The practice of petitioning the Ottoman Sultan was a well-known institution which existed in one form or another throughout Ottoman history and enabled Ottoman subjects, far from the capital of Istanbul, to convey their grievances directly to the supreme ruler. Here, Yuval Ben-Bassat examines the petitions, including many previously unpublished ones, sent during the last decades of the Empire to the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II. The petitions enable Ben-Bassat to explore Palestines history in this formative period from a unique perspective, providing first-hand accounts of the dilemmas, struggles, acts, concerns, schisms and transformations Palestinian society experienced. Petitioning the Sultan will be of great interest to a broad audience of specialists studying the history of the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire, and Palestines late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century world.
Introduction 1. The Ottoman Institution of Petitions to the Ruler in Global and Islamic Perspectives 2. General Features of the Petitions 3. Petitions by the Urban Population of Gaza and Jaffa 4. Petitions by the Rural Population and the Bedouins 5. Requests by Ottoman Officials Serving in Palestine 6. Social and Economic Matters 7. The Ottoman Bureaucracy and Administration as reflected in Petitions 8. Templer and Zionist Activity as reflected in Petitions to Istanbul Conclusion: Old Institutions, New Conditions, a New Meaning of Justice?