Challenging the Islamic City Paradigm: A Trial for Ottoman Urban Spaces through the Lens of Collective Action Theory

Abstract

This article focuses on collective actions in Ottoman cities to respond to the Weberian notion of the Islamic city, suggesting Islamic city dwellers’ incapability to act collectively. For this purpose, the study scrutinizes the collective appeals made by city dwellers to Ottoman courts, employing Charles Tilly’s theory of collective action. By conducting an extensive literature review of the Islamic city paradigm and analyzing court records, this article argues that Ottoman city dwellers possessed urban consciousness and engaged in collective actions for the betterment of their living environment, challenging the belief that such actions were absent in Muslim societies. Studies on this topic so far have neither employed a comprehensive theoretical approach nor have they considered the place dimension. Furthermore, this article suggests that essential indicators of Ottoman cities’ urban culture are joint decision-making, apprehension of urban problems, organizational capacity, and collective actions.