Adam Mestyan
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 368728 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Adam Mestyan |
| NOMBRES | Adam |
| APELLIDO | Mestyan |
| FIRMA | MESTYAN A |
| AFILIACIONES | Duke University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5945-6147 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 23 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 22 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 23 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2009 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 2 |
Micro-Numerals
Scholars of Middle Eastern economic history have rarely examined systems of numerical notation. This article analyzes a set of glyphs used by accountant-scribes to represent unit fractions in Arabic fiscal documents from Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Sudan between the fifth/eleventh and fourteenth/twentieth centuries. Through documentary analysis, I trace the emergence of an official Arabic culture of accountancy. I argue that these “micro-numeral” gl…
Microhistory as Industrial History
This article argues that the microhistorical analysis of one specific industrial enterprise offers a useful perspective from which to study local participation in global industrialization and to unite business and environmental history. Using the example of the Daira Sanieh, a giant sugar holding in late Ottoman Egypt (the so-called 'khedivate'), I map the economic logic of this non-sovereign polity and suggest that capturing capital was its rule…
Acquisition by Use in Islamic Law
This article presents three legal opinions by the Ḥanafī mufti Muḥammad al-ʿAbbāsī al-Mahdī in late Ottoman Egypt (the so-called “khedivate”) to explore the legal problem of what Muslim jurists call “reclaiming unused land,” literally bringing “dead” land back to life (iḥyāʾ al-mawāt). At the core of this legal problem is a norm which we can call “acquisition by use.” This norm prescribes that the use of unused land gives ownership rights to the …
Modern Arab Kingship
Land Privatization in Islamic Law? The case of irṣād in Egypt, 1850-1950
In this article, I explore the uses of the term ird in nineteenth-and twentiethcentury legal opinions (fatwa, pl.fatw) issued by Egyptian muftis.This term can be rendered into English as 'the public trust' or, more precisely, 'the designated endowment'.Kenneth Cuno argues that this was not a judicial category in applied law but that muftis used this term in Ottoman Egypt and Syria to justify the position of Muslim rentiers in an ideology of local…
An Egyptian Shaykh's Literary World, 1870
The Probate Regime
In this article, we explore the “probate regime,” an administrative field of government activity of legally transferring, taxing, and administering bequests. As an example, we study the changes of the Egyptian probate regime in a longue durée perspective, with a focus on the nineteenth century when Egypt was a sub-Ottoman “khedivate.” We argue that the rationalization and expansion of the previously Ottoman administration of bequests, unlike West…
From administrative to political order? Global legal history, the organic law, and the constitution of mandate Syria, 1925–1930
This article explores the making of the State of Syria after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. I argue that an event-based approach in global legal history offers a useful perspective for studying the transition from imperial to international and national systems. Drawing on new archival research in France and Saudi Arabia, I focus upon the creation of the 1928 Syrian constitution in the League’s mandate to show the administrative framework …
A Muslim Dualism? Inter-Imperial History and Austria-Hungary in Ottoman Thought, 1867–1921
Historians often look for genealogies of nationalism in Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman imperial history. In this article, I use an inter-imperial framework to argue that the formative period of contemporary Eastern Mediterranean-European regionalism was the last five decades of these two empires. The diplomatic, economic and cultural relations between the two middle powers compose an alternative history to national narratives. I show that dualism (…
Pious Endowments
Seeing Like a Khedivate
Theories of state modernization rarely consider the relationship between sovereignty and government capacity. This paper focuses on the khedivate of Egypt, a semi-independent province in the Ottoman Empire. My claim is that endowed agricultural land was a useful tool of fiscal modernization for the khedivial government. The governors taxed and made such lands alienable for public purposes. In order to support this claim, this study uses an 1869 e…
Domestic Sovereignty,A'yanDevelopmentalism, and Global Microhistory in Modern Egypt
Through a new type of global microhistory, this article explores the remaking of the political system in Egypt before colonialism. I argue that developmentalism and the origins of Arabic monarchism were closely related in 1860s Egypt. Drawing on hitherto unknown archival evidence, I show that groups of Egyptian local notables (a'yan) sought to cooperate with the Ottoman governor Ismail (r. 1863-1879) in order to gain capital and steam machines, a…
Arab Patriotism
Upgrade
This essay focuses on the month of Ramadan and its end celebration, ‘Id al-Fitr, the Festival of Breaking the Fast, in the Ottoman Arab provinces in the second half of the nineteenth century. What was the effect of new technologies and urbanization on these Muslim practices in their relationship to politics and the new public spaces? Building on recent scholarship, Mestyan argues that these were reconstituted as part of symbolic politics and serv…
Arab Patriotism
Arab Patriotism presents the essential backstory to the formation of the modern nation-state and mass nationalism in the Middle East. While standard histories claim that the roots of Arab nationalism emerged in opposition to the Ottoman milieu, Adam Mestyan points to the patriotic sentiment that grew in the Egyptian province of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century, arguing that it served as a pivotal way station on the path to the bir…
Arabic Theater in Early Khedivial Culture, 1868–72
This article revisits the official culture of the early khedivate through a microhistory of the first modern Egyptian theater in Arabic. Based on archival research, it aims at a recalibration of recent scholarship by showing khedivial culture as a complex framework of competing patriotisms. It analyzes the discourse about theater in the Arabic press, including the journalist Muhammad Unsi's call for performances in Arabic in 1870. It shows that t…
Materials for a History of Hungarian Academic Orientalism
This article provides materials for an institutional history of academic Hungarian Orientalism through the life of Gyula Germanus (1884-1979). Using hitherto unexploited archives, this text explores his education, integration into academia, and career up to 1939. I argue that Germanus was an assimilated Hungarian of Jewish origin with a strong loyalty to the state. His two conversions - to Calvinism in 1909 and to Islam in 1930 - also transformed…
Policing Egyptian Women - Sex, Law, and Medicine in Khedivial Egypt
Policing Egyptian Women - Sex, Law, and Medicine in Khedivial Egypt." British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 40(4), pp. 469–470
Power and music in Cairo
In this article, the origins of the modern metropolis are reconsidered, using the example of Cairo within its Ottoman and global context. I argue that Cairo's Azbakiyya Garden served as a central ground for fashioning a dynastic capital throughout the nineteenth century. This argument sheds new light on the politics of Khedive Ismail, who introduced a new state representation through urban planning and music theatre. The social history of music i…
Mediterraneans - North Africa and Europe in an age of migration, c. 1800-1900
Arabic Lexicography and European Aesthetics
Mediterranean Crossings/Mediterranean Passages
Art, Design & Architecture in Central Europe 1890–1920
Mediterraneans - North Africa and Europe in an age of migration, c. 1800-1900
Arabic Theater in Early Khedivial Culture, 1868–72
This article revisits the official culture of the early khedivate through a microhistory of the first modern Egyptian theater in Arabic. Based on archival research, it aims at a recalibration of recent scholarship by showing khedivial culture as a complex framework of competing patriotisms. It analyzes the discourse about theater in the Arabic press, including the journalist Muhammad Unsi's call for performances in Arabic in 1870. It shows that t…
A Muslim Dualism? Inter-Imperial History and Austria-Hungary in Ottoman Thought, 1867–1921
Historians often look for genealogies of nationalism in Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman imperial history. In this article, I use an inter-imperial framework to argue that the formative period of contemporary Eastern Mediterranean-European regionalism was the last five decades of these two empires. The diplomatic, economic and cultural relations between the two middle powers compose an alternative history to national narratives. I show that dualism (…
Domestic Sovereignty,A'yanDevelopmentalism, and Global Microhistory in Modern Egypt
Through a new type of global microhistory, this article explores the remaking of the political system in Egypt before colonialism. I argue that developmentalism and the origins of Arabic monarchism were closely related in 1860s Egypt. Drawing on hitherto unknown archival evidence, I show that groups of Egyptian local notables (a'yan) sought to cooperate with the Ottoman governor Ismail (r. 1863-1879) in order to gain capital and steam machines, a…
Upgrade
This essay focuses on the month of Ramadan and its end celebration, ‘Id al-Fitr, the Festival of Breaking the Fast, in the Ottoman Arab provinces in the second half of the nineteenth century. What was the effect of new technologies and urbanization on these Muslim practices in their relationship to politics and the new public spaces? Building on recent scholarship, Mestyan argues that these were reconstituted as part of symbolic politics and serv…
Power and music in Cairo
In this article, the origins of the modern metropolis are reconsidered, using the example of Cairo within its Ottoman and global context. I argue that Cairo's Azbakiyya Garden served as a central ground for fashioning a dynastic capital throughout the nineteenth century. This argument sheds new light on the politics of Khedive Ismail, who introduced a new state representation through urban planning and music theatre. The social history of music i…
Art, Design & Architecture in Central Europe 1890–1920
Arabic Lexicography and European Aesthetics
Mediterranean Crossings/Mediterranean Passages
Mediterraneans - North Africa and Europe in an age of migration, c. 1800-1900
Policing Egyptian Women - Sex, Law, and Medicine in Khedivial Egypt
Policing Egyptian Women - Sex, Law, and Medicine in Khedivial Egypt." British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 40(4), pp. 469–470
Power and music in Cairo
In this article, the origins of the modern metropolis are reconsidered, using the example of Cairo within its Ottoman and global context. I argue that Cairo's Azbakiyya Garden served as a central ground for fashioning a dynastic capital throughout the nineteenth century. This argument sheds new light on the politics of Khedive Ismail, who introduced a new state representation through urban planning and music theatre. The social history of music i…
Arabic Theater in Early Khedivial Culture, 1868–72
This article revisits the official culture of the early khedivate through a microhistory of the first modern Egyptian theater in Arabic. Based on archival research, it aims at a recalibration of recent scholarship by showing khedivial culture as a complex framework of competing patriotisms. It analyzes the discourse about theater in the Arabic press, including the journalist Muhammad Unsi's call for performances in Arabic in 1870. It shows that t…
Materials for a History of Hungarian Academic Orientalism
This article provides materials for an institutional history of academic Hungarian Orientalism through the life of Gyula Germanus (1884-1979). Using hitherto unexploited archives, this text explores his education, integration into academia, and career up to 1939. I argue that Germanus was an assimilated Hungarian of Jewish origin with a strong loyalty to the state. His two conversions - to Calvinism in 1909 and to Islam in 1930 - also transformed…
Arab Patriotism
Upgrade
This essay focuses on the month of Ramadan and its end celebration, ‘Id al-Fitr, the Festival of Breaking the Fast, in the Ottoman Arab provinces in the second half of the nineteenth century. What was the effect of new technologies and urbanization on these Muslim practices in their relationship to politics and the new public spaces? Building on recent scholarship, Mestyan argues that these were reconstituted as part of symbolic politics and serv…
Arab Patriotism
Arab Patriotism presents the essential backstory to the formation of the modern nation-state and mass nationalism in the Middle East. While standard histories claim that the roots of Arab nationalism emerged in opposition to the Ottoman milieu, Adam Mestyan points to the patriotic sentiment that grew in the Egyptian province of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century, arguing that it served as a pivotal way station on the path to the bir…
Domestic Sovereignty,A'yanDevelopmentalism, and Global Microhistory in Modern Egypt
Through a new type of global microhistory, this article explores the remaking of the political system in Egypt before colonialism. I argue that developmentalism and the origins of Arabic monarchism were closely related in 1860s Egypt. Drawing on hitherto unknown archival evidence, I show that groups of Egyptian local notables (a'yan) sought to cooperate with the Ottoman governor Ismail (r. 1863-1879) in order to gain capital and steam machines, a…
Pious Endowments
Seeing Like a Khedivate
Theories of state modernization rarely consider the relationship between sovereignty and government capacity. This paper focuses on the khedivate of Egypt, a semi-independent province in the Ottoman Empire. My claim is that endowed agricultural land was a useful tool of fiscal modernization for the khedivial government. The governors taxed and made such lands alienable for public purposes. In order to support this claim, this study uses an 1869 e…
From administrative to political order? Global legal history, the organic law, and the constitution of mandate Syria, 1925–1930
This article explores the making of the State of Syria after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. I argue that an event-based approach in global legal history offers a useful perspective for studying the transition from imperial to international and national systems. Drawing on new archival research in France and Saudi Arabia, I focus upon the creation of the 1928 Syrian constitution in the League’s mandate to show the administrative framework …
A Muslim Dualism? Inter-Imperial History and Austria-Hungary in Ottoman Thought, 1867–1921
Historians often look for genealogies of nationalism in Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman imperial history. In this article, I use an inter-imperial framework to argue that the formative period of contemporary Eastern Mediterranean-European regionalism was the last five decades of these two empires. The diplomatic, economic and cultural relations between the two middle powers compose an alternative history to national narratives. I show that dualism (…
Land Privatization in Islamic Law? The case of irṣād in Egypt, 1850-1950
In this article, I explore the uses of the term ird in nineteenth-and twentiethcentury legal opinions (fatwa, pl.fatw) issued by Egyptian muftis.This term can be rendered into English as 'the public trust' or, more precisely, 'the designated endowment'.Kenneth Cuno argues that this was not a judicial category in applied law but that muftis used this term in Ottoman Egypt and Syria to justify the position of Muslim rentiers in an ideology of local…
An Egyptian Shaykh's Literary World, 1870
The Probate Regime
In this article, we explore the “probate regime,” an administrative field of government activity of legally transferring, taxing, and administering bequests. As an example, we study the changes of the Egyptian probate regime in a longue durée perspective, with a focus on the nineteenth century when Egypt was a sub-Ottoman “khedivate.” We argue that the rationalization and expansion of the previously Ottoman administration of bequests, unlike West…
Modern Arab Kingship
Acquisition by Use in Islamic Law
This article presents three legal opinions by the Ḥanafī mufti Muḥammad al-ʿAbbāsī al-Mahdī in late Ottoman Egypt (the so-called “khedivate”) to explore the legal problem of what Muslim jurists call “reclaiming unused land,” literally bringing “dead” land back to life (iḥyāʾ al-mawāt). At the core of this legal problem is a norm which we can call “acquisition by use.” This norm prescribes that the use of unused land gives ownership rights to the …
Microhistory as Industrial History
This article argues that the microhistorical analysis of one specific industrial enterprise offers a useful perspective from which to study local participation in global industrialization and to unite business and environmental history. Using the example of the Daira Sanieh, a giant sugar holding in late Ottoman Egypt (the so-called 'khedivate'), I map the economic logic of this non-sovereign polity and suggest that capturing capital was its rule…
Micro-Numerals
Scholars of Middle Eastern economic history have rarely examined systems of numerical notation. This article analyzes a set of glyphs used by accountant-scribes to represent unit fractions in Arabic fiscal documents from Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Sudan between the fifth/eleventh and fourteenth/twentieth centuries. Through documentary analysis, I trace the emergence of an official Arabic culture of accountancy. I argue that these “micro-numeral” gl…
Political science (18 obras) · Islamic Studies and History (17 obras) · History (16 obras) · Law (16 obras) · Politics (11 obras) · Ancient history (9 obras) · Archaeology (8 obras) · History (8 obras) · Art (7 obras) · Law (7 obras)