Abstract

This article examines Ottoman responses to Iranians bringing corpses for burial in holy Shi'i sites in Ottoman Iraq, and focuses on questions of sovereignty, frontiers, commerce, and sanitation. Bringing together the Shi'is of both sides of the Ottoman-Iranian frontier, this curious border crossing constituted a major point of contention between the Ottoman Empire and Safavid and Qajar Iran. One of the most persistent religio-economic activities of Middle Eastern history, corpse traffic continued almost unabated until the emergence of cholera as a global health threat. The emergence of cholera and discussions around corpse traffic and pilgrimage to the 'atabat helped transform one of the longest running unresolved issues of the Islamic world: namely, the undefined border between he Ottoman Empire and Iran.

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