This paper reconstructs and deconstructs a popular and powerful argument against Orientalism presented in the mid-19th century to an eager British and American audience. In the late summer of 1854, the West End of London was the site of a new entertainment for the masses of pleasure-seekers drawn to panoramas, exhibitions, and theatrical performances in the capital of the burgeoning British Empire. Perched at the busy Piccadilly intersection of Hyde Park Corner in St. George's Gallery was the Oriental and Turkish Museum, the brainchild of an Armenian from Istanbul named Christopher Oscanyan. Along with a Mr. S. Aznavour, Oscanyan spent ten months realizing a new amusement that he hoped would present a more humanistic portrait of the Ottomans and aspects of their history and culture. As an Istanbul native educated in New York City, Oscanyan worked from within and without Western culture to simultaneously challenge and reify Western notions of the Ottoman Empire as functionally withered and dying. He used his London museum and its extensive Guide Book, as well as his 1857 bestseller The Sultan and His People and several Broadway revues in New York City to urge British and American audiences to consider the Ottoman Empire a modern partner in trade, commerce, and culture. At the same time, he fed images of luxury and decadence with his historical narrative of the Ottomans, all the while trying to nuance the sweeping generalizations of Western observers of the Turks and their dominions. In this way, Oscanyan's museum and the subsequent literature surrounding it sought to divorce the Ottoman court from the population of Turkey, reject foreign notions of moral decline among Ottoman subjects, and promote support for reform among Westerners sympathetic to the Ottoman cause. This paper presents evidence gleaned from archives and field work conducted in the Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and speaks loudly to reinject Middle Eastern voices into the dialogue about Orientalism among Westerners and Middle Easterners, a conversation often presented by Western scholars as merely a European monologue.

Drawing on both Russian and Arab sources, I examine the ways in which the unique relationship between Russia and the Orthodox communities in the Arab world can help in rethinking the established paradigms of traditional postcolonial studies. By the end of the 19th century Russia had established itself as a 'Great Power' on the world scene. At the same time, it never succeeded in establishing the same type of overseas colonies that Britain and France did. Despite this fact, during those same years Russia was able to establish a meaningful and influential presence in the region by reaching out to the Arab Orthodox community. In the place of the strong center-periphery dichotomy that characterizes British and French colonial endeavors, Russian activites in the region have a much softer division between center and periphery. Reading Arab histories of the Russian seminaries complicates the entrenched East/West dividing line of postcolonial studies, illustrating an alternative encounter between a 'Great Power' and an emerging nation that never developed the customary colonial implications. On the Russian side, my study focuses on the activities of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, which was founded by V.N. Khitrovo in 1882. Over the 35 years of its existence, this society would become the most important institution for expressing and implementing Russia's connections—spiritual, cultural and political—to the Arab world. At the time, Russia had established itself as a great power in international politics, but lacked the military and commercial power to establish a colonial presence to rival the British and French in the fading Ottoman Empire. I explore the ways in which Russia's 'non-colonial' presence in Palestine reflects a type of Orientalist discourse that differs from that described by Edward Said. The unique aspects of Russian Orientalism are well illustrated in Khitrovo’s early writings about the Holy Land. To explore the Arab side of this relationship, I look at the literary, personal and journalistic writings of some of the notable graduates of the Russian seminaries, particularly Mikhail Naimy and Khalil Baydas. Many of these graduates went on to found important journals and newspapers in the Arab world. They are particularly important in the translation of European literature into Arabic. By reading their works together with those of their contemporary Russian Orientalists, we get a sense of the special relationship between the Arab Orthodox community and the Russian Empire, opening new possibilities for the paradigm laid out in Said's Orientalism.

The main purpose of this paper is to identify, study, and evaluate the early sources of the English historian Edward Gibbon, about Muslims in his work the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon’s treatment of Islam has not been studied to great extend. From the initial study of Gibbon’s work, one can categorize Gibbon’s treatment of Islam as a turning point in how the historians of the Protestant World in Early modern Europe viewed the Orient in general and the history of Muslims in particular. Traditionally, Byzantine historians were the main sources of Islamic history. Gibbon was critical of the Greek historians. In his views the Greeks, so loquacious in controversy, have not been anxious to celebrate the triumphs of their enemies. Therefore, Gibbon looked for other venues preferably to be early sources of Islam. The main goal of this paper is to examine these sources and evaluate them and to demonstrate to what extent of reliability and how much validity these sources for the early history of Islam were. Gibbon mentions four sources represent the annals, which have guided him in this general narrative 1- Annales Eutychii, Patriarchae Alexandrini, 2- Historia Saracenica of Georgii Elmacini,known as Elmacin or al-Makin, 3- Abulphargio, 4- Abulfeda Annales Moslemici Needless to say that he obtains his information about Muslims from the Latin translations of these sources. A quick look of evaluation of these sources, one can say that the best of Gibbon’s Chronicles, both for the original and version, yet how far below the name of Abulfeda. We know that he wrote at Hamah, in the 14th century. The three former were Christians of the 10th 11th and 13th centuries, the two first, natives of Egypt, a Melchite patriarch, and a Jacobite scribe. This study is of great significance in the field of Islamic historiography in early modern Europe. It shades some lights on the place of Islam in important history works in Europe such as that of Gibbon. Gibbon was one of early modern Europe historians who laid the foundations of the laws of history criticism, therefore, it would be worthwhile attempting to study how Gibbon influenced later generations of European historians on their treatments of Islam.

The search for the frontier, expansion into new lands and the dichotomy between the core and periphery has been an aspect of the human condition since the first hunter-gatherers wandered the earth. In modern times, manifest destiny has been seen as an implicitly American phenomenon. There has been very little discussion of how concepts and theories of manifest destiny have affected colonialism and imperialism, specifically French colonialism. This paper will explore how theories of manifest destiny and the American model of its implementation affected the theories of the Saint-Simonians in France and their colonial possession of Algeria. The Saint-Simonians were a product of the rapidly industrializing environment in France. Claude Henri de Rouvroy, commonly referred to as Henri Saint-Simon, was best known for his philosophical writings on how industrialization should reorder society through Christian principles. While Henri Saint-Simon’s writings never became prevalent in French society, many of the adherents to his philosophy occupied influential posts in France and abroad. Saint-Simonians were influential in the conceptional creation of the Suez Canal, the railroad system in the Americas and consequently the railroad system in Algeria. It was this group of expatriate Saint- Simonians who first likened America's westward expansion so France's acquisition of Algeria. Just as California was America's current frontier, Algeria was France's opportunity to experience the growth, financial gains and prosperity that westward expansion had brought America. In the footsteps of the American model, a Saint- Simonian named Michel Chevalier, who lived in Mexico and America studying the railroad system, decided that a railroad would allow for the borders of Algeria to closer to Paris than Washington DC was to California. This paper, will explore the Saint-Simonian’s contribution to the creation of the railroad in Algeria, specifically their work to mimic the American model of manifest destiny, and how this affected their preferred approach to colonization.