Collateral Damage: War and Civillian Casualties in Islam and the Ottoman Practices
Title: Collateral Damage: War and Civillian Casualties in Islam and the Ottoman Practices
Abstract
The well-known perception of war-hungry Muslims who had the Qur’an on the one hand and sword on the other offering a choice of either accepting Islam or losing one’s head has easily been created in the literature by the Orientalist scholars. Today the stress on the Jihad controversy by mass media in Europe and America is important and needs to be corrected. That jihad has usually been translated by the Western media as “holy war” is a greatly misunderstood principle in Islam. There is no term in Arabic which means, “holy war”. War is not “holy” in Islam.
I would like to divide this study into two parts: In the first part, the issue of conquest and its religious, ideological and theoretical references will be dealt with in reference to basic Islamic sources and the previous Islamic state’s practices. In particular, what are the limits of warfare and the position of civilians in the wars and wartimes according to the Islamic law will be looked for. In the second part, as a typical Islamic state, to what extend Ottoman conquests in the Balkans followed and practiced the legal way that opened up by Islamic law will be analyzed according to the available chronicles.
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Lecture Video:
Speaker Bio:
Graduated from History Department, Faculty of Education, Marmara University in İstanbul in 1991. Received MA in history at California Sate University, Long Beach in 1997 and PhD in Ottoman Studies at the University of Birmingham UK in 2000. Published several papers on socio-economic and socio-cultural history of the Ottoman Empire. The author of the books, Ottoman Reforms and Social Life: Reflections from Salonica, 1830-1850 published by the Isis Press, Istanbul in 2003, Personalities in Turkey during WW I, (Istanbul: Yeditepe Yayınları, 2008) (in Turkish). Forthcoming book, Assyrian Identity and the Great War will be out in 2012 by Whittles Publishing in UK. Currently, the Dean of the Faculty of Education and teaching in the Department of History at Balikesir University, Turkey.
Date: September 6th, 2012
Time: 6:00 pm Dinner, 6:30pm Lecture
Venue: American Islamic College, Room 123
*Free Parking on 613 W. Bittersweet Pl.
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