Journal Articles by Aviv Derri
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2025
World-historical analyses often view the “Asian” empires that survived into the twentieth century... more World-historical analyses often view the “Asian” empires that survived into the twentieth century (the Russian, Qing, and Ottoman empires) as anomalies: sovereign “archaic” formations that remained external to the capitalist system. They posit an antagonistic relationship between state and capital and assume that modern capitalism failed to emerge in these empires because local merchants could not take over their states, as they
did in Europe. Ottoman economic actors, and specifically the sarraf as state financier, have accordingly been portrayed as premodern intermediaries serving a “predatory” fiscal state, and thus, as external to capitalist development. This article challenges these narratives by uncovering the central role of Ottoman sarrafs, tax-farmers, and other merchant-financiers
in the expanding credit economy of the mid-nineteenth century, focusing on their investment in the treasury bonds of Damascus. I show how fiscal change and new laws on interest facilitated the expansion of credit markets while attempting to regulate them by distinguishing between legitimate interest and usury. I also discuss Ottoman efforts to mitigate peasant indebtedness and the abuse of public debt by foreigners, amid the treasury bonds’ growing popularity. In this analysis, global capitalism was forged in the encounter between Ottoman imperial structures, geo-political concerns, and diverse, interacting traditions of credit, while the boundaries between public and private finance were being negotiated and redefined. Ultimately, Ottoman economic policies aimed to retain imperial sovereignty against European attempts to dominate regional credit markets— efforts often recast by the latter as “fanatical” Muslim resistance.
IJMES, 2021
This article concerns the place of late Ottoman Jews in Palestine on the eve of the 1948 War. It ... more This article concerns the place of late Ottoman Jews in Palestine on the eve of the 1948 War. It focuses on Israel Ben-Zeʾev (Wolfensohn), a Jerusalem-born educator and Nahda intellectual who led a movement of self-identified "native" Jews, including both "Old Yishuv" Ashkenazim and Sephardim, to combat their marginalization by the Zionist institutions. I examine his lifetime struggle to advance the study of Arabic and "Arab Jews" (yahud ʿarab) under early Islam by creating institutions of knowledge production and educational programs modeled on those he knew from his early academic career in Cairo. It was in the context of these struggles that demands for separate political representation for native Jews and for a specialized field of Arab Jewish studies coalesced as part of a broader project of a shared Arab-Jewish cultural modernization. They culminated in 1948, when Ben-Zeʾev finally realized his Arabic library project, ironically using looted Palestinian books, only to see its destruction four years later by Zionist leaders and Hebrew University professors.
![Research paper thumbnail of היסטוריה חברתית של אליטות סוחרים לא-מוסלמיות_קריירות בירוקרטיות__[Bankers into Bureaucrats: Ottoman non-Muslim elites in Syria/Palestine after the imperial bankruptcy]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/67627769/thumbnails/1.jpg)
ג׳מאעה/Jamaa, 2020
This article explores the growing involvement of non-Muslim merchant-banking families from Damasc... more This article explores the growing involvement of non-Muslim merchant-banking families from Damascus in the Ottoman provincial administration following the imperial bankruptcy in 1875. Drawing on the records of civil servants (sicill-i ahvâl defterleri), located in the Ottoman State Archives in Istanbul, I examine the “administrative biographies” of several members of the Jewish Farhi family, who had been in the service of local governors for generations, from the late eighteenth century. I argue that through life-time careers in the empire’s fiscal administration, local merchant families managed to maintain their power, if only partially, despite the crises of that period. For these families, this process entailed a host of new social and political roles, which tied them even closer to the state than before. Finally, I discuss the biography of Abdu Farhi, who worked as a local wakil for the Jewish Colonization Association in southern Syria after his retirement from the fiscal bureaucracy of the province. I use Abdu’s case to rethink the place of local Jews in the changing socio-political landscape of fin-de-siècle Syria/Palestine from an imperial perspective and away from common Zionist narratives.
International History Review, 2020
This article examines the ways in which Ottoman subjecthood and foreign protection were practiced... more This article examines the ways in which Ottoman subjecthood and foreign protection were practiced and perceived by imperial financiers and officials following the nationality legislation of the 1860 s and the imperial bankruptcy in 1875. It deals with the non-Muslim merchant families of Damascus who served the province as credit providers, many of whom were under European protection. By the mid-1880s, these families found themselves in the midst of intense debates over their financial claims on the provincial treasury and their legal status, waged between the Ottoman government and European consulates. Focusing on one case of a local Jewish family, the article uncovers the category of ‘doubtful’ nationality (tebâa-i meşkûke) and the ways provincial officials in Syria used it to treat local merchants as Ottoman by-default. I argue that alongside legal notions of origin and residence which were introduced by the 1869 Nationality Law, Ottoman subjecthood was still practiced as a set of alienable and differentiated rights and duties, defined by fiscal obligation and service. Discussing these Ottoman strategies alongside British concerns and anxieties regarding foreign protection and naturalisation, I show how these legal-social categories and practices were shaped through mutual contact, in the context of unequal inter-imperial relations.
Conference Presentations by Aviv Derri
Peasants, Moneylenders, and the Ottoman War on ‘usury’ in the Damascus Hinterland, 1850s-1890s
Negotiating Debt, Property, and Ottoman Subjecthood: Non-Muslim Merchant-bankers in Late Ottoman Damascus
The Nahda from the Eyes of Three Generations of Ottoman Financiers, Administrators, and Intellectuals
Jewish Notables and Communal Politics in an Ottoman Province: The Angel Family of Damascus
Edited volumes by Aviv Derri
The International History Review, 2021
This special issue centers on the Ottomans’ diverse engagements with the international in the lon... more This special issue centers on the Ottomans’ diverse engagements with the international in the long nineteenth century and features six contributions that explore little-known case-studies including Istanbul’s links with the Sultanate of Aceh, Canada, the Hanseatic Cities, and the Holy See. Together they shed new light on important dimensions of Ottoman foreign relations: from imperial subjecthood, diplomatic networks, Ottoman foreign lending, extraterritoriality and international law, through Pan-Islamism, and colonialism.
Guest editors:
Houssine Alloul (University of Amsterdam)
Darina Martykánová (Autonomous University of Madrid)
Contributors:
Faiz Ahmed (Brown University)
Aviv Derri (New York University)
İsmail Hakkı Kadı (Istanbul Medeniyet University)
Mostafa Minawi (Cornell University)
Tobias Völker (University of Hamburg)
Giampaolo Conte (Roma Tre University)
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Journal Articles by Aviv Derri
did in Europe. Ottoman economic actors, and specifically the sarraf as state financier, have accordingly been portrayed as premodern intermediaries serving a “predatory” fiscal state, and thus, as external to capitalist development. This article challenges these narratives by uncovering the central role of Ottoman sarrafs, tax-farmers, and other merchant-financiers
in the expanding credit economy of the mid-nineteenth century, focusing on their investment in the treasury bonds of Damascus. I show how fiscal change and new laws on interest facilitated the expansion of credit markets while attempting to regulate them by distinguishing between legitimate interest and usury. I also discuss Ottoman efforts to mitigate peasant indebtedness and the abuse of public debt by foreigners, amid the treasury bonds’ growing popularity. In this analysis, global capitalism was forged in the encounter between Ottoman imperial structures, geo-political concerns, and diverse, interacting traditions of credit, while the boundaries between public and private finance were being negotiated and redefined. Ultimately, Ottoman economic policies aimed to retain imperial sovereignty against European attempts to dominate regional credit markets— efforts often recast by the latter as “fanatical” Muslim resistance.
Conference Presentations by Aviv Derri
Edited volumes by Aviv Derri
Guest editors:
Houssine Alloul (University of Amsterdam)
Darina Martykánová (Autonomous University of Madrid)
Contributors:
Faiz Ahmed (Brown University)
Aviv Derri (New York University)
İsmail Hakkı Kadı (Istanbul Medeniyet University)
Mostafa Minawi (Cornell University)
Tobias Völker (University of Hamburg)
Giampaolo Conte (Roma Tre University)