Research Keywords
- Ottoman Empire
- Middle Eastern History
- Indian Ocean
- History of Islam
- Environmental History
- Arabian Peninsula
Presentations
- “The Global Crisis of Cholera and the Traumatic Birth of Modern Hajj Infrastructures,” part of a roundtable conversation with Hussam Dakkak and Sumayya Vally, “Accommodations: A Touring Exhibition from the Saudi Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition (La Biennale di Venezia),” hosted in conjunction with the Saudi Ministry of Culture’s Diriyah Islamic Arts Biennale, January-April 2023, Hayy Jameel Art Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 17-18 March 2023. Invited Talk/Keynote, Accepted, 02/25/2023.
- “Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj,” Paul A. and Marie Castelfranco Lecture, Department of Religious Studies, University of California-Davis, 23 February 2023. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 02/23/2023.
- Chair, “Climate, Water, and Ecology,” Middle East Studies Association, Denver, 4 December 2022. Other, Presented, 12/04/2022.
- “From Steamship Empire to Saltwater Kingdoms: The Indian Ocean Routes of Fossil-Fueled Water in the Arabian Peninsula, 1800-2100,” Adaptation and Resilience to Climatic and Environmental Changes in the Indian Ocean World, Past to Present, Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University, 25 May 2022.
Conference Paper,
Presented, 05/25/2022.
https://indianoceanworldcentre.com/adaptation-and-... - “Liquid Histories of Climate Risk and Adaptation in Anthropocene Arabia, Appraising Risk Summer School Workshop, Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University, 24 May 2022.
Invited Talk/Keynote,
Presented, 05/24/2022.
https://www.appraisingrisk.com/2022-summer-school-... - Book Talk, "Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj," UMASS Lowell, 28 April 2022. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/28/2022.
- “Moving Beyond Bedouins and Broken Pipes: Writing the Water Infrastructures of Anthropocene Arabia,” Eurasian Empires Workshop, Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University, 18 April 2022. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 04/18/2022.
- “When the ‘Water Prince’ Brought an Iceberg to Iowa: Muhammad bin Faisal Al Saud’s Frozen Fantasies of Antarctic Arabia,” American Society for Environmental History, Eugene, Oregon, 24 March 2022. Conference Paper, Presented, 03/24/2022.
- “The Well and the Water Machine: Liquid Histories of the Arabian Peninsula from Cholera to Climate Change,” Department of History, University of Utah, 21 January 2022. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 01/21/2022.
- “Infrastructure and Water in the Arabian Peninsula: Rethinking Histories of Desalination, Energy, and Petro-State Development in the Shadow of Climate Change,” American Historical Association, New Orleans, 7 January 2022. Conference Paper, Presented, 01/07/2022.
Languages
- Arabic, functional.
- Ottoman Turkish (1500-1928), functional.
- Persian, basic.
- Turkish, functional.
Geographical Regions of Interest
- Bahrain
- India
- Kuwait
- Oman
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- Turkey
- United Arab Emirates
- Yemen
Publications
- Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj, Columbia University Press, 2020.
Published, 10/06/2020.
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/imperial-mecca/978023... - İmparatorluk Mekke’si: Osmanlı Hicaz’ı ve Hint Okyanusunda Hac. Turkish translation of Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj by Yunus Babacan. Istanbul: Telemak Kitap, 2023. 464 pages. Available in paperback.
Published, 01/31/2023.
https://www.telemakkitap.com/post/21-i-mparatorluk... - إدارة الحج إلى مكة: موضوع تجاذب بين السلطنة العثمانية والاستعمار الأوروبي. Arabic translation of Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj by Rabi‘ Hindi. Beirut: Arab Scientific Publishers, 2022. 470 pages. Available in paperback and e-book formats.
Published, 02/21/2022.
http://www.aspbooks.com/books/bookpage.aspx?id=374... - Lâle Can, Michael Christopher Low, Kent F. Schull, and Robert Zens, eds., The Subjects of Ottoman International Law, Indiana University Press, 2020.
Published, 10/13/2020.
https://iupress.org/9780253056610/the-subjects-of-... - “Deadly Journeys: Public Health and Mobility Regulation in the Age of Steam,” in Qaisra Khan with Nahla Nassar, eds., Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage: Essays in Honour of Nasser David Khalili (London: Gingko Library, forthcoming December 2023). Accepted, 10/19/2022.
- “A Pilgrimage to the Fragile Future,” in “Parallel Pilgrimage: Reflections on the Space/Time of Shrines, with Bruce Grant, A. Azfar Moin, Catherine Wanner, Wei-ping Lin, Ismail Fajrie Alatas, and Michael Christopher Low,” In Dialogue, Roundtable hosted by Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2 August 2022.
Published, 08/02/2022.
https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/category/discussi... - “Desert Dreams of Drinking the Sea, Consumed by the Cold War: Transnational Flows of Energy and Desalination from the Pacific to the Persian Gulf,” Environment and History 26, no. 2 (2020): 145-174.
Published, 05/01/2020.
https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/whp/eh/2020... - “The Infidel Piloting the True Believer: Thomas Cook and the Business of the Colonial Hajj,” in Umar Ryad, ed., The Hajj and Europe in the Age of Empires (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 47-80.
Published, 01/01/2017.
https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/978900432335... - Lâle Can and Michael Christopher Low, “The ‘Subjects’ of Ottoman International Law,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 3, no. 2 (2016): 223-234.
Published, 11/01/2016.
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/745057 - “Unfurling the Flag of Extraterritoriality: Autonomy, Foreign Muslims, and the Capitulations in the Ottoman Hijaz,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 3, no. 2 (2016): 299-323.
Published, 11/01/2016.
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/article/745058/pdf - “Ottoman Infrastructures of the Saudi Hydro-State: The Technopolitics of Pilgrimage and Potable Water in the Hijaz,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 57, no. 4 (October 2015): 942-974.
Published, 10/05/2015.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/comparativ... - “The Indian Ocean and Other Middle Easts,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 34, no. 3 (2014/2015): 549-555.
Published, 12/01/2014.
https://read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/article-abstra... - “Mecca: Pilgrimage and the Making of the Islamic World, 400-1500,” in Aran MacKinnon and Elaine MacKinnon, eds., Places of Encounter: Time, Place and Connectivity in World History, vol. 1 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2012), 127-144. Published, 03/20/2012.
- “Empire and the Hajj: Pilgrims, Plagues, and Pan-Islam under British Surveillance, 1865-1908,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 40, no. 2 (2008): 269-290.
Published, 05/01/2008.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/internatio...