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European and Islamic Trade in the Early Ottoman State
International trade was of great importance for the Ottomans in the construction of their empire. Kate Fleet's book examines the trade links which existed between European merchants and their Muslim counterparts from the beginnings of the Ottoman empire in 1300 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. By using previously unexploited Latin and Turkish sources, and by focusing on the trading partnership between the Genoese and the Turks, she demonstrates how this interaction contributed to the economic development of the early Ottoman state and, indeed, to Ottoman territorial expansion. Where other studies have emphasized the military prowess of the early Ottoman state and its role as 'the infidel enemy', the book offers an insight into its economic aspirations and eventual integration into the economy of the Mediterranean basin. This is a readable, authoritative and innovative study which illuminates our understanding of an obscure period in early Ottoman history.
The Ottomans and the Balkans
This discussion of historiography concerning the Ottoman Empire should be viewed in the context of our discipline's self-examination, which certainly has been encouraged by recent conflicts in southeastern Europe and the Middle East. Our contributors analyse the fashion in which the historiographies established in various national states have viewed the Ottoman Empire and its legacy. At the same time they discuss the links of twentieth-century historiography with the rich historical tradition of the Ottoman Empire itself, both in its metropolitan and its provincial forms. The struggle against anachronisms born from the nationalist paradigm in history doubtless constitutes the most important common feature of these otherwise very diverse studies.
The Nature of the Early Ottoman State
Drawing on surviving documents from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State provides a revisionist approach to the study of the formative years of the Ottoman Empire. Challenging the predominant view that a desire to spread Islam accounted for Ottoman success during the fourteenth-century advance into Southeastern Europe, Lowry argues that the primary motivation was a desire for booty and slaves. The early Ottomans were a plundering confederacy, open to anyone (Muslim or Christian) who could meaningfully contribute to this goal. It was this lack of a strict religious orthodoxy, and a willingness to preserve local customs and practices, that allowed the Ottomans to gain and maintain support. Later accounts were written to buttress what had become the self-image of the dynasty following its incorporation of the heartland of the Islamic world in the sixteenth century.
Muqarnas
The articles in Muqarnas 27 address topics such as spolia in medieval Islamic architecture, Islamic coinage in the seventh century, the architecture of the Alhambra from an environmental perspective, and Ottoman–Mamluk gift exchange in the fifteenth century. The volume also features a new section, entitled “Notes and Sources”, with pieces highlighting primary sources such as Akbar’s Kath?sarits?gara. Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World is sponsored by the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Turks
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