Disliking Others
Loathing, Hostility, and Distrust in Premodern Ottoman Lands
Published on 6. November 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
356 pages
979-8-89783-094-7 (ISBN)
Description
Recent historical studies on the Ottoman Empire have taken for granted that subjects of the Ottoman polity flourished under a so-called "Pax Ottomanica." This edited volume probes the rosy narrative of Ottoman tolerance that has long dominated the discussions. The articles carefully strive to contextualize the many issues that sound like ethnic slurs, racial stereotyping, religious discrimination, misogyny and elitism to modern ears. The goal of the volume is not to prove that Ottoman society was a persecuting one, or that dislike or distrust was its defining characteristic, but to investigate the axes of tension, blemishes, and fractures in the everyday practice of coexistence in a dynamic, multi-religious, multi-confessional and multi-ethnic empire in which difference was the norm rather than the exception.
Reviews / Votes
"Overall this volume thus proposes highly interesting visions of forms of hostility in Ottoman society between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century. ... The volume ... constitute[s] a major contribution ... as well as a precious entry towards an understanding of the tensions at work in Ottoman society." -Nora Lafi, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Turkish Historical ReviewMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Brighton
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
499 gr
ISBN-13
979-8-89783-094-7 (9798897830947)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Hakan T. Karateke (PhD, Bamberg University) is Professor of Ottoman and Turkish Culture, Language, and Literature at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Evliya Celebi's Journey from Bursa to the Dardanelles and Edirne (2013) and an article titled "The Rosy History of Jews in the Ottoman Empire: A Critical Approach to Jewish Historiography."
H. Erdem Cipa (PhD, Harvard University) is Associate Professor of Ottoman history at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Making of Selim: Succession, Legitimacy, and Memory in the Early Modern Ottoman World (2017) and co-editor, with E. Fetvaci, of Writing History at the Ottoman Court: Editing the Past, Fashioning the Future (2013).
Helga Anetshofer (PhD, Vienna University) is Lecturer for Ottoman and Turkish Studies at the University of Chicago. Her publications include her recent articles "Folk Etymologies and Stories of Toponyms from Danishmendid Territory in Evliya Celebi's Seyahatname" (2015) and "The Hero Dons a Talismanic Shirt for Battle: Magic Objects Aiding the Warrior in a Turkish Epic Romance" (2018).
H. Erdem Cipa (PhD, Harvard University) is Associate Professor of Ottoman history at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Making of Selim: Succession, Legitimacy, and Memory in the Early Modern Ottoman World (2017) and co-editor, with E. Fetvaci, of Writing History at the Ottoman Court: Editing the Past, Fashioning the Future (2013).
Helga Anetshofer (PhD, Vienna University) is Lecturer for Ottoman and Turkish Studies at the University of Chicago. Her publications include her recent articles "Folk Etymologies and Stories of Toponyms from Danishmendid Territory in Evliya Celebi's Seyahatname" (2015) and "The Hero Dons a Talismanic Shirt for Battle: Magic Objects Aiding the Warrior in a Turkish Epic Romance" (2018).
Content
Introduction
Changing Perceptions about Christian-born Ottomans: Anti-?ul Sentiments in Ottoman Historiography
H. Erdem Cipa
Circassian Mamluks in Ottoman Egypt and Istanbul, ca. 1500-1730: The Eastern Alternative
Jane Hathaway
Dispelling the Darkness of the Halberdier's Treatise: A Comparative Look at Black Africans in Ottoman Letters in the Early Modern Period
Baki Tezcan
The Jew, the Orthodox Christian, and the European in Ottoman Eyes, ca. 1550-1700
Bilha Moor
An Ottoman Anti-Judaism
Hakan T. Karateke
Evliya Celebi's Perception of Jews
Hakan T. Karateke
Ambiguous Subjects and Uneasy Neighbors: Bosnian Franciscans' Attitudes toward the Ottoman State, 'Turks,' and Vlachs
Vjeran Kursar
'Those Violating the Good, Old Customs of our Land': Forms and Functions of Graecophobia in the Danubian Principalities, 16th-18th Centuries
Konrad Petrovszky
Representing the Margins: The Many Faces of the 'Gypsy' in Early Modern Ottoman Discourse
Faika Celik
Gendered Infidels in Fiction: A Case Study on S?abit's ?ikaye-i ?vace Fesad
Ipek Huener-Cora
'The Greatest of Tribulations': Constructions of Femininity in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Physiognomy
Emin Lelic
Defining and Defaming the Other in Early Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Invective
Michael Sheridan
'Are You From Corum?': Derogatory Attitudes Toward the "Unruly Mob" of the Provinces as Reflected in a Proverbial Saying
Helga Anetshofer
Changing Perceptions about Christian-born Ottomans: Anti-?ul Sentiments in Ottoman Historiography
H. Erdem Cipa
Circassian Mamluks in Ottoman Egypt and Istanbul, ca. 1500-1730: The Eastern Alternative
Jane Hathaway
Dispelling the Darkness of the Halberdier's Treatise: A Comparative Look at Black Africans in Ottoman Letters in the Early Modern Period
Baki Tezcan
The Jew, the Orthodox Christian, and the European in Ottoman Eyes, ca. 1550-1700
Bilha Moor
An Ottoman Anti-Judaism
Hakan T. Karateke
Evliya Celebi's Perception of Jews
Hakan T. Karateke
Ambiguous Subjects and Uneasy Neighbors: Bosnian Franciscans' Attitudes toward the Ottoman State, 'Turks,' and Vlachs
Vjeran Kursar
'Those Violating the Good, Old Customs of our Land': Forms and Functions of Graecophobia in the Danubian Principalities, 16th-18th Centuries
Konrad Petrovszky
Representing the Margins: The Many Faces of the 'Gypsy' in Early Modern Ottoman Discourse
Faika Celik
Gendered Infidels in Fiction: A Case Study on S?abit's ?ikaye-i ?vace Fesad
Ipek Huener-Cora
'The Greatest of Tribulations': Constructions of Femininity in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Physiognomy
Emin Lelic
Defining and Defaming the Other in Early Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Invective
Michael Sheridan
'Are You From Corum?': Derogatory Attitudes Toward the "Unruly Mob" of the Provinces as Reflected in a Proverbial Saying
Helga Anetshofer