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The Ottoman Archives as a Source for the History of the Arab Lands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Bernard Lewis
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Extract

One of the classical difficulties of the student of the history of the Islamic Middle East, as contrasted with his colleagues in the European field, is the lack of archive material. While the western medievalist, for example, has at his disposal a mass of records, central and local, public and private, political, administrative, judicial, and ecclesiastical, the orientalist has to rely for the most part on literary and archæological sources. In many fields of history his findings are in consequence often vague and general; they are in the main limited to the public and external life of the communities and individuals he studies. Only the events and personalities important enough to achieve literary mention are known to him, and then only through the reflecting medium of literary sources. Even the great figures, with few exceptions, remain dim and formalized outlines, while for the life of the people he has to rely mainly on occasional hints and scraps of evidence. Large numbers of individual documents survive in isolation—some in the form of inscriptions, others quoted in the texts of the chronicles; but only for one period after the rise of Islam is any important body of original documents available—and the light they have shed on the period from which they derive has deepened the surrounding darkness. The Egyptian papyri of the early Islamic period have imposed a rewriting of much of the history of the early Caliphate, as recorded by the chroniclers and jurists. Yet even the papyri are not archives in the true sense of the word.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 83 , Issue 3-4 , October 1951 , pp. 139 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1951

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References

page 140 note 1 Ta'nkh i ‘Osmānī Enjümeni Mejmū'asi, 1911, pp. 9–19 and 65–9. See also Wittek, P., Les Archives de Turquie, Byzardion, xiii, 1938, pp. 691–9.Google Scholar In 1907–1911 E. Karácson, hitherto the only western scholar to carry out systematic research in the Ottoman Archives, worked on the Istanbul records and advised on heir classification. He died in 1911 of blood-poisoning contracted during his work.

page 141 note 1 In 1936–7 Professor L. Fekete, of Budapest, was invited by the Turkish authorities to advise them on the new classification of the archives. See [Fekete, L.] Arşiv Meseleleri. Translated from Hungarian into Turkish by Gökbilgin, Tayyip, Istanbul, 1939Google Scholar.

page 141 note 2 See, for example, the various writings of M. çağatay Uluçay, based on the archives of Manisa. For Arab history the archives of Southern Turkish centres like Diyarbekir and Gaziantep should yield useful material. It is not impossible that similar local archives still exist in the Arab countries.

page 141 note 3 But see Altmdağ, Sinasi, Kavalah Mehmet Ali Paşa Isyani ve Misir Meselesi, Ankara, 1945,Google Scholar and Tayyip Gökbilgin, 1840 tan 1861'e ve Dürziler, kadar Cebel-i Lübnan Meselesi, Belleten, x, 1946, pp. 641–703Google Scholar.

page 142 note 1 I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to the Director and staff of the Archives for their unfailing courtesy and co-operation.

page 142 note 2 Arşiv Kilavuzu, Part I, Istanbul, , 1938Google Scholar; Part II, 1940.

page 142 note 3 Earlier volumes may yet come to light. An odd volume covering the years a.h. 951–2 was found recently in the Saray (cf. Belleten, v, 1941, p. 638Google Scholar). There are occasional gaps in the series.

page 142 note 4 The first published facsimile from the Mühimme Defteri appears in Halil Inalcik, Osmanli-Rus rekabetinin menşei ve Don-Volga kanak teşebbüsü (1569), Belleten, xii, 1948, pp. 349–402Google Scholar.

page 144 note 1 The classifications, with tentative translations, are: Cevdet—'Adlīye (Justice); 'Asherīye Military); Baḥrīye (Naval); Beledīye (Municipal); Dā khilīye (Internal); Ḍarbkhāne (Mint); Evqāf; Eyālāt-ī Mūmtāze (Privileged provinces—those under foreign or autonomous administration, as Egypt, Lebanon, and Cyprus); Khārīnye (Foreign); Iqtisād (Economics); Ma'ārif (Education); Mālīye (Finance); Nafi'a (Public Works); Ṣiḥḥīye (Health); Saray (Palace); Tīmār; Zabṭīye (Police). Ibnülemin— 'Adlīye (Justice); 'Asherīye (Military); Baḥirīye (Naval); Dākhilīye (Internal); Meskūkāt (Coins); Evqāf; Khārijīe (Foreign); Ensāb (Genealogies); Khaṭṭ-i Humāyūn; Khi'at; Mālīye (Finance); Muḥarrerāt-i Khuṣuṣīye (Special Correspondence); Imtiyāzāt (Privileges); Mukhallfāt (Legacies); Müsted'iyāt (Petitions); Ma'ādin (Mines); Umūr-u Nāfi'a (Public Works); Ṣiḥḥīye (Health); Saray (Palace); Shikāyāt (Complaints); Tevjīhāt (Appointments); Tīmār ve Zi'āmet.

page 144 note 2 The first name is in ‘current use. The office from which the registers come was known formerly as the Defterkhāne. and was situated in the At-Meydam, opposite the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. Headed by the Defter-emini, under the supreme authority of the Nishānji, it constituted a separate branch of the administration, alongside the Dlyan-i Humāyūn and the Finance office.

page 145 note 1 On this, see now W. Hinz, Das Steuerwesen Ostanatoliens im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, , Z.D.M.G., 100, 1950, pp. 177–201Google Scholar.

page 145 note 2 For a list see Deny's article Tīmār in Encyclopaedia of Islam. A number of Qānūnnāmes are examined in von Hammer, J., Des Osmanischen Beichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, Vienna, 1815, 2 vols. (Egypt—I, pp. 101–143, Syria and Iraq—I, pp. 219–241)Google Scholar.

page 145 note 3 XV ve XVI inci Asirlarda Osmanli ImparatorluĔunda zirai ekonominin hulcukî ve malî esaslan vol. i, Kanunlar, Istanbul, 1943. This volume contaīns Qānūnnāmes for Mosul, Kirkuk, Nehr-i Sherif, Aleppo, Tripoli, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Safed, and an extremely important Qānūnnāme for Egypt, dated 931/1524, from the Süleimaniye library in Istanbul.

page 145 note 4 i.e. provinces where, instead of holding Khāṣṣ, the governor received a fixed yearly salary.

page 145 note 5 Specimens from the Defters for Anatolia and the Balkans were published by Professor Ömer Lutfi Barkan in his articles Kulluklar ve Ortakci Kullar (Turkish with French summarīes), Istanbul Üniversitesi Iktisat Fahültesi Mecmuasi, i, 1939, pp. 29–74, 198–245, 1–51. French summaries, pp. 14–44, 165–180, 297–321Google Scholar, and Osmanh Imparatorluğunda ve temlikler, vakiflar, Vakiflar Dergisi, ii, 1942, pp. 279–386.Google Scholar The second volume of Kāmil al-Ghazzī's History of Aleppo (Nahr adh-Dhakab fi Ta'nkh Ḥalab, Aleppo, a.h. 1342, ff. 3 vols.), appears to be based in part on the defters of the city.

page 146 note 1 Thus, in Palestine there are Turcoman quarters in Gaza and Ramla, and Kurdish quarters in Gaza, Hebron, and Safed. Christians and Jews are also frequently sub-divided into their various communities (Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, Latin, etc., and Sefardic, Ashkenazi, Oriental, Samaritan, etc.).

page 146 note 8 Some idea of the size of a household in one city in modern times may be obtained from Ghazzī, who for each of the quarters of Aleppo gives the number of houses (Buyūt) and the number of persons. The average number of persons to the house, for the 107 quarters, is 8·3. A comparison of the data in the Mufassals on Christians and Jews with the corresponding sections of the Jizye Defterleri, where much of the same material is differently presented, should be illuminating in this and other respects.

page 147 note 1 The Qazā, which belonged to a different system of organization, rarely appears. It may possibly have coincided with the Nāḥiye.

page 147 note 2 On these terms see Poliak, A. N., Feudalism in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and the Lebanon, 1250–1900, London, 1939, pp. 47–8 and 67Google Scholar.

page 149 note 1 Further material for Arab history will alsp be found in the defters of the border provinces of S. Turkey. ‘Ainṭāb 8 defters, Adana 10, Urfa 3, ‘Uzair, 4, Diyārbekir 10.