Crafts and craftsmen of the Middle East : fashioning the individual in the Muslim Mediterranean / edited by Suraiya Faroqhi and Randi Deguilhem.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 363-367) and index.

"Crafts and Craftsmen of the Middle East presents original interdisciplinary research and reveals inner glimpses into the lives of craftsmen working within and outside the guild structure in the modern and contemporary Mediterranean world. From the late sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire to traditional style crafts in twentieth-century Turkey and Egypt, the book surveys a multitude of traditions. It begins in 1582 when Istanbul artisans paraded in front of Sultan Murad III, then moves through to eighteenth and nineteenth-century struggles and accommodation between different groups of artisans and craftsmen in Istanbul, Salonica, Veria, Cairo and Damascus, looking at various situations within the Muslim, Jewish and Christian working communities. The volume concludes with studies on contemporary Cairo as well as in the small Anatolian town of Safranbolu. Crafts and Craftsmen of the Middle East is essential reading for all those interested in the history of the culture and society of artisans, craftsmen and workers in the Islamic Mediterranean lands."--Jacket.