Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: The Roots of Sectarianism

Bruce Masters presents here a remarkably subtle and well-researched portrayal of the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire and the shifts that occured in these relations during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In contrast to many of the polemics and platitudes which are often offered up in popular debates, Masters provides a rich and complex description of interconfessional relations which were dynamic and changing. For scholars of the late Ottoman Empire or its minorities, this work is a "must read," bringing into question much of the received wisdom regarding both the millet system and its breakdown. For those, who simply want to have a basic understanding of the relation between Islam and subject non-Muslims, one could hardly do better than his chapter, "The Limits of Tolerance.Apparently there is a paperback version of this work which, as of this writing (9/20/05), is offered directly from CUP but not on Amazon.