“Iranians in the Ottoman Territories During the Reign of Abdulhamid II” by Akin Kiren

Iranians had probably constituted the largest group of foreign subjects in the Ottoman Empire since its establishment in the end of the thirteenth century. Their numbers were further augmented after the opening of the Tabriz-Trabzon-Istanbul trade route in the 1830s. According to a source, the number of Iranian people in Istanbul was estimated to be about 16,000 by the end of the nineteenth century. This well-established and prosperous community played an important role in organizing opposition outside Iran and in rendering financial support to the Iranian constitutionalists, and significantly affected the relations between the two monarchies.

Akin Kiren is a Ph.D. Candidate at Istanbul University in Turkey, and is currently a Dissertation Fellow at the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies. During his time at the Center, Kiren has been conducting research for his dissertation, titled “Ottoman-Iranian Relations in the context of Pan-Islamic Policies During the Abdulhamid II Era.”