Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire

by Suraiya Faroqhi

To date no book has explored the day-to-day life of the common people during the centuries of Ottoman rule. Suraiya Foroqhi here explores the urban world of the Ottoman lands from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century. She describes the social significance of the popular arts and crafts of the period and examines the interaction among the diverse populations and classes of the Empire. She also brings to life the banalities associated with everyday life, such as bathing, the market, loving and grieving--all explored for the first time.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Middle East, Historical, Islam

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Suraiya Faroqhi was born in Berlin to a German mother and Indian father in 1941. She studied at Hamburg University and she came to Istanbul through a university exchange program when she was 21. At Istanbul University, she became a student of Ömer Lütfi Barkan. She completed her master's degree in Hamburg and between 1968-1970 she studied English Language Teaching at Indiana University-Bloomington. After her post-doctorate, she worked as English Lecturer at METU. She retired from METU in 1987 and from München Ludwig Maximillan Universität in 2005.

A turning point in her life came in 1962-63, when she took the opportunity to go to Istanbul University on a fellowship as an exchange student. Subsequently she became a student of Ömer Lüfti Barkan, one of the founding fathers of Ottoman history and an editor of Annales. When she first read Fernand Braudel at Barkan’s insistence, she “had the feeling that’s the sort of thing I wanted to do.” She wrote her doctoral thesis at Hamburg on a set of documents that a late 16th-century vizier submitted to his sultan discussing Ottoman politics at the time.[1]

She is regarded as one of the most important economic and social historians of the Ottoman Empire working today. Professor Faroqhi has written substantially on Ottoman urban history, arts and crafts, and on the hitherto underrepresented world of the ordinary people in the empire. She is well known for her distinctive approach to Ottoman everyday life and public culture. She has published numerous books and articles in the field of pre- modern Ottoman history.

Reviews

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently read "Osman's Dream" by Caroline Finkel. In my review of that book, I lamented that she didn't focus on what it was like to live as an Ottoman citizen, or at least in the realm. Otherwise, it is a great read if you are interested in the rise and fall, of the Empire. Suraiya Faroqhi provides what I was looking for here. In "Subjects of the Sultan" you learn about domestic life in the cities. She admits throughout the book where empirical evidence fails. Mostly in central and Eastern Anatolia where the same kinds of records were not kept in the more agrarian areas.

She chose a frame of the arts to talk about domesticity, architecture, food, writings, miniature paintings, and more. This enabled her to talk about ordinary citizens and how they lived through the upheavals of the Empire. The Ottomans were strict rulers, but didn't strive to squash individuality. People could maintain their customs as long as it didn't disrupt the Muslim majority. This tolerance waxed and waned depending on who the Sultan was, but for the most part it created great variety of culture within the vast Empire. This is revealed in the different arts and architecture to be found throughout. Life in the Balkans was very different than in Istanbul, Anatolia or the Middle East.

The only thing I felt this book lacked was detail about harem life, or the life of servants in the palace. They are subjects of the Sultan as well and an intriguing part of an all too often "Orientalized" Empire. I would have like to hear about their experiences.

I think paired with Finkel's book you can learn a lot about the Ottomans!

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, I still need to finish it, but I've got a good way through it. This was published in English in the '90s, so certainly its place in the historiography of the Ottoman Empire is a bit dated. But that being said, I thought this was a pretty engaging monograph. He starts with a useful discussion of the historical development of the Ottoman Empire, it's origins, etc. He goes on to discuss the Ottomans through thematic topics. He looks at court culture, books, food and coffee, women at court, architecture, etc. All of this is threaded together with a review of Ottoman political history.

As an introductory text to the Ottoman Empire, this might be difficult to follow, but as a companion to a course, or for further reading on the Ottomans, it is certainly valuable. Historians of the Middle East should certainly pick it up as a refresher for the historiographical development of the field.

[Volkan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Geçmişi sadece savaşlar ve imzalanan anlaşmalar üzerinden öğrenmeye katlanamayanlar için harika bir kitap. Çünkü Faroqhi kitabında bazen bir sünnet şölenine bazen bir pazar yerine ya da bir mutfağa götürüyor okuyucuyu, yani gündelik hayatın tam orta yerine.

Güzel yazılmış / çevrilmiş bu kitabı okurken insan bir yandan da "Bilimsel bir kitap nasıl yazılır , tarih nasıl öğrenilir?" gibi sorulara cevap bulduğunu hissediyor.

Dipnotlar ve referansların izi sürülerek okumaları derinleştirmek mümkün.

[Bilâl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Osmanlı zamanında İstanbul’da bir gün nasıl geçiyor, bunu anlatıyor. Kitap yemek, tekstil, şenlikler gibi bölümlere ayrılmış. Mesela o dönemde İstanbul’da acıksanız seyyar satıcılardan ne alıp yiyebilirsiniz? Restoranlarda hangi yemekleri bulup yiyebilirsiniz? Veya dükkanlar ve evler içmek veya kullanmak için suyu nereden buluyordu? Su hangi yollarla evlere ve dükkanlara ulaşabiliyordu? Bunun gibi gayet hayattan, basit ama eskiden nasıl olduğunu bilmediğimiz konulara değiniyor kitap. İllaki tarih meraklısı olmaya gerek yok kitabı okumak için. O zamanın insanının bir gününün nasıl geçtiğini çok bilgilendirici ve keyifli bir şekilde anlatıyor kitap.

It tells how a day passes in Istanbul during the Ottoman period. The book is divided into sections such as food, textiles, festivals. For example, if you are hungry in Istanbul at that time, what can you buy and eat from street vendors? What dishes can you find and eat in restaurants? Or where did shops and houses find water to drink or use? How could water reach homes and shops? The book touches on topics like this, simple but we didn't know how it was in the past. You don't necessarily have to be a history enthusiast to read the book. The book tells how the person of that time spent a day in a very informative and enjoyable way.

[LeAnne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the author’s interest is particularly art and architecture, she included enough everyday life to meet my needs as a novelist. I appreciated Faroqhi’s inside-the-culture viewpoint as opposed to an outside scholar who might well miss nuances. She covers topics with deep research into primary source and indicates subjects for further investigation, especially in regards to women’s issues, under reported and neglected in the past. Because she covers the several hundred years of the Empire, I needed to pick and chose what was appropriate for my 16th c period, but it was the most useful book I have found so far.

[filsan · Rating 5 out of 5]

i read this purely for research for a personal project. it’s really educational; she uses specific accounts to detail the daily lives of people at the time, and it’s such a niche portion of history and research, considering the islamic aspect of history is already not talked about nearly enough, that i geeked out so hard when i found this 😭😭 i have a shit ton of highlights and annotations and will be coming back to it while i worldbuild my own ideas :)

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! What a truly amazing book. This is my first book by Faroqhi and I love her style of writing. It had so many great anecdotes tucked in the book and a clear 'red line'. This is what I'd call a perfect balance between academic and popular writing. Excellent! This felt like reading Braudel for the Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire. I can't wait to read another book by this author.

[Yokusun Basi]

Osmanli Kulturu ve Gundelik Yasam by Suraiya Faroqhi (1997)

[Okean Ci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yüzyıllar önce, Osmanlı zamanında yargıya intikal etmiş vakalar; tarihin nasıl olmuş olduğuna ve insanın onu nasıl yaşadığına tanıklıkları ve kayıtları olarak tarihçinin o zamanları imgeleminde canlandırmasını sağlayan belirtiler ve kalıntılar.

Tarihçi, yaptığı işin güçlüğünün bilincinde. Belgelerin eksikliği ya da onların belirli bir yönde yargıya olanak tanımaları onun hafiye kuşkuculuğunu daha da pekiştiriyor.

Bunun dışında minyatürle, seyahatnameler, yabancı gezgin ve konukların tanıklıkları, kişisel mektuplar ya da esir düşmüş ya da devşirilmiş bilhassa yetenekli Avrupalıların aktardıkları tarihsel imgelemin temelini kuruyor.

Bunun dışında incelediği metinlerin olası ufuklarını ve sansürlenmiş öğelerine de değiniyor. Kişisel olarak, Osmanlıdaki ilk ağızdan anlatımlara ( ich-Erzaehlung) batılı tarihçilerin banal ve avrupa-merkezli anlayışlarının yerine Osmanlı kültürünü iyi tanıyan bir araştırmacı olarak aydınlatıcı alternatif önermesi oldukça değerli.

Ali Ufki, Kantemiroğlu, Osman Ağa, Mihri Hatun, Elvan Çelebi, Seyyid Hasan, Lady Mary Montagu, Ishmael J. Bashaw, Evliya Çelebi kitapta sıkça sözü edilen kahramanlar.

[Pat Carson]

The subtitle pulled me in - "Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire". The book is built around the topics of the arts and architecture of the Ottoman period. Faroqhi's book reminds us that there is so much we don't know about world cultures outside of western Europe and North America. Very nice find at the Linganore High School Media Center.