Faisal Husain

I am an environmental historian of the Ottoman Empire, with a geographical focus on its eastern provinces in Anatolia and Iraq. My first book, Rivers of the Sultan, examined the role of the Tigris and Euphrates in the establishment of Ottoman state institutions in the Ottoman eastern frontier between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The book won the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association’s Book Prize and was a finalist for the American Society for Environmental History’s George Perkins Marsh Prize. My second book project is an environmental history of Ottoman frontier expansion east of the Euphrates during the sixteenth century. Besides, I am co-editing a book on the global histories of animals (under contract with Oxford University Press) with Emily Wakild (Boise State University) and Nancy Jacobs (Brown University). I teach courses on global environmental history, the Ottoman Empire, the Silk Road, early modern Muslim empires, and Western Civilization. I serve on the editorial boards of Marmara Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi (Marmara University), Uluslararası Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi (Kırşehir Ahi Evran University), Global Environment (White Horse Press), and the “Middle East Environmental Histories” book series (Leiden University Press).

Publications:

“To Dam or Not to Dam: The Social Construction of an Ottoman Hydraulic Project, 1701-1702,” Technology and Culture 64, no. 2 (2023): 456-484.

“Water for the Saints of Baghdad: The Hydrology of a Sacred Ottoman Geography,” Journal of Early Modern History 25, no. 4 (2021): 319-344.

“Sediment of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers: An Early Modern Perspective,” Water History 13, no. 1 (2021): 13-32.

 Rivers of the Sultan: The Tigris and Euphrates in the Ottoman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). Turkish translation appeared as: Sultan’ın Nehirleri: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Dicle ve Fırat, trans. Bestami S. Bilgiç (Istanbul: Timaş, 2023).

“Changes in the Euphrates River: Ecology and Politics in a Rural Ottoman Periphery, 1687-1702,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 47, no. 1 (Summer 2016): 1-25.

“In the Bellies of the Marshes: Water and Power in the Countryside of Ottoman Baghdad,” Environmental History 19, no. 4 (2014): 638-664.

Awards and Services:

Book Prize, The Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, 2022

Landhaus Fellow, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 2022

Kluge Fellow, The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, 2021

 Residential Fellow, The Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, 2019-2020

Dissertation Award, The Academic Research Institute in Iraq, 2019

Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2017-2018

Ömer Lütfi Barkan Prize for Best Article in Turkish and Ottoman Studies, 2017

Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, U.S. Department of Education, 2016-2017

Dissertation Writing Grant, The Institute of Turkish Studies, 2016-2017

Leopold-Hidy Prize for Best Article in Environmental History, 2014