A Small Town in Syria: Ottoman Hama in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth CenturiesCelebrated for its ancient water wheels, the town of Hama is located on Syria's longest river, the Orontes. Ottoman Hama was a stopover on the major north-south road of Syria as well as the center of a local economic zone of its own. Intertwined social networks linked townspeople to the peasants and pastoral nomads of Hama's hinterland. By the early twentieth century a few elite and notable families had come to dominate the political and economic life of Hama and its outlying villages, setting the stage for the city's dramatic entry into Syrian national life during the French Mandate and post-colonial periods. Based principally on local judicial archives, this book is a social history of Hama during the last two centuries of Ottoman rule. It examines the social and economic structures that defined people's lives and that conditioned their participation in the historical changes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dramatis personae include men and women, commoners and notables, merchants and artisans, and others who, taken together, represent a cross-section of a Middle Eastern society as they entered the world of global markets, European empires, and modern states. Contents: Social history of an Ottoman district town--Family ties and family relationships--Production and trade networks--Urban-rural relations--Origins of large landholding--Integration into a new world economy--Modernity's creation of a - traditional economy and society." |
Contents
Acknowledgements | 11 |
Families and Family Values | 25 |
Social Networks | 53 |
Copyright | |
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Abd al-Qadir Abdel Nour administration Agha agricultural Ahmad al-'Alwani al-'Azm Al-Dbiyat al-Hadir al-Sabuni al-Sayyid al-Shaykh Aleppo Alwanis Arab As'ad ashraf awakhir Dhu Azms bedouins Beirut Christians countryside craft corporations cultivation Damas Damascus Dhu al-Hijja 1267 Douwes E.g. LCR Hama economic Efendi al-Kaylani eighteenth century elites and notables governor of Damascus Hama district Hama's hinterland Homs Homs and Hama Ibrahim Pasha Islamic Kaylanis land linked mahallat Mamluk manufacturing merchants Middle East military mufti Muhammad Muharram Muslim mutasallims nineteenth century notable families Nusayri Orontes Ottoman Empire Ottoman period Ottoman rule Ottoman Syria Ottomans in Syria ownership peasants piasters political Qadiriyya quarter Rabi Rafeq Rajab Ramadan regional rural Safar Sept Sha'ban Sharabis shari'a shari'a court Shawwal shaykhs silk social networks steppe Sufi Syrie Tanzimat Tarikh Hamah tax farms textile town trade tribal Tripoli Turcoman urban village waqf Weulersse women Yusuf Barghuth