Rural-urban conflicts on Western Asia (1100-1700)

This research paper explains how conflicts between rural and urban interests were expressed in Western Asia from the 12th to the 17th centuries. Tensions between those groups increased during the latter period of the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258) because of the disruption in rural areas caused by the decline of the central power of that dynasty, increasingly onerous taxing policies, a decline in agriculture and the social and economic disruption which occurred due to war and other causes. The Ottoman Empire restored peace and stability to these regions for many centuries, but its rule was sporadically interrupted by provincial, pastoral and rural unrest which assumed serious proportions as the power of the central Ottoman Empire began to decline during the 17th century.

Prior to the 10th century, Arab rule did not seriously disrupt rural-urban relationships. Initially, the Arab conquest of Western Asia was accomplished by small religious-military elites which Hourani says were "uneasy settlers in an alien world" (27). The Arab Caliphs decided that the "conquered peoples should be as little disturbed as possible" and accordingly incorporated into the new regime as much as possible "the old elites and the administrative machinery" they inherited (Lapidus 42). Fisher says that "the people of the conquered provinces continued to work and live as they had for centuries, generally with the advantage of p

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an-amir system, a mixture of absentee landlord and military rule, Hodgson says that neither the city merchants nor the landed families were able to establish "a political order entirely under their own control," which resulted in a "stalemate between agrarian and mercantile power" (Vol. 2 65). Another result was that in reaction to increasingly onerous alien rule, the Islamicization of theretofore pagan rural peoples by Sunni ulama or Islamic scholars and fundamentalist Sufi brotherhoods took place. Rural/Urban Tensions Under the Ottomans The Ottoman Turks consolidated their control of Anatolia during the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, culminating in the fall of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 1453. They expanded militarily by conquest in Eastern Europe, Mesopotamia, Egypt and North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea, primarily in the 15th and 16th centuries. They set up a centralized form of administration which was most comprehensive in the central areas of the Empire, Anatolia and the Balkans, which provided the regime with most of its revenues and in other important areas such as Syria and Egypt. Northern Mesopotamia, which had declined in economic importance, was ruled as a frontier military province by Turkish c
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Black Plague, Ottoman Empire, According Hourani, Abbasid Caliphate, According Lapidus, Arab Caliphs, Lapidus Ottoman, Western Asia, Shuf Druze-inhabited, Saladin Mamluk, 17th century, ottoman empire, western asia, seventeenth century, 13th 14th, provincial governors, centrifugal forces, trade routes, according lapidus, abbasid caliphate,
Approximate Word count = 1630
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)