Documenting Community in the Late Ottoman Empire

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8970530
AutoresH J B Clements (Yale University, autor correspondente), Henry Clements (Yale University)
Ano2019
Volume51
Fascículo3
Páginas423-443
Data de publicação2019-06-06
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743819000369
OpenAlexW2964894986
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas10
Referências citadas50

This article traces a conflict that erupted in the late 19th century between the Armenians and the Süryani. This conflict, I argue, precipitated nothing less than the creation of the Süryani community itself. The dispute began over the key to a closet in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but it quickly evolved. Soon, the Armenians and the Süryani were clashing over holy places all around Jerusalem. The dispute centered on an Ottoman administrative arrangement which had been institutionalized nearly 400 years earlier: yamak lık . The Ottoman investigators, however, were unfamiliar with this archaic arrangement and had to be reeducated as to its terms and its history. The Süryani and the Armenians offered divergent accounts. Where the Armenians furnished hard documentation, however, the Süryani could produce only claims to tradition and local practice. In this article I argue that, through this protracted conflict, the Süryani came to understand the importance of the documentary record in a post-Tanzimat Ottoman world. They thus turned to an alternative strategy that would conform to this documentary sensibility and render their community visible to the state: a series of petitions with thousands of Süryani signatures from around the Ottoman Empire

Ancient history · Armenian · Moors · Nothing · Ottoman empire · Political science · Politics · State (computer science · African history and culture analysis · Classics · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Philosophy · Turkey's Politics and Society