine Frontier

Readings:

--S. Bashear. “Polemics and Images of the 'Other': Apocalyptic and other materials on Early Muslim-Byzantine wars: a review of Arabic sources,” in M. Bonner (ed.), Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times (London: Ashgate Variorium, 2005, 181-215.[savepdf]

--J. Meyendorff. “Byzantine views of Islam,” in M. Bonner (ed.), Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times (London: Ashgate Variorium, 2005), 217-234. [savepdf]

--A. M.H. Shboul. “Byzantium and the Arabs: the image of the Byzantines as mirrored in Arabic literature” in M. Bonner (ed.), Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times (London: Ashgate Variorium, 2005), 235-252 [savepdf]

-OR-

--A. M.H. Shboul. “Byzantium and the Arabs: the image of the Byzantines as mirrored in Arabic literature” in M. Bonner (ed.), Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times (London: Ashgate Variorium, 2005), 235-252 [savepdf]

--Digenis Akritas: The Two-Blood Border Lord, trans. By D.B. Hull (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1972), 1-71 (Books 1-5). [savepdf]

Further Readings:

--Hugh Kennedy. The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In (New York: De Capo Press, 2007).

--P. Stephenson. Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900-1204 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

PAPER #1 DUE IN CLASS

UNIT 2: The Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, 7th-15th Centuries

February 3: The Iberian Peninsula as a Borderland—the Challenges of “Convivencia”

--E.M. Moreno. “The Creation of a Medieval Frontier: Islam and Christianity in the Iberian Peninsula, Eighth to Eleventh Centuries” in D. Power and N. Standen (eds.), Frontiers in Question: Eurasian Borderlands, 700-1700 (London: Macmillan Press, 1999), 32-54. [savepdf]

--S. Barton. “Traitors to the Faith? Christian Mercenaries in al-Andalus and the Maghreb, 1100-1300,” in R. Collins and A. Goodman (eds.), Medieval Spain: Culture, Conflict, and Coexistence (Palgrave Macmillan: 2002), 23-45 [savepdf]

--D. Nirenberg. “Introduction” and Chapter 5 “Sex and Violence between Majority and Minority,” in his Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 3-17 and 127-165. [savepdf]

-OR-

--D. Nirenberg. “Introduction” and Chapter 5 “Sex and Violence between Majority and Minority,” in his Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 3-17.

--Poem of the Cid – Spanish Verse and English Translation with Introduction by W.S. Merwin (New York: Meridian Press, 1975). [Read English Only; i.e., every other page!] [savepdf]

Further Readings:

--J. Safran. The Second Umayyad Caliphate: The Articulation of Caliphal Legitimacy in Al-Andalus (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000).

--P. Sahlins. Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).

--T. Glick. “Introduction,”in his Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005), On-Line Version:

http://libro.uca.edu/ics/emspain.htm

February 10: North Africa

--A. C. Hess. Ch. 1 “The Ibero-African Frontier,” Ch. 3 “North Africa and the Atlantic,” and Ch. 4 “Islam Resurgent,” in his The Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-African Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1978), 1-10 and 26-70. [savepdf]

--N. Z. Davis. “Introduction: Crossings,” in her Trickster Travels: A Sixtenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 3-54. [savepdf]

-OR-

--N. Z. Davis. “Introduction: Crossings,” Ch. 1 “Living in the Land of Islam,” Ch. 4 “Between Africa and Europe,” Ch. 6 “Between Islam and Christianity” in her Trickster Travels: A Sixtenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 3-54, 109-124, and 153-190.

Further Readings:

--A. K. Bennison. “Liminal States: Morocco and the Iberian Frontier between the Twelfth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in Julia Ann Clancy-Smith (ed.), North Africa, Islam, and the Mediterranean World: From the Almoravids to the Algerian War (Oxon: Frank Cass Publishers, 2005), 11-29

--J. A. Miller. “Trading Through Islam: the Interconnections of Sijilmasa, Ghana and the Amoravid Movement,” in Julia Ann Clancy-Smith (ed.), North Africa, Islam, and the Mediterranean World: From the Almoravids to the Algerian War (Oxon: Frank Cass Publishers, 2005), 11-29. (you should move this unit later, after the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier, where it chronologically and conceptually belongs because it is also an Ottoman-Habsburg frontier)

UNIT 3: India and Bengal

February 17: Islamic Frontiers in Hindistan

--R. Eaton. “Introduction,” Ch. 3 “Early Sufis of the Delta,” Ch. 5 “Mass Conversion to Islam: Theories and Protagonists,” Ch. 6 “The Rise of Mughal Power,” and Ch. 7 “Mughal Culture and its Diffusion,” in his The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), xxi-xxvii, 71-94, 113-136, 137-158, and 159-193 [savepdf]

-OR-

--R. Eaton. “Introduction” and Ch. 5 “Mass Conversion to Islam: Theories and Protagonists” in his The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), xxi-xxvii and 113-136.

--C. Schackle. “Beyond Turk and Hindu: Crossing the Boundaries in Indo-Muslim Romance,” “Introduction,” in D. Gilmartin and B. Lawrence (eds.), Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 55-73. [savepdf]

--M. Alam. “Shari‘a and Governance in the Indo-Islamic Context,” in D. Gilmartin and B. Lawrence (eds.), Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 216-245. [savepdf]

--V. Narayanan. “Religious Vocabulary and Regional Identity: A Study of the Tamil Cirappuranam,” in D. Gilmartin and B. Lawrence (eds.), Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 74-97. [savepdf]

Further Readings:

--K. Chattarjee. The Cultures of History in Early Modern India: Persianization and Mughal Culture in Bengal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

--Richard M. Eaton. “Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States,” in D. Gilmartin and B. Lawrence (eds.), Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 246-281. [savepdf]

-- M. K. Hermansen and B. Lawrence. “Indo-Persian Tazkiras as Memorative Communications,” “Introduction,” in D. Gilmartin and B. Lawrence (eds.), Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 149-175.

--M. Alam. The Languages of Political Islam: India – 1200-1800 (London: Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2004.

--D. Gilmartin and Bruce B. Lawrence. “Introduction,” in D. Gilmartin and B. Lawrence (eds.), Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 1-20.

PAPER #2 DUE IN CLASS

UNIT 4:Ottoman Borderlands

February 24: Ottoman-Byzantine Frontier

--C. Kafadar. Introduction and Ch. 2 “The Sources,” in his Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 1-19 and 60-117. [savepdf]; [savepdf]

--S.N. Yıldız. “Razing Gevele and Fortifying Konya: The Beginning of the Ottoman Conquest of the Karamanid Principality in South-Central Anatolia, 1468,” in A.C.S. Peacock (ed.), The Frontiers of the Ottoman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 307-330. [savepdf]

--D. Kastritis. “Religious Affiliation and Political Alliances in the Ottoman Succession Wars of 1402-1413,” in Medieval Encounters 13 (2007), 222-242. [savepdf]

Further Readings:

--G. Arnakis. “Futuwwa Traditions in the Ottoman Empire: Akhis, Bektasi Servishes, and Craftsmen,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4 (October, 1953), 232-247. savepdf]

--K. Barkey. Chapter 1 “Introduction,” Chapter 2 “Emergence: Brokerage across Networks,” Chapter 3 “Becoming an Empire: Imperial Institutions and Control,” in her Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 1-108. [savepdf]

-- R. Lindner. Nomans and the Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983).

--E. Zachariadou, “Religious Dialogue between Byzantines and Turks during the Ottoman Expansion.” In Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter, edited by B. Lewis and F. Niewohner (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Press, 1992), 289-304.

-- P. Stephenson. Byzantium’s Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkans, 900-1204 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). This is completely out of place here and has nothing to do with the Ottomans

--C. Cohen, “Futuwwa,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd Edition, On-line Version.

--H. Lowry. The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003).

March 3: Ottoman-Safavid (and Qajar) Borderlands and Beyond

-- M. Dressler. “Inventing Orthodoxy: Competing Claims for Authority and Legitimacy in the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict.” In Legitimizing the Order—The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power, edited by H. Karateke and M. Reinkowski. 151-176. Leiden: Brill, 2005. [savepdf]

-- R. Matthee. “The Safavid-Ottoman Frontier: Iraq-i Arab as Seen by Safavids,” International Journal of Turkish Studies, 9/1-2 (2003), 157-173. [savepdf]

-- S. Ateş. “Introduction” in his Empires at the Margin: Towards a History of the Ottoman-Iranian Borderland and the Borderland Peoples, 1843-1881 (Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 2006), 1-31. [savepdf]

-OR-

-- S. Ateş. “Introduction,” Chapter V “The Sheykh, the Shah, and the Sultan: Rebellion in the Borderland,” and Chapter VI “The Aftermath of the Rebellion: Establishing the Shi‘i State’s Supremacy” in his Empires at the Margin: Towards a History of the Ottoman-Iranian Borderland and the Borderland Peoples, 1843-1881 (Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 2006), 1-31; 316-368 and 369-433.

Further Readings:

-- T. Krstic. “Illuminated by the Light of Islam and the Glory of the Ottoman Sultanate: Narratives of Conversion to Islam in the Age of Confessionalization,” in Comparative Studies in Society and History 51/1 (January 2009), 35-63.

-- R. Hattox. “Mehmed the Conqueror, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Mamluk Authority, in Studia Islamic, No. 90 (2000), 105-123.

--K. Babayan. Preface and Chapter 5 “Abu Muslim—the Victim of the Waning of the Qizilbash,” in her Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), xv-xlvi (32 pages, too much…) and 121-160

-- R. Matthee. “The Resumption of Ottoman-Safavid Border Conflict, 1603-1638: Effects of Border Destabilization on the Evolution of State-Tribe Relations.” Orientwissenschaftliche Hefte 5 (2003), pp. 151-170. [savepdf]

-- K. Barkey. Ch. 4 “Maintaining Empire: An Expression of Tolerance,” in her Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 109-153. .[savepdf]

--R. Murphey. “The Garrison and its Hinterland in the Ottoman East, 1578-1605,” in A.C.S. Peacock (ed.), The Frontiers of the Ottoman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009): 353-370.

MID-TERM EXAMINATION FIRST HALF OF CLASS

March 10: The Ottoman-Habsburg-Venetian Borderlands

--G. Palfy. “Ransom slavery along the Ottoman-Hungarian frontier in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” in G. David and P. Fodor (eds.), Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Early Fifteenth – Early Eighteenth Centuries) (Leiden: Brill Press, 2007), 35-84. [savepdf]

 --N. Rothman. “Becoming Venetian: Conversion and Transformation in the Seventeenth-Century Mediterranean,” Mediterranean Historical Review, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Dec. 2004), 39-75. [savepdf]

 --K. Şakul. “Ottoman Attempts to Control the Adriatic Frontier ın the Napoleonic Wars,” in A.C.S. Peacock (ed.), The Frontiers of the Ottoman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009): 253-270. [savepdf]

 OR-

 --G. Palfy. “Ransom slavery along the Ottoman-Hungarian frontier in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” in G. David and P. Fodor (eds.), Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Early Fifteenth – Early Eighteenth Centuries) (Leiden: Brill Press, 2007), 35-84. [savepdf]

 --Z. J. Ujvary. “A Muslim Captive’s Vicissitudes in Ottoman Hungary (Mid-Seventeenth Century),” G. David and P. Fodor (eds.), Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Early Fifteenth – Early Eighteenth Centuries) (Leiden: Brill Press, 2007), 141-168. [savepdf]

 --W. Bracewell. “The Historiography of the Triplex Confinium: Conflict and Community on the Triple Frontier, 16th-18th Centuries,” in S. Ellis and R. Esser (eds.), Frontiers and the Writing of History, 1500-1850 (Hannover-Laatzen: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2006), 211-228. [savepdf]

Further Readings:

--W. McNeill. “Introduction” and Ch. 5 “The Closure of the Frontier,” in his Europe’s Steppe Frontier, 1500-1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 1-14 and 181-220 [savepdf]

-- M. Stein. Guarding the Frontiers: Ottoman Border Forts and Garrisons in Europe (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007).

--G. Agoston. “Information, ideology, and limits of imperial policy: Ottoman grand strategy in the context of Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry,” in V. Aksan and D. Goffman (eds.), The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 75-103.

--P. Fodor. “Making a Living on the Borders: Volunteers in the Sixteenth Century Ottoman Army” in his In Quest of the Golden Apple: Imperial Ideology, Politics, and Military Administration in the Ottoman Empire (İstanbul: İsis Press, 2000), 275-304. [savepdf]

--P. Fodor. “Introduction,” in G. David and P. Fodor (eds.), Ransom Slavery along the Ottoman Borders (Early Fifteenth – Early Eighteenth Centuries) (Leiden: Brill Press, 2007), xi-xx.[savepdf]

--D. Roksandić. “The Triplex Confinium. Internaitonal Research Project: Objectives, Approaches, and Methods,” in D. Roksandić (ed.) Microhistory of the Triplex Confinium: International Project Conference Papers (March 21-23, 1997) (Budapest: Central European University, 2000), 7-21.

--S. Ellis and R. Esser (eds.). “Introduction: Early Modern Frontiers in Comparative Context,” in S. Ellis and R. Esser (eds.), Frontiers and the Writing of History, 1500-1850 (Hannover-Laatzen: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2006), 9-20.

--W. Bracewell. The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and Holy War in the Sixteenth-Century Adriatic (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1992). [savepdf]

--Z. Blažević. “Discourse of Alterity: Ottomanism in the Works of Bartol Đurđević,” in Tolerance and Intolerance on the Triplex Confinium: Approaching the “Other” on the Borderlands, Eastern Adriatic, and Beyond, 1500-1900 (Padova: Coop. Liberia Editrice Università di Padova, 2007). 45-60

--M. Šarić. “Inter-confessional Relations and (In)tolerance among the Vlachs,” in Tolerance and Intolerance on the Triplex Confinium: Approaching the “Other” on the Borderlands, Eastern Adriatic, and Beyond, 1500-1900 (Padova: Coop. Liberia Editrice Università di Padova, 2007). 181-195.

March 17: The Ottoman-Russian “Steppe” Frontier

--M. Khodarkovsky, Introduction , Chapter 1 “The Sociology of the Frontier, or Why Peace was Impossible” and Chapter 5 “Concepts and Policies in the Imperial Borderlands, 1690s-1800,” in his Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500-1800 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 1-45 and 184-220. [savepdf]

--V. Martin. “Barımta: Nomadic Custom, Imperial Crime,” in D. Brower and E. Lazzerini (eds.), Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 249-270. [savepdf]

--R. Crews. “Empire and the Confessional State: Islam and Religious Politics in 19th Century Russia,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 108, No. 1 (February 2003), 50-83. [savepdf]

--OR--

--M. Khodarkovsky, Introduction , Chapter 1 “The Sociology of the Frontier, or Why Peace was Impossible,” in his Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500-1800 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 1-45.

--M. Gammer, “The Beginnings of the Naqshbandiyya in Daghestan and the Russian Conquest of the Caucasus,” in Die Welt des Islams, New Series, Vol. 34, Issue 3 (Nov. 1994), 204-217. [savepdf]

-- Muhammad Tahir al-Qarakhi. “The Shining of Daghestani Swords in Certain Campaigns of Shamil (Selected Passages),” Translated and Annoted by Ernest Tucker and Thomas Sanders, in T. Sanders, E. Tucker, and G. Hamburg (eds.), Russian-Muslim Confrontation in the Caucasus: Alternative Visions of the Conflict Between Imam Shamil and the Russians, 1830-1859 (London: Routledge-Curzon Press, 2004), 9-66. [savepdf]

Further Reading:

--M. Khodarkovsky, “Ignoble Savages and Unfaithful Subjects: Constructing Non-Christian Identities in Early Modern Russia,” in D. Brower and E. Lazzerini (eds.), Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 9-27.

--R. Crews. For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006).

--E. Lazzerini. “Local Accommodation and Resistance to Colonialism in 19th Century Crimea,” in D. Brower and E. Lazzerini (eds.), Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 163-187.

March 24: Ottoman Borderlands in the Balkans and Middle East and the Transition from Empire to Nation State

--V. Aksan. “Whose Territory and Whose Peasants? Ottoman Boundaries on the Danube in the 1760s,” in F. Anscombe (ed.) The Ottoman Balkans, 1750-1830 (Princeton: Marcus Weiner, 2006), 61-86. [savepdf]

--B. Masters. Chapter 9 “Semi-Autonomous Forces in the Arab Provinces” and Chapter 13 “Christians in a Changing World,” in S. Faroqhi (ed.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, Vol. 3: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 186-208 and 272-282. [savepdf] [savepdf]

--F. Adanir and H. Kaiser. “Migration, Deportation and Nation-Building: The Case of the Ottoman Empire,” in R. Leboutte (ed.), Migrations and Migrants in Historical Perspective. Permanencies and Innovations (Brussels: Peter Lang Press, 2000), 273-292. [savepdf]

--A. Sučeska. “The Position of the Raya in Bosnia in the 18th Century,” in Survey Sarajevo, Vol. III (1978), 208-225.

--I. Blumi. “Thwarting the Ottoman Empire: Smuggling through the Empire’s New Frontiers in Yemen and Albania, 1878-1910,” in Ottoman Borderlands: Issues, Personalities, and Political Changes (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2003), 255-276. [savepdf]

-OR-

--R. Gradeva, “Osman Pazvantoglu of Vidin: Between Old and New,” in F. Anscombe (ed.) The Ottoman Balkans, 1750-1830 (Princeton: Marcus Weiner, 2006), 115-162. [savepdf]

--C. Norton, “Nationalism and the Re-Invention of Early-Modern Identities in the Ottoman-Habsburg Borderlands,” Ethnologia Balcanica 11 (2007): 79-101.

--F. Adanir. “Religious Communities and Ethnic Groups under Imperial Sway: Ottoman and Habsburg Lands in Comparison.” in D. Hoerder (ed.), The Historical Practice of Diversity. Transcultural Interactions from Early Modern Mediterranean to the Postcolonial World (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003), 54-86. [savepdf]

--S. Deringil, “‘They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery:’ the Late Ottoman Empire and the Post-Colonial Debate.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 2 (2003), 311-342. [savepdf]

--K. Kirişci. “Migration and Turkey: the Dynamics of State, Society, and Politics,” in R. Kasaba (ed.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, Vol. 4: Turkey in the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 175-198. [savepdf]

Further Readings:

--T. Stoianovich. “The Conquering Balkan Orthodox Merchant,” in The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 20, No. 2 (June. 1960), 234-313.

Further Reading:

--M. Reinkowski. Double Struggle. No income: Ottoman Borderlands in Northern Albania,” in Ottoman Borderlands: Issues, Personalities, and Political Changes (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2003), 239-255.

--E.J. Zürcher. “The Young-Turks – Children of the Borderlands?,” in Ottoman Borderlands: Issues, Personalities, and Political Changes (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2003), 275-287.

--A. Sučeska. “The Position of Bosnian Muslims in the Ottoman State,” in International Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1978), 1-24 [savepdf]

--V. Panaite. “The Re‘ayas of the Tributary-Protected Principalities (The 16th through 18th Centuries), in K. Karpat with R. Zens (Eds.), Ottoman Borderlands: Issues, Personalities, and Political Changes (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2003), 79-104. [savepdf]

UNIT 5: Borderland Terminology: exchange, conflict, cultural mediation, syncretism, hybridity, “clash of civilizations,” etc.

March 31: Syncretism and Hybridity vs. Conflict and Exchange

--C. Steward. “Syncretism and Its Synonyms: Reflections on Cultural Mixture,” in Diacritics 29.3 (1999), 40-62. .[savepdf]

-- R. Hayden. “Antagonistic Tolerance: Competitive Sharing of Religious Sites in South Asia and the Balkans.” Current Anthropology 43/2 (2002): 205-219.  [savepdf]

--W. Brown. Chapter 1 “Tolerance as a Discourse of Depoliticization,” Chapter 2 “Tolerance as a Discourse of Power,” and Chapter 6 “Subjects of Tolerance: Why We Are Civilized and They Are Barbarians,” in her Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Princeton: Princeton University, 2006), 1-47 and 149-175.

Further Readings:

--C. Steward and Rosalind Shaw, eds. “Introduction” to Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism. London: Routledge, 1994.

--R. Bulliet. The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization,” in his The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 1-46.

--C., Carsten. "The Phenomenon of Syncretism and the Impact of Islam." In K. Kehl-Bodrogi, B. Kellner-Heinkele, and A. Otter-Beaujean (eds.) Syncretistic Religious Communities in the Near East: Collected Papers of the International Symposium “Alevism in Turkey and Comparable Syncretistic Religious Communities in the Near East and in the Past and Present” (Leiden: Brill Press, 1997), 35-48. [savepdf]

Paper #3 Due in Class