This book explores an event described by the Times as 'one of the greatest and most sensational political conspiracies of modern times'. On 21 July 1905, just after the Friday Prayer at the Yildiz Hamidiye Mosque in Istanbul, a car bomb exploded and left 26 dead with another 58 wounded. Sultan Abdulhamid II, the target of the attack, remained unscathed. The Ottoman police soon discovered that Armenian revolutionaries were behind the plot and several people were arrested and convicted, among them the Belgian anarchist Edward Joris. His incarceration sparked international reaction and created a diplomatic conflict. The assassination attempt failed, the events faded from memory, and the plot became a footnote in early twentieth-century history. This book rediscovers the conspiracy as a transnational moment in late Ottoman history, opening a window on key themes in modern history, such as international law, terrorism, Orientalism, diplomacy, anarchism, imperialism, nationalism, mass media and humanitarianism. It provides an original look on the many trans- and international links between the Ottoman Empire, Europe and the rest of the world at the start of the twentieth century. cdscds

This book explores an event described by the Times as 'one of the greatest and most sensational political conspiracies of modern times'. On 21 July 1905, just after the Friday Prayer at the Yildiz Hamidiye Mosque in Istanbul, a car bomb exploded and left 26 dead with another 58 wounded. Sultan Abdulhamid II, the target of the attack, remained unscathed. The Ottoman police soon discovered that Armenian revolutionaries were behind the plot and several people were arrested and convicted, among them the Belgian anarchist Edward Joris. His incarceration sparked international reaction and created a diplomatic conflict. The assassination attempt failed, the events faded from memory, and the plot became a footnote in early twentieth-century history. This book rediscovers the conspiracy as a transnational moment in late Ottoman history, opening a window on key themes in modern history, such as international law, terrorism, Orientalism, diplomacy, anarchism, imperialism, nationalism, mass media and humanitarianism. It provides an original look on the many trans- and international links between the Ottoman Empire, Europe and the rest of the world at the start of the twentieth century. cdscds

From its birth in 1839, photography has participated in modernity as much as it has symbolized it. Its capacity to record and display and its claim to accuracy and truth intricately linked the new technology to the dynamism of the modern world. The Ottoman Empire embraced photography with great enthusiasm. In fact, the impact and meaning of photography were compounded with the thrust of modernization and westernization of the Tanzimat movement. By the turn of the century, photography in the Ottoman lands had become a standard feature of everyday life, of public media, and of the state apparatus. This volume explores some of the most striking aspects of the close connection between photography and modernity with a particular focus on the Ottoman Empire. Much of the material concerns the display of modernity through photography, as was so often the case in the photographs and albums commissioned by the Sultan to showcase his empire for Western audiences. Nevertheless, modernity was often embedded in the photographic act, transforming it into a common and mundane practice. Be it in the form of images disseminated through the illustrated press, postcards sent out to family members or anonymous collectors, portraits presented to friends and acquaintances, or pictures taken of employees and convicts, photography had started to invade practically every sphere of public and private life. The visual world we live in today was born some 150 years ago. Camera Ottomana is both a homage to, and a critical assessment of, the local dimension of one of the most potent and transformative technological inventions of the recent past.

In a pioneering reinterpretation, the authors challenge the orientalist perception of the Islamic city. By considering the histories of three Ottoman cities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they depart from the piecemeal methods of previous studies to emphasize the importance of these cities and to highlight their essentially Ottoman character. While the essays provide an overall view, each can be approached separately. Their exploration of the sources and the agendas of those who have conditioned our understanding of these cities will make them essential reading for students.

Studies of early-modern Islamic cities have stressed the atypical or the idiosyncratic. This bias derives largely from orientalist presumptions that they were in some way substandard or deviant. The first purpose of this volume is to normalize Ottoman cities, to demonstrate how, on the one hand, they resembled cities generally and how, on the other, their specific histories individualized them. The second purpose is to challenge the previous literature and to negotiate an agenda for future study. By considering the narrative histories of Aleppo, Izmir and Istanbul, the book offers a departure from the piecemeal methods of previous studies, emphasizing their importance during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and highlighting their essentially Ottoman character. While the essays provide an overall view, each can be approached separately. Their exploration of the sources and the agendas of those who have conditioned scholarly understanding of these cities will make them essential student reading.

La stele funeraire ottomane musulmane classique prit forme dans le courant du XVIe siecle. Alors que les Turcs d'Anatolie medievale, y compris les Ottomans, avaient a l'origine adapte a leur usage le modele des inscriptions funeraires arabes, les Ottomans adopterent finalement le turc et, de ce fait, un formulaire nouveau qui leur est propre. Ils developperent aussi une sculpture funeraire originale, en particulier marquee par les couvre-chefs qui donnent a certaines de leurs steles une apparence anthromorphique sans doute trompeuse. C'est a cette culture funeraire ottomane, qui se developpa jusqu'aux lendemains de la Premiere Guerre mondiale sur l'ensemble du territoire non arabophone de l'Empire, qu'est consacre ce livre. Les auteurs ont tente de degager l'essence du formulaire de base de l'epitaphe ottomane - dont le but premier est d'appeler les vivants a prier pour le defunt - et a en suivre les evolutions en analysant le developpement de formules stereotypees, puis l'apparition de textes plus personnalises. Fondee sur un vaste corpus d'inscriptions de zones geographiques, periodes et milieux sociaux divers, l'etude repere - a travers l'analyse du vocabulaire, des principaux themes et de leur mises en forme - des oppositions entre regions, entre milieux urbains et ruraux, entre niveaux sociaux. Mais elle met aussi en relief l'existence d'une culture funeraire ottomane homogene, dont elle degage les constantes et les evolutions dans le temps : sentimentalite grandissante, voire meme sentiment d'injustice devant la mort, apparition de considerations mondaines et profanes, desir croissant de situer et de glorifier l'individu, etc. A partir d'une histoire des epitaphes ottomanes, le livre fournit les elements d'une histoire de la mort chez les Ottomans, mais il aborde aussi de nombreux aspects de leur societe : role de l'oral et de l'ecrit, constitution d'une forme de litterature populaire, definition et designation de l'individu au sein de la societe, etc.