Thank you all for taking the time to read this and I look forward to your comments:

This is the 5th chapter of my dissertation, “Encounters of Islam and Empire: the Hajj and the Early Modern World”, It is the first of the two quantitative chapters. I originally had the two quantitative chapters as one but after advice from my committee, I split it into two. Therefore, chapter 6 deals with the same data set as the chapter I am attaching here but looks at different aspects of the data (gender, status, duties people are being paid to perform, imperial categorization of peoples), so keep this in mind when you are reaching through this chapter which aims to introduce the material and demonstrate the imperial network it represents. Since this chapter was split so parts of the argument might be disjointed I would appreciate any comments on how to make it more succinct and if any sections were unclear.

The chapters prior to this are as follows:

Chapter 1 “Encountering Empire”- looks at pilgrimage narratives in the 17th century and how pilgrims describe the Ottoman Empire and conceptions of Imperial control in Mecca and Medina (varied picture)

Chapter 2 “Encountering Others, Defining Difference”- looks into pilgrimage narratives from the 17th century and how the hajj provides a space in which their encounter with other Muslim pilgrims from across the Islamic world helps them demarcate difference (identity formation)

Chapter 3: “Imagining Space: A Mughal Depiction of the Hajj”- Examines one late 17th century Mughal hajj pilgrimage narrative in detail, looks at both the text and images of his “ethnographic” account of his encounters with pilgrims and empires during his hajj journey

Chapter 4: “Contestations of Power”, uses Ottoman archival material and letter collections to outline the local challenge to Ottoman power provided by the Sherifs of Mecca (specifically Sherif Said ibn Zeyd) and Bedouin tribes

Chapter 5: “Seasonal Empire”- This chapter

Chapter 6: “The Invisible Empire (Working title)”- Builds on material from chapter 5 and looks deeper into the content of what the Surre payments do and how they support Ottoman power via non-traditional means (Women, Eunuchs, freed slaves, poor) how these networks of influence challenge local structures of power in a space which the Ottomans do not have the traditional institutions of imperial power.

Kynn, Poster Kynn, Paper