Book | Plague, Quarantines and Geopolitics in the Ottoman Empire by Dr Birsen Bulmus

Mavi Boncuk |

Plague, Quarantines and Geopolitics in the Ottoman Empire

BİRSEN BULMUŞ[*]

Copyright Date: 2012

Published by: Edinburgh University Press

Pages: 208

1 b&w illustration, 1 Map

Published April 2012

ISBN

Hardback: 9780748646593

A sweeping examination of Ottoman plague treatise writers from the Black Death until 1923

Did you know that many of the greatest and most colourful Ottoman statesmen and literary figures from the 15th to the early 20th century considered plague as a grave threat to their empire? And did you know that many Ottomans applauded the establishment of a quarantine against the disease in 1838 as a tool to resist British and French political and commercial penetration? Or that later Ottoman sanitation effort to prevent urban outbreaks would help engender the Arab revolt against the empire in 1916?

Birsen Bulmus explores these facts in an engaging study of Ottoman plague treatise writers throughout their almost 600-year struggle with this epidemic disease. Along the way, she addresses the political, economic and social consequences of the methods they used to combat it.

Key Features

Studies the premodern ways in which plague was viewed by Ottoman Islamic thinkers

Traces the eventual Ottoman acceptance of quarantines and other modern medical reforms

Analyses international debates over plagues and quarantines as a struggle about colonialism and national sovereignty

Open source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt3fgqx4?refreqid=excelsior%3Aa1b14fb741ed234e26dcd5ac1b72c80b

Contents 

Acknowledgements vi 

Map showing the Ottoman Empire, 1914 viii 

1. PRELIMINARY REMARKS 1 

2. CONCEPTUALISING PLAGUE IN OTTOMAN ISLAMIC THOUGHT 15 

3. PLAGUE AND OTTOMAN MEDICAL THOUGHT 39 

4. MAGIC AND PLAGUE IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 68 

5. HAMDAN BIN EL-MERHUM OSMAN AND THE OTTOMAN QUARANTINE REFORM 97 

6. PLAGUE AND QUARANTINES IN THE COLONIAL ERA 130 

7. PLAGUE, SANITARY ADMINISTRATION AND THE END OF EMPIRE 152 

8. TOWARDS A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF PLAGUE AND QUARANTINES IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 177 

Bibliography 181 

Index 191

'The wealth of primary sources utilized in the book breathes life into these discussions and provides a nuanced approach. This is a fine work that offers new information and new perspectives.'

- James N. Tallon (Lewis University), H-War

‘One of the great strengths of the book is its effort to show the overlap between Ottoman and early modern European responses to the plague. Bulmuş is able to point to striking similarities between Ottoman and European references to cabbalistic, talismanic, and astrological understandings of plague.’

- Michael Christopher Low, Columbia University, Review of Middle East Studies

- Michael Christopher Low, Columbia University, Review of Middle East Studies

'An exceptionally readable work that explains how, from the 1400s, internal and external forces drove Ottoman public health.'

- David W. Tschanz, AramcoWorld

Bulmus provides a truly remarkable synthesis of medical history and the history of European-Ottoman relations. Scientific complexities are clearly explained in the contexts of the rise of modern science and modern European imperialism. Bulmus utilizes a wide range of sources, including previously under-used Muslim sources, to strengthen her analysis.

- John Voll, Professor of Islamic History and Associate Director, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University

[*] Dr Birsen Bulmus is an Assistant Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at Appalachian State University. Her academic research fields are the history of medicine, Ottoman history, and the history of the Islamic world. This book is an expanded version of her dissertation she submitted at Georgetown University in May 2008. She extensively utilized Ottoman Turkish, Modern Turkish, English and French primary sources in order to complete this project.

Publications (6)

Miri Shefer-Mossensohn. Science among the Ottomans: The Cultural Creation and Exchange of Knowledge.

Article Apr 2017

Yaron Ayalon, Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire: Plague, Famine, and Other Misfortunes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Pp. 264. $99.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781107072978.

Article

Yaron Ayalon, Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire: Plague, Famine, and Other Misfortunes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Pp. 264. $99.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781107072978. - Volume 48 Issue 1 - Birsen Bulmuş

Cohen, Julia Phillips Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era New York: Oxford University Press 256 pp., $35.00, ISBN 978-0199340408 Publication Date: February 2014

Article Mar 2015

ALAN MIKHAIL. Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History.

Article Feb 2014

The Intent and Application of the 1838 Ottoman Maritime Quarantine Reform

Conference Paper Jan 2014

Scholars have frequently cast the 1838 Ottoman maritime quarantine reform as accomplished at the behest of Britain and France, the most influential European powers in the Eastern Mediterranean. This paper, by contrast, will emphasize Ottoman initiative and show that Ottoman officials often appropriated the system for their own purposes. Certainly,...

Teodora Daniela Sechel (ed.), Medicine Within and Between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, 18th-19th Centuries

Article Apr 2012