Surviving through the modern times: Ulema seaside mansions and households in Istanbul, 1790-1890

Ottoman ulema families as a social entity have rarely attracted the attention of academic scholarship. The existing literature on the ulema on the edge of the Tanzimat reforms circulates around institutional change along with a limitation to secularist and nationalistic biases. Furthermore, the ilmiye's political decline can be seen in a number of works, which, in fact, does not necessarily bring socioeconomic decline. In this regard, the present work questions and identifies the Istanbulite ulema households in the examples of their residences, sahilhane, or seaside mansions, on a particular geographical along the Bosphorus Strait. Moreover, in the nineteenth century, the thesis aims to draw attention to the remaining dominance of particular ulema families within the ilmiye bureaucracy in the nineteenth century, while examining the Şeyhülislams of the century and a number of ulema genealogies. By doing so, it outlines the Bostancıbaşı records and population registers of the Bosphorus Strait, examining human geography and social topography in a specific coastal line. Overall, the thesis aims to provide an analysis of ulema households and claims that there was no visible decline of the ilmiye in the nineteenth century in terms of socioeconomic wealth, and the presence of the ulema on the opulent shores of the Bosphorus could be discussed as an indicator for such claim.