MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL * 541

munityinAleppo,orlargerpartsofit,triedandtheJews,werealreadywellestablished?
Probably, the explanation lies in the very
to legitimize its localisri by conversion.to Success
success. of the tafg:
Catholicism (i'e., by oem#'tiating loy.alty Y:.networks'
and Jewish and
made them conservative,
to the pope, another ,"-t-igiou, uu-,troiityj, to
talk of ethnic Armenian merchants continued to cling
proves that there obsolete in the 18'h
"unnoi-;"
uion. nutionalism. put,"*r, which became
consciousness, ler
Thanks to missionar''"iii"l i"t,
part of l.ntu.y, Inland trade moved to the coast'
overall courit".-n"iorilurion ini.rn'xionur transit trade was replaced by
Rome,s
ut- to"ui"*pott of raw materials' especially silk
policy, Catholicism *"r'."^if^Ui" as an chris-
identity. uno .otion. The self-assertive Arab
ternative communrry-rorming middle class' was a newcomer to
The quest for tegitimi'Ing lo"il .uu-
tian' urban
to new op-
trade and hence more'sensitive
tonomy of urban, wett-to-aoRral Christians and changing patterns :f t^t*
as the cause fo, .onu"rrion to Catholicism fortuniti"r'
Masters's study is an important cont'-
is not only ttr" ..ntrui?gu.tni, uut orto
tution to an ongoing discussion about the
the only one. The often-reieated argument,
fo. O.u.fopn'"nt anl meaning of sectarian for-
a
that conversion to Catholfoirm mad"
more..fraternal,,(p.86)contactwiththe,notionsinBiladal-Shamunderottoman
French merchants, oo., noi t oro. Time
and ,ut".t y"t, other issues pertaining to the Eu-
will-
asain, French merchants proved their
t:p"?"
l'ry:^t 1t-t:::11"t
to autochthonous
the development'' i*:*unce the new Mo-
u:
iigness to deal *itt as long as
originating in Aleppo and
goods were
^nyUSOy
Oe'vereil l"rtrup, Zihir at- nastic movement
Durnur.ut at the end 9r.tn1 t]s ":l'1ly-":1
i,mar and Ahmad pasha al-Jazzar,the grear- in Mt. Lebanon, remaln
est raw cotton merchu*, on the s--yrian manifesting itself
"u",
coast,canseryeas"*u,nptt''Frenchconsu-tobeexplored'
hrencn
lar reports show the initation of the
with the i"itt"Lit missionaries' Thomas Philipp' Politik und
merchants
because the latter's zeal often led zeitgeschichte des Nahen ostens'
"*t'"*"
;;;;;i,i.;i;"mplications for the merchants. [Jniversity of Erlangen, Germanv
i.r.l,h.i could the French government truly
Drotect local Catholics before the
end ot
il'ig;..n*ry, by which time the network Safavid Government Institutions, by
oittt.,q..uU iatholic traders had already Wiii".noor.CostaMesa,CA:MazdaPub-
;,'ud overall of Bilattal-ShamandFgypt. Lishers,200l.x+283^pages.Bibl.top.293'
oI p.3ll.
Masters's argument that the presence Index to $29.95 paper.
French was decisive for the flour-
"onruls
iJi"s the Catholic communities (pp' 95'
"f for the 18'h ceniJry Reviewed bv Rudi Matthee
i'0ffit;;ilitt-;J coast
-
the
ui i.ut, along the Syrian
If Catholic traders did
--by
not flourlsn
sources.
inDamascus,whiletheydidinAleppo,itThisworkfollowsatraditionestablished
Uy Vtaaimir Minorskv. who in 1948
pub-
seems ro be caused Uy-it.,uttr",,"iigious of
rrade #;,;;,";;;;, ttrrE pif- iijtn"a
i.""slation-ium commentarv
characrer of " al-Muluk (the well-known late
grimage caravan), *ti"i, -"J" lt aimicutt
iian*iro,
vorrvrv tttir
r*b rw p"rti"ip"t" i"
for Christian r,'"."nunir-,
iuiauia administrative manual) and by
klaus Michael Rdhrborn' whose Provinzen
trade at all.
Masters rejects' justifiably' th: lu.qgit.
tion of a "Catholic commercial ethlc"'
t'ut
-r r Bernard Hev berser, tcs Chretienscatholique
du Proche
s::3::? ,'ffhXffi;ili,:'["":ffJ#:H
successful orient-Au
Temps de la Rdforme
the 18ft century *n"n-i*o oio"r (Rome' 1994)'
trading networks, tio'" oittt" Armenians
542 * MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL
und Zentralgewalt Persiens im 16. und 17.
Jahrhundert, published in 1966, analyzes
the actual working of the Safavid adminis-
tration. While acknowledging the ground-
work on the topic laid by Minorsky and
Rcihrborn as well as by others, scholars such
JeanAubin and Roger Savory, Willem Floor
offers many additions and corrections to
their work, but also has many new and origi-
nal things to say.
Floor notes in a rather clipped foreword
(in which he criticizes the tendency among
scholars to engage in intellectual discourse
and theorizing without having the basic
facts in piace) that he be,ean this study as a
commentary on the Dastur al-Muluk, in the
same way that Minorsky probed the Tahkirat
al-Muluk, but decided to write a separate
study of the Safavid government institutions
once he realized the enormity of the task.
Not nearly all functions are covered (some
are to be discussed in separate articles that
have already appeared or are to come out
later). Furthermore, it remains unclear as to
why one half of the study is devoted to the
army while no space is reserved for the judi-
cial system. Nevertheless, what is included
represents a thorough compendium of facts
based on a vast array of sources.
The first half of the book discusses the
organization of the government, both the
central administration and the provincial
structure. There is much to be learned here
not the least of which are the names of
-many officials buried in the sources, in the
form of many lists of incumbents of the vari-
ous bureaucratic and military positions
throughout the Safavid period. Beyond that,
a great deal of information is oft'ered on the
working of the administration, with ample
attention to changes over time. We thus hear
about the financial department, the use of
seals in bureaucratic procedures, the rise of
the majles nevis (royal scribe) at the expense
of the monshi al-mamalek (state scribe), the
fact that the khasseh department goes back
all the way to the days of Shah Isma'il, that
the function of darugheh was tied to the
khasseh domain, as well as the fact that the
position of beglerbeg occurs much earlier
than Minorsky surmised' Another notable
conection is the growing importance of the
qorchis (tribal guards), exemplified in the
enhanced status of their head, the
qorchibashi, who became the leading mili-
tary official. Many knotty problems, such
as the precise nature of the vakil and the
evolution of this position beyond the early
days of Safavid rule, the responsibilities of
the amir al-omara, are solved or at least elu-
cidated. Floor also draws attention to the
fact that, while the Qizilbash were weak-
ened as of the late sixteenth century, they
did not lose all power. What really hap-
pened, he reminds us, is that the administra-
tive system became more complex and
crowded, with many more contenders vy-
ing for power, all of which led to the blur-
ring of occupational lines. While, for in-
stance, the Tajiks had had a lock on the po-
sition of grand vizier during the first cen-
tury and a half of the Safavid dynasty, the
last 50 years saw a continuous series of tribal
incumbents hold the post. It was mostly
Tajiks who staffed the chancellery, but the
position of mohrdar (keeper of the seal) was
almost invariably in the hands of the
Qilzilbash.
The second half of the book is devoted
to a study of the Safavid army. This section
offers a remarkable overview of both the
minutiae of the various aspects of the mili-
tary apparatus ranging from dress and
drill to the music- accompanying campaign-
ing and its evolution, over two centu-
ries, -from a tribal arrny composed of death-
defying warriors to a sluggish, underfunded
institution incapable of defending the realm.
This section, too, presents myriad facts while
many important develoPments.
$i"t
2. See also LeilaFawaz, An OccasionforWar:
Civil Conflict in Lebanon and Damascus, 1860
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1995); Ussama Makdisi, Culture "f
Sectarianism: Community, H istory, and Violence
in the l9h Century (Berkeley, CA: University of
Califomia Press, 2000); and Thomas Phllipp Acre
1730-1831. Rise and Fall of a Palestinian City
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).

Among other things, it reminds us that, from
the outset, the Safavid army did not iust
rely on Turkmen forces but utilized outsid_
ers. in casu Georgians.
Floor knows his sources and offers a thor_
ough and thoughtful description of the
many positions. This does not mean that
there are no lacunae and that nothing pre_
sented here is debatable. A discussibn of
the sepahsalar (army commander) and a list
of the incumbents are curiously missing from
the part on the army. A review of the qottar_
aqasi (head of the slave soldiers) riveals
that Fath 'Ali Khan Daghistani held that post
between 1694 and 1699. when Musa'Bes
succeeded him. The author's urgurn.nt, ppl
24-25, 39, rhat rhe power of the l6th-cin_
tury grand viziers was no more limited than
that of the ones of the lTth century is ore_
sented in a muddled discussion andiemains
unconvincing. Floor is sometimes prone to
taking the figures given by persian sources
at face value, e.g. the 70,000 tofangchis
(musketeers) welcoming the Shah in lSgO
(p.181).
Like Minorsky's and Rcihrborn's stud_
ies, this a reference book, rather than bed_
side reading. A hardback edition would.
therefore. have been more appropriate than
the current paperback. Overall, Floor de_
serves thanks, for this type of ..dry, narrow
and in-depth scholarship" is a sine qua non
for further investigation
Rudi Matthee, Department of History,
Universiry of Delaware
WOMEN
States and Women's Rights: The Making
of Postcolonial Tlrnisia, Algeria, and Mo]
rocco, by Mounira M. Charrad. Berkeley
and Los Angeles, CA: Universitv of Cali-
fornia Press, 2001. xviii +241 pages.Tables.
Maps. Gloss. top.246. Notes ro p.300. Bibl.
r
iF
MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL * 543
to p. 317. Index ro p. 326. $50.
Reviewed by Loubna H. Skatti
Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco share
geographic, linguistic, cultural and histori_
cal characteristics. yet, the political will and
state policies behind the shaping of family
1.1*.ull women's rights are distinctively
dissimilar in the three countries. One of thl
central factors that accounts for this differ_
ence is the historical role played by tribal
groupings and solidarities in the formation
of the newly independent nation-states.
Mounira Chanad's States and Women's
Rights is a meticulously documented book
that explores this intersection between the
making of nascent nation-states and the
structural forces that shaped women's rights
in the three Muslim North African count ies:
Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
Charrad's main contention is that
women's rights and family law are the out_
come of the power play in the .,central_lo_
cal dialectic" (p. 4), or the struggle over
authority between the state and tribal kin
groupings in each Maghribi country. The
nature of the state-tribe alliances and the
degree of autonomy or independence of the
state from kinship groupings after colonial
rule are crucial factors in determinins the
conservative or liberal tendencies oi the
family legal code. Differences in state-tribe
relations have specifically determined the
degree to which political leaders were will_
ing to reform or conform to Islamic family
Iaw in formulating their national bodv of
legislation.
Thus, in Tunisia, the only Maghrib coun_
try where the political weight of kin_based
groups was remarkably reduced after na_
tional independence, the reformed familv
law of 1956 deviated from the Islamic
Shari'a in radical ways. The Tunisian law
abolished repudiation and polygamy, and
introduced a set of legal texts on marriage,
divorce, alimony, and custody that undir_
mined the patrilineage model of family.
In Morocco, however, where the leeiti_
macy of the post-independence ,nonurihv