On the basis of sources in the Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, English, French, and German and drawing on preliminary research already conducted in Istanbul and Sanaa the proposed study explores the discourse and practices of Ottoman rule in the south-western part of the Arabian Peninsula that between 1872 and 1919 formed the Province of Yemen (Yemen vilayeti). Within the larger framework of studying how the concepts and practices of the modern state were applied in ruling the Province of Yemen one key component of my project examines to what extent European colonial discourse and practices informed Ottoman conceptions and strategies of how this part of the Ottoman Empire should be governed. While in the scholarly literature, the Ottoman Empire of the 19th and early 20th century is usually portrayed as the victim of European colonialism, there have been virtually no attempts to examine if and how the Ottoman bureaucratic elite was influenced by European ideas on empire and race in devising strategies of rule for certain areas of the empire. In that sense, a case study on Ottoman rule in Yemen opens up a new field in thinking about colonialism and moves it away from Eurocentric perspectives. The research will be conducted over a period of 12 months in various libraries and archives in Istanbul, Ankara, Sanaa, Ta’izz, and Ibb.