Peirce|109court. Such individuals were a major force in the integration of Aintab city and
province into the empire’s economic, fiscal, and legal networks. These networks
were designed in and directed from Istanbul, but it was local actors who made
them locally effective.
Ottoman Regionalism
Regional reintegration was arguably the greatest benefit Aintab gained from in-
corporation into the empire. The Pax Ottomanica—that stabilizing effect of an
empire in its heyday—ensured security of highways and even byways, thereby
enabling a revival of commerce and communication. With Ottoman victory
bringing an end to chronic interstate conflict, Aintabans were freer to travel on
business, pleasure, or pilgrimage.
Regions were determined by physical geography and by the local economies,
urban settlements, trade routes, and communication links supported by that ge-
ography. Several of the cities in the greater Aintab region were of ancient prov-
enance, for example, Aleppo (ancient Beroea). Itself an old city, Aintab had long
since settled into regional networks that spanned northern Syria and central and
eastern Anatolia. The parameters of the core Aintab region in its early Ottoman
decades are suggested in figure 8.1. The inner core was defined by Aleppo, Ruha,
Bire, and Maraş, and the outer perimeter by Damascus, Amid, Malatya, Elbistan,
Figure 8.1 Aintab region. (Peirce, Morality Tales, xviii.)