Egypt's Adjustment to Ottoman Rule: Institutions, Waqf, and Architecture in Cairo (16th and 17th Centuries).

• Author: Hathaway, Jane

Doris Behrens-Abouseif's latest study is a welcome addition to the growing but still small corpus of secondary literature on pre-nineteenth-century Ottoman Egypt. The author uses her expertise in late Mamluk architectural history to demonstrate the continuities between the Mamluk and the Ottoman administration of Egypt while evincing a sensitivity to the practicality and adaptability of Ottoman rule that is rare among scholars of Ottoman Egypt.

The book consists of nine chapters, in addition to an introduction on sources and a summary. Chapters two through six comprise a narrative of the Ottoman Empire's relations with the Mamluk sultanate, the Ottoman conquest of Egypt, and critical political events from 1517 through the mid-seventeenth century, followed by a description of Egypt's political and religious establishments during this first century-and-a-half of Ottoman rule. While these early chapters will strike most readers as the least original part of the book, Behrens-Abouseif is not content to rehearse conventional wisdom but supplements and even revises it through her readings in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Arabic and Ottoman Turkish chronicles. This is particularly evident in her account of the still-mysterious origins of the Faqari and Qasimi factions, which had permeated Egyptian society by the end of the period she covers. She identifies an early seventeenth century Dhu'l-Fiqar Bey and Qasim Bey, who make plausible eponymous founders. While this reviewer believes the factions' origins to be more complex, to see a fresh approach to this troubling question for the first time in over thirty years is gratifying.

In chapters eight through ten, Behrens-Abouseif is in her element, namely, the rigorous study of waqf, or pious foundation, deeds, and architectural remains. In the course of describing waqfs endowed both by local grandees and by Ottoman governors and exiled chief black eunuchs, she demonstrates that local figures began to dominate Cairo's endowments as their wealth and influence increased in the course of the seventeenth century. Minor gaps in her familiarity with the titles and functions of the Chief Black Eunuch are offset by a fascinating account of the checkered history of the Dawudiyya quarter, founded by the eunuch Dawud Agha.

More troubling is Behrens-Abouseif's fairly rigid distinction between "Ottomans" and "Mamluks" (meaning the local grandees) within Egypt's political elite - a distinction that a study...