The Ottoman Empire was a multi-religious and multi-ethnic empire. Islam provided the glue that kept the empire together, while the millet system granted non-Muslims their autonomy. This flexible and pragmatic administrative system allowed the diverse population enough space to exercise their traditions, religion, and customs without interference from the empire. The nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire was thus described as an age of coexistence. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman empire went through a series of radical changes including major reformation attempts known as the tanzimat, European colonialism, and the emergence of nationalism. These changes brought with them instabilities, inter-communal riots, and civil unrest; the most known of these was the civil war on Mount Lebanon in the summer of 1860 between the Druze and the Maronite Christians.

In her book, Muslim-Christian Relations in Damascus amid the 1860 Riot, Rana Abu-Mounes examines another important riot that happened that same year in the inner city of Damascus, where several thousand Christians were massacred by their Muslim neighbors. According to several eye-witness accounts, Western media, and even academic sources, these riots are often portrayed in a sectarian language as an expression of Islamic fanatism since the aggressors were mainly Muslims and the victims Christians. Abu-Mounes, herself a Muslim research fellow at the Center for Muslim-Christian Studies at Oxford, takes on the immense task to examine the 1860 Damascus riot in detail. She looks at the sociopolitical and economic contexts of Damascus, the impact of the Ottoman reforms on the city, the intervention of the foreign European powers (mainly, Britain, France and Russia), and its effect on the local society.

What is special in this book is that Abu-Mounes examines the riot in much detail: she looks at the prelude that led to the riot, the incident that sparked it, the types of perpetrators, their specific target, the casualties, and the destruction done to the Christian properties at Bab Tuma that resulted from the attack. After a critical examination of the internal and external sociopolitical and economic factors involved, Abu-Mounes concludes that “economic interests rather than religious fanaticism were the main causes for the riot” in Damascus. The foreign powers’ economic penetration of Damascus resulted in significant changes in the social structure of the city. The external trade relations, industrial production, and shift in the grain and silk markets contributed to altering the political economy. Small-scale, urban Muslim traders found themselves suddenly marginalized and on the losing end. The British cotton and French silk trade required better educated and multi-lingual agents. Christians who graduated from foreign missionary schools were able to fill these positions. All of this led to the closing of many traditional small factories, which were owned and operated by Muslims. Abu-Mounes shows that the riot was not targeting Damascus Christians in general, but rather the Christians working for foreign diplomatic powers and, more specifically, in commerce who were living in one particular quarter of Damascus—that of Bab Tuma.

Abu-Mounes was able to show also that the riot was not a sudden or blind eruption but rather a conscious, even organized, mode of conducting mass politics on the part of significant political actors—especially the Ottoman Governor-General of Damascus, Ahmad Pasha, the concurrence of his irregular troops, and the turbulent character of the populace. Ahmad Pasha made no effort to prevent the riot, nor did he take any firm action to stop it. Abu-Mounes thus arrives at the conclusion that Ahmad Pasha desired the riot and that his troops facilitated it.

To better analyze the mechanisms and motives behind the Damascus riot, Abu-Mounes utilizes the theoretical framework introduced by Stanley J. Tambiah in his study on ethnic violence in South Asia in the twentieth century. Tambiah situates riots within the larger political, economic, and religious contexts and examines the strategic actions and motivations of the diverse actors involved. This framework proves to be an excellent tool to analyze the riot in Damascus.

In today's context, where the Middle East is often portrayed in a sectarian language, Abu-Mounes’ book provides an important socioeconomic and political lens to better understand the Levant, both its history and present. The book is an invitation to look through and behind what seems to be a religious conflict on identity politics to see the real sociopolitical and economic factors that lead to it. The book therefore provides an important tool in analyzing complex inter-communal conflict situations as well as an important contribution to Christian-Muslim understanding in the Middle East and beyond.