This thesis examines the work of the missionaries from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) and the rise of a Protestant community in Ottoman Syria, from the commencement of the missionary station at Beirut in 1823, to the dissolution of the community in 1860. The primary goals of this thesis are to investigate the history of this missionary encounter and the culture of the new community. This analysis is guided by the theoretical framework of Practice Theory and employs gender as a lens to explore the development of the Protestant identity. It argues that the Protestant community in Ottoman Syria emerged within the expanding port-city of Beirut and was situated within both the American and Ottoman historical contexts. The social structures that defined this community reflect the centrality of the ABCFM missionaries within the community and reveals a latent hierarchy based upon racial difference. However, tensions within the community and subversions to the missionaries’ definition of Protestantism persisted throughout the period under review, which eventually led to the fragmentation of the community in 1860. The contribution of this thesis lies in its investigation onto the activities of women and their delineation of Protestant womanhood and motherhood, as an important manifestation of Protestant culture. This work demonstrates the centrality of women to the development of the Protestant community in Ottoman Syria and reveals the complex interpersonal relationships that defined this missionary encounter.

The work aims to outline the fate of the Lebanese Druze community in the period in which they fell under the rule of the Ottoman Empire which is a period when the Druze, unlike today, enjoyed considerable political importance, which had been gradually lost. Regionally focused on Lebanese Emirate and its successor political formations, this work will also deal with the reasons for decline of their influence. The thesis is divided into several parts. The introductory chapter is devoted to familiarization with the Druze religion and social structure. The second chapter describes the period after the conquest by the Ottoman Empire and the peak of Druze power during the Macnid emirate. The third chapter deals with transition of control into Sunni and subsequently Maronite hands of the Shihab dynasty. The fourth chapter deals with the declining role of the Druze and increasing international interference and strengthening the position of Maronite. Last, the fifth chapter provides the context and describes the factors that led to the loss of privileged status of the Druze community.

Thesis advisor: Kathleen Bailey / Arab Nationalism rose to prominence in the Middle East region following the establishment of the mandate states after World War II. The ideology attempted to unite the area and to propel the Arabs forward. The collapse of Arab Nationalism left many in the region questioning the very basics of their culture. Islam became the answer for the failure of Arab Nationalism because it offered the Arabs a genuine ideology, unlike Arab Nationalism which was imported from European ideas. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Dana Sajdi / The British physicians Dr. Alexander Russell M.D., FRS (c.1715 - 1768) and Dr. Patrick Russell M.D., FRS (1726/7 - 1805), both British Levant Company servants, wrote and published two editions in 1756 and 1794, respectively. These brothers resided in Aleppo, Syria, when it was a provincial capital of the Ottoman Empire and recorded their observations and empirical observations in a literary work that would later become the two editions of The Natural History of Aleppo. These editions are vital references for modern scholars concerned with Ottoman Syria, Levantine commercial activity and European presence, and the city of Aleppo. However, these very scholars ignore the significant fact that these two editions were written by two different individuals at two different points in history. Thus, this MA thesis aims to investigate the two editions and illustrate how the variations in these publications were the result of both coexisting and correlated processes that culminated in an eighteenth-century phenomenon of the transformation of British global presence from a commercial power to a modern empire. Various socio-economic, political, and cultural changes related to the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, and the growth of Western, especially British, global hegemony, resulted in a particular attitude towards what became constructed as the "Orient". This thesis examines the ways in which the interrelated processes of the rise of modern scientific disciplines, the quest for order, the emergence of the culture of collecting, and the new emphasis on the value of "useful knowledge" rendered the "Orient" a place to be ordered and studied, hence, to be controlled. The eighteenth century witnessed several decisive events that facilitated this phenomenon; with Britain's victory in the Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763), particularly at the Battle of Plassey (1757), Britain deviated from its previous position as a commercial power and emerged victorious as an imperial empire. The project attempts to demonstrate how the Russell Brothers' book on Aleppo represents a movement from the fascination with natural history, that is, the topography and botany of Aleppo (Alexander Russell's edition), to an attempt at a comprehensive study of a people, language, and culture (Patrick Russell's edition). The change in focus and tenor found in Patrick's edition represents a shift from natural history to ethnographic, a shift that is essentially Orientalist. Though the book is about the relatively marginal city of Aleppo, the shift between the two editions reflects not only the change of the character of British global dominance, which was, after the 1857 Indian Mutiny, officially colonial, but also the very national identity of Britain. This thesis, then, is a study of how Aleppo was conceived and reconceived through the prism of the change of British relationship to India from a commercial entanglement to imperial domination. The variations between the two editions, then, were a result of changing circumstances and consequent shifting attitudes. I not only attempt to illustrate Britain's transformation from a mercantile and commercial power to a colonial and imperial empire, but also how the variations of the Russell brothers' two editions, from a collection of observations to a scientific contribution to a body of specialized knowledge, were the direct results of the two authors' transformations from the botanist to the orientalist. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.

This thesis explores the gendered dynamics of industrialisation in the late Ottoman Empire and British India. It examines the ways in which gendered notions of skill, waged work, domesticity and technology shaped employment patterns, labour processes and politics in silk factories in Bursa and cotton mills in Bombay between 1850 and 1910. The project undermines the notion that women's labour was incidental to the development of large-scale factory enterprise in Ottoman and Indian lands. I argue that the confinement of women to labour-intensive and low-paid occupations within and outside the factory brought down wages and provided flexibility to mechanised production. This flexibility was key to the survival and rapid growth of the export-oriented industries in Bursa and Bombay. The common mechanisms of women's marginalisation in the workforce included segregation, masculinisation of machinery, vertical organisation of trade unions, male-controlled recruitment processes and the household division of labour. The extent to which women influenced employment practices depended on the availability of external mediation as well as their means to subvert notions of victimhood, domesticity, honour and duty. In connecting the Ottoman and Indian paths to industrialisation from a gender perspective, the project destabilises male-centric approaches to the global history of economy, labour and technology.

This thesis analyses the position of the Ottoman Empire and the Italian penin- sula and their position in the international scenario during the 19th century. This work studies the developments in the Ottoman Empire and the Italian peninsula from the beginning of the Tanzimat (in the Ottoman Empire) and the Risorgimento (in the Italian peninsula), until the Crimean War, and eval- uates the consequences of these events for the European balance of power. These developments took place at a time when Europe was divided be- tween conservative and liberal states, the formers being represented by Russia and the Habsburg Empire, the latters by Great Britain and France. This the- sis, while focusing on the role played by these great Powers in influencing the Ottoman Empire and the Italian peninsula during the first half of the 19th century, also considers the international developments that followed the out- break of the Crimean War. The Crimean War in fact saw the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia allying themselves with the liberal forces, a choice consistent with the political path these two states were following in their internal reforms, which they were undertaking to allow them to meet the challenges of evolving times.

This paper explores the impact of Qajar-Ottoman diplomacy on issues of identity and sovereignty during the late nineteenth century as addressed in the Treaties of Erzurum of 1828 and 1848. Through these treaties, the Qajars and the Ottomans introduced notions of imperial identities, extraterritoriality, and extended their imperial spheres of influence. The Treaties of Erzurum defined subjecthood and sovereignty over subjects based on place of origin, not current location. This radical change in international politics created a new, bureaucratic method of identification. Focusing on the Qajar perspective, this paper proposes that although Qajar subjects had always travelled to the Ottoman Empire for religious or economic reasons, the Treaties of Erzurum in 1828 and 1848 changed Middle Eastern geopolitics by legally allowing the Qajar government to exercise sovereign rights over its subjects. To better understand the consequences of these new imperial identities and labels, this paper looks at different communities in the Ottoman Empire that shared special relationships with the Qajars. Each of these chapters focuses on their affiliation with the Qajars and how the Treaties of Erzurum affected them: first, the Qajar travelers, second, the Qajar expatriates, and third, the Ottoman Shi’is. The examination of Qajar government documents, Persian travelogues and newspapers reveals complicated relationships between the Qajars and these communities. Analysis of each provides insight on the Qajar Empire’s efforts in fostering a relationship with these communities, as made possible by the Treaties of Erzurum. This study contributes to a number of narratives involving the Qajar Empire. First, it challenges the weak imagery surrounding the Qajar government and shows the Qajar extension of power outside its borders. Furthermore, this paper engages in the issue of identity, a crucial concept for understanding nascent, pre-nationalist sentiments. Discussion of the Treaties of Erzurum in conjunction with nationalism or imperial power remains overwhelmingly neglected. Although previous scholars have alluded to extraterritoriality in their research, the discourse on subjecthood and identity beyond imperial borders has been ignored in the Middle Eastern context. This study serves as a starting point for future research on the subject. / text

The important historical role of pastoral nomads in Mesopotamia stands in stark contrast to the dearth of archaeological data on pastoral nomadic groups of any pre-modern period. Archaeological models neglect not just a significant segment of past populations; they also lack data on a substantial portion of the past food and textile production systems. Historical records and excavation have demonstrated that the resilience of Mesopotamian economy depended in part on pastoralism, but archaeologists know very little about the long-term management of the pastoral landscapes beyond core agricultural areas. This study examines empirical evidence for pastoral nomadic modes of inhabiting and transforming the landscape over the last 500 years in the upland fringes of the Upper Tigris River Valley in southeastern Turkey. Four seasons of archaeological survey mapped diachronic patterns in pastoral nomadic winter land-use, including patterns of campsites and spatially associated landscape features such as cisterns, corrals, caves, cairns, and check dams. Ethnographic and historical data as well as satellite imagery aided in archaeological interpretation. Three main conclusions about pastoral nomads are drawn from the characteristics and spatial distributions of the surveyed features. 1) Pastoral nomads altered their local landscapes for the purposes of sheltering humans and animals, collecting water, and improving pastures. Areas surrounding campsites contained abundant evidence of landscape management and capital investments in the herding potential of the area. 2) These investments were fixed, re-usable, and encouraged seasonal re-inhabitation of certain areas. Over time, these features became “landscape anchors”—geographic foci that structured the spatial organization of local landscapes. 3) The topographical position of domestic and herding features would have resulted in vertical daily movement patterns for humans and animals. These results force a reassessment of widely-held assumptions about the invisibility of campsites and the role of pastoral nomads in the transformation of Near Eastern landscapes. Although limited in time and space, this study presents grounds for optimism for a robust landscape archaeology of pastoral nomads. Intensive surveys, targeted excavations, and radiometric dating programs have enormous potential to provide more complex diachronic understandings of pastoral nomadic land-use strategies, sustainability, quotidian movement, and senses of place. / Anthropology

The issue raised in this thesis is the importance of dealing with the security of Ottoman women--from the 16th century to the Tanzimat (Reform) Era (1839--1876)--and the significance of this subject in understanding the Ottoman society in general. The thesis raises the point that if sources such as court records, fetvas (religious verdicts), and travelers' reports draw a somewhat different picture of the Ottoman woman from the popular image of the "oppressed woman," then it is important to know how this picture differs. Examination of these sources shows that they actually confirm one another from different perspectives. The thesis also explores how the metaphysical underpinnings of Ottoman society provided an atmosphere conducive to women's security. It attempts to find an answer to the underlying question, 'What motivated these women to take action?' by examining their physical, financial, and marital related security.

Conventionally, the era that begins after the death of celebrated Ottoman sultan Suleyman I in 1566 is seen as the beginning of Ottoman decline. In line with the decline paradigm, late sixteenth century is also accepted as a time of political turmoil. This period is characterized by constant power struggles among Ottoman ruling elite and the deterioration of the classical Ottoman political order. Concerning the rise of new power elite (favourites) in the court and bureaucracy vis-a-vis the decreasing power of the sultans and grand vezirs, "evil counsellors" and the inaccessibility of the Ottoman sultan were chronic themes in the Ottoman Empire. Yet, at the same time, in most of the Ottoman political treatises access to and privacy with the sultan is restricted to a very limited number of the servants of the court and bureaucracy. Especially the communication between the sultan and the grand vezir is advised to be a secret. In view of this important political dictum, in the present study it is argued that the power also came from and built by the monopoly on information about the matters of state by the least number of people. In accordance with this view, the power politics of the late sixteenth century Ottoman political arena is analyzed as struggles over controlling the flow of information about the matters of state.