Professor of Middle Eastern History Nabil Al-Tikriti

Professor of Middle East History Nabil Al-Tikriti presented a paper entitled “Revisiting the Şahkulu and Nur Ali Halife Rebellions” on Sunday, May 1. For this presentation, Prof. Al-Tikriti summarized and commented on the secondary literature and extant primary source evidence covering the twin rebellions which convulsed Ottoman Anatolia in 1511-12. The workshop was a hybrid format conference hosted by The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg and attended by several dozen participants, in person and remote.

Conference proceedings should be published in the next few months.

Prof. Al-Tikriti’s paper abstract: “In March 1511, immediately following the sudden, unexpected, and unauthorized departure of Şehzade Korkud (d. 1513) from his post in Antalya for Saruhan, a rebellion broke out throughout the Teke region. Within days this rebellion spread throughout Anatolia under the charismatic leadership of Şahkulu (d. 1511). Later portrayed as an existential threat to the entire empire, this rebellion – along with a subsequent rebellion led by Nur Ali Halife (d. 1515) – has been used to justify a hardening imperial stance against those described as “Kızılbaş” in the years to follow. With this paper, I plan to delve into the relevant sources in order to revisit certain widespread perceptions connected to these twin rebellions, clarify what was said when, and explore alternative interpretations of the events that transpired. To what extent was the Şahkulu rebellion pre-planned and supported by external actors? What motivated the rebellion, and why did it spread so rapidly? Did the rebels practice cannibalism at one point? In attempting to answer such questions, I also hope to offer preliminary conclusions concerning the reliability of Ottoman narrative sources covering the rebellion.”

Prof. Al-Tikriti would like to thank the UMW College of Arts and Sciences for supporting this scholarly engagement.

History and American Studies Associate Professor Nabil Al-Tikriti

On Friday, April 26, 2019, “Issues in Middle East Studies,” the newsletter of the Middle East Studies Association, published a description of New Orleans by History and American Studies Associate Professor Nabil Al-Tikriti, for attendees of the upcoming MESA Annual Meeting scheduled for November 14-17, 2019.

In this description, Prof. Al-Tikriti describes New Orleans neighborhoods, key places for nightly entertainment, and main sites of historic and family interest. This article is an update for a similar article that Prof. Al-Tikriti wrote for the 2013 MESA conference, but this time he has added hyperlinks for each destination, and updated the information included. This submission is quite useful for those visiting New Orleans at any time.

On 21 December 2018, Middle East Report [MERIP] Issue #288, “Confronting the New Turkey,” was officially published for subscribers. UMW Associate Professor of Middle Eastern History Nabil Al-Tikriti joined the team of developers and editors who invited contributors and edited content for the issue, available online here: https://merip.org/magazine/288/.

The Issue Development Team (IDT) consisted of Profs. Elif Babül of Mt. Holyoke College, Nabil Al-Tikriti, and Ayça Alemdaroğlu of Northwestern University. Dr. Steve Niva was the executive editor.

Press Release: “Since the failed July, 2016 coup attempt, Turkey’s President Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have consolidated their unfettered rule over Turkey. This counter-coup has been undertaken through massive purges in the military, judiciary, media and academia—with tens of thousands detained or forced into exile—the shuttering of independent civic institutions and enshrining virtually unchecked executive power in a new constitution. Turkey’s authoritarian turn bears an elective affinity with emerging forms of populist authoritarianism and illiberal democracy, as well as anti-immigrant and anti-globalist sensibilities, that have redrawn the European political map and largely crushed nascent democratic risings across the Middle East.

Contributors to Confronting the New Turkey disentangle the social, political and economic factors that led to the manifestation of this global trend in Turkey. How Erdoğan accomplished this opens a window on the autocrat’s handbook for the twenty-first century.  Contributors also illuminate lines of resistance, vulnerabilities and contradictions within the New Turkey under construction. Middle East Report 288 is partially available on-line with full access to all the articles available to our subscribers. 

Aslı Bâli offers an incisive and detailed anatomy of Turkey’s 2017 constitutional coup: how Erdoğan used constitutional tools to dismantle Turkey’s parliamentary system from within and create a new form of constitutional authoritarianism.

Yahya Madra critically analyzes the roots of Turkey’s current economic crisis via the AKP’s embrace of a form of globalized neoliberal capitalism that is now at odds with Erdoğan’s electoral needs and authoritarian inclinations.

Evren Balta explains the dramatic shifts and abrupt reorientations of Turkish foreign policy over the past decade as a product of the AKP and Erdoğan’s populism:  foreign policy deployed as a tool of governance to mobilize support, tarnish enemies and keep the AKP in power.

Cuma Ҫiçek provides a thorough overview of the transformation of Turkish-Kurdish politics since 1999, including promising but flawed peace initiatives, the impact of Rojava on Kurdish politics and the return to war in Turkey’s Kurdish regions.

Muzaffer Kaya offers a powerful assessment of the damage wrought by Turkey’s sustained state repression of higher education since 2015, including the purge of over 6,000 academics and university workers. (Available to Everyone)

Volkan Yılmaz uncovers the rising inequality and unfulfilled promises of economic justice that can be traced to the AKP’s embrace of market-led policies in housing and construction.

Sinan Erensü reveals a series of contradictions and vulnerabilities that afflict Turkey’s rapid expansion of energy infrastructure and its pursuit of energy independence, including rural environmental resistance and Turkey’s resistance to climate change initiatives.

Hikmet Kocamaner demonstrates how the AKP’s embrace of “family values” rhetoric and family-centered policies are central to its broader political and social vision predicated on neoconservative, neoliberal and neo-patriarchal rationalities.

Ayça Alemdaroğlu reveals how widespread youth disaffection with the AKP has led the Party to expand a parallel religious education system and increase investments in youth-centered organizations in an effort to overcome obstacles to its hegemony.

Mucahit Bilici unravels the surprising rise of heterodox religiosity and even atheism among pious Turkish youth in response to the instrumentalization of religion under the AKP and broader secularizing trends within Turkish society.

In an inspiring interview, the architect and activist Mücella Yapıcı discusses the still unwritten history of the Gezi Park protests, which, for a moment, revealed a new anti-authoritarian, multi-cultural and democratic Turkey that is yet to come. (Available to Everyone)

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Middle East Report is published by the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), a progressive, independent organization.  Since 1971 MERIP has provided critical analysis of the Middle East, focusing on political economy, popular struggles and the implications of US foreign policy for the region.

Middle East Report Online is a free service of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP).

On Dec. 22, 2018, Prof. Nabil Al-Tikriti presented the University of Mary Washington’s undergraduate and graduate admissions possibilities to a group of potential applicants at the Education USA office in Baku, Azerbaijan. Al-Tikriti is currently conducting historical research and advice as a Fulbright Scholar in Azerbaijan, for the 2018-19 academic year.

Associate Professor of Middle East History Nabil Al-Tikriti spoke about the selection process, and introduced two of the five book award winners for the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Book Prize panel, entitled: “Celebrating Scholarship: MESA Book Award Winners Discuss Their Work.”

The book prize committee was chaired by Prof. Heather Sharkey of the University of Pennsylvania, while other committee members included Profs. Laleh Khalili of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, Yaseen Noorani of the University of Arizona, and Nancy Stockdale of the University of North Texas. The competition logistics were managed by Sara Palmer of MESA.

For this competition, each committee member received roughly 127 books in April-May of 2018, and took charge of nominating 3-4 texts out of 25 books assigned to them by mid-June. In the second round, all committee members evaluated for final prize consideration the resulting 20 or so texts, by mid-August.

As the MESA website explains further, the following scholars received commendations and/or prizes:

Fatima Mernissi Book Award Winner: Attiya Ahmad, George Washington University: Everyday Conversions: Islam, Domestic Work, and South Asian Migrant Women in Kuwait. Duke University Press, 2017

Nikki Keddie Book Award Co-winner, Orit Bashkin, The University of Chicago: Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel. Stanford University Press, 2017

Nikki Keddie Book Award Co-winner, Kevan Harris, University of California, Los Angeles:  A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran
University of California Press, 2017

Albert Hourani Book Award Winner, Alireza Doostdar, The University of Chicago: The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny, Princeton University Press, 2018.

Albert Hourani Book Award Honorable Mention, J.R. Osborn, Georgetown University: Letters of Light: Arabic Script in Calligraphy, Print, and Digital Design. Harvard University Press, 2017.

Associate Professor of Middle East History Nabil Al-Tikriti presented a paper entitled “The Imam’s Cut: Ghaza’ Norms in the Ottoman Age of the Caliphate“ on Sunday, November 18. The presentation took place on a panel titled “Ruler of the East and the West: Notions of Universal Rule in Early Modern Ottoman History, 1400-1800” in San Antonio at the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Conference.

The paper abstract was: “At some point between June 1509 and his death in February 1513, the Ottoman royal Şehzade Korkud completed an Arabic legal manual attempting to clarify what he considered doctrinally correct allocation of human and material plunder in a theater of war. Entitled Hall ishkal al-afkar fi hill amwal al-kuffar (A Solution for Intellectual Difficulties Concerning the Proper Disposal of Infidel Properties), the text appears to have had two primary purposes: to rationalize property allocation among victorious participants in the ghaza’ military economy, and to define licit sexual relations with concubines and captives.

Korkud’s text can be read as an attempt to fit an evolving imperial law of war into older shari‘a norms of conquest administration. While the manual’s legal scholarship falls squarely within the Shafi‘i tradition of siyar (campaign rules) literature, at the time it provided a fresh synthesis of older rulings answering to particularly Ottoman concerns.

One of the key claims Korkud made was the decisive role agents of the imam must play in adjudicating, taxing, and allocating both human and material plunder. Ensuring that the imam’s fifth is properly administered, implicitly by Ottoman state officials, provided a religio-political case for imperial control over the ghaza’ economy, as well as over other issues related to the laws of war and taxation. In light of caliphal titulature periodically floated during Bayezid II’s reign, Hall ishkal al-afkar predicated itself on Ottoman justifications for universal rule as the caliphal authority.

Demonstrating the continuing relevance of such siyar campaign literature, in 2013 a small Istanbul press, ISAR, published a scholarly introduction, full Turkish translation, and complete facsimile of Hall ishkal al-afkar. With this paper, I shall attempt to situate this text within its broader Ottoman and Islamic context, as well as suggest possible connections between this text and recent allegations of regulated sexual slavery by Da‘sh in Iraq and Syria.”

The panel summary was as follows: “It is commonly assumed that Ottoman sultans did not deploy the title ‘caliph’ with any efficacy or intent until the reign of Abdülhamid II (d. 1918), whose interest in the title was diplomatically motivated. Recent studies have demonstrated, however, that there is a much longer and richer history to the notion of caliphate, in its mystical-theological sense, as part and parcel of Ottoman political thought.

This panel aims to investigate early modern Ottoman notions of caliphate as an expression of Ottoman political ambition for universal rule. Caliphate, or the notion of divinely ordained rule, was employed by Ottoman authors to argue universal supremacy synchronically and diachronically.

Synchronically, the notion of universal caliphate served to claim superiority over contemporary polities. Diachronically, the same concept was employed to compare the Ottomans with preceding Islamic dynasties, intimating both enduring permanence and culmination.

The panel engages with Ottoman political writing on the concept of divinely ordained universal rule in two key ways. First, we aim to show that the Ottoman dynasty grappled with the notion of caliphate from early on. From bolstering claims to superiority over their archenemies, the Safavids, to regulating the realm of law and legitimacy, the title ‘caliph’ had a lot to offer to the Ottoman authorities in the early modern period. Second, and more significantly, we locate an intellectual territory beyond the administrative-pragmatic uses of the title ‘caliph’. Ottoman discussions of caliphate comprised sophisticated discussions about the nature of divine authority and its relation to sacral authority framed in rich mystical, philosophical, and ethical traditions. This panel aims to acknowledge the historical dynamism of the Ottoman notions of caliphate, while showing that questions of caliphate and of divine legitimation were never the realm of the political center exclusively. They were simultaneously the realm of the mystic, the theologian, and the ‘ulama.”

Panel Participants’ List:

• The Imam’s Cut: Ghaza’ Norms in the Ottoman Age of the Caliphate by Al-Tikriti, Nabil
• The Stranger-King alla Turca: A Seventeenth Century Sufi Perspective on the Nature of Earthly and Divine Rule by Gurbuzel, Aslihan
• The Timurid Vocabulary of Sovereignty and Ottoman Discourses on Rule in the Early Sixteenth Century by Markiewicz, Christopher
• A Seventeenth-Century Melami Take on Caliphate: Sari Abdullah Efendi (d. 1660) and his Advice Manuals by Tusalp Atiyas, Ekin
• Political Discourse in Ottoman Sufi Hagiography by Yilmaz, Huseyin