¹ Public Record Office, London, Foreign Office (FO) 226/107.

² The highest figure given for Christians murdered was 18, reported by Consul Werry in a letter to Rose, (Beirut), 2 11 1850, FO 226/107. Bishop Bulus Arutin recorded that 7 people died during the rioting itself and 300 were wounded. Of those, 70 later died.Google ScholarBūlus, Qara⊃lī, Ahamm Hawādith Halab (Cairo, n.d.), p. 85.Google Scholar

³ The standard work on the politics of the notables is Albert, Hourani's “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables,” in William, Polk and Richard, Chambers, eds., Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East (Chicago, 1968), pp. 41–68.Google Scholar See also Halil, Inalcik, “Centralization and Decentralization in Ottoman Administration,” in Thomas, Naff and Roger, Owen, eds., Studies in Eighteenth-Century Islamic History (Carbondale, Ill., 1977), pp. 27–52.Google Scholar

⁴ There are two contemporary Christian accounts of the Events: one attributed to the Maronite Bishop Bulus Arutin and contained in Būlus Qara⊃lī's Ahamm Hawādith Halab, the other a diary of a Syrian Catholic schoolteacher, Na⊂⊂ūm, Bakhkhāsh, Akhbār Halab, ed. Fr, Yūsuf Qūshāqjī, 2 vols. (Aleppo, 1985–1987).Google Scholar Two English accounts have also been preserved: the letters of Consul Werry in the British Foreign Office Archives and the description by Edward, Barker, the honorary consul in Antioch, in Syria and Egypt under the Last Five Sultans of Turkey (London, 1876; reprinted, New York, 1973).Google Scholar In addition, the Events of Aleppo have been discussed extensively by Moshe, Ma⊂oz in his “Syrian Urban Politics in the Tanzimat Period between 1840 and 1861,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 29, 2 (1966). 277–301;Google ScholarOttoman Reform in Syria and Palestine 1840–1861 (Oxford, 1968), pp. 101–7. They are also covered in the two traditionally written chronicles of Aleppo published in the 1920s: Kāmil, al-Ghazzī, Nahr al-dhahab fī ta⊃rīkh Halab, 3 vols. (Aleppo, 1923–1926);Google ScholarMuhammad, Rāghib al-Tabbākh, l⊂lām al-nubalā⊃ bi-ta⊃rīkh Halab al-shahbā⊃, 7 vols. (Aleppo, 1923–1926).Google Scholar

⁵ Huri, İslamoğlu-İnan, “Introduction: ‘Oriental Despotism’,” in Huri, İslamoğlu-İnan, ed., The Ottoman Empire and she World Economy (Cambridge, 1987), p. 22;Google Scholar also in the same volume, Ilkay, Sunar, “State and Economy in the Ottoman Empire,” pp. 63–87;Google ScholarImmanuel, Wallerstein, Hale, Decdeli, and Resat, Kasaba, “The Incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the World Economy,” pp. 88–97;Google Scholar finally see Faruk, Tabak, “Local Merchants in Peripheral Areas of the Empire: The Fertile Crescent during the Long Nineteenth Century,” Review, 9,2 (1988), 179–214.Google Scholar

⁶ Both English sources give ⊂Abdallah's family name as Babulsee, and that is the form favored by Ma⊂oz who spells it Babilsi. The contemporary Turkish and Arabic sources, however, give the name as Babinsi. This is more likely as there is a village Babnis to the north of the city of Aleppo, and it is from there that ⊂Abdallah or his ancestors most probably came. The discrepancy in the English versions of his name, no doubt, are a result of the Aleppo dialect, which often reduces the written letter n in the Arabic alphabet to the spoken sound / as in Armalī for Armanī (Armenian) and ⊂usmālī for ⊂uthmānī (Ottoman).

⁷ FO 861/2, Werry, to Canning, , 19 10 1850.Google Scholar

⁸ Bruce, Masters, “Patterns of Migration to Ottoman Aleppo in the 17th and 18th Centuries,” international Journal of Turkish Studies, 4, 1 (1987), 84–85.Google Scholar For a discussion of the janissary and ashraf factional politics in the city see Herbert, Bodman, Political Factions in Aleppo, 1760–1826 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1963).Google Scholar

⁹ Qara⊃lī, , p. 64.Google Scholar

¹⁰ According to al-Tabbākh, the mob chanted to Abdallah “We don't want the vergi tax and we won't give any soldiers,” to which he replied, “You know your own work.” They then said, “We are going to plunder the government barracks and the Christians,” to which he again replied, “You know your own work.” The implication from this was that he had sanctioned the mob's action by saying that they knew best what to do; al-Tabbākh, , vol. 3, p. 439.Google Scholar

¹¹ Qara⊃li, , pp. 81–82;Google Scholaral-Ghazzī, , vol. 3, p. 375.Google Scholar

¹² Qara⊃lī, , p. 85;Google Scholaral-Ghazzī, , vol. 3, p. 375.Google Scholar In some cases, Muslims were paid to protect the Christians. FO 861/2, Werry, to Canning, , 19 10 1850.Google Scholar

¹³ FO 226/107, Werry, to Rose, , 24 10 1850.Google Scholar

¹⁴ FO 861/2, Werry, to Canning, , 26 10 1850.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Qara⊃lī, , p. 89.Google Scholar

¹⁶ FO 226/107, Werry, to Rose, , 6 11 1850;Google ScholarQara⊃lī, , pp. 90–91.Google Scholar

¹⁷ FO 861/2, Werry, to Canning, , 8 11 1850.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Consul Werry reported that 1,000 were reputed to have been killed in the fighting and 500 wounded but he cautioned that the numbers were inflated. FO 226/107, to Consul, Rose, 6 11 1850. Volume 258 of the Aleppo Court Records, National Archives, Damascus (henceforth Aleppo Court), is an estates registry for Aleppines who died in the years 1849–1851 and contains the estates of four officers who are identified as having been killed in this operation (entries numbered 233, 234, 242, 390), but this is the only Ottoman source I have found for the casualties incurred in the fighting.Google Scholar

¹⁹ FO 26/107, Werry, to Rose, , 6 11 1850.Google Scholar

²⁰ FO 86/2, Werry, to Canning, , 14 12 1850.Google Scholar

²¹ Aleppo, series al-Awāmir al-Sultāniyya (henceforth Aleppo AS), vol. 56, p. 36.

²² Ibid., pp. 25, 42, 66, 77, 123.

²³ On concepts of privacy in Aleppo, see Abraham, Marcus, “Privacy in Eighteenth-Century Aleppo: The Limits of Cultural Ideas,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 18,2 (1986), 165–84.Google Scholar

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²⁶ FO 861/2, Werry, to Canning, , 23 08 1850;Google ScholarIbid., 27 December 1851; Ibid., 17 January 1852.

²⁷ Bakhkhāsh, , vol. 2, p. 217.Google Scholar

²⁸ FO 861/2, Werry, to Canning, , 11 01 1861;Google ScholarBakhkhāsh, , vol. 2, p. 221.Google Scholar

²⁹ Bakhkhāsh, , vol. 2, p. 222.Google Scholar

³⁰ Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 217, 232; FO 861/4, Werry, to Rose, , 10 05 1851.Google Scholar

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³² Aleppo AS, vol. 56, pp. 7–74; FO 861/2, Werry, to Canning, , 5 05 1851.Google Scholar

³³ Resistance was particularly heavy in the ⊂Alawi mountains. FO 861/2, Werry, to Canning, , 20 09 1851;Google ScholarIbid., 10 April 1852.

³⁴ Ibid., Werry, to Canning, , 8 02 1851;Google Scholaribid., 11 October 1851; Bakhkhāsh, , vol. 2, p. 225.Google Scholar

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³⁸ FO 406/8, Consul, Skene to Lord, J. Russell, 27 11 1860.Google Scholar

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⁴⁰ Al-Ghazzī, , vol. 3, pp. 382–88.Google Scholar

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⁴⁷ Haim, Gerber, “The Population of Syria and Palestine in the Nineteenth Century”, Asian and African Studies, 13,1 (1979), 58–80;Google ScholarAndré, Raymond, “The Population of Aleppo in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 16(1984), 447–60.Google Scholar

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⁴⁹ FO 861 / 2, Werry, , 14 04 1846;Google Scholar also Norman, Lewis, Nomads and Settlers in Syria and Jordan, 1800–1980 (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 38–48.Google Scholar

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⁵³ The non-Muslims were assessed collectively for extraordinary taxes (⊂awārid, takālīf), see for example Aleppo, Court, vol. 23, p. 147; vol. 45, p. 75; vol. 87, Pp. 216–17, but were registered by name and individually responsible for the jizya payments; see, for example, Istanbul, Başbakanlik Arşivi, Maliyeden Müdevver, vol. 9849, dated 9 Sevval 1082/ February 8, 1672.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Al-Tabbākh, , vol. 3, P. 432.Google Scholar

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⁶³ FO 86 1/2, Werry, , 16 05 1846.Google Scholar

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⁷² FO 861/4, Werry, to Rose, , 26 11 1853.Google ScholarBakhkhāsh, , vol. I, p. 104; vol. 2, p. 358.Google Scholar

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