The aim of the proposed paper is to shed new light on the still unstudied and ill understood cosmopolitan character of Istanbul in the 19th century through the lenses of Arab intellectuals and officials. Despite the well attested residence of a larger number of Arabs in the Ottoman capital, very little is know as to the networks into which they were absorbed or which they established, as to how these scholars and officials integrated in the local urban fabric of political and other institutions, and as to how they shaped and were shaped by the very cultural and social milieu of the city. Whether it is possible to speak of the marginality of Arabs in Istanbul is a thesis the paper seeks to deliberate. With the crisis of legitimization of the Sublime Port, and regardless of intensified occupation to safeguard the Arab provinces, the official Ottoman attitude changed regarding the ‘Arab-Islamic connection’, i.e. the relevance of the Arabic language, of Islam, and Arabo-Islamic heritage and civilization. Thus Arab intellectuals, scholars, and officials who resided in the city faced an ambiguous situation that affected their status in the city as is effected Arab self-perception as well as in the perception of Ottoman officials and public figures. More specifically then, the focus of the paper is twofold. Thematically, it explores the intricate relationship of Arab intellectuals in Istanbul with other local institutions and intellectuals as well as with other ‚foreigners’ residing in or passing through the city between the 1860-1900. The central figure through whose biographical data, personal networks and intellectual work this situation will be discussed is Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq (d. 1887), who spent the last 20 years of his life in Istanbul. Theoretically, it explores the potentials of the concept of histoire croisée to develop a thicker description of the relationship between Arab modernists and Ottoman reformers and multilayered approach that avoids the center –periphery paradigm for the case of Arab Ottoman history and culture.