Between the Imperial Center and the Provincial Periphery: Revisionist Approaches in the Historiography of the Ottoman Arab Provinces
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63556/tisej.2026.1978Keywords:
Ottoman Historiography, Arab Provinces, Revisionist Historiography, Nationalist Historiography, Centre-Province RelationsAbstract
The historiography of the Ottoman Arab provinces was influenced by the conceptual and methodological changes that took place in Ottoman historical studies from the second half of the twentieth century onward. This study addresses how these changes affected historical narratives of the Arab provinces and interpretations of centre–province relations. Selected works on Ottoman historiography and the Arab provinces are comparatively evaluated in terms of their periodisation, use of sources, inclusion of historical actors, and explanations of centre–province relations. The study shows that revisionist scholarship challenged nationalist narratives that projected modern national identities and state boundaries onto earlier periods and explained Ottoman rule through the concepts of foreign domination and decline. This change was not limited to the increased use of Ottoman archival documents. The literature considered in this study also demonstrates a diversification of source use, a growing tendency to examine the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in their own historical contexts, and greater attention to local notables, religious authorities, and provincial administrators. Centre–province relations have likewise been explained not as a one-way relationship of domination, but through changing forms of pressure, conflict, cooperation, mediation, and bargaining. The study brings together the transformation of general Ottoman historiography and the literature on the Arab provinces through these four criteria. It concludes that revisionist historiography has treated the Arab provinces not merely as regions in which central decisions were implemented, but as provinces in which Ottoman rule operated through relations with local actors and regional conditions.
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