Le titre de Sayyid ou Sî dans la documentation constantinoise d’époque moderne : un marqueur identitaire en évolution

• Main Author: Isabelle Grangaud
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université de Provence 2010-07-01
• Series: Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée
• Subjects: archival production; Constantine; contexts of utterance; Early Modern Era; Sayyid; social classifications
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/6604

This article examines the use of the honorific title Sayyid in legal documents drafted in Constantine in the early modern period, taking into account the context in which these documents were produced. It shows two ways in which this social category was less stable than previously thought. On the one hand, the term gradually ceased to be exclusively reserved for religious dignitaries and lineages, and was extended to others dignitaries associated with the Ottoman political and administrative apparatus. On the other hand, the term and the sense of notability it conveys take on variable meanings according to the context of its use. Hence, historians must be aware that apparently simple social classifications might hide a range of meanings depending on the context; they have to take into account this plurality of classification in order to understand the society they scrutinize.