Abstract
The Ottoman State in the “Ottoman classical period” was based on three basic institutions. These were the institutions of dirlik (livelihood), devshirme and waqf (pious endowment). Above these three institutions was the Sultan, the number one member of the “Dynasty of the Ottoman Empire”. Within this system, the sultan was theoretically the “largest hâss” owner in each sanjak, the most basic administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire; the “master of the slaves of the Porte (kapıkulu” [i.e., janissaries, cavalry and the Inner Service personnel]” at the centre of the devshirme system; and finally, “ the largest waqf founder” in the waqf imaret, on which the construction and settlement of the country was based. In the Ottoman system, the “state apparatus” revolved around these three institutions. Thus, according to Ömer Lütfi Barkan’s calculations based on the surveys of 1527-1528, waqfs accounted for 14,103 per cent of the total revenues of the Anatolian, Syrian and Iraqi provinces and 5,492 per cent of the those of the Rumelian provinces. In capital cities such as Istanbul, Edirne, and Bursa, the proportion of these revenues was as high as 36 per cent. Waqfs were one of the main factors that distinguished the Ottoman economic order from European-centred mercantilist production. So, what was the place of waqfs in the Ottoman economic order? This fundamental question will be the main subject of this study.
Keywords: Osmanlı, Vakıflar, Ekonomik Zihniyet ve Mehmet Genç
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