This article examines Ottoman strategies for the resettlement and integration of Circassian refugees in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing on Bilād al-Shām and its surrounding provinces. Drawing on Ottoman archival correspondence (BOA), provincial records, Sharia court registers and contemporary newspapers, it adopts a multi-scalar approach that combines close analysis of administrative documents with attention to local implementation and negotiation. Rather than treating state records as transparent evidence of coherent policy, the study reads them as instruments of governance shaped by fiscal constraints, security concerns and imperial priorities. It analyzes the financial, logistical and welfare measures employed to facilitate relocation, including land allocation, housing, agricultural assistance, stipends and transportation networks, revealing the institutionalization of refugee governance. At the same time, settlement efforts faced climatic challenges, disease, logistical delays and tensions with local communities and tribal groups. Outcomes emerged through ongoing negotiation between central objectives and provincial realities. By situating Circassian resettlement within debates on late Ottoman state formation and state–society relations, the article argues that humanitarian discourse, demographic strategy and political consolidation operated simultaneously in managing forced displacement.
Al-Salameen et al. (Thu,) studied this question.