The Appearance of new ‘Middle Classes’ in the Urban Centres of the Middle East (1500-1900)

Orient-Institut Beirut. International Workshop

The American University in Cairo and the Orient-Institut Beirut, Cairo office jointly organize a 2-day workshop to address the topic of transformations in Middle Eastern urban societies in the early modern and modern period.

Social stratification is a characteristic of human societies, but it is often not easy to approach this subject due to the availability of sources that usually do not cover adequately all groups within a society. This applies to the early modern and modern Middle East as well; its society – as any society – was composed of rich and poor people. The first ones are usually identified – at least to a certain extent – with the ‘notables’ (a`yan) and were already the object of a number of studies. Even the poor and marginalized have received some attention.

But those not belonging to one of these two groups, those in the ‘middle’ of society, have been largely neglected until recently. Who were they, what profession or crafts did they exercise, how did they earn their living and create revenues, and more important, what conditions favoured an expansion of their means, a greater visibility, and more negotiating power in society? We have indications that the notables were not the only agents initiating change in their societies, other groups as well (visible for example in building and endowing activities, literacy and education, book culture …) participated in politics (in the widest sense) and economy, and were consequently involved in shaping the urban space.

The urban centres in the Middle East (Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, but smaller cities as well) were characterized by a dense space of dynamic networks of administrative, religious, industrial and trade relations. These dynamics certainly facilitated social upward tendencies in parts of the population. But at times, on the contrary, conditions pulled them downwards: Economic crisis touched some groups more than others

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