Legislating Borders in the Early Modern World: Naturalized Genoese and Sefaradi Merchants in the Ottoman Mediterranean

Ali H. Akhtar

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Chapter 1 Legislating Borders in the Early Modern World: Naturalized Genoese and Sefaradi Merchants in the Ottoman Mediterranean

In: 'His Pen and Ink Are a Powerful Mirror'

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Ali H. Akhtar

Ali H. Akhtar
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 9–34

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004407541_003

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Abstract

This article asks how political administrations in the age of empires historically conceptualized political borders and the legal process of naturalization. It specifically examines the legal status of two groups of Ottoman imperial subjects—the Genoese-heritage Latin-rite residents of Istanbul and the Sephardi residents who settled throughout Istanbul and the Aegean. In periods of limited territorial expansion, in what ways did the naturalization of itinerant merchant communities become a mechanism for imperial governments to extend their political boundaries? As individuals within merchant communities began to straddle the jurisdictions of competing polities, to what extent did administrators either loosen or reinforce those political boundaries and why? One of the phenomena this article identifies is that during the history of economic competition between the Italian republics and the Ottoman sultanate, Ottoman administrators leveraged privileges in residency, movement, and customs duties in order to pull itinerant Genoese and Sephardi merchants into the Ottoman imperial realm and, in effect, expand the empire’s socio-spatial reach.

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'His Pen and Ink Are a Powerful Mirror'

Andalusi, Judaeo-Arabic, and Other Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Ross Brann

Series: Christians and Jews in Muslim Societies, Volume: 4

Cover 'His Pen and Ink Are a Powerful Mirror'

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004407541

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 17 Mar 2020

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Chapter 1 Legislating Borders in the Early Modern World: Naturalized Genoese and Sefaradi Merchants in the Ottoman Mediterranean

Abstract

Citation Info

Share link with colleague or librarian

'His Pen and Ink Are a Powerful Mirror'

Andalusi, Judaeo-Arabic, and Other Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Ross Brann

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