Suchergebnisse

Intro -- CONSTRUCTING OTTOMAN BENEFICENCE -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- NOTE ON OTTOMAN TURKISH AND ARABIC TRANSLITERATIONS -- INTRODUCTION -- 1. "DEVOTE THE FRUITS TO PIOUS PURPOSES" -- WHAT IS A WAQF? -- THE ROOTS OF WAQF -- WHY FOUND A WAQF? -- THE OTTOMANS -- 2. A BOWL OF SOUP AND A LOAF OF BREAD -- THE WRITTEN RECORD -- INSTITUTIONS OF THE ENDOWMENT -- ENDOWED PROPERTIES -- PERSONNEL -- SOUP -- WHY JERUSALEM? -- 3. LADIES BOUNTIFUL -- THE CONFLATED TRADITIONS: HURREM-HELENA -- BENEFICENCE AND WOMEN IN ISLAMIC HISTORY -- Early examples -- The Byzantine factor -- Turco-Mongol heritage -- The Ottomans -- THE GENDER OF BENEFICENCE -- 4. SERVING SOUP IN JERUSALEM -- A REPORT FROM THE 'IMARET -- ON MANAGEMENT -- GETTING STARTED -- TAX ARREARS AND FIREWOOD -- FOOD FOR ALL -- BUILDING A BATH -- DEALING IN GRAIN -- ADDING TO THE ENDOWMENT -- 5. FEEDING POWER -- PROVISIONING -- Istanbul and Topkapı Palace -- Provincial towns -- The army on campaign -- Janissaries -- Hajj caravans -- ON THE WORD 'IMARET -- PRE-OTTOMAN PRECEDENTS -- AN OTTOMAN INSTITUTION -- CONCLUSION: PRACTICING BENEFICENCE -- NOTES -- INTRODUCTION -- CHAPTER 1 -- CHAPTER 2 -- CHAPTER 3 -- CHAPTER 4 -- CHAPTER 5 -- CONCLUSION -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- Documentary Sources -- Published Sources -- INDEX -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.

In a unique study of rural administration in the Ottoman Empire, Amy Singer explores the relationship between Palestinian peasants and Ottoman provincial officials around Jerusalem in the mid-sixteenth century. With the use of court records, the author provides a detailed account of local conditions of production, the mechanisms for assessing and collecting taxes, and the strategies that were evolved in evading them. The book emphasises the complex, colourful and interactive nature of Ottoman provincial administration, which, while obliged to extract revenues from the peasants and impress them with the power of imperial authority, was nevertheless profoundly influenced by local conditions and traditional practices in its dealings with the populace

Almost two decades ago, Michael Bonner, Mine Ener, and I organized the first in a series of MESA panels on the general theme of poverty and charity in Middle Eastern contexts. We came to the topic using different chronologies, sources, and approaches but identified a common field of interest in shared questions about how attitudes toward benevolence and poverty affected state and society formation: in early Islamic thought, in the Ottoman Empire of the 15th and 16th centuries, and in khedival Egypt. At that time, we could confidently state that there was very little work in the broad field of Middle East and Islamic studies that focused explicitly on the study of charity and poverty.

One of the most profound Ottoman legacies to contemporary Turkey is the central role of private philanthropy as a vehicle for shaping culture and society. Two principal legacies of Ottoman philanthropy exist in Turkey today. The first is cultural, apparent in the thriving practice of elite philanthropy; the second is physical, readily discovered in the urban fabric of most Turkish cities, notably Istanbul. This article examines these legacies in order to analyze the nature of state building and society formation in modern Turkey from a new perspective. Both continuities and changes are apparent from imperial to republican times: in the identity of the donors, the sources and locus of wealth, the importance of foundations, the motivations for giving, the choice of projects, the physical impact of donations, and the identity of the beneficiaries. The dynamic contemporary culture of private charitable giving in Turkey results from a unique interaction of inherited Ottoman ideology and practices, themselves the result of combined Muslim, Turco-Mongol, Byzantine, and Arab influences; the observed example of modern Western philanthropy, notably that of the United States; and the specific experiences of the republican Turkish state and society since 1923. The economic elite have replaced the sultans and pashas as premier benefactors, with personal or corporate donations even rivaling government sources of assistance. The motivations for contemporary philanthropy echo the Muslim consciousness of Ottoman donors, while philanthropy functions more to legitimize wealth than to ensure political legitimacy. Nonetheless, philanthropy remains the means to contribute to a wider community, whether it is the community of Turkish citizens; of Muslims or another confessional group; or of a town, a neighborhood, or a profession. As in Ottoman times, the beneficiaries are not limited to the materially poor and needy. Rather, private elite philanthropy contributes to many segments of society and in this reflects the manifold motivations for giving.

Egypt of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has long been a focus for study by social scientists and humanists of various disciplines. To an extensive bibliography is now added a unique work of social history that explores the lives of Egypt's poor and the shifting attitudes toward them over 150 years. Mine Ener has written an account of how the poor of Cairo and Alexandria negotiated assistance from traditional institutions and government agencies alike, and how the nature of institutions offering assistance changed during this time. She posited that, for much of this period, the attitude of successive Egyptian governments toward the poor was one infused with an Islamic ethos of charity and informed by shifting political concerns. Continuous evidence of government behavior—from Mehmet Ali Pasha in the early nineteenth century to King Farouk in the mid-twentieth—demonstrates that the source of charity was never thoroughly depersonalized. Each one claimed to be the source of assistance and couched his claims in the language of the concerned and conscientious Muslim ruler.

Endowments (sing. waqf) are one of the more pervasive and diverse institutions found in Muslim societies through time and space. Praised for their contributions to religious practice, culture, and welfare, endowments have also been criticized and condemned in historical and contemporary writings for their detrimental effects on individuals, society, property, and the greater economy, as agents of sloth, corruption, and underdevelopment. This negative image stems from repeated, though not well-substantiated, accusations, as well as a paucity of research on the actual functioning of individual endowments. Generally, endowments have been written about from the perspective of their founding documents, or of snapshot images taken at later and seemingly diminished or deteriorated stages of their existence. Until now, only Robert McChesney (Waqf in Central Asia, Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480–1889 [Princeton, 1991]) has undertaken a monograph study of one endowment in order to demonstrate how a particular foundation survived and evolved over several hundred years.