[MGSA-L] Princeton Hellenic Studies Workshop: April 3, 2015

Dimitri H. Gondicas gondicas at Princeton.EDU
Mon Mar 30 07:32:41 PDT 2015



PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies





Workshop





The Islamic Law of Rebellion

and the Greek War of Independence



William Smiley

Near Eastern Studies


This paper takes up the relationship between political power and legal authority in the Ottoman Empire during the era of the Greek War of Independence. Faced with rebellion in the Danubian Principalities, in the Peloponnesus, and in the Aegean, the Sublime Porte responded by elaborating and applying the Hanafi Islamic law of rebellion to draw shifting lines between those who could and could not be killed and enslaved. At the same time, the state asserted, in the context of international diplomacy, that these rebellions were strictly within the Ottomans' own sovereign jurisdiction. Both state assertions and juristic opinions were constructed with attention to the Islamic legal tradition, the gendered economies of Ottoman slavery, the military necessities of the Greek war, and diplomatic considerations. Ultimately, I argue, the Ottomans redefined Islamic law to fit this moment-but did so within certain boundaries, themselves set by the legal tradition. The paper thus adds to, and problematizes, the work of Virginia Aksan and Hakan Erdem in situating the Greek War of Independence in the broader global context of the "Age of Revolutions." I argue that the new definitions of sovereignty the Ottomans articulated through Islamic law had much in common with concepts of international law that emerged from the Atlantic World, amidst North and South American independence movements and the United States Civil War.

Will Smiley is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton. His research focuses on Ottoman history, particularly on legal and international history. He is currently completing a book on the changing law and practice of captivity in the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Will received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, and his J.D. from Yale Law School. Beginning in August, he will be Assistant Professor of History and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.


Friday, April 3, 2015

1:30 p.m.

Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103



Supported by the Christos G. and Rhoda Papaioannou Modern Greek Studies Fund

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