Petitioning the Sultan: Protests and Justice in Late Ottoman Palestine

The practice of petitioning the Ottoman Sultan was a well-known institution which existed in one form or another throughout Ottoman history and enabled Ottoman subjects, far from the capital of Istanbul, to convey their grievances directly to the supreme ruler. Here, Yuval Ben-Bassat examines the petitions, including many previously unpublished ones, sent during the last decades of the Empire to the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II. The petitions enable Ben-Bassat to explore Palestine's history...