• 1 André Raymond, “Urban Life and Middle Eastern Cities: The Traditional Arab City,” in Youssef M. Ch (...)

1The urban growth of the pre-modern city of Medina operated within the larger context of the Arab provinces, which entered into the Ottoman realm by the early sixteenth century. Medina itself, as part of the Hijaz in western Arabia, had been administered via Egypt during the previous Mamluk period, and this arrangement continued under the Ottomans. Despite its remoteness from the Ottoman center, Medina as a sacred precinct possessed significant and steady symbolic value for the Ottoman legitimization of political authority. This fact left an unmistakable mark on the development of material and non-material culture of Medina for centuries to come.1

• 2 Ottoman political history studies were foundational for later urban studies; see, for example, Pet (...)
• 3 André Raymond, Grandes villes arabes à l’époque ottomane, Paris: Sindbad, 1985 (Bibliothèque arabe (...)
• 4 See, for example, Stefan Weber, Damascus: Ottoman Modernity and Urban Transformation (1808-1918), (...)

2Urban studies of the Arab provinces during the Ottoman period, which went beyond the political history of the Ottoman imperial center, have expanded in the past few decades.2 The erudite work of André Raymond on several major Arab cities of the Ottoman era is ground-breaking, especially for its comprehensive consideration of the built environment in relation to socio-economic determinants.3 This alternative look from the provinces of the Ottoman Empire is the basis of an emerging breed of nuanced urban studies with intimate insight into the intricacies of material and non-material culture of major Arab cities under the Ottoman rule.4

• 5 Robert Hillenbrand, “Traditional Architecture in the Arabian Peninsula,” Bulletin (British Society (...)
• 6 Hasan Kayali, “The Ottoman Experience of World War I: Historiographical Problems and Trends,” The (...)
• 7 Ehud R. Toledano, “The Arabic-Speaking World in the Ottoman Period,” in Christine Woodhead (ed.), (...)
• 8 William L. Ochsenwald, “Ottoman Arabia and the Holy Hijaz, 1516-1918,” Journal of Global Initiativ (...)

3Nevertheless, the field is still uneven: other cities, not to mention rural and tribal areas, such as those of the Arabian Peninsula, considered to be the backwaters of the major Arab provinces—or “terrae incognitae” in the words of Robert Hillenbrand,—are disproportionally underrepresented.5 Arab and Turkish historical narratives of the modern Middle East further exacerbated this research lacuna by losing perspective of the pre-existing context.6 The ensuing research obstacles could not be enumerated here, but modern political borders, nationalist agendas, and linguistic divide between Arabic and Turkish sources further obliterated historical urban networks which were once an interrelated ensemble.7 For the Arabian peninsula in particular, difficulty of access is another persistent obstacle, especially to conduct archaeological or field work, although in recent years, access has become relatively easier.8

• 9 Jean Sauvaget, La Mosquée Omeyyade de Médine, Paris: Vanoest, 1947.
• 10 Rifaat Ali Abou-el-Haj, “The Social Uses of the Past: Recent Arab Historiography of Ottoman Rule,” (...)
• 11 See M. J. L. Young, “In Praise of the City of the Prophet: The ‘Kitāb Al-Jawharat Al-Thamīnah Fī M (...)

4Contemporaneous writing from the Ottoman period on the urban history of Medina seems to have fallen behind shrouds of obscurity. The stratigraphy of Medina urban history sources compiled by Sauvaget in 1947 shows decreasing writing output after the seminal work of the late Mamluk scholar al-Samhūdī (died 1506 AD).9 This obscurity, however, is probably the result of modern nationalist Arab historiography, which dismissed the Ottoman period as a phase of complete intellectual and linguistic decay.10 This period was cast as unworthy of consideration, despite indications that Medina scholarly institutions increasingly flourished during the same period. Nevertheless, studies on homegrown urban history of Medina during the Ottoman period have appeared sporadically in specialist literature over the past few decades.11 In other cognate genres, such as travel writings, descriptions of Medina were recorded, some by European travelers, including visual representations in the later Ottoman period.

• 12 The catalogue was published as a series: Al-Madīnah Al-Munawwarah fī Al-Wathāʼiq Al-ʿuthmānīyah (3 (...)

5Apart from attested textual sources, the current state of affairs in Medina presents serious challenges to researchers in urban history. Chances for fruitful autoptic investigation are dwindling day by day, due to the rapid urbanization and the annihilation of most of the historic urban fabric except for a few faint remains. On the other hand, for the Ottoman period in particular, local primary sources exist in the form of tens of thousands of Ottoman chancery and court records. However, only a very small fraction of these documents has been catalogued. The vast majority remain largely unexplored, while court records are totally inaccessible for researchers. This untapped resource is likely to demonstrate a more vivid picture of the Ottoman administration of Medina on a wide variety of subjects ranging from the Ottoman imperial household endowments to complaints about street beggars.12

• 13 Nikolai Ivanov, al-fatḥ al-ʿuthmānī lil- ᵓaqṭār al-ʿarabiyyah 1516–1574, Yusuf ʿAtallah, trans., B (...)
• 14 David Ayalon, “The End of the Mamlūk Sultanate: Why did the Ottomans Spare the Mamlūks of Egypt an (...)
• 15 Alan Mikhail and Christine M. Philliou, “The Ottoman Empire and the Imperial Turn,” Comparative St (...)

6The Ottoman ambition to expand southward crystalized after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 AD.13 At that point, the Ottomans rose to prominence from mere fighters on the peripheries of the Muslim lands to a growing empire in the middle of Eurasia. Toppling the Byzantine Empire and expanding into Europe secured for the Ottomans the moral and political position as the leading Muslim power of the time, further demoting an already fading Mamluk authority.14 Economically, their proliferation into the southern and eastern Mediterranean guaranteed them access to the transit trade heartland of the historic Middle East.15 Politically, presiding over the core territory of the Abbasid caliphate including the holy cities of Arabia would establish the Ottoman authority as the undisputed leader of the Muslim world.

• 16 Bruce Masters, “Institutions of Ottoman Rule,” The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, 1516–1918: A Socia (...)
• 17 Nikolai Ivanov, al-fatḥ al-ʿuthmānī lil- ᵓaqṭār al-ʿarabiyyah 1516–1574, op. cit. (note 13), p. 93 (...)
• 18 Esther Peskes, “Western Arabia and Yemen (Fifth/Eleventh Century to the Ottoman Conquest),” in Mar (...)
• 19 Suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj under the Ottomans, 1517-1683, London: Tauris, 199 (...)

7Surely, in 1517 AD, after a decisive victory over the Mamluks in Syria and Egypt, Sultan Selim I assumed the title of the “Servitor of the Two Holy Shrines.”16 Sharif Barakat of Makkah swiftly embraced the new Ottoman regime, which was perceived as a relief from the continuous setbacks suffered by the Mamluks in protecting pilgrimage routes.17 In addition, the Sharif saw this as an opportunity to reinforce his hold on power and neutralize his rivals from other branches of the ashraf of Hijaz (singular, sharif, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad) especially those in Medina.18 More critically, the holy cities of Makkah and Medina were heavily dependent on economic aid and military protection coming from Egypt, especially at a time when Portuguese maritime attacks were intensifying in the Red Sea.19

• 20 Jane Hathaway, The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516-1800, op. cit. (note 7), p. 228.
• 21 Michael Winter, “Ottoman Egypt, 1525–1609,” in Martin W. Daly (ed.), The Cambridge History of Egyp (...)
• 22 Benjamin Claude Brower, “The Hajj by Land,” in Eric Tagliacozzo and Shawkat M. Toorawa (eds.), The (...)
• 23 Suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj under the Ottomans, 1517-1683, op. cit. (note 19), (...)
• 24 Stanford Jay Shaw, The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, (...)

8Spatially, the Ottoman annexation of the Arab provinces from Iraq to North Africa constituted a vast network of interconnected urban centers. This situation was unprecedented on such a scale since the early Abbasid Empire. Externally, the Arab provinces operated within the wider Ottoman Empire context, which provided access to faraway lands, communities, and resources.20 Keeping a steady flow of pilgrimage caravans from Cairo and Damascus was as important for Egypt and Syria as it was for the holy cities in Arabia. This was not only for the obvious religious reasons, but also for the economic benefits.21 Cairo and Damascus operated as hubs for pilgrims and traders coming from the farther frontiers of the Ottoman Empire in North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia to join the annual caravans departing for Medina then Makkah.22 These caravans were under the Ottoman military protection which was financed by the provincial budget of Egypt and Syria.23 Ottoman military corps from Syria and Egypt were rotated on a yearly basis to protect roadside stations along the pilgrimage routes which converged in Medina.24

• 25 Thomas Philipp, “Bilād al-Šām in the Modern Period: Integration into the Ottoman Empire and New Re (...)

9Ottoman expansion into the Arab provinces coincided with major changes in global trade patterns, when the historical link between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean shifted from the overland routes of the Middle East to the newly discovered maritime routes around Africa and the Indian Ocean.25 This strategic economic shift made the annual pilgrimage, and the nexus of trade and commercial activities related to it, all more important as an economic stimulus.

• 26 Kamal S. Salibi, “Middle Eastern Parallels: Syria-Iraq-Arabia in Ottoman Times,” Middle Eastern St (...)

10Politically, the annual march of the heavily guarded pilgrimage caravans from Egypt and Syria represented a repeated Ottoman show of power, and an ‘annual reconquest’ of the holy cities.26 This periodic military presence somehow made up for the remoteness of the holy cities from the Ottoman seat of power in Istanbul. Maintaining protected and steady links between Medina and the Arab provinces was an important instrument of Ottoman exertion of political power. Any disruption to this link, at any point in time, also constituted a threat to the Ottoman presence in Arabia. The severity of this threat was proven in 1805, when the Wahhabis succeeded in taking over Medina, and in 1916, when the Sharif of Makkah rebelled, initiating the final Ottoman exodus from Arabia.

• 27 Giancarlo Casale, The Ottoman Age of Exploration, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Ann Arbor, MI: (...)
• 28 Frederick E. Anscombe, “Islam and the Age of Ottoman Reform,” Past & Present, no. 208, 2010, p. 15 (...)
• 29 Naim R. Farooqi, “Moguls, Ottomans, and Pilgrims: Protecting the Routes to Mecca in the Sixteenth (...)

11Nevertheless, to be understood properly, Ottoman patronage of Medina should not be reduced to the mere political or economic facts. In the context of the sixteenth century European imperial competition for global domination, the Ottomans’ status as the leading Muslim sovereign required mobilizing all the resources at hand, including religious sentiment.27 This sentiment is what gave them the impetus to go further afield to secure pilgrimage access by both land and sea, even if they also reaped earthly gains from their efforts.28 They were called upon by Muslim rulers from places as far as India and Sumatra to send naval forces to deter Portuguese attacks on pilgrims ships sailing in the Indian Ocean or entering the Red Sea.29 In essence, religious ideology became intertwined with the Ottoman perception of their own political legitimacy and identity inside the empire and abroad.

• 30 The Imperial surre was an annual gift in cash and kind from the Ottoman sultan and the members of (...)
• 31 Syed Tanvir Wasti, “The Ottoman Ceremony of the Royal Purse,” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 41, no. (...)

12This same devotional sentiment can be sensed much closer to home, during the ceremony of dispatching the imperial purse surre caravan from Istanbul.30 After leaving the palace and crossing the Bosphorus, the caravan would land at the ‘haram’ pier—named in reference to the holy cities of Makkah and Medina—on the Asian side of Istanbul. From there, the caravan would embark on an uninterrupted land journey from Istanbul, via Damascus, all the way to Medina.31 The metaphoric designation of ‘haram’ at Istanbul’s end of the long stretch to the sacred precinct in Medina can be interpreted as a supra-spatial connection between the holy cities and the shorelines of Istanbul, transcending spatial and temporal realities, even if only metaphorically.

• 32 ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh Al-Samhūdī, Qāsim al-Sāmarrā’ī (eds.), Wafāʼ al-Wafā bi-Akhbār Dār al-Muṣṭafá, (...)

15Al-Samhūdi’s urban topography of Medina, known in short as al-Wafā, is distinctive for its thoroughness and depth, and for its acceptance as the ultimate description of the Prophet’s city.32 Its timing is also significant as it dates from a turning point in the history of the city, towards the end of the Mamluk period. At the same time, the depth and breadth of the written depictions allude to a personal quest by al-Samhūdi to reconstruct a nostalgic image of the Prophetic city “as it should have been” rather than how it appeared before his eyes.

• 33 Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Al-Maṭarī, al-Taʿrīf bi-mā ānasat al-Hijrah min Maʿālim Dār al-Hijrah, Muḥammad (...)
• 34 Caesar Farah, “Ibn-al-Najjār: A Neglected Arabic Historian,” Journal of the American Oriental Soci (...)
• 35 Ibn al-Najjār, al-Durrah al-Thamīnah fī Akhbār al-Madīnah, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Shukr (ed.), Medina: Marka (...)

16The overtones of al-Samhūdi’s words voice a sense of loss of the Prophet’s city, which also resonates in the writings of several previous urban historians. Al-Maṭarī (died 1363 AD) went further to declare the total loss of Medina landmarks in his work al-taʿrīf bi-mā ānsat al-hijrah min maʿālim dār al-hijrah, which could be translated as: “Explanation of what negligence consigned to oblivion, of the landmarks of the city of immigration,” a title which explicitly declared the author’s outright condemnation of the dire state of the city’s urban fabric.33 Just a few decades before the fall of Baghdad, Ibn al-Najjār (died 1245 AD) reported in his treatise on Medina that it was in a state of unprecedented urban decay, and was liable to undergo the loss of both its built heritage and sacral memory.34 He cited this particular risk as his primary motivation for documenting the city before it disappeared completely.35

• 36 Donald Whitcomb, “Out of Arabia: Early Islamic Aqaba in its Regional Context,” in Roland-Pierre Ga (...)

17Unsurprisingly, despite the intervening period of physical decline, the symbolic significance of Medina to political legitimacy had always been, a persistent concern in the eras prior to the Ottomans. This can be interpreted from a tenth-century map attributed to al-Balkhī school of geography in Abbasid Baghdad, depicting Medina’s administrative and economic ties with several important cities of the region (fig. 1). In particular, Medina is linked directly by postal dispatch to the Abbasid Caliphal centers of both Baghdad and al-Raqqa.36 Maintaining a direct connection with Medina, the historic source of political legitimacy, was clear testimony to the sovereign’s hold on power.

• 37 Halil Inalcik, “Ottoman Methods of Conquest,” Studia Islamica, no. 2, 1954, p. 103-129. URL: https (...)
• 38 Suraiya N. Faroqhi, Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj under the Ottomans, 1517-1683, op. cit. (note 1 (...)

18Halil Inalcik has proposed a now widely accepted view of the Ottoman method of conquest as a two-stage, gradual process. It essentially holds true for Medina, but with some modifications.37 Initially, the Ottomans sought to maintain the status quo of the existing regime in Medina by preserving the expedient policies of their previous Mamluk adversaries, including keeping Medina endowments in Egypt.38 This could be summed up in the words of Sultan Selim I to his newly appointed governor of Egypt:

• 40 Stanford Jay Shaw, The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, (...)

19This endowment covered the costs of the pilgrimage caravan from Cairo which stopped in Medina. It also provided cash and supplies to support the institutions, residents, and holy places in the city.40

• 41 Dina Khoury, “The Ottoman Centre Versus Provincial Power-Holders: An Analysis of the Historiograph (...)
• 42 Suraiya N. Faroqhi, Ottoman Empire and the World around It, London: I. B. Tauris, 2004 (Library of (...)

21As was probably the case with the provincial elites in other Arab provinces, the relationship between the Ottoman authority and the local ashraf dynasty in the Hijaz was cautious at best.41 A discontented Sharif could mobilize the Arab tribes of the Hijaz against the Ottoman authority. Insurrections occasionally broke out, as Evliya Çelebi once witnessed in the seventeenth century.42 To avoid political unrest, the central Ottoman authority left the choice of the reigning Sharif to members of the dynasty. The chosen candidate was endorsed by an imperial decree and usually confirmed during the reception of the annual pilgrimage caravan from Istanbul.

• 43 Suraiya N. Faroqhi, “Red Sea Trade and Communications as Observed by Evliya Çelebi (1671-72),” New (...)
• 44 Norman Itzkowitz, “Eighteenth Century Ottoman Realities,” Studia Islamica, vol. 16, 1962, p. 73-94

22On the other hand, Ottoman authority counterbalanced the Sharif’s power by several means, including stationing an Ottoman governor in Jeddah who also controlled the military garrison. However, this governor split revenues from Jeddah port customs duties with the Sharif.43 The Ottomans also deployed an array of their own cadre of military, bureaucratic and religious personnel (representing the seyfiyye, kalemiyye and ilmiyye branches of the Ottoman government regime) to fill the various official posts in the city such as the garrison commander, chief judge, and sheikh al-haram, the overseer of the Prophet’s Mosque, who was usually a palace eunuch from Istanbul.44

• 45 William L. Ochsenwald, “Ottoman Subsidies to the Hijaz, 1877-1886,” International Journal of Middl (...)

23Ottoman reliance on a calculated balance of shared power with the Sharif might explain the absence of the typical Ottoman instruments of direct control, such as tax-farming and the timar systems, which were never actually applied in the Hijaz. Moreover, Medina, and the Hijaz in general, did not possess a strong economic or agricultural base. The territory was far from the major trade arteries, and did not provide much income from taxation either.45 As a result, Medina depended on the income provided by the Ottoman subsidies, a form of welfare which could be thought of as an alternative, but indirect, instrument of control.

• 46 Justin A. McCarthy, “Ottoman Sources on Arabian Population,” in Abdelgadir Abdalla, Sami Al-Sakkar(...)
• 47 Kemal H. Karpat, Ottoman Population 1830-1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics, Madison, WI (...)
• 48 John Lewis Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia: Comprehending an Account of Those Territories in Hedjaz (...)
• 49 William Ochsenwald, Religion, Society, and the State in Arabia: the Hijaz under Ottoman Control, 1 (...)

24Ottoman population statistics for the Hijaz are sparse, due to absence of census data.46 Unlike other Arab provinces, Hijaz was exempt from taxation and military conscription, which meant there was no practical reason to conduct a comprehensive census.47 Nevertheless, circumstantial evidence and traveler reports point to a population increase, especially over the later Ottoman period. The security provided to pilgrimage routes encouraged immigration, both internal from Arabia and external from other Arab provinces and beyond. Other sources of population increase included Ottoman military, religious, and governmental functionaries, in addition to religious education seekers in many of the waqf madrasas of Medina. By the year 1853 AD, Medina had about 20,000 inhabitants according to contemporaneous traveler accounts.48 This figure nearly doubled by the early 1900s.49

• 50 Michael Christopher Low, “Ottoman Infrastructures of the Saudi Hydro-State: The Technopolitics of (...)
• 51 Mostafa Minawi, “Beyond Rhetoric: Reassessing Bedouin-Ottoman Relations Along the Route of the Hij (...)
• 52 Nile Green, “The Hajj as Its Own Undoing: Infrastructure and Integration on the Muslim Journey to (...)

25The exclusion of the Hijaz from typical administrative regimes, such as census, taxation, and conscription, points to the fact that it was not fully integrated into the Ottoman system. In particular, integrating population from the Hijaz tribal hinterland into urban life does not seem to have been a serious prospect for the Ottoman administration. By the end of the nineteenth century, the official Ottoman rhetoric had already adopted a colonial view of the nomadic population in Arabia, who were perceived as a lingering political threat.50 It is important to note that self-serving provincial lords participated in reinforcing this negative view of their own countrymen, who were sometimes manipulated to serve local rulers’ political agendas, fighting rival lords or the Ottoman state itself.51 Whenever Ottoman subsidies were held back, Bedouins resorted to escalating highway raids on pilgrimage caravans, most severely in Arabia’s segment of the journey.52

• 53 Suraiya N. Faroqhi, “Red Sea Trade and Communications as Observed by Evliya Çelebi (1671-72),” op. (...)
• 54 Bernard Haykel, “Western Arabia and Yemen During the Ottoman Period,” op. cit. (note 5), p. 446.

26Even earlier traveler reports pointed to restrictions on the local population by the Ottoman authority. The seventeenth century Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi, in his travel memoirs, or Seyahatname, observed that Bedouins were not allowed to settle in Medina.53 Travelers’ accounts also recorded the noticeable presence of a non-Arab population. However, their residency status is hard to ascertain, especially if these reports were made around the pilgrimage season. On occasions, communities from outside the dominion of the Ottoman Empire were subject to the turbulence of politics. For instance, in 1633 AD, Persian subjects were banned from entering Medina by Sultan Murad iv, due to the Ottoman war with the Safavids.54

• 55 C. A. Bayly, “The Consolidation and Failure of the East India Company’s State, 1818–57,” in The Ne (...)
• 56 Anam elkabashi, “ᵓAfāriqah fī Al-Madīnah,” Dirāsāt ᵓAfrīqīyyah, vol. 23, no. 38, 2007, p. 105-117.

27Historically, Medina was always a destination for immigration, as is explicit in one of its names, dār al-hijrah, or “house of immigration.” The phenomenon materialized in the formation of a distinct social class called mujāwirῡn, travelers who chose to settle in Medina for scholarly and spiritual purposes. During the Ottoman period, Medina received waves of Muslim population from the frontiers of the empire and elsewhere during pilgrimage seasons, but especially at times of political and military conflicts. Resistance to British occupation of India, for instance, forced some Indian Muslims to set sail for Medina, especially after the Indian rebellion of 1857.55 After the French occupation of North Africa, immigrants from the Greater Maghreb increased, as did those from central Asia as a result of the Ottoman-Russian wars. Absence of census data, however, obscured the details of immigrant numbers and their original domicile. Imperial surre registers indicate numbers and origins of immigrant recipients of the annual Imperial gifts, but these records remain partial accounts and thus unrepresentative of the actual situation.56

• 57 Jane Hathaway, The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516-1800, op. cit. (note 7), p. 230.
• 58 The Prophet’s Mosque is the first purpose-built Mosque in Islam, but Qubā Mosque takes precedence (...)

28Generally, the spatial footprint of Ottoman Medina increased with the development of new neighborhoods, institutions, and infrastructure within and around the city.57 Spiritual significance played a fundamental role in the city’s development, especially if explicit Prophetic sanctions were to be observed. It was up to the sultan to make decisions related to important religious sites, as attested by an eight-meter scroll dating from around 1540 AD, conserved at the Topkapi Palace Museum Archive in Istanbul (fig. 2). It appears to have been addressed to Sultan Süleyman I by several notables from Medina, and demonstrates his patronage of the city at the height of the Ottoman reign. The section shown here contains visual representations of the three Medina landmarks that are most revered for their direct connection to the life of Prophet Mohammed. They are ranked by religious importance, with the Qubā Mosque at the top, the Prophet’s Mosque in the middle, and the Baqīʿ cemetery at the bottom.58

• 59 Sultan Süleyman Teşekkürname, circa 1540 AD, MS# E 7750, Topkapi Palace Museum Archives, Istanbul.

29The visual depictions are accompanied by a body of text evoking prose and poetry in honor of Medina and its association with the life of Prophet Mohammed. The text also includes prayers for the sultan in appreciation of his patronage, offered from inside the Prophet’s mausoleum chamber, the most spiritually significant part of the Prophet’s Mosque. The scroll concludes with signatures and personal prayers by several scholars and notables from Medina.59 The form and content of this visual commemoration reflects the symbolic value attached to Medina and its patronage by the highest Ottoman authority.

• 60 Guy Burak, “Between Istanbul and Gujarat: Descriptions of Mecca in the Sixteenth-Century Indian Oc (...)
• 61 Madrid (Spain), Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, MS 1708; See also, Ḥamad Al-Jāsir, (...)

30Further architectural details can be gleaned from contemporaneous chronicles, which focused exclusively on the Ottoman rebuilding of the holy cities. These works started to appear within a relatively short period of the annexation of western Arabia. Although the writings may be biased towards the Ottomans, they provide detailed accounts of the new wave of architectural and urban organization.60 In the case of Medina particularly, a short firsthand account written by a contemporaneous Medina judge named Mohammed ibn Khiḍr al-Rūmī (died 1541/42 AD) describes the construction activities decreed by Sultan Süleyman I in some detail. This source unwittingly corroborates the information on the abovementioned scroll about locations and building activities. The judge added more information, such as details about the Prophet’s Mosque renovation, including doors, minarets, and interior refurbishments. He also goes into the extensive overhaul of the city wall, including watchtowers, additional gates, and a military fort to the northwest of Medina (fig. 3). The manuscript gives credit to several people involved in the building process, some of whom were also signatories of the scroll.61

• 62 Evliyā Çelebī in Medina: the Relevant Sections of the Seyāhatnāme, Nurettin Gemici (ed.) and Rober (...)
• 63 Suraiya N. Faroqhi, “Red Sea Trade and Communications as Observed by Evliya Çelebi (1671-72),” op. (...)

31More than a century later, Evliya Çelebi provided an animated, if not dramatized, image of Medina.62 He was exuberant in his praise of its urban markets, claiming he saw “seven hundred well-decorated shopping streets.” His statement is probably more rhetorical than precise, but the exaggeration nevertheless indicates that the city was bustling with trade. Evliya Çelebi also marvelled at the wide variety of products for sale, from many parts of the world: “Here could be found wares from all seven climes,” brought to the city by “seventy thousand traders and pilgrims.” His account also contains observations about the social conditions in the city; for example, he notes that many locals were merchants and traders, and that wealthy inhabitants wore Kashmir shawls and Damascene fabrics. He also expresses astonishment at “how Anatolian the city felt,” for thousands of Anatolian immigrants had already settled in Medina by that time.63

• 64 Suraiya N. Faroqhi, Artisans of Empire: Crafts and Craftspeople under the Ottomans, London: I. B. (...)
• 65 Zeynep çelik, “New Approaches to the ‘Non-Western’ City,” The Journal of the Society of Architectu (...)
• 66 Irene A. Bierman, “Franchising Ottoman Istanbul: The Case of Ottoman Crete,” in Nur Akin, Afife Ba (...)
• 67 Richard Francis Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah, op. cit. (not (...)

32As part of a growing provincial and empire-wide network, arts and crafts filtered into Medina from neighboring Arab provinces and beyond. This cultural exchange process was also fueled by the effort of the central Ottoman authority to inscribe its own image in the urban fabric of the city. 64 In a place like Medina, the presence of the Ottoman political power iconography asserted its legitimacy.65 Irene Bierman labeled this process as “the franchising of Ottoman Istanbul,” where a standard mosque design with typical Ottoman features is transplanted in several places across the Ottoman lands.66 Indeed, several smaller mosques in Medina were rebuilt in the manner of typical Ottoman mosques, or Rῡmī style, with single or multiple domes on squinches, and typical Ottoman minarets, such as the Musalla Mosque (fig. 4).67

• 68 Mohammed A. AL-Hussayen, “Characteristics and Traits of the Majidi Building of the Eminent Prophet (...)
• 69 Mohammed Hazza Alshehri, al-Masjid al-Nabawī al-Sharīf fī al-ᶜAṣr al-ᶜUthmānī 923-1344 AH, Cairo: (...)

33At the same time, Ottoman interventions were more carefully restrained when it came to highly spiritual sites. For example, the Prophet’s Mosque was never completely demolished, but merely restored as needed, step by step. It was given its first Ottoman-style minaret, with a characteristically slim tower and protruding conical top, as early as the reign of Sultan Süleyman I in the sixteenth century, but only after the previous Mamluk minaret was confirmed to be structurally unsound. Drastic changes, especially of architectural elements from the Prophetic period, were completely avoided. During the reign of Sultan Abdülmejid I, architects of his major renovation of the Prophet’s Mosque had to develop two overlapping floor plan grids, one to maintain the exact column locations from the Prophet’s period, and the other grid to erect new columns for the new extension.68 Allegedly, the sultan wanted to erect a totally new mosque in the manner of the grand Ottoman mosques of Istanbul. However, religious scholars advised him to refrain from making such a radical change, warning him that the original Prophetic topoi of the mosque form and its components would be lost, if he did.69 It is this level of consideration and respect which consolidated the urban image of Medina and its identity until the modern period.

• 70 Robert Bertram Serjeant, “Haram and Hawtah, the Sacred Enclave in Arabia,” in Abdurrahman Badawi ( (...)

34On the urban scale, one of the hallmarks of the Ottoman spatial organization of Medina was the strict compliance with the religious spatial sanctions instituted by Prophet Mohammed upon his migration to Medina in 622 AD. The most prominent spatial sanction was the formation of a sacred precinct, or haram, around Medina, which is still in effect. The limits of this precinct were defined by features in the natural landscape to the north, south, east, and west. It stipulated that only Muslims were permitted to enter the city, and set forth various other regulations regarding the use of natural resources, for example.70 Outside the sacred precinct, Ottoman military control outposts were laid out along the travel routes.

• 71 ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh Al-Samhūdī, Wafāʼ al-Wafāʼ bi-Akhbār Dār al-Muṣṭafá, op. cit. (note 32), vol.  (...)

35Within the city, the Prophet’s market, known later as Manākha market, was also established as an open space by the Prophet’s sanction. No construction was permitted within its boundaries, according to al-Samhūdī.71 As a public space, it was one of the most resilient urban elements of the city throughout its history (fig. 5). It maintained its pivotal position as the town’s business center across all periods. As the city evolved during the Ottoman period, Manākha continued to be the main urban space and eventually the geographic center, where all major streets and thoroughfares converged.

• 72 Attilio Petruccioli, “The Arab City neither Spontaneous nor Created,” Environmental Design: Journa (...)

36A comparison of the urban structure within the walls to that outside them (fig. 6) reveals some of the intricate dynamics between Medina’s major urban components during the Ottoman period. For instance, the city wall separated the periphery zones of Medina, with their orchards and farmland, and intensified the density of the enclosed core. The physiognomy of the street network and urban spaces of the core part, as opposed to peripheries, indicates deep morphological differences in terms of street pattern, land use pattern, and overall architectural form. Furthermore, closer examination of the figure-ground relationship of the core part reveals a highly compact physical form with passages much narrower and more curvilinear, in contrast to the zones that are extra muros. This compact urban form is a result of a process of urban agglomeration and incrementation to achieve maximum spatial results.72

• 73 Attilio Petruccioli, “Polarity and Antipolarity in the Formation of the xixth Century City,” in Att (...)
• 74 Jamel Akbar, “Gates as Signs of Autonomy in Muslim Towns,” Muqarnas, vol. 10, 1993, p. 141-147. DO (...)

37The attraction of the Prophet’s Mosque as an urban node intensified density in its vicinity.73 The outcome is a highly efficient spatial configuration of nested hierarchies by means of architectural devices such as small courts, dead-end streets, covered alleyways and variable building heights of three or four floors to accommodate for high demand around religious occasions, such as the pilgrimage season or the month of Ramadan. At the same time, the hierarchical spatial configuration adhered to the territorial proliferation rules that reflected the social demands of privacy and security, through the progression of spaces from private to public, or the use of communal gates to prevent trespassing.74

• 75 William Ochsenwald, Religion, Society, and the State in Arabia: the Hijaz under Ottoman Control, 1 (...)
• 76 Mohammed A. Al-Hussayen, al-Madīnah al-Munawwarah: Bunyatuhā wa Tarkībuhā al-͑Umrānī al-Taqlīdī, R (...)
• 77 Ibid. (note 71), p. 125.

38Historical records indicate that waqf institutions flourished during the Ottoman reign in Medina. They included lodges, libraries, and schools to accommodate travelers and scholars. The vast expanse of the Ottoman Empire secured access to new sources of donations and charitable endowments, which came from places as far as Anatolia, Macedonia, and Central Asia.75 Ottoman court records of the period (1790-1813 AD) registered eighty-two charitable lodges (ribāṭs), mostly in the core area of Medina.76 Al-Maṭarī attested to the presence of two waqf schools in Medina as early as the thirteenth century AD. By the end of the fifteenth century, this number rose to eight schools according to al-Samhūdi. Towards the end of the Ottoman reign, at least twenty-eight schools operated in the core area, although the actual number is likely to be higher.77

• 78 Juan E. Campo, “Visualizing the Hajj: Representations of a Changing Sacred Landscape Past and Pres (...)
• 79 Moritz visited Medina in 1914 accompanying the Egyptian pilgrimage caravan and later published a v (...)
• 80 Map of Medina in 1852/1853 AD, in Ömer Faruk Yılmaz, İlhan Ovalıoğlu, Raşit Gündoğdu, Cevat Ekici (...)

40This emerging quarter could be thought of as the New Medina. It contains all the standard hallmarks, such as a wide thoroughfare, a ceremonial gate, public institutions, and affluent residential quarters. Some of the earliest photographs of Medina show the Ottoman state ceremonials when the Maḥmal pilgrimage caravan arrived from Cairo.78 It would enter from the ceremonial ʿAnbariyyah gate then promenade along the thoroughfare on its way to the Prophet’s Mosque in the old city (figs. 8−9).79 In 1908, the same ceremonial thoroughfare was used as the link between the newly opened railway station, just outside the gate, and the heart of the city. The 1852/53 map already indicates the existence of urban features such as the thoroughfare and the ceremonial gate (fig. 7). It also indicates official institutions such as the Ottoman army barracks and the tekke multi-dome traveler lodge on either side of the ʿAnbariyyah avenue, which also appear in Moritz photograph of 1914 (fig. 9).80

• 81 Syed Tanvir Wasti, “Muhammad Inshaullah and the Hijaz Railway,” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 34, n (...)
• 82 William L. Ochsenwald, “The Financing of the Hijaz Railroad,” Die Welt des Islams, vol. 14, no. 1/ (...)
• 83 Michael Christopher Low, “Ottoman Infrastructures of the Saudi Hydro-State: The Technopolitics of (...)
• 84 Philippe Pétriat, “For Pilgrims and for Trade,” Turkish Historical Review, vol. 5, no. 2, 2014, p. (...)

41The Ottoman shaping of Medina urbanization culminated in the opening of the Ottoman Hijaz railway in 1908. A traditional town, walled for almost a millennium, suddenly came into direct contact with modern industrial technology. Nevertheless, calls for a railway link between the holy cities and the rest of the world had begun to be heard in the mid-nineteenth century, in the time of the tanzimat.81 The scheme, however, was promoted as a manifestation of Sultan Abdülhamid ii’s Pan-Islamic policy.82 In the wider context of the nineteenth-century colonial race, the Ottoman Empire adopted infrastructural schemes such as railway and telegraph lines in order to affirm its presence in the provinces, and deter European colonial ambitions.83 In this spirit, the Hijaz railway was part of a larger scheme to connect Istanbul to its Arab provinces circumscribing the northern frontiers of the Arabian Peninsula from Kuwait via Basra, Baghdad, Mosul, Aleppo, and Damascus to Medina. The line was planned to continue on to Makkah and Jeddah, but it stopped at Medina. This was due in part to the resistance of Sharif Husayn of Makkah, who suspected it would undermine his authority.84

• 85 Saleḥ Lamʿī Mostafā, al-Madīnah al-Munauwwarah: Taṭauwwrhā al-ʿUmrānī wa Turathuhā al-Miʿmarī, Bei (...)

42The urban consequences of introducing the railway to Medina developed quickly. For instance, population increased within two years, from 30,000-40,000 inhabitants in 1908 AD to 60,000 in 1910 AD.85 In addition, train transport facilitated the influx of immigrants and pilgrims who arrived via Istanbul and Damascus from as far as central Asia. The Moritz map of 1914 (fig. 11) indicates the development of a new neighborhood (Neustadt on the map) to the northeast of the Prophet’s Mosque. On the Ottoman map of 1852/53, the same area is shown as farmland, covered with orchards and crops (fig. 7). The agricultural land was gentrified to accommodate the increased settlement facilitated by railway transport.

• 86 Attilio Petruccioli, “Polarity and Antipolarity in the Formation of the xixth Century City,” op. c (...)
• 87 Peter Hewitt Christensen, Architecture, Expertise and the German Construction of the Ottoman Railw (...)

43The railway station became a new urban node on the western margin of the city generating a major movement axis that linked with Manākha market at the town center.86 It also formed a tripartite system with the two major historical elements of the city, namely Manākha market and the Prophet’s Mosque. The architecture of the station building is an eclectic pastiche of European and Islamic architectural motifs, alluding to the early twentieth-century Ottoman proprietor’s desire to modernize without breaking away from heritage (fig. 10).87 In contrast, the adjacent station mosque, built simultaneously, is strictly in the Ottoman Rῡmī style with its central dome and thin Ottoman minarets affirming the identity of the central Ottoman power and its territorial presence in the holy city of Medina.

• 88 Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: the Classical Age 1300-1600, London: Phoenix, 2000 [1st edition (...)

46The continuous Ottoman patronage of Medina functioned as a bridge between the pre-modern and modern urban identity of the city, which clearly represented significant value to Ottoman legitimacy. As a final act of foray, the Ottomans decided, against all practical odds, to bring the railway tracks across the Arabian desert all the way to Medina. It is this kind of implicit value of the place which sometimes transcends realities. A value which resonated, almost four centuries earlier, in the words of Sultan Süleyman I, “I am Süleyman, in whose name the hutbe (Friday sermon) is read in Mecca and Medina. In Baghdad I am the shah, in Byzantine realms the caesar, and in Egypt the sultan.”88