Diplomacy from Below or Cross-Confessional Loyalty? The “Christians of Algiers” between the Lord of Kuko and the King of Spain in the Early 1600s

Usually seen as actors with limited political agency, captives and slaves are, in this essay, at the core of complex diplomatic negotiations between two political authorities in a cross-confessional context. The case study presents a group of enslaved Christians in Algiers at the beginning of the seventeenth century working to restore a disrupted communication system between Spain and a rebel Muslim lord at war with the Ottomans. This lord, called Amar ben Amar bel Cadi, ruled the tiny city of Kuko and its region in the Djurdjura range (in present-day Kabylia). The goal of the Spanish military collaboration with him was to take Algiers and weaken the Ottoman Empire in North Africa. The paper argues that the captives’ initiative must be understood both as diplomacy “from below” and as a cross-confessional model of loyalty. Furthermore, it compels us to re-think the agency of actors in imperial encounters and to reject the topos—often implicit in contemporary historical essays—that religious affiliation conditioned political loyalty.

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Paths of Prayers in Ottoman North Africa

Journal of Islamic Manuscripts ◽

10.1163/1878464x-01203006 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (3-4) ◽

pp. 295-341

Author(s):

Deniz Beyazit

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Seventeenth Century ◽

Ottoman Empire ◽

North Africa ◽

Complex Dynamics ◽

North African ◽

The North ◽

Local Traditions ◽

First Time ◽

Visual Apparatus

Abstract This article discusses The Met’s unpublished Dalāʾil al-khayrāt—2017.301—(MS New York, TMMA 2017.301), together with a group of comparable manuscripts. The earliest known dated manuscript within the corpus, it introduces several iconographic elements that are new to the Dalāʾil, and which compare with the traditions developing in the Mashriq and the Ottoman world in particular. The article discusses Dalāʾil production in seventeenth-century North Africa and its development in the Ottoman provinces, Tunisia, and/or Algeria. The manuscripts illustrate how an Ottoman visual apparatus—among which the theme of the holy sanctuaries at Mecca and Medina, appearing for the first time in MS New York, TMMA 2017.301—is established for Muhammadan devotion in Maghribī Dalāʾils. The manuscripts belong to the broader historic, social, and artistic contexts of Ottoman North Africa. Our analysis captures the complex dynamics of Ottomanization of the North African provinces of the Ottoman Empire, remaining strongly rooted in their local traditions, while engaging with Ottoman visual idioms.

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Avârız and Nüzul Levies in the Ottoman Empire: A Case Study of the Province of Karaman 1620s-1700

Belleten ◽

10.37879/belleten.2006.561 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 70 (258) ◽

pp. 561-588

Author(s):

Süleyman Demi̇rci̇

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Ottoman Empire ◽

Economic History ◽

First Time

Basing on firsthand research on original, largely unused Ottoman archival registers (Anadolu ve Rumeli eyâletleri avârizhâne defterleri), this paper intends to examine in a systematic way avâriz and nüzul levies and their rates in the province of Karaman from 1620s to 1700. The focus of this paper will be the development of avâriz and nüzul levies as an alternative major source of regular taxation for the Ottoman government during the seventeenth century. It is a line of research that has so far attracted little attention from scholars despite the fact that there is now more debate on Ottoman socio-economic history generally.This examination will enables us to see for the first time how the avâriz and nüzul rates fluctuated during the seventeenth century down to the level of livas within the Province.

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THE OTTOMAN ALGERIAN ELITE AND ITS IDEOLOGY

International Journal of Middle East Studies ◽

10.1017/s0020743800021127 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 32 (3) ◽

pp. 323-344 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Tal Shuval

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Ottoman Empire ◽

20Th Century ◽

North Africa ◽

18Th Century ◽

The Sublime ◽

Nation States ◽

The One

By the late seventeenth century, Algeria and Tunisia had established regimes that were largely independent of Ottoman sovereignty in almost every regard, although the Porte continued, in strictly legal terms, to exert minimal rights of sovereignty. Michel Le Gall1But, let there be no mistake: the more a regency of Barbary has become fearsome to the Christian princes, the more the Sultan is its absolute master. He had only to utter a word to end an unjust war and fix even the terms for peace. Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis2Separated by two centuries, these two quotations describe the role of the Ottoman Empire in North Africa in very different—indeed, contradictory—terms. On the one hand, Ottoman North Africa is depicted as a region where independent political entities emerged out of a century of Ottoman rule, ready as it were for the eventual emergence of nation-states in the 20th century. Venture de Paradis's earlier description, however, is devoid of the hindsight gained by our knowledge of the “end of the story.” It tells us that by the end of the 18th century, contrary to the contemporary accepted view of the remoteness of the Maghribi “regencies” from the imperial center in Istanbul, the three Ottoman provinces of North Africa were indeed an integral part of the Ottoman Empire, and the rulers of these provinces were obedient subjects of the Sublime Porte.

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Collection of Avâriz and Nüzul Levies in the Ottoman Empire: A Case Study of the Province of Karaman, 1620-1700

Belleten ◽

10.37879/belleten.2005.897 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 69 (256) ◽

pp. 897-912

Author(s):

Süleyman Demi̇rci̇

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Fifteenth Century ◽

Ottoman Empire ◽

Government Revenue ◽

Late Fifteenth ◽

Financial Administration

The avariz and nüzul levies were among the most important of the regular sources of government revenue in the Ottoman empire during the seventeenth century, but there has been relatively little study of them. Originating in the late fifteenth century as irregular imposts levied at times of military need, it is clear that by the first quarter of the seventeenth century avariz and nüzul had become virtually annual levies throughout the majority of the Rumelian and Anatolian provinces. This article examines the nature of these levies as seen through collection procedures in the province of Karaman in the period 1620 to 1700, showing how the Ottoman financial administration developed this relatively new and lucrative source of income in a consistent and fair manner.

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AFRICAN LIBERALISM IN THE AGE OF EMPIRE? HASSUNA D’GHIES AND LIBERAL CONSTITUTIONALISM IN NORTH AFRICA, 1822–1835

Modern Intellectual History ◽

10.1017/s1479244314000778 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 529-553 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

IAN COLLER

Keyword(s):

Ottoman Empire ◽

North Africa ◽

World Order ◽

Its Region ◽

Political Activity ◽

Early Nineteenth Century ◽

Individual Property ◽

Existential Crisis ◽

Liberal Constitutionalism ◽

European Policies

Although in most accounts of liberalism Africans appear only as passive victims or beneficiaries of European policies, in the early nineteenth century many Africans shared liberal aspirations for the “good society” based on free trade, constitutional government and individual property. However, African liberalism was articulated in the context of an existential crisis provoked by the new European world order. Hassuna D’Ghies, educated in Tripoli and Europe, articulated an overtly “African” liberal response to this crisis of adaptation through his writings and political activity in London in the 1820s. By the end of the decade, D’Ghies had abandoned this project and returned to North Africa to take up a more authoritarian model of reform that ultimately led to the reabsorption of Tripoli and its region into the Ottoman Empire. D’Ghies's turn toward an “imperial liberalism” underwritten by Islamic legitimacy suggests the impossibility of reconciling African autonomy with European liberal claims to universality, and the ways in which African political thought was fragmented by imperial globalization.

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Complaints About Avâriz Assessment and Payment in the Avâriz-tax System: An Aspect of the Relationship Between Centre and Periphery. A Case Study of Kayseri, 1618-1700

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient ◽

10.1163/156852003772914857 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 46 (4) ◽

pp. 437-474

Author(s):

Süleyman Demirci

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

Ottoman Empire ◽

Court Cases ◽

Central Administration ◽

Common People ◽

Tax System ◽

Near Eastern ◽

The Relationship ◽

Insight Into

AbstractThis paper on complaints about avâriz assessment and payment relies on the şer'iyye sicils of Kayseri. It begins by reviewing the traditional Near Eastern concept of State Justice in conjunction with the archival evidence. By examining the court cases and the imperial orders in these sicils it is possible for us to assess how the Ottoman judicial system and central administration dealt with the complaints and alleged corruption regarding the avâriz levies in the province of Kayseri throughout the seventeenth century. It is also possible to see how common people fought with rising problems in the avâriz system, or how they sought justice, and to what degree they knew what was their legal right and what not by examining the sicils themselves. The result of this examination will help to revise a number of misconceptions regarding complaints in the Ottoman Empire- a study of complaints from the sicils may yield a certain insight into the nature of the relationship between the centre and periphery. Cet article sur les plaintes concernant le calcul et le paiement de l'impôt avâriz est fondé sur les şer'iyye sicils de Kayseri. Il débute par l'étude du concept traditionnel de l'État de Justice au Proche Orient en relation avec les données trouvées dans les archives. En examinant les procès et les ordres impériaux dans ces sicils , il nous sera possible d'établir comment, à la fois le système judiciaire et l'administration centrale de l'Empire ottoman, ont traité les plaintes et la supposée corruption concernant le prélèvement de l'impôt avâriz dans la province de Kayseri tout au long du XVIIème siècle. Il nous sera alors possible, en exploitant les documents contenus dans les sicils, de voir comment la population luttait contre les problèmes croissants dans le système avâriz, comment elle avait recours à la justice et dans quelle mesure elle connaissait ses droits légaux. Les résultats de cette analyse permettront de réviser un certain nombre d'idées fausses à propos des plaintes dans l'Empire ottoman; de même, l'étude de ces plaintes pourra éventuellement donner une certaine idée de la nature des liens entre le centre et la périphérie.

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Press Propaganda and Subaltern Agents of Pan-Islamic Networks in the Muslim Mediterranean World prior to World War I

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474430616.003.0006 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Odile Moreau

Keyword(s):

Middle East ◽

World War I ◽

North Africa ◽

World War ◽

Subaltern Studies ◽

Resistance Movements ◽

The Press ◽

Mediterranean World ◽

History Of

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.

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Possessing the Iconic Book

Postscripts The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds ◽

10.1558/post.v6i1-3.309 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 6 (1-3) ◽

pp. 309-329

Author(s):

Claudia V. Camp

Keyword(s):

Second Century ◽

Religious Literature ◽

Ben Sira ◽

The Core ◽

The Bible ◽

Iconic Status ◽

The Voice ◽

Woman Wisdom ◽

Martin Marty

I propose that the notion of possession adds an important ideological nuance to the analyses of iconic books set forth by Martin Marty (1980) and, more recently, by James Watts (2006). Using the early second century BCE book of Sirach as a case study, I tease out some of the symbolic dynamics through which the Bible achieved iconic status in the first place, that is, the conditions in which significance was attached to its material, finite shape. For Ben Sira, this symbolism was deeply tied to his honor-shame ethos in which women posed a threat to the honor of his eternal name, a threat resolved through his possession of Torah figured as the Woman Wisdom. What my analysis suggests is that the conflicted perceptions of gender in Ben Sira’s text is fundamental to his appropriation of, and attempt to produce, authoritative religious literature, and thus essential for understanding his relationship to this emerging canon. Torah, conceived as female, was the core of this canon, but Ben Sira adds his own literary production to this female “body” (or feminized corpus, if you will), becoming the voice of both through the experience of perfect possession.

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