Scholarly Salons in 16th-Century Damascus | Helen Pfeifer

Ottoman History Podcast

E524 | In 1517, the Ottomans captured Cairo and with it, the Arabophone lands of the Mamluk Sultanate. Suddenly, scores of learned scholars who had been preparing and vying for positions of esteem in either the academy or the bureaucracy found themselves under new authority. How did these scholars navigate the new political and linguistic environments? As Helen Pfeifer argues in a new book, Empire of Salons: Conquest and Community in Early Modern Ottoman Lands, the answer lies in gentlemanly salons, where elite men displayed their knowledge and status. These social laboratories played a key role in negotiating Syria and Egypt’s integration into the empire. Through Pfeifer's study of the life and network of the star scholar Badr al-Din al-Ghazzi, we learn how urban elite of former Mamluk Syria and Egypt continued to exert social and political influence, rivaling powerful officials from Istanbul. The gentlemanly salons also illustrate how Ottoman culture was forged collaboratively by Arabophone and Turcophone actors. More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/03/salons.html Helen Pfeifer is University Associate Professor of Early Ottoman History at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Christ's College. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of the Ottoman Empire. Maryam Patton is a PhD candidate at Harvard University in the joint History and Middle Eastern Studies program. She is interested in early modern cultural exchanges, and her dissertation studies cultures of time and temporal consciousness in the Eastern Mediterranean during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. CREDITS Episode No. 524 Release Date: 27 March 2022 Recording Location: Oxford, UK / Berlin Sound production by Maryam Patton Music: Pictures of the Floating World - Bumbling Bibliography and images courtesy of Helen Pfeifer available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/03/salons.html