Chapter 6 focuses on Ottoman political reactions to the two opposition movements. Since the main means of spreading word about them was carried out by missionary activities, this chapter examines how Ottoman rulers reacted to Wahhabis and Mahdists in Ottoman lands. I examine in detail various cases through Ottoman archival materials, classifying them according to region as a means of showcasing the political measures implemented to stop the spread of the two movements in the centres (Istanbul and the Hejaz), in the core regions (Anatolia and Rumelia) and in the periphery (Arab regions, such as Damascus and Baghdad). This chapter shows that the severity of punishments decreased from the centre to the periphery, even though the main concern was maintaining public order in all the territories of the empire. The cases in the chapter also reveal how the telegraph and steamship helped in the central management of all the territories through the responses of the Ottoman rulers in Istanbul to incidents in the periphery.

This chapter traces the development of Black sanctity in early modern Catholicism, examining how Black saints were venerated within the context of European Christianity, transatlantic slavery, and African diasporic communities. By focusing on both ancient and contemporary holy Black figures, the chapter explores the rich and multifaced roles played by Black saints in both European missionary efforts and Afro-diasporic religious practices.

This chapter examines bishops both as saint-makers and as saints in their own right from the end of the Council of Trent through the eighteenth century. Bishops promoted the cult of existing saints in their communities, worked as arbiters in formal canonization procedures to create new saints, and sometimes became saints themselves through their efforts to live like the model bishop saints they admired.

Using the Iberian Peninsula as a case study, this chapter examines the evolution of female sanctity away from the late medieval visionary model pioneered by Catherine of Siena toward a new paradigm of enclosed, contemplative mysticism exemplified by Teresa of Ávila. Analysis of the post-Tridentine lives and hagiographies of late medieval and early sixteenth-century visionary Castilian women reveals the existence and surprising vitality of an “intermediate” model, which shows that Teresa’s triumph was by no means inevitable.

This chapter focuses on the Chinese volunteers who fought in Korea during the Korean War. It looks at the interactions between the Chinese volunteers and North Korean civilians. It shows how the CCP strove to shape the emotions of the volunteers and inspire feelings of empathy toward North Korean civilians. Through using new North Korean source materials, it shows how the North Korean government sought to shape popular perceptions of the volunteers.

Hagiography played a seminal role within early modern Catholicism, with the writing and dissemination of the lives of saints – ancient, medieval, and contemporary – essential to countering Protestant attacks and reinforcing Catholic identities. This chapter investigates how printed lives, epics, and dramatic performances contributed to a multisensory experience of sanctity that connected local religious communities with the broader aims of early modern Roman Catholic Reform.

This study has approached the Ottoman nineteenth century with three basic schemes – namely, a quadruple, triple and binary composition. It examined the impact of the quadruplet of the steamship–railway–printing press–telegraph on the binary of centre–periphery relations through the trinity of Caliphate–Wahhabism–Mahdism. In that way, it has addressed the political and intellectual histories of the era in light of global developments.

This chapter explores the parallel efforts of the CCP and the KWP to train loyal party cadres. This was a critical taks for both parties. It shows how Sino-North Korean friendship was a powerful tool for training the emotions of the party bureaucracy.

Chapter 2 serves as an introduction to Wahhabism and Mahdism, which were the ideologies of two respective kinds of revival movements, the former doctrine-oriented and the latter person-oriented. Both, however, stood in opposition to the caliphal discourse. After providing a brief history of the Wahhabi and Sudanese Mahdi movements and a comparison of them, I evaluate their perceptions of “infidel Turks”, whom they deemed to be their main enemy, as a means of shedding light on their religious mission to fight the Ottoman state. By doing so, I also seek to show why the Ottomans saw those ideas as threats. Wahhabism and Mahdism entailed rebellion, and as a means of demonstrating the dangers they posed for the Ottomans, I discuss how the two revival movements tapped into global networks via the tools of steam and print.