An Ottoman holy land: two early modern travel accounts and imperial subjectivity

Abstract

This study investigates how the Holy Land was experienced and perceived in the early modern era, by comparing the accounts of two travelers representing distinct but complementary vantage points: Evliya Celebi (d. ca. 1685), a Sunni Muslim from Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and Shemu'el ben David (d. 1673), a Karaite Jew from the Crimean Khanate, a vassal state on the periphery. Considering their specific views of the Holy Land and the kinds of traditions that the two contemporaries relate about the same sites they visited, we argue that both perceived the Holy Land not only through an intersecting scriptural lens, but also through a similar imperial lens that drew attention to and valorized the Ottoman presence over the sacred territory. Thus more broadly, the comparative study offers an alternative non-Eurocentric frame for exploring the relationship between empire, subject, and the holy in the early modern era.