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ID139907
Title ProperEncounter after the conquest
Other Title Informationscholarly gatherings in 16th-century Ottoman Damascus
LanguageENG
AuthorHelen Pfeifer ;  Pfeifer, Helen
Summary / Abstract (Note)This article examines the extensive intellectual and social exchange that resulted from the Ottoman imperial incorporation of Arab lands in the 16th century. In the years immediately after the 1516–17 conquest of the Mamluk Sultanate that brought Egypt, Greater Syria, and the Hijaz under Ottoman rule, Turkish-speaking Ottomans from the central lands (Rumis) found that their political power was not matched by religious and cultural prestige. As the case of Damascus shows, scholarly gatherings called majālis (sing. majlis) were key spaces where this initial asymmetry was both acutely felt and gradually overcome. As arenas for discussion among scholars on the move, literary salons facilitated the circulation of books and ideas and the establishment of a shared intellectual tradition. As occasions where stories were told and history was made, they supported the formation of a common past. In informal gatherings and in the biographical dictionaries that described them, Rumis and Arabs came together to forge an empire-wide learned culture as binding as any political or administrative ingredient of the Ottoman imperial glue.
`In' analytical NoteInternational Journal of Middle East Studies Vol. 47, No.2; May 2015: p.219-239
Journal SourceInternational Journal of Middle East Studies 2015-06 47, 2
Key Words16th Century ;  Arab Lands ;  Ottoman Damascus ;  Encounter - Conquest ;  Scholarly Gatherings ;  Intellectual and Social Exchange ;  Turkish - Speaking Ottomans ;  Ottoman Imperial Glue