The Occasion of a Report on Cezzâr Ahmad Pasha (D.1804) Power Games in Syria

Abstract

The purpose of this study, to investigate the actions of Ahmed Pasha el-Cezzar during his governorship in Sidon according to a report in the Topkapı Palace Museum Archives registered with the number E 4029. However, the report was written is not exactly known when and by whom, it is clear that the author assigned by Dersaadet. In this case the takrir corresponds to Jurnal. Although jurnalls has generally negative character, it is seems that this time the author of the takrir/jurnal wrote kindly about Ahmad Paşa el-Cezzâr. This favourable declaration brings to mind two possibility: Either the author really believed activities of Cezzar during his governorship of Sidon was for the benefit of Devlet-i Aliyye or obtained (bought him off) by Pasha. In any case the document, on the other hand, is valuable in that it provides detailed information about how it works administrative and military organization and the social structure of the state of Sidon during Pasha's rule. But in order to analyze of a particular and conjunctural document would be able to in a more extensive and comprehensive historical frame, it is necessary for expression of power relations based on Egyp and Syria, Cezzar Ahmad Paşa, resulting in the emergence of a dominant political figure. In addition, Egypt and Syria regions were an area concentrated in the questions and doubts for the center of Empire too and that was the motive behind such a report about Ahmad Pasha el-Cezzar. Thus, the events in Egypt and Syria line in the 18th Century will be examined within the centerperiphery relations, patronage networks affecting these relations and Arab sociology.