Slave Trades and Diaspora in the Middle East, 700 to 1900 CE

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
George La Rue
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Mutual Adaptation ◽  
Trading Networks

In the Middle East, Africa was only one of multiple sources of servile labor. Building on the legacy of earlier civilizations, the region drew on all of its immediate neighbors for slaves. Local kingdoms and empires arose, clashed, expanded, and adapted old and new slaving strategies from internal and external rivals. From the 7th century, the rapid expansion of Islam and the building of Muslim empires are salient features in this history, but many other historical developments played key roles. Ensuing encounters with other civilizations, empires, and trading networks frequently resulted in friction, mutual adaptation, or new cultural, political, or economic synergies. In the Middle East, Islamic practices toward slaves influenced all regional cultures, yet many variants emerged due to local customs; changing economic and political considerations; specific environmental conditions; and the experiences, cultures, and talents of the enslaved. Slaves were captured directly or purchased. In wars and raids, Middle Eastern armies captured enemy combatants and civilians to ransom or enslave. The mix of enslaved and servile persons brought into the region varied in its composition, reflecting the geographical areas of military actions, the development of powerful trading partners, and the extent of trading networks. Foreign merchants imported additional slaves from the Balkans, the Black Sea region, the islands and shores of the Mediterranean, Central Asia, and Africa—including the West African savanna, the Lake Chad region, Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Horn of Africa, particularly via the Swahili coast. These practices brought new servile populations as workers, domestic staff, concubines, soldiers, or bureaucrats to serve in imperial outposts, trading towns, or centers of agricultural, handicraft, or industrial production. The constant demand for servile labor was driven not only by expanding empires and new economic enterprises but also by growing urban populations, the multiple options for manumission under Islamic law, high mortality rates and low rates of reproduction among enslaved populations for social and medical reasons, and the resultant scarcity of second-generation slaves. Broadly speaking, enslaved Africans were more common in the southern tier of the Middle East and demand for them generally increased over time, as northern and internal sources of slaves dwindled. Enslaved persons, including Africans, served in numerous capacities and were dispersed throughout the Middle East and its areas of slave supply.

scholarly journals Current state and perspectives of the American-Bulgarian relationship

2016 ◽  
pp. 71-84
Author(s):  
Bogdan Grushetskyi
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Political Development ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
The Usa

The main stages of the relations between the USA and Bulgaria after the fall of the Communist regimes in the Central-Eastern Europe in1989 are clarified. They were the most active in 1990-1992, 2001-2003, 2005-2008 and their intensity depends mostly on the interest of the USA in the promoting their national interests with the help of Bulgaria. It is revealed, that the energetics and defense are the most important issues in the bilateral interaction. Geopolitical location of Bulgaria allows to consider it as a potentially significant element in the hydrocarbons supply in Europe from the Caspian region, Middle East and Russia. USA regard Bulgaria as a main partner in the South-Eastern Europe because of its strong allied position during the conflicts in the Balkans and Middle East and also its stable political development and rapid temps of democratization. Transformation of the American-Bulgarian cooperation during the second B. Borisov cabinet in power (since the November 2014) are analyzed. The key factor of it is the aggressive politics of Russia in the Black Sea Region. This politics obliged US diplomacy to promote the questions of the Bulgaria’s involving in the Southern Gas Corridor project more consistently and its defensive capacity strengthening. In this period position of Bulgaria in the main regional issues mostly corresponds with the American priorities. It concerns such directions as the international sanctions against Russia because of its aggression in Ukraine, the energy and arms diversification, strengthening of the NATO Eastern borders security.

scholarly journals Strategy in the making: Russia-NATO Relations under Strategic Competition

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (27) ◽  
pp. 91-114
Author(s):  
Luis Alexander Montero Moncada ◽  
Maria Paula Velandia García
Keyword(s):  
World Politics ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
European Security ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Strategic Competition ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Potential Risks ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Eu

In this article, we examine the elements that are being developed by NATO and Russia in a strategic competition in Europe. Having analysed these elements, each sub-system, as described by the Realist Theory of International Relations, is facing major changes in today’s world politics. From Northern Europe to the Balkans and the Black Sea region, the analysis focuses on areas of tension that could potentially become problematic for the interaction between the two actors. Besides, the Baltic region is explained further due to its continuous activity regarding either hybrid or tradition war tactics. Finally, we draw a parallel between NATO, the EU and the USA as main actors in European Security and how the latter has been changing drastically since Donald Trump took office. We conclude by analysing potential risks, scenarios and conflicts between NATO and Russia in short range projections.

Imperial confrontation or regional cooperation?: Bulgarian migration and Ottoman-Russian relations in the Black Sea region, 1768-1830s

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Robarts
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Primary Unit

The Black Sea region from 1768-1830s has traditionally been characterized as a theater of warfare and imperial competition. Indeed, during this period, the Ottoman and Russian empires engaged in four armed conflicts for supremacy in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and on the Black Sea itself. While not discounting geo-strategic and ideological confrontation between the Ottoman and Russian empires, this article - by adopting the Black Sea region as its primary unit of historical and political analysis - will emphasize the considerable amount of exchange that took place between the Ottoman and Russian empires in the Black Sea region in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Building upon a case study of Bulgarian migration between the Ottoman and Russian empires and as part of a broader discussion on Ottoman-Russian Black Sea diplomacy this article will detail joint Ottoman-Russian initiatives to control their mutual Black Sea borderland.

EFRAIM KARSH AND INARI KARSH, Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789–1923 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). Pp. 419. $29.95 cloth.

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 559-565
Author(s):  
Charles D. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Promotional Campaign ◽  
The 19Th Century

The subject of a promotional campaign by Harvard University Press, Empires of the Sand purports to challenge established scholarship with respect to the drawn-out demise of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1923. The Karshes argue that European imperialism was more benevolent than threatening and coexisted with Middle Eastern imperialisms—Ottoman, Egyptian, or Arab. In their view, European imperial powers “shored up” the Ottoman Empire rather than sought to deprive it of territories under its domain during the 19th century. To be sure, there was some European “nibbling at the edges of empire” (Algeria, Tunisia, Libya), but these incursions had little impact on the Ottomans; Cyprus (1878) is ignored. The only true “infringement on Ottoman territorial stability,” the British takeover of Egypt, happened by “chance not design,” with the blame attributed to Sultan Abdul Hamid's mismanagement of the crisis. The same story of Ottoman incompetence and attempts to manipulate European powers explains Ottoman loss of territory in the Balkans.

Mit zweierlei Maß. Der Adriaraum als Laboratorium spätmittelalterlicher Praktiken des Slaving / Two Degrees of Bondage: The Venetian Adriatic Sea as a Laboratory for European Practices and Discourses of Slavery

2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliane Schiel
Keyword(s):  
Adriatic Sea ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Commercial Policy ◽  
The West ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Balkans

AbstractIt is usually held that by the turn of the millennium Latin Christians stopped enslaving their fellow-believers from within Europe. Scholars have therefore tended to define the late medieval type of domestic slaves in Italian and Iberian households, most of whom had been traded from the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea region to Europe, by their cultural and religious difference. Yet, the numerous Christians from the Balkans who came across the Adriatic Sea to the West (and especially to Venice) clearly complicate the picture. They were mostly under twelve years of age and could be purchased at a very low price. The paper examines the commercial policy of the Venetian Senate in respect of the Adriatic human trafficking and sounds the strategies Venetian merchants used in order to pursue their interests, within and outside the legal framework set by the state authorities East and West of the Adriatic Sea.

scholarly journals The American-Turkish Political Relations 1991-2001 A.D.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 2451-2458
Author(s):  
Ahmed Mahmood Alaw Al-Samarrae , Et. al.
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
East Region ◽  
Middle East Region

The U.S. Turkish relations are one of the issues of interest to the researcher in the field of politics as it is a relationship between two important and active parties in the international arena, especially the Middle East region. The United States had a great interest in Turkey's siding with the West. Turkey also found its interest in that, so we found it a member of the NATO. In contrast to the expected after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Turkey's importance in the strategic perception of the United States did not end, especially since Turkey's geographical proximity seemed to be more strained and changing, not to mention the Western model adopted by Turkey, which the United States wants to be an example in the region. The American- Turkish relations for the period (1991-2001) were influenced by radical and fundamental changes. These variables are either internal or international. The internal factors influencing this relationship lie in the Turkish political parties which play a major role in the political process. The other factor is the Kurdish issue, which Turkey is dealing with very cautiously, while the United States has used it as a pressure card on the Turkish governments. It has not pursued a consistent policy on the issue and has always appeared against human  rights violations. The other external factors, including the Cyprus issue, are a source of concern for the alliance strategy between the two countries from the 1960s until the present, and there is the matter of dealing with terrorism especially after the events of 11 September 2001. The other factor is the question of the EU accession which is the Turkish dream and the source of interest for its foreign policy. Which the United States is trying to show that it is the only one who able to persuade the Europeans to accept the membership of Turkey. Turkut Ouzel's government has sought to play a pivotal role at the regional and global levels and in the realization of Turkish interests in the Central Asian republics, the Black Sea basin, the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East region, the Arab neighbors, Israel, Iran and the Balkans, beside achieving the economic development and self-sufficiency; efforts are incessant to fulfill those ambitions. Turkey has acted to change the unilateral approach towards the United States and the NATO to another one that includes multilateral policies related to the normalization of relations with the African and Asian worlds as well as neighboring countries.

scholarly journals THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN THE INTERCIVILIZATION DIALOGUE IN SOUTHERN UKRAINE. THOUGHTS ON THE NEW APPROACHES TO TURKISH HISTORIOGRAPHY

2021 ◽  
pp. 15-20
Author(s):  
Vodotyka S. ◽  
Robak I.
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Crimea ◽  
History Of ◽  
Primary Basis

The article is devoted to reviewing the book by the well-known Turkish historian İlber Ortaylı "Ottomans on Three Continents". The authors consistently analyze the main postulates of the work in the history of Ottoman possessions in the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region, focusing on the role of the Ottoman Empire in the interaction of Black Sea civilizations in the late Middle Ages and early modern times.The authors prove that the history of the Ottoman Empire is essential for understanding the history of Ukraine. Ottoman influences significantly impacted the history of the Ukrainian people and other indigenous peoples of Ukraine – Crimean Tatars, Karaites and Krymchaks, Crimean Greeks.The authors agree with the thesis of the Turkish researcher about the significant and sometimes decisive influence of the Ottomans on the situation in the Black Sea region in the XV–XVIII centuries. Furthermore, the authors express their views on certain statements of the book. In particular, İlber Ortaylı proves that the Ottoman Empire was a "state of the Middle Eastern Islamic type". Its presence in the Black Sea resulted in the interaction of Islamic Mediterranean civilization with Eastern European Orthodoxy and Ukraine were at the centre of this interaction. However, the authors cannot agree with the historian's statement about the primary basis of the empire – the system of the state, especially military, slavery (devshirme). It allowed to creation of a vast empire, The Sublime or Ottoman Porte. However, slavery could not create social mechanisms of progress. The civilizational basis of the Ottoman Empire was its steppe, Turkic-steppe, essence.In the Ottoman Empire, Western modernization borrowings were superficial, served utilitarian-pragmatic purposes, and did not change the foundations of civilization. Such selectable reforms were the reason why the Omans lost their possessions in the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region to the Russian Empire in the eighteenth century. Significantly, both empires claim the imperial, not civilizational, heritage of the Roman Empire. The intelligence emphasizes that these claims are not sufficiently substantiated.Key words: İlber Ortaylı, Ottoman Empire, heritage, history of Ukraine, Northern Black Sea Coast, Crimea. Стаття присвячена огляду-рецензії книги відомого турецького історика Ільбера Ортайли «Османи на трьох континентах». Автори послідовно проаналізували основні постулати праці в координатах історії османських володінь в Криму і Північному Причорномор’ї, приділивши головну увагу ролі Османської імперії у взаємодії цивілізацій Чорномор’я у періоди пізнього середньовіччя і раннього модерного часу.Доведено, що історія Османської імперії має важливе значення для розуміння історії України. Османські впливи відіграли значну роль в історії українського народу та інших корінних народів України – кримських татар, караїмів і кримчаків, кримських греків.Автори погоджуються з тезою турецького дослідника про значний, а часом визначальний, вплив Османів на ситуацію у Чорномор’ї у ХV–ХVІІІ ст. та висловлюють свої міркування щодо окремих положень праці. Зокрема, І. Ортайли кваліфіковано доводить, що Османська імперія була «державою близькосхідно-ісламського типу» і її присутність у Чорномор’ї мала наслідком взаємодію ісламської середземноморської цивілізації зі східноєвропейською православною, причому Україна знаходилась у центрі цієї взаємодії. Однак, не можна погодитись з твердженням історика щодо головної основи імперії – системи державного, передусім військового, рабства (девшірме). Вона дозволило створити величезну імперію, Сяючу Порту, але рабство не може створити суспільних механізмів поступу. Цивілізаційною основою Османської імперії стала її степова, тюрксько-степова, сутність. В Османській імперії західні модернізаційні запозичення були поверховими, служили утилітарно-прагматичним цілям і не змінювали цивілізаційних основ. Власне це і стало основною причиною того, що у ХVІІІ ст. Омани втратили свої володіння в Криму і Північному Причорномор’ї, які дістались Російській імперії. Показово, що обидві імперії висувають претензії на імперську, а не цивілізаційну, спадщину Римської імперії. У розвідці наголошується, що ці претензії не є достатньо обґрунтованими. Ключові слова: І. Ортайли, Османська імперія, спадщина, історія України, Північне Причорномор’я, Крим.

scholarly journals Cartographic methods for solving historical and geographical problems (on the example of multiscale research of Europe, mediterranean and North-Western Black Sea regions)

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 266-281
Author(s):  
Andrey Herzen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Multiscale Approach ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
North Western

Numerous and multidimensional problems of the modern world have a self-evident, but not always obvious, geographical conditionality and spatial reflection, which are the objects of interest of specialists. At the same time, the geographical approach to understanding the global problems of humanity and their multiscale nature is inseparable from the historical approach, and historic-geographical research is an integral factor in a comprehensive scientific search. This approach allows us to represent historic-geographical landscapes as integral natural and anthropogenic geosystems, to understand their structure and patterns of development. A comprehensive historic-geographical search integrates the knowledge gained in various scientific fields, and provides the basis for further geographical, historical, ethnographic, cultural and other scientific and practical research. Cartographic methods serve as the cornerstone of the historic-geographical approach, the application of which within the framework of complex research allows us to solve important scientific problems and find reliable answers to numerous questions that arise when systematizing knowledge about the natural and cultural heritage. Comprehensive studies based on this multiscale approach were carried out at the macro-regional level as part of a special geographical and cultural analysis of the Mediterranean-Black Sea region (high-precision mapping and generalization, determining the place of the Black Sea in the framework of the Great Mediterranean), toponymic surveys (transferred geographical names within Central, Eastern Europe and the Balkans), in the North-Western Black Sea region — at the meso- and micro-regional level — for the historic-geographical landscape of the Middle Dniester, characterized by weak urbanization processes, but extremely high concentration of monuments of natural and cultural heritage, the formation of which is due to both the border and the connecting role of the river (interdisciplinary studies of unique architectural monuments in Rashkov, Vad-Rashkov, Vasilkov, etc.), as well as for the urbanized central part of Moldavia (the reconstruction of the historic-geographical landscape of medieval Kishinev based on the use of a combination of traditional and innovative methods, which allowed to identify the location of medieval fortifications and their influence on the existing buildings).

The Place of Islamic Law in Modern Arab Legal Systems: A Brief for Researchers and Reference Librarians

2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
George N. Sfeir
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Periodical Literature ◽  
Short List ◽  
Applicable Law ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
Reference Librarians ◽  
The Subject

Ever since Joseph Schacht, whose book An Introduction to Islamic Law is on the short list of books on Middle East law, said that Islamic law is the epitome of Islamic thought, in other words, you can't understand Islam without understanding Islamic law, Middle Eastern studies and their journals invariably include classical Islamic law in their coverage of the subject with little attention given to modern legislation. This is particularly obvious in the bibliography of periodical literature which disregards the increasing number of studies on the modern law of the Middle East appearing in law journals. Even entries described as positive law, a category recently added to John and Marianne Makdisi's eminently useful compilation on Islamic law, comes no closer to giving a realistic picture of the applicable law. To illustrate what I mean, titles under positive law dealing with insurance, banking, and interest, concentrate on Islamic law's position on these subject-matters at a time when modern legislation in most Arab states has completely discarded that position.

scholarly journals Geopolicy of the Black Sea region

2007 ◽  
Vol 59 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 308-321
Author(s):  
Nevenka Jeftic
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
Trade Routes ◽  
Geographic Position

The author describes historical and contemporary geopolitical position of the Black Sea region. Up to the present times the primary significance of the region has lain in its trade routes and other transit communications that connect Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Having such geographic position the region has been an interest sphere of great powers and regional states and conquerors. Today most of states of the Black Sea region are economically poor, have unstable political systems and burdened with constant and potential explosive problems.

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