Özet:

This  presentation is  an  analysis of the “islamic” reaction verbalized by  Malkom Khan, Iranian diplomat in Istanbul, in face of the cholera epidemic of 1865, as reflected in the contemporary Ottoman press. In this  year, a cholera epidemic believed to have spread from Hijaz during the pilgrimage season, raged  through major Ottoman cities and reached Europe. The presumption was that the epidemic had reached the Mediterranean from the ports of Egypt, and European  states demanded that the pilgrimage (Hajj) of the next year should be curtailed. Sanctions  by the Egyptians  and Ottoman authorities  were deemed to be ineffective. The Ottoman government accepted the French request in December 1865  for the commencement  of an international sanitary conference on the condition that  it  be held in Istanbul. The muslim view was  presented by the Ottoman and Iranian delegates in the conference which opened in January 1866  and continued for nine months. The Ottoman representatives were Ali Pasha, the  Foreign Minister, Dr. Salih Efendi, Deputy Minister for the School of Medicine, and Dr. Bartoletti;  Egypt  was  represented by Dr. Lautner, and Iran  by Mirza Malkom Khan (1833­1908), consultant in the Iranian embassy in Istanbul, who  was accompanied by two physicians. The French government demanded strict travel restrictions on the Red Sea, because this maritime line was seen as the cause of dissemination of the disease. The alternative proposed was that the pilgrims return either by the camel caravan  route over the desert or that the vessels from Jeddah disembark at a distant port  where the passengers were to be quarantined. Mirza Malkom Khan delivered a long argument  against the French  demand, which was supported by Dr. Bartoletti, one of the Ottoman delagates at  the conference. Malkom Khan  explained that  the  pilgrims would  perish in the desert  journey, and expressed his  support  to a second plan conceived by the Ottoman delegation, which accepted the enforcement  of the quarantine and the protection of the pilgrims against mistreatment.

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