II. The Barbary Corsairs in the Seventeenth Century

1944 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. N. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
The Other ◽  
European System ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Libyan Desert ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
Islamic Society

The seventeenth century was one of the twelve during which, in spite of what geographers might regard as probable and proper, the two sides of the Mediterranean were in the hands of two separate and inimical civilizations, different in religion, morals, law, economy and knowledge. That sea was nevertheless a busy highway. The Levant trade, the most important of all for the French and the Italians, was also important for the English and the Dutch; but North Africa, from the Atlantic coast of Morocco to the Libyan desert, Barbary par excellence, was outside the European system of international law and conduct. Even when they were nominally at peace the Christians and the Moslems never trusted one another or succeeded for long in abiding by the rules on which they agreed. Both sides tried to enforce such rules by collective and vicarious punishments, by reprisals and by other devices to which men resort when there is no law between them. Each side, often in spite of express treaty stipulations, made slaves of prisoners from the other: the Islamic society was based on slavery, and the Latin states also manned their war-galleys partly with their own criminals but largely with Moslems captured at sea. To the seafaring men of Europe captivity in Barbary was a danger worse than shipwreck.

The Agreement between Greece and Italy on the Delimitation of their Respective Maritime Zones: An Italian Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 283-294
Author(s):  
Marina Mancini
Keyword(s):  
Continental Shelf ◽  
International Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Boundary Line ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Ionian Sea ◽  
National Interests ◽  
The Mediterranean

In 2020 Greece and Italy concluded a maritime delimitation agreement, extending the already-established boundary line between their respective continental shelf areas to the other maritime areas to which they are entitled under international law. The Greek authorities hailed the agreement as a great success, stressing that it fully reflects their position vis-à-vis maritime delimitation in the Mediterranean and it meets their national interests in the Ionian Sea. This article critically analyzes the agreement, in the light of various recent events, and it finds that it serves Italian interests too. In particular, the 2020 Italo-Greek agreement furthers Italy’s growing interest in delimiting the maritime zones to which it is entitled under international law, so as to prevent its rights and jurisdiction over them being impaired by the proclamation of overlapping zones by its neighbours. It also sets the stage for future proclamation by Italy of an EEZ covering the waters adjacent to its territorial sea in the Ionian Sea.

Introduction

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amira K. Bennison
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Political Legitimation ◽  
Two Sides

This chapter provides an introduction to the theme of political legitimacy in the medieval Islamic Maghrib and al-Andalus. It reviews previous historiographical approaches to the subject and considers the Arabic sources for the period, arguing for the importance of considering the two sides of the straits of Gibraltar as a single cultural zone. It then looks at political legitimacy in the Islamic Middle East and North Africa in general before tracing the evolution of particular themes in the Maghrib and al-Andalus up to the period covered by the volume. It ends with a brief review of the other chapters in the volume and their multi-disciplinary contribution to understandings of political legitimation in the region.

Diasporas in Despair, 1560–1700

The Great Sea ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Abulafia
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Muslim Population ◽  
Sephardic Jews ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Jewish Descent

Ottoman sultans and Spanish kings, along with their tax officials, took a strong interest in the religious identity of those who crossed the areas of the Mediterranean under their control. Sometimes, in an era marked by the clash of Christian and Muslim empires, the Mediterranean seems to be sharply divided between the two faiths. Yet the Ottomans had long accepted the existence of Christian majorities in many of the lands they ruled, while other groups navigated (metaphorically) between religious identities. The Sephardic Jews have already been encountered, with their astonishing ability to mutate into notionally Christian ‘Portuguese’ when they entered the ports of Mediterranean Spain. This existence suspended between worlds set off its own tensions in the seventeenth century, when many Sephardim acclaimed a deluded Jew of Smyrna as the Messiah. Similar tensions could also be found among the remnants of the Muslim population of Spain. The tragic history of the Moriscos was played out largely away from the Mediterranean Sea between the conversion of the last openly practising Muslims, in 1525, and the final act of their expulsion in 1609; it was their very isolation from the Islamic world that gave these people their distinctive identity, once again suspended between religions. The world inhabited by these Moriscos differed in important respects from that inhabited by the other group of conversos, those of Jewish descent. Although some Moriscos were hauled before the Inquisition, the Spanish authorities at first turned a blind eye to the continued practice of Islam; it was sometimes possible to pay the Crown a ‘service’ that bought exemption from interference by the Inquisition, which was mortified to discover that it could not boost its income by seizing the property of exempt suspects. Many Morisco communities lacked a Christian priest, so the continued practice of the old religion is no great surprise; even in areas where christianization took place, what sometimes emerged was an islamized Christianity, evinced in the remarkable lead tablets of Sacromonte, outside Granada, with their prophecies that ‘the Arabs will be those who aid religion in the last days’ and their mysterious references to a Christian caliph, or successor (to Jesus, not Muhammad).

scholarly journals Fondation de Qarthadasht en Afrique du Nord – comme problème dans les recherches sur la chronologie de la plus ancienne histoire de Carthage

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-99
Author(s):  
Miron Wolny ◽  
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
The Other ◽  
Afrique Du Nord ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
German Science ◽  
Literary Relations ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Political Economic

The author of the article tries to connect the observation of economic and trade relations developed by the Phoenicians in the western part of the Mediterranean with a reflection on the situation in which the Levant countries found themselves. It is known that in the period in which the founding of Carthage can be hypothetically located, the Phoenician centers were under political, economic and military pressure – mainly from Assyria – although other powers, such as Damascus, cannot be ruled out. On the other hand, however, it is known that, for example, in German science the lack of a founding act of Carthage in North Africa was emphasized, and the archaeological traces left in this territory seem insufficient to reconcile conventional literary relations with the founding of Carthage at the end of the 9th century BC. The intention of this article is an attempt to show the issues on the basis of which one should consider the reinterpretation of the events reported as the context of the founding of Carthage. This procedure would serve to revise the existing findings of science on the chronology of the founding of Qarthadasht and could, consequently, contribute to showing that the founding of Carthage fell on a later period - i.e. the end of the 8th or the beginning of the 7th century BCE.

CREDIT, DEBT, AND HONOR IN CASTILE, 1600-1650

2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Other ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Early Modern Spain ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The One ◽  
Traditional Understanding ◽  
The Way

AbstractBased largely on the findings of anthropologists of the Mediterranean in the twentieth century, the traditional understanding of honor in early modern Spain has been defined as a concern for chastity, for women, and a willingness to protect women's sexual purity and avenge affronts, for men. Criminal cases from Castile in the period 1600-1650 demonstrate that creditworthiness was also an important component of honor, both for men and for women. In these cases, early modern Castilians became involved in violent disputes over credit, invoking honor and the rituals of the duel to justify their positions and attack their opponents. Understanding the connection between credit, debt, and honor leads us to update the anthropological models that pre-modern European historians employ, on the one hand, and to a new appreciation for the way seventeenth-century Castilians understood their public reputations and identity, on the other.

Between ambition and ambivalence: Italy and the European Union's Mediterranean policy

Modern Italy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurizio Carbone
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Nicolas Sarkozy

This article reviews Italy's role in the various phases of the European Union's policy towards the Mediterranean: the ad hoc policy of the 1950s and 1960s, the Global Mediterranean Policy developed in the 1970s, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership agreed in Barcelona in 1995, the European Neighbourhood Policy signed in 2003, the proposal launched by French president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2006 for a Mediterranean Union. The overall argument is that the various Italian governments have carried out an ambivalent and often reactive policy: on the one hand, they have consistently tried to promote a Mediterranean dimension in the European Union, though without upsetting the United States; on the other hand, they have limited the extension of trade privileges to exports from North Africa. While the end of the Cold War provided a new opportunity for Italy to play a more assertive role in the international arena, the two coalitions that have alternated in power have substantially failed to move the Mediterranean to the centre of Italy's and the European Union's external policy. A partial change of attitude – yet a reactive policy – emerged under the second Prodi Government, when Italy and Spain became close allies in an attempt to counter-balance the new activist policy of Sarkozy.

A World No Longer Shared

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 18-49
Author(s):  
James McDougall
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Mediterranean

This article examines the rapid and dramatic shifts in position, perception, and possibility that characterized the onset of colonialism in the Maghrib. The focus is on a small, interrelated group of families of Algiers notables. Their heads, the merchant and state servant Ḥamdān ibn ʿUthmān Khoja and the banker and businessman Aḥmad Bū Ḍarba, played important roles in attempting to negotiate an accommodation with the French occupiers between 1830 and 1833. By 1836, they found themselves pushed out, both politically and physically, from the cité (both physical and symbolic) that they had, until then, imagined themselves as sharing on equal terms with interlocutors on the other shore of the Mediterranean. Closing down their possibilities of dialogue can be seen as the first, decisive step in the emergence of French definitions of a “monologic,” exclusively European articulation of the meaning of modernity in North Africa.

scholarly journals Barbary Coast in the expansion of international society: Piracy, privateering, and corsairing as primary institutions

2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 840-857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Colás
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
International Society ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Cumulative Effect ◽  
Uneven Development ◽  
European Standard ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Primary Institutions

AbstractFrom the ‘long’ sixteenth century the Ottoman regencies of North Africa operated as major centres of piracy and privateering across the Mediterranean Sea. Though deemed by emerging European powers to be an expression of the ‘barbarian’ status of Muslim and Ottoman rulers and peoples, piracy, and corsairing in fact played a major role in the development of the ‘primary’ or ‘master’ institutions of international society such as sovereignty, war, or international law. Far from representing a ‘barbarian’ challenge to the European ‘standard of civilization’, piracy and privateering in the modern Mediterranean acted as contradictory vehicles in the affirmation of that very standard.This article explores how Barbary piracy, privateering, and corsairing acted as ‘derivative’ primary institutions of international society. Drawing on recent ‘revisionist’ accounts of the expansion of international society, it argues that piracy and corsairing simultaneously contributed to the construction of law and sovereignty across the Mediterranean littoral whilst also prompting successive wars and treaties aimed at outlawing such practices. The cumulative effect of these complex historical experiences indicates that primary institutions of international society owe much more to ‘barbarism’ and ‘illegality’, an indeed to international stratification uneven development, than is commonly acknowledged.

Survey of Islamic Sites

1972 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 5-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antony Hutt
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
The Other ◽  
North African ◽  
The North ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Way

The main intention of this survey, for which I was awarded the first Libya Fellowship of the Society, was to examine a number of sites in Libya and also in adjacent countries which are either of the same period as the monuments in Ajdabiyah, or have relevance to the development of these monuments.On the way to Libya I visited the related, if somewhat later monuments of Palermo, built in the Arabo-Norman style, but utilizing both workmen and a number of constructional techniques from North Africa. I was fortunate in being guided around the various sites by members of the Ente per i Palazzi e Ville di Sicilia, and was able to use the recent study of Palermo by Mrs D. L. Jones, currently awaiting publication. The architectural details, and many of the designs and patterns involved relate very strongly to the north African forms, and emphasise the fact that the Mediterranean was still much more of a linking than a divisive factor even after the Muslims had lost control of Sicily and some of the other islands.

scholarly journals “I come from a country that is no more”

Ethnologies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-68
Author(s):  
Dario Miccoli
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Historical Imagination ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
To Come

Based upon a corpus of literary texts by Jewish authors born, or descendants of families that lived in North Africa and Egypt and that in the 1950s and 1960s migrated to Israel, France or Italy, the essay looks at nostalgia as a foundational trope in the Mediterranean Jewish historical imagination. Nostalgia is analyzed as a literary chronotope, that allows these writers to come to terms with a complex and ambivalent past while, at the same time, reflecting upon its repercussions on the postcolonial present and future. What comes out is an original archive of memories travelling across the Mediterranean, that while shedding light on the ruptures and continuities between colonial and postcolonial times, reflects on the possibilities of coexistence and reconciliation – or, on the other hand, on the cleavages – that still exist between Jews and Arabs, Europe and North Africa, the Diaspora and Israel.

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