ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to document the situations of non-Muslims, which characterized Cairene society in the 16-17th centuries, part of the period of Ottoman Egypt, as an example of the non-Muslims in Islamic societies in the Eastern Mediterranean. It adopts the perspective of the Europeans, especially the Venetians, as a way to find features of the society of Ottoman Cairo. The Europeans' main living place in Egypt had been Alexandria until the sixteenth century and, after that, Cairo. The categories of religious minorities and foreigners in Ottoman Cairo are clearly expressed in the description of quarters in Cairo in the Travel Book by Evliya Celebi, an Ottoman traveler of the seventeenth century. The spatial and social outline of the Jewish community in Cairo was relatively clear. Almost all of the Jews of various sects, various native places, and various social classes lived in the Jewish quarter. The Jews in Ottoman Cairo had considerable influence on the Egyptian economy and administration.
