| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines the relationship between state and society in the Ottoman Empire during the 17th and 18th centuries by examining concepts and practices of privacy. Fatwas of Ottoman jurists reveal certain principles ordering the division of urban areas into public and private spaces. The article explores their application during the rebuilding of Damascus after its devastation by an earthquake in 1759. Archival sources disclose the priorities that guided the state in reconstructing a ruined provincial capital: religious values; a concern for the inhabitants' well-being; and, rather prominently, an intent to maintain a dichotomy between public and private. In this the Ottomans were different from their contemporary European counterparts, who often took advantage of major disasters to reshape relations between rulers and subjects. This divergence is demonstrated in this article by comparing post-1759 Damascus with London after the Great Fire of 1666 and Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake.
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