Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

Unfortunately, Thursday evening’s book talk by Dr. Lâle Can has been cancelled due to travel concerns.

At the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of Central Asians made the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Traveling long distances, many lived for extended periods in Ottoman cities dotting the routes. Though technically foreigners, these Muslim colonial subjects often blurred the lines between pilgrims and migrants. Not quite Ottoman, and not quite foreign, Central Asians became the sultan’s spiritual subjects. Their status was continually negotiated by Ottoman statesmen as attempts to exclude foreign Muslim nationals from the body politic were compromised by a changing international legal order and the caliphate’s ecumenical claims.

Lâle Can is Assistant Professor of History at The City College of New York, CUNY.

Sponsored by the Center for Global Islamic Studies and the Department of History.