Download or read book In the Service of the Sultan written by Ian Gardiner and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2007-01-19 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir of how a small number of British officers led Muslim soldiers in the hard-fought anti-insurgency war that has shaped today’s Gulf. While the Americans were fighting in Vietnam, a struggle of even greater strategic significance was taking place in the Middle East: The Sultanate of Oman stood guard at the entrance to the Arabian Gulf, and thus controlled the movement of oil from that region. In the 1960s and 70s, the Communists tried to seize this artery and, had they succeeded, the consequences for the West and for the Middle East would have been disastrous—and yet, few people have ever heard of this geo-political drama at the height of the Cold War. In the Service of the Sultan “is an enthralling book. In a mere 180 pages, Ian Gardiner, an army officer who fought with the Sultan of Oman’s forces, succeeds in three major objectives. He describes what it is like to be a young officer leading men of different nationalities into combat against wily and courageous guerrillas. He captures the landscape and the spirit of Oman, ‘that entrancing, fascinating, hauntingly beautiful country.’ Finally, he puts the battles he fought in their geopolitical context . . . It should be read with enduring pleasure by anyone who wishes to reaffirm his pride in his country and in its fighting forces” (The Telegraph). “For anyone interested in understanding the ingredients behind a successful counterinsurgency campaign, In the Service of the Sultan is a must read.”—Imperial Armour Blogspot “Politics, history, irregular warfare, religion, and international affairs: all are ingredients in this absorbing, informative read.”—Oxford & Cambridge Club Military History Group

Download or read book On the Sultan s Service written by Douglas Scott Brookes and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The renowned Turkish author’s memoir of serving Sultan Mehmed V provides a rare look inside the palace politics of the late Ottoman Empire. Before he became one of Turkey’s most famous novelists, Halid Ziya Usakligil served as First Secretary to Sultan Mehmed V. His memoir of that time, between 1909 and 1912, provides first-hand insight into the personalities, intrigues, and inner workings of the Ottoman palace in its final decades. In post-Revolution Turkey, the palace no longer exercised political power. Instead, it negotiated the minefields between political factions, sought ways to unite the empire in the face of nationalist aspirations, and faced the opening salvos of the wars that would eventually overwhelm the country. Usakligil includes interviews with the Imperial family as well as descriptions of royal nuptials, the palaces and its visitors, and the crises that shook the court. He also delivers an insightful and moving portrait of Mehmed V, the man who reigned over the Ottoman Empire through both Balkan Wars and World War I.

Download or read book The Book of the Sultan s Seal written by Youssef Rakha and published by Interlink Books. This book was released on 2015-03-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A PROFOUNDLY ORIGINAL DEBUT FROM HIGHLY ACCLAIMED EGYPTIAN WRITER Youssef Rakha’s extraordinary The Book of the Sultan’s Seal was published less than two weeks after then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, following mass protests, in February 2011. It’s hard to imagine a debut novel of greater urgency or more thrilling innovation. Modeled on a medieval Arabic manuscript in the form of a letter addressed to the writer’s friend, The Book of the Sultan’s Seal is made up of nine chapters, each centered on a drive our hero, Mustafa Çorbaci, takes around greater Cairo in the spring of 2007. Together these create a portrait of Cairo, city of post-9/11 Islam. In a series of dreams and visions, Mustafa Çorbaci encounters the spirit of the last Ottoman sultan and embarks on a mission the sultan assigns him. Çorbaci’s trials shed light on the contemporary Arab Muslim’s desperation for a sense of identity: Sultan’s Seal is both a suspenseful, erotic, riotous novel and an examination of accounts of Muslim demise. The way to a renaissance, Çorbaci’s journeys lead us to see, may have less to do with dogma and jihad than with love poetry, calligraphy, and the cultural diversity and richness within Islam. With his first novel, Rakha has created a language truly all his own—an achievement that has earned international acclaim. This profoundly original work both retells canonical Arabic classics and offers a new version of “middle Arabic,” in which the formal meets the vernacular. Now finally in English, in Paul Starkey’s masterful translation, The Book of the Sultan’s Seal will astonish new readers around the world.

Download or read book The Curse of God written by Harris Sultan and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2018-12-12 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a critical analysis of religion in general and Islam in particular. It covers some common misconceptions about Islam that both Muslims and non-Muslims have. The book starts with a little introduction of the author—how and why he became an ex-Muslim—and it is followed up with the importance of writing the book. The first chapter covers the importance of critical sense over common sense and how we should always invoke critical thinking when it comes to looking at the world around us. The book also covers some arguments for God and some counterarguments against God’s existence. It discusses the importance of God in keeping the morality of the society and the mental well-being of the human species. It also discusses the baggage that comes with religion, leaving our only lives here on planet earth devoid of pleasure and enjoyment. Moreover, it discusses the scientific flaws in the Quran and argues how it looks like a book written by a seventh century Arab warlord rather than the creator of the billions of galaxies. It discusses the critical and sensitive topic of the character of Allah (Muslim God) and Muhammad in light of the Quran, Hadith (collection of Muhammad’s quotes), and the biography of Muhammad. It gives a detailed account of Muhammad’s wives and violence in his life. In the last part of the book, the author discusses the rise of Islamism in the western world and its dangers. Finally, it educates its readers on how to debate with a religious apologist and some common arguments and techniques employed by them. It is a very interesting read into Islam from an ex-Muslim’s point of view and the best guide to learning Islam.

Download or read book Notes on the Land Forces of the British Dominions Colonies Protectorates written by Great Britain. War Office and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States written by Military Service Institution of the United States and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Sultan s Renegades written by Tobias P. Graf and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-23 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The figure of the renegade - a European Christian or Jew who had converted to Islam and was now serving the Ottoman sultan - is omnipresent in all genres produced by those early modern Christian Europeans who wrote about the Ottoman Empire. As few contemporaries failed to remark, converts were disproportionately represented among those who governed, administered, and fought for the sultan. Unsurprisingly, therefore, renegades have attracted considerable attention from historians of Europe as well as students of European literature. Until very recently, however, Ottomanists have been surprisingly silent on the presence of Christian-European converts in the Ottoman military-administrative elite. The Sultan's Renegades inserts these 'foreign' converts into the context of Ottoman elite life to reorient the discussion of these individuals away from the present focus on their exceptionality, towards a qualified appreciation of their place in the Ottoman imperial enterprise and the Empire's relations with its neighbours in Christian Europe. Drawing heavily on Central European sources, this study highlights the deep political, religious, and cultural entanglements between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe beyond the Mediterranean Basin as the 'shared world' par excellence. The existence of such trans-imperial subjects is not only symptomatic of the Empire's ability to attract and integrate people of a great diversity of backgrounds, it also illustrates the extent to which the Ottomans participated in processes of religious polarization usually considered typical of Christian Europe in this period. Nevertheless, Christian Europeans remained ambivalent about those they dismissed as apostates and traitors, frequently relying on them for support in the pursuit of familial and political interests.

Download or read book Exploring Ottoman Sovereignty written by Rhoads Murphey and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-10-20 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is it possible to identify the 'essence' of Ottoman kingship? And if so, what were the core motivating principles that governed the dynasty over its 600 year lifespan and how continuous and consistent were they? Following the death of the dynasty's eponymous founder Osman in 1324, 35 successors held the throne. Despite the wide range of character traits, dispositions and personal preferences, they led the expansion, stagnation and eventual collapse of the empire. Rhoades Murphey offers an alternative way of understanding the soul of the empire as reflected in its key ruling institution: the sultanate. For much of the period of centralized Ottoman rule between ca. 1450 and 1850 each of the dynasty's successive rulers developed and used the state bureaucratic apparatus to achieve their ruling priorities, based around the palace and court culture and rituals of sovereignty as well as the sultan's role as the head of the central state administrative apparatus. Sovereignty was attached to the person of the sultan who moved (with his court) both often and for prolonged stays away from his principal residence. In the period between 1360 and 1453 there were dual capitals at Bursa and Edirne (Adrianople) and even after 1453 several Ottoman sultans showed a preference for Edirne over Istanbul. Even Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent - held by the Ottomans, western contemporaries and modern analysts alike to be the pinnacle and paragon of Ottoman kingship - spent far more time away from his residence at the Topkapi Palace than in it. This book explores the growing complexity of the empire as it absorbed cultural influences and imperial legacies from a wide diversity of sources each in turn engendering a further interpretation of existing notions of kingship and definitions of the role and function of the ruler.

Download or read book Oman s Transformation after 1970 written by J.E. Peterson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-06-06 with total page 647 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oman's 1970 coup launched a new political and economic structure that was created by and for Sultan Qaboos. The initially haphazard construction matured into a durable structure that continues under Sultan Haitham. This work details the early construction of the Qabusid state in the 1970s-1980s, emphasizing the interplay between personalities and the process of institutionalization. The narrative continues to the present demonstrating the resilience of the Qaboosid system.

Download or read book Vlachica written by Mirela Roznoveanu and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2021-06-20 with total page 889 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who are the Vlachs? For the first time, Mirela Roznoveanu has put Europe's original people—her people—on the map. Living for millennia hidden high in the Balkan and Dalmatian mountains, above the shifting tides of empires, the Vlachs, or Armâns, have fiercely guarded the unity in variety of their ancient way of life. Their long silence breaks at last, overflowing with mythology, history, landscape, folklore, food, customs, clothing, music, magical realism, intrigue, passion, cruelty, poetry, tragedy, and comedy. Vlachica is a force of nature—total immersion in a rich, lost world.

Download or read book Life after the Harem written by Betül İpşirli Argit and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first study exploring the lives of female slaves of the Ottoman imperial court, drawing from hitherto unexplored primary sources

Download or read book Render Unto the Sultan written by Tom Papademetriou and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Render Unto the Sultan revolutionizes the way we think about Ottoman administration of non-Muslims, and seeks to avoid false impressions ranging from oppression and intolerance to equally false impressions of peaceful coexistence and harmony. By reading Greek Orthodox subjects into the Ottoman social and economic context, this volume challenges the received wisdom of the Ottoman 'Millet System', and fills the void by offering an alternative account ofchurch-state relations that are more in line with Ottoman methods of conquest and rule.

Download or read book The Rough Guide to Malaysia Singapore Brunei written by Charles de Ledesma and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-11-16 with total page 789 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rough Guide to Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei is the ultimate travel guide to these three exciting Southeast Asian destinations. Discover this dynamic region; from the turquoise beaches of Thailand, spectacular Gunung Mulu National Park, Mount Kinabalu, historic temples and the Perhentian Islands, to amazing Singaporean cuisine and lively nightlife. Packed with detailed, practical advice, this guide provides up-to-date descriptions of the best hotels in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei and recommended restaurants, shopping and festivals, for all budgets. Fully updated and expanded, coverage includes Taman Negara, Penang and Singapore, and magnificent Ulu Muda Forest Reserve. You’ll find expert background on Malaysian, Singaporean and Brunei history, with full colour features exploring Malay culture and Borneo’s longhouse architecture. Explore all corners of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei with the clearest maps of any guide and practical language tips. Make the most of your holiday with The Rough Guide to Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.

Download or read book Societies and Military Power written by Stephen Peter Rosen and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A work with broad implications for theories of comparative strategic behavior and civil-military relations, Societies and Military Power uses the long history of the armies of India as a basis for analyzing whether the character of a given society affects the amount of military power that can be generated by the armies that emerge from that society. By examining the changing relationship between ruling elites in the Indian subcontinent and their armed forces, the book shows that divisions within society are mirrored within the military, even within the contemporary professional military. Stephen Peter Rosen explores the proposition that cultural explanations don't sufficiently account for changes in military power, whereas social structure does. He suggests also that the dynamics of civil-military relations in a non-Western setting are not explicable without social-structural insight. He concludes that the comparative study of strategic behavior and military organization has lacked a sound foundation, which the social-structural explanation offered in this book begins to provide.

Download or read book The Cyclopedic Review of Current History written by and published by . This book was released on 1892 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Guns for the Sultan written by Gábor Ágoston and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-03-24 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gabor Agoston's book contributes to an emerging strand of military history, that examines organised violence as a challenge to early modern states, their societies and economies. His is the first to examine the weapons technology and armaments industries of the Ottoman Empire, the only Islamic empire that threatened Europe on its own territory in the age of the Gunpowder Revolution. Based on extensive research in the Turkish archives, the book affords much insight regarding the early success and subsequent failure of an Islamic empire against European adversaries. It demonstrates Ottoman flexibility and the existence of an early modern arms market and information exchange across the cultural divide, as well as Ottoman self-sufficiency in weapons and arms production well into the eighteenth century. Challenging the sweeping statements of Eurocentric and Orientalist scholarship, the book disputes the notion of Islamic conservatism, the Ottomans' supposed technological inferiority and the alleged insufficiencies in production capacity. This is a provocative, intelligent and penetrating analysis, which successfully contends traditional perceptions of Ottoman and Islamic history.

Download or read book Folklore written by Joseph Jacobs and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most vols. for 1890- contain list of members of the Folk-lore Society.