Amy Singer
Hassenfeld Chair in Islamic Studies and Professor of History
Degrees
- Princeton University, PhD, MA
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Swarthmore College, BA
Expertise
Ottoman history, history of charity in Islamic societies, history of Islamic endowments (waqf), the city of Edirne, Palestine in the Ottoman period
Profile
Amy Singer (Ph.D. Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, 1989) holds the Hassenfeld Chair in Islamic Studies and is Professor in the Department of History, and professor emerita in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. Her research began with an in-depth study of the relations between Ottoman officials and Palestinian peasants, in an effort to move Ottoman agrarian history beyond cataloging the demography and agricultural production of villages (Palestinian peasants and Ottoman officials, 1994). This first study revealed the importance of the Haseki Sultan waqf, a large, endowed public kitchen (imaret) founded in mid-sixteenth-century Jerusalem by the wife of Sultan Suleyman (Constructing Ottoman Beneficence, 2002). One endowment led to others, and to broader questions about of benevolent giving (Charity in Islamic Societies, 2008). Each monograph has also appeared in Turkish translation. Singer’s research now focuses on Ottoman Edirne (Byzantine Adrianople) to explore how this city and its region fostered the formation of Ottoman state and society in the first half of the fifteenth century. She is part of OpenOttoman, an initiative to consider how digital tools and capacities can enhance and sustain Ottoman studies. From 2018-2020, she is president of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association.