This volume offers a history of Haifa during that crucial part of the nineteenth century when Europe's penetration of Palestine combined with Istanbul's centralization efforts to alter irrevocably the social fabric of the country and change its political destiny.
After tracing the town's beginnings in the early eighteenth century, the author painstakingly reconstructs from the few sijill volumes that have survived vital aspects of Ottoman Haifa's society and administration. A fresh look at the town's demography is followed by an in-depth discussion of the way inter-communal relations developed after the 1864 Vilāyets Law had brought a restructuring of the sources of elite power.
The author's findings on the social status of Haifa's Muslim women significantly add to the vibrant picture of economic activities we now know urban Muslim women in the Ottoman Empire were involved in.