Page 275 - Journal of Asian History_Neat

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Manoaville: The. Ottoman Province of al-Haso :>0")

tin* taxrs and ut the s:mu* time to develop the province’s imnual taxes, collected from miri land
land, a mixed fief and tax farming system (’illizdm) by 'iltizdm. Predating any reference to fiefs that
was set up.lu Fiefs were common in the sixteenth I have yet discovered, an order was sent in 1552
century, judging by the relative frequency of men­ to the district officer of LahsTi to forward every
tion in the documents, while by the mid-seven- year to the Imperial Treasury office of Basra
teenth century one finds references only to 1,500,000 ('<3n here yuz bin ofc^e).lw The
,ntikd(a'(U. In other words, the shift away from method of collection is not specified, but an order
the feudal system witnessed elsewhere in the of early 1560 states that in each of the previous
empire in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth three years 1,300,000 ak$c had been collected by
centuries took place in LafoaA as well.144 tax farmers in the district of lyatlf alone.l<* Such
In yet another sense the system of Lob-sft fol­ tax moneys were gathered from the individual tax
lowed this change; absentee fiefholders became farmers by the district officers or governors
more common. General orders were dispatched in general and forwarded to the Imperial Treasury-1*0
1587 to all governors general of Anatolia to cease It seems possible to me that the sum assigned to
the reassignment of ze'amelUr. Istanbul, without the district officer of Lafcsfi was to be collected in
sufficient fiefs at her disposal to reward the greatly the same fashion as Kamil's ’iUizdmlar.ni
increased number of deserving janissaries and In addition to the fiefs, tax farms, and private
state officers, henceforth alone would determine properties, part of the land of the province was 1
such assignments. A copy of this order was sent dedicated in trust (vaklj) to the upkeep of schools,
to the governor general of L&bsa.14* It was a logical mosques and other institutions whose raison d'Hre
step to take after the introduction of the tezkirc was the defense and welfare of the Muslim com­
mechanism of 1530.144 munity.1” The evkaf (pi. of vaklf) specifically
While it is clear that Lafrsa was established and mentioned in the documents are those set up by
functioned partially as a feudal province as long governors general of Lal^sS or their relatives. One
as that system remained viable in the empire, and document is a reply to a request for tax exemption
was not strictly speaking sdly&ne,10 the central for land which had been dedicated to the building
government still received a large portion of the and upkeep of a mosque ia Lahs5.lSJ Another is a

,u Koftu$ SS8: p. 113a, 19 RE 959/19 March 1552.
important part of the ransom of the Ottoman troops *"M 3:1124; 21 .Sa’bAn 967/17 May 1560.
captured in Bahrein in 1558 came from the sale of the ,M Gibb and Bowen, vol. I, pt. I, p. 143. The final re­
governor general’s collection of 176 pearls (M 3:1123, sponsibility of the governor general and the district
21 Sa’bAn 967/17 May 1560). Note also the effects of a office™ in the collection of these taxes is made clear in
relative of the district officer of K&fclf, which included the documents cited in footnotes 143, 149, and 151.
103 of seed pearls, 30 pearls each weighing 1 and 111 In a document dated 1567 reference is made to a
one-half milkdl and a number of irregularly shaped pearls sum of 1,800,000 assigned to the mUlUzimUr of the .
(M 6:287, 20 RE 973/15 October 1565). Piri Reis, dis­ province (vilAyet) of LabsA. See M 7:1360 16 ZK 975/14
cussing the Bahrein region in his Bahriye, dwells at May 1568. The figure is difficult to reconcile with the
length on the pearl fishing and the diving techniques sums given above. It is tempting to compare these
(Kitab-i Bahriye, Istanbul, 1935, pp. 61-65). figures with those given by Gibb and Bowen, vol. I,
ui The earliest reference to a mullezim, or tax farmer, pt. II, p. 45, where the revenues of Mosul, $ehrixor, and
U found in M 3:1124, 21 $a’bAa 967/17 May 1560. Rakka are roughly similar. Given the state of knowledge
144 The genera] features of this shift are described in of Ottoman finances, however, this comparison is nearly,
Gibb and Bowen. Vol. I, pt. I, pp. 188-190, 253-55, pointless.
Part II, p. 22.
1,1 See Gibb and Bowen, vol. I, pt. II, pp. 165 ff.
M 61:287, 5 Muharrem 995/16 December 1588. Evkaf chliye, family trusts, although they probably
1 For Uzkire in this context see Gibb and Bowen, existed, are not mentioned in the documents.
vo1- I. Pt- I, p. 49. IU M 19:6, 4 Safer 9SO/16 Juno 1572. A vakif oet up by
41 Annual payment to Istanbul, usually in lieu of ’All Bey, governor general of LabsA 973-79/1565-71.
eu al distribution of tax revenues at provincial level, Exemption from ’ujr was requested. Istanbul replied by
^ee Gibb and Bowen, vol. I, pt. I, pp. 147-48. asking how much, exactly, the ’ufr brought in?