Overview
- Documents the changing role of the Islamic Waqf institution in Cyprus
- Engages with the political context in the 19th and 20th century Cyprus
- References much wider debates in Islamic heritage
Part of the book series: Heritage Studies in the Muslim World (HSMW)
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book documents the changing role of the Islamic Waqf institution in Cyprus and the conservation of Waqf heritage buildings of Ottoman and Western origins. Previously ignored archives of documents detailing the conservation of Waqf buildings during Ottoman and British rule allow a fine-grained analysis of the colonial introduction of Western approaches to heritage conservation. Colonial rule saw major legislative and administrative changes to the originally autonomous Ottoman Waqf institution, which had already been subject to reforms under the Ottoman regime. Under British rule, Western heritage concepts and modern architectural conservation discourses became the core conservation principles in Cyprus. Earlier centralisation attempts during the Ottoman Tanzimat (1831-1876), and the procedural, technical, and political reconfigurations during the British colonial era in Cyprus (1878-1960), were key factors of the transformation of the Waqf’s traditional building upkeep system. These imperial interventions, their orientalist mindset, and the rise of nationalism, finally led to the erosion of Waqf in Cyprus as a non-Western and sustainable form of building conservation. This study reveals how the Western approach, the forms of expertise it privileges, and pragmatic diversions from this practice for political purposes, were useful in neutralizing the legitimacy of local practices, except in cases where opportunistic ‘recognition’ of their utility played a role in inter-communal, colonial, nationalist, and inter-imperial politics.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Reyhan Sabri is an assistant professor in the Department of Architectural Engineering, University of Sharjah (UAE), where she teaches courses in the field of architectural history and theory. Her research interests are broadly related to the evolution of heritage management philosophies and practices in the colonial and post-colonial environments.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Imperial Politics of Architectural Conservation
Book Subtitle: The Case of Waqf in Cyprus
Authors: Reyhan Sabri
Series Title: Heritage Studies in the Muslim World
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18232-8
Publisher: Palgrave Pivot Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-18231-1Published: 01 August 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-18232-8Published: 15 July 2019
Series ISSN: 2662-7906
Series E-ISSN: 2662-7914
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVI, 155
Number of Illustrations: 14 b/w illustrations
Topics: Islam, Middle Eastern Culture, History of the Middle East