"Palestine and Egypt under the Ottomans is based on Hisham Khatib's unique collection of art and printed works covering the 400-year period of Ottoman rule in the region. The core of the material here are the paintings - mainly nineteenth-century watercolours, many of them by renowned artists such as Frederick Goodall, Edward Lear, Carl Werner and Carl Haag - which concentrate on a realistic portrayal of the Holy Land (in particular Jerusalem) and Egypt, rather than basking in romantic 'Orientalism'. Images from the valuable plate books are of exceptional interest. These include rare works by Charles van de Velde, Sir David Wilkie, Louis de Forbin, Francois Paris, Achille Prisse d'Avennes and David Roberts. In these plate books the text merely served to explain the large-scale engravings, lithographs or etchings that illustrated them. The section on travel books - also frequently illustrated - includes works by Bernardino Amico, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, Michel Nau, Adrian Reland and Walter Tyndale. Some of the oldest material discussed and illustrated here - from the earliest days of Ottoman rule in Palestine and Egypt - are the maps and views, many of them by such well known names as Abraham Ortelius and Bernhard von Breydenbach. From the later end of the Ottoman period, this volume also records some of the earliest surveys and atlases of the region, as well as original photographs." --Book Jacket.

Krämer focuses on patterns of interaction amongst Jews and Arabs (Muslim as well as Christian) in Palestine, an interaction that deeply affected the economic, political, social, and cultural evolution of both communities under Ottoman and British rule.

Following the so called "Arab Spring" the world's attention has been drawn to the presence of significant minority religious groups within the predominantly Islamic Middle East. Of these minorities Christians are by far the largest, comprising over 10% of the population in Syria and as much as 40% in Lebanon.The largest single group of Christians are the Arabic-speaking Orthodox. This work fills a major lacuna in the scholarship of wider Christian history and more specifically that of lived religion within the Ottoman empire. Beginning with a survey of the Christian community during the first nine hundred years of Muslim rule, the author traces the evolution of Arab Orthodox Christian society from its roots in the Hellenistic culture of the Byzantine Empire to a distinctly Syro-Palestinian identity. There follows a detailed examination of this multi-faceted community, from the Ottoman conquest of Syria, Palestine and Egypt in 1516 to the Egyptian invasion of Syria in 1831. The author draws on archaeological evidence and previously unpublished primary sources uncovered in Russian archives and Middle Eastern monastic libraries to present a vivid and compelling account of this vital but little-known spiritual and political culture, situating it within a complex network of relations reaching throughout the Mediterranean, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. The work is made more accessible to a non-specialist reader by the addition of a glossary, whilst the scholar will benefit from a detailed bibliography of both primary and secondary sources. A foreword has been contributed to this first English language edition by the Patriarch of Antioch, John X. It contextualizes the history found in this work within the ongoing struggle to preserve the ancient Christian cultures of the Arabic speaking peoples from extinction within their ancestral homeland.

This collection of articles discusses various political, social, cultural and economic aspects of the Ottoman Middle East. By using various textual and visual documents, produced in the Ottoman Empire, the collection offers new insights into the matrix of life during the long period of Ottoman rule. The different parts of the volume explore the main topics studied by Amnon Cohen: Ottoman Palestine, Egypt and the Fertile Crescent under Ottoman rule, Ottoman Jews and their relations with the surrounding societies and various social aspects of Ottoman societies.

The sixteenth century was a watershed in Egyptian history. After being the center of powerful Islamic empires for centuries, Egypt was conquered in 1517 and made an outlying province of the Ottoman Empire. This study illuminates aspects of Egypt's social, intellectual, and religious life in the sixteenth century, as described by the Egyptian Sufi 'Abd al-Wahhb al-Sha'rn, one of the last original writers before cultural decadence permeated the Arab world in the late Middle Ages. A prominent social commentator, Sha'rn reflected the intense Turkish-Egyptian struggle of the period and provided a vivid and intimate account of the Muslim world during the later medieval stage. Now in paperback, Society and Religion in Early Ottoman Egypt attempts to give a comprehensive analysis of Shaærani writings.