Between order and disorder: the problem of nationality among Ottoman-Iranian tribes in the Hamidian era

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1505260 (Table of Contents)

This study investigates how citizenship was perceived and implemented along the Iranian border during the Hamidian era. While explaining the process of transition from subjecthood to citizenship, my aim was to assert how the Ottoman Empire built citizenship approach throughout its people along the border. In this thesis I wanted to focus on which difficulties the Ottomans were confronted on creating citizens especially in the areas that remote from the center. One of these difficulties was the sectarian divergence between the Sunni and Shi’a sects, which derived from the formation of Shi'i Safavid state in the 16th century. This sectarian divergence affected the Ottomans' nerves on creating loyal citizens in the Baghdad, Mosul and Basra provinces of the Empire. The second obstacle was the loose central control over these remote areas that produced local autonomous power holders. The last issue was the ambiguity of the borderline between the two states which made difficult determine the citizenship status of the nomadic tribes that wandering around the border.