Beschreibung:
<jats:title>ABSTRACT:</jats:title><jats:p>This article examines the political and social tensions of late Ottoman Haifa through the history of the Hejaz Railway and a particular monument, the ‘Exalted Column’ (<jats:italic>Sütūn-u ʿĀlī</jats:italic>), a monument erected in 1903 to commemorate the beginning of Ottoman construction on the Haifa railway branch. By first establishing the use of railways and railway architecture as a means of exerting state power in a comparative and local perspective, the railway structures in Haifa are analysed in the context of that city's other monumental buildings. This then leads to a discussion of the<jats:italic>Sütūn-u ʿĀlī</jats:italic>as a celebration of Ottoman authority and modernity, and of the developing Ottoman–German alliance. The symbolism of the column's iconography is shown to reflect a variety of problems that the Ottoman state faced in Haifa at the turn of the twentieth century.</jats:p>