Table 1.x, Food Riots in the Middle East Between 1734 and 1943
Year Event
1734 Food riot in Damascus 1
1743 Food riot in Damascus 2
1745 Food riot in Damascus 3
1749 Food riot in Damascus 4
1757–58 Food riots in Damascus 5
1770 Food riot in Aleppo 6
1790 Food riots in Istanbul 7
1795-97 Food riots in Istanbul 8
1806 Food riot in Damascus (allegedly the first since 1758) 9
1807 Food riots in Istanbul, leading to the dethronement of Selim III 10
1811 (Fears of) food riots in Damascus 11
1813 Female food riot in Acre 12
1832 Rioting (demonstrations against high bread prices and theft) in Damascus 13
1840 Food riot in Aleppo 14
1841 Food riot in Aleppo 15
1856 Food riot in Damascus 16
1860 Violence and scarcity of food in Damascus (at least Mīdānīs rioted for food) 17, food riot in Aleppo 18
1877 Riot for arrears in Damascus, famine, high bread prices 19. Food riot in Baghdad, high bread prices in 1877, Dec 20
1878 Food riots in Damascus in 1878, Mar 21, in Baghdad in 1878, Jan 22, and in Jaffa 23
1879 Food riots in Baghdad in 1879, Jun 24
1880, 1 Mar Food riot in Beirut 25
1897 Riot for arrears in Damascus, high bread prices 26
1906 Female food riots in Tehran 27
1908 Food riots in Beirut in 1908, 20 Aug 28 and Baghdad in 1908, Jun 29
1910 Food riots in Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Damascus, Beirut 30
1910, Jun Food riot in Aleppo
1910, 2 Jul Food riot in Damascus
1910, 11 Aug Food riot in Hama
1910, 13 Aug Food riot in Homs
1913 Food riot in Damascus 31
1914, 13 Oct Food riot in Beirut 32
1916 Food riots in Damascus 33
1917/18 Hunger and famine in Bilād al-Shām
1918, Mar Food riots in Damascus in mid-March 34
1920 Food riots in Hama in 1920, 1 Mar and Aleppo in 1920, 1 Oct. 35
1936 Female riot in Beirut 36
1941-1943 Hunger marches and food riots in Aleppo, Beirut, and Damascus 37

Sources:

9 James Grehan, "Street Violence and Social Imagination in Late-Mamluk and Ottoman Damascus (Ca. 1500-1800)," International Journal of Middle East Studies 35 (2003), James Grehan, Everyday Life and Consumer Culture in 18th-Century Damascus (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007):86–91, ; Dana Sajdi, "Peripheral Visions: The Worlds and Worldviews of Commoner Chroniclers in the 18th Century Ottoman Levant," (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2002):170 Grehan's data is mostly based on al-Budayrī and Burayk. Sajdi mentions only one, undated, bread riot based on al-Budayrī. 6 Jean-Pierre Thieck, "Décentralisation ottomane et affirmation urbaine à Alep à la fin du XVIIIème siècle," in Mouvements communautaires et Espaces urbains au Machreq (Beirut: CERMOC, 1985):§148 10 Yücel Yesilgöz and Frank Bovenkerk, "Urban Knights and Rebels in the Ottoman Empire," in Organised Crime in Europe: Concepts, Patterns and Control Policies in the European Union and Beyond, ed. Cyrill Fijnaut and Letizia Paoli (Dordrecht: Springer, 2004):211, {Ağır 2010@40 **not found** } 11 Thomas Philipp, Acre: The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian City, 1730-1831 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001):124 12 Thomas Philipp, Acre: The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian City, 1730-1831 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001):176 13 Johann Büssow and Khaled Safi, Damascus Affairs: Egyptian Rule in Syria Through the Eyes of an Anonymous Damascene Chronicler, 1831-1841 (Würzburg: Ergon, 2012):59–61 16 Moshe Ma'oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine, 1840-1861 (Oxford, 1968):185 18 Linda Schatkowski Schilcher, Families in Politics: Damascene Factions and Estates of the 18th and 19th Centuries (Stuttgart: Steiner-Verlag-Wiesbaden, 1985):98 34 My own research 27 Ervand Abrahamian, "The Crowd in the Persian Revolution," Iranian Studies 2, no. 4 (1969), Vanessa Martin, "Women and Popular Protest: Women's Demonstrations in Nineteenth-Century Iran," in Subalterns and Social Protest: History from Below in the Middle East and North Africa, ed. Stephanie Cronin (London, New York: Routledge, 2008):50–66 35 Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000):21, James L. Gelvin, Divided Loyalties: Nationalism and Mass Politics in Syria at the Close of Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998):45 36 Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000):221 37 Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000):vi, 233–234, , , , with reference to Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate and Wilmington, Middle East Supply Centre, 25,127. 23 Johann Büssow, Hamidian Palestine: Politics and Society in the District of Jerusalem 1872–1908 (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2011):224 20 Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq's Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Ba'thists, and Free Officers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978):470, ; , referencing French consular reports. 8 {Ağır 2010@38-39 **not found** }, referencing "BA, CB, 5243 and BA, HH, no. 10794A (1211) [1796-97] cited in Şaşmazer (2000: 117–18)" and "BA, HH. 55177 (1204) [1795], BA,CB, 5243 and BA, HH, no. 10794A (1211) [1796-97] cited in Thornton (2000: 117–18)". 7 , referencing "BBA, Ḫaṭṭ-ı Hümāyūn, no. 16066 (1204)", "BBA, Ḫaṭṭ-ı Hümāyūn, no. 55177 (1204), Cevdet, Tarih III, p. 1484, BBA, Cevdet-Belediye, no. 5243 (1210), BBA, Ḫaṭṭ-ı Hümāyūn, no. 10794A (1211)". 32 , referencing al-Ittiḥād al-ʿUthmānī "14 November 1915". 22 24 29