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Farming out judicial offices in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1750–1839

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2023

Jun Akiba Open the ORCID record for Jun Akiba [Opens in a new window]
Jun Akiba*
Affiliation:
Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
*
Email: j-akiba@ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp
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Abstract

This article focuses on the widespread practice of appointing deputy judges, called naibs, in the Ottoman Empire from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Based on extensive archival research, it analyses how the judiciary turned into a system of allocating revenue sources. An increasing number of offices of kadı (judge) were assigned as a source of income to higher-ranking ulema, who, through intermediaries, in turn farmed out their judicial offices to naibs in return for a fixed sum of money. Importantly, the apportionment fees for taxes collected from local taxpayers constituted a significant part of naibs’ incomes. The practice of deputizing in the Ottoman judiciary thus shows a close parallel with tax farming. Because the naibs transferred their revenues to the higher-ranking ulema, farming out judicial offices became a major economic basis for maintaining the Ottoman ulema hierarchy.

Keywords

Ottoman Empirekadınaibjudiciaryulematax farming
Type
Article
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 87 , Issue 1 , February 2024 , pp. 29 - 49
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

Introduction

During the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Ottoman Empire established a centralized judicial institution by setting up a sharia court in every judicial-administrative unit or district (kaza) and by appointing a judge (kadı) from the centre. Importantly, the office of judge was hierarchically organized and linked to the hierarchy of professorships at medreses (Islamic colleges), and appointments were made according to ranking. This hierarchical order of judgeships and professorships was called ilmiye, and the Şeyhülislam, or the chief mufti (jurisconsult) of the empire, was placed at its summit.Footnote 1

Despite the existence of a well-organized hierarchy based on seniority, scholars have emphasized that the ilmiye institution favoured those originating from ulema families, who routinely occupied high-ranking positions,Footnote 2 although the system was relatively open to newcomers at the lower levels.Footnote 3 Madeline C. Zilfi noted the emergence of 11 grand ulema families who dominated the highest positions in the hierarchy during the eighteenth century. Concurrent with the culmination of the “ulema aristocracy”,Footnote 4 progressively more offices of kadı began to be farmed out to naibs, or deputy judges. By the late eighteenth century, appointing naibs to kadıships had been well established.Footnote 5

Although the Ottoman judiciary institution has recently attracted renewed interest,Footnote 6 naibs have largely been overlooked. This is because most studies have used ulema biographies or appointment registers, which, despite all their meticulous attention to official ranks, only occasionally provide information on naibs, who were the ones actually administering justice at local courts. Moreover, the few relevant monographic articles have mostly dealt with those naibs who were assistants to judges or judges’ agents dispatched to subdistricts (nahiyes) before the eighteenth century and have tended to focus on their abuses.Footnote 7 Naibs as assistant or subdistrict judges continued to exist in later centuries but differed from the deputies of absentee judges on whom this article focuses. Other studies have been concerned with the reorganization of the judiciary institution from the period of Sultan Selim III (r. 1789–1807) to the Tanzimat period (1839–76).Footnote 8 Our knowledge of eighteenth-century naibs has hitherto been largely based on information obtained from imperial decrees concerning the ilmiye institution and various orders prohibiting naibs’ wrongdoings.Footnote 9 Regarding naibs in general, İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı's classic book on the ilmiye institution remains a reference work, which, in turn, relies heavily on Mouradgea d'Ohsson's late eighteenth-century description of naibs.Footnote 10

In this article, which is based on extensive archival sources, I investigate the proliferation of naib appointments from the mid-eighteenth century to the period just before the beginning of the Tanzimat reforms, not as a symptom of deterioration or corruption of the Ottoman ulema but as a result of the transformation of the ilmiye institution into a system of allocating sources of revenue. I begin with a brief overview of the Ottoman judiciary institution, followed by a description and analysis of the proliferation of deputization. I then discuss the financial aspect of appointing naibs, which bears a remarkable similarity to the practice of tax farming, and examine the naibs’ sources of revenue, focusing on the fees for tax apportionment. Finally, I argue that the proliferation of deputization led to the integration of the judiciary into the Ottoman system of tax farming and that the fee revenues collected by naibs constituted the financial basis that supported the domination of the established ulema families in the ilmiye hierarchy.

Proliferation of naibs

The ilmiye hierarchy

The hierarchical organization of the ilmiye had been established by the mid-sixteenth century and underwent further elaboration in the following centuries. Here, I draw an outline of the kadıship institution, focusing on the situation during the eighteenth century.Footnote 11 Kadıships in the Ottoman Empire were divided into mevleviyet kadıships, or judgeships of major cities, and town kadıships (kasabat kadılıkları). The divide between these two categories was determined by their respective estimated daily revenues: the former had a daily revenue of 500 akçe, and the latter, a daily revenue of less than 500 akçe. These sums should not be confused with salaries. Kadıs generally did not receive a salary; instead, their income was based on fees that they collected in return for their judicial, notarial and administrative services.Footnote 12

The offices of mevleviyet were reserved for those who attained the high-ranking professorships of medreses in Istanbul – initially those with the professorial rank of Sahn and, during the eighteenth century, those who attained the rank of Musıla-i Süleymaniye or higher. By the eighteenth century, the offices of mevleviyet were arranged into four ranks: in descending order, Istanbul, Haremeyn, Erbaa and Mahrec. A mevleviyet kadı was called molla (mevlâ). The word's plural form, mevali, was more frequently used to signify his status, which was guaranteed even when he no longer held the office, as he remained a rank (paye) holder. In principle, one had to move through every rank, beginning with Mahrec, to reach the kadıship of Istanbul. The kadı of Istanbul could be promoted to the office of Kazasker of Anadolu, or supreme judge of the Asian provinces, then to that of Rumeli (the European provinces) and, finally, to that of Şeyhülislam. This career line from professorships to mevleviyets to the office of Şeyhülislam was called the professorship hierarchy (tarik-i tedris).

Some mevleviyet posts not included in the abovementioned four ranks, such as the kadıships of Belgrad, Bosna, Filibe, Kütahya, Konya, Kayseri and Amid (Diyarbekir), were designated as devriye mevleviyetleri. Professors below the rank of Musıla-i Süleymaniye and, from the early nineteenth century onwards, professors at medreses in Bursa and EdirneFootnote 13 could be transferred to these judgeships but could not, in principle, be promoted to regular mevleviyets. They would simply rotate through offices of the same rank – hence the term “devriye” (rotation). The creation of these lower mevleviyet posts was probably meant to provide those stuck in the professorial ranks with an alternative means of promotion.Footnote 14

The town kadıships, or simply mansıbs, belonged to three geographical groups – namely, Rumeli, Anadolu and Mısır (Egypt) – with each group organized hierarchically according to estimated daily revenue. In principle, professors (müderrises) of the rank of 40 akçe were eligible for the lowest rank of these kadıships, and the hierarchy started from the kadıship of 150 akçe per day.Footnote 15 Although this figure represented only a nominal value, it signified that a higher income could be expected from the kadıship offices than from the lower professorships. However, once a junior professor started a town kadıship career, he could not return to mainstream professorships or be promoted to mevleviyet kadıships. The career line of town kadıs was thus separate from the major career line of professorships that led to the highest positions in the ilmiye hierarchy. Although the latter career path was highly promising and prestigious, promotions took many years to achieve and the stipends were modest. The former was more lucrative in the short term, but the career prospects were poorer.

Town kadıs were appointed for a fixed term of office (20 months in Rumeli and Anadolu and 24 months in Egypt)Footnote 16 and usually had to stay out of office for several years between appointments because of the inflated number of candidates.Footnote 17 Out-of-office kadıs were still considered members of the kadıship hierarchy and were collectively called “kuzat” (plural for “kadı”).

Judgeships as revenue sources

Regarding the mevleviyet kadıs, who also had to wait a long time for promotion, the state took care to guarantee their sources of income when they were out of office. Out-of-office mevali, as well as ex-Kazaskers and ex-Şeyhülislams, were assigned nominal judgeships called arpalık,Footnote 18 the most important measure of an “unemployment benefit”.Footnote 19 The recipients of arpalık did not go to the places of their appointment, except as a punishment. Instead, they farmed out their duties to deputies, or naibs, and received incomes from the fees collected by the latter. Arpalıks were originally given to retired Şeyhülislams and Kazaskers as pensions and began to be widely applied during the seventeenth century. Many kadıships in the central towns of Anatolia and the Balkans – even kadıships of subprovince (sancak) centres, such as Ankara, Balıkesir, Gelibolu and Yanya – had already been turned into revenue sources for sinecurists before the eighteenth century. In a new development in the late eighteenth century, some of the lower (devriye) mevleviyet positions, such as those in Amid, Kayseri, Konya, Kütahya, Manisa, Sakız (Chios) and Trablusşam (Tripoli), were also converted to arpalıks. During the early nineteenth century, more than 70 kadıships were regularly reserved as arpalıks.Footnote 20

The tenure of professorships was not predetermined, and professors could be promoted from one medrese to another with no intervals. However, because professors’ stipends were relatively smallFootnote 21 and promotion to the mevleviyet ranks took a long time due to the congestion in the professorial ranks, high-ranking professors, and sometimes those from lower ranks, were also assigned nominal judgeships called maişet Footnote 22 to supplement their incomes. Surprisingly, according to a register prepared during the reign of Selim III, as many as 216 kadıships in the Asian provinces were reserved as maişets, whereas the number of town kadıships (mansıbs) available to kuzat members in the same provinces was 265.Footnote 23 About 60 per cent of the maişets were granted to professors, whereas 28 per cent were awarded to sons of ulema or prominent families without a müderris rank.Footnote 24 Some maişets were shared by brothers, while others were taken over by the sons of the former holders.Footnote 25 In the Balkans, another register prepared in the late 1800s shows that there were 39 maişet positions and 247 mansıbs.Footnote 26 Offices reserved as maişets were mostly kadıships of minor districts, although they also included a few well-known localities, such as Amasra, Muğla, Hasankeyf, Vize and Arnabud Belgradı (Berat).

It is striking that more than 300 kadıship positions were earmarked as arpalıks and maişets to provide mevali, professors and sons of ulema with sources of income. The maişet literally provided a livelihood (the original meaning of “maişet”) to ilmiye members. The nineteenth-century historian Ahmed Cevdet Paşa noted the state's priority: “Since providing a livelihood to the holders of higher ranks was a duty entrusted to the government (ashab-ı meratibin idaresi müterettib-i zimmet-i hükumet olduğundan), it became necessary to assign a kaza [kadıship] to müderrises and mevali in the name of maişet and arpalık.”Footnote 27 Because arpalıks and maişets were also distributed among the ulema families of Istanbul, they served to financially support the ilmiye institution as a status group. They were sometimes granted as a kind of orphan's pension, as in the case of Nurullah and his brother Mehmed Reşid, who petitioned in 1770 for the maişet kadıship of Ayvalık, previously held by their father, who had died without leaving them an inheritance. The Şeyhülislam approved their petition, whereby the brothers jointly (ale'l-iştirak) obtained the maişet.Footnote 28

While maişet kadıships could be given to high-ranking kuzat members, nominal kadıships, specifically called teʾbid, were routinely granted on a permanent basis (ber-vech-i teʾbid) to kuzat members who were allegedly “aged and sick” (pir ü alil).Footnote 29 Thus, teʾbids served as a kind of retirement pension. For example, Ahmed, the holder of the Timurcu kadıship, who renounced his office and career (mansıbını ve tarikini rızasıyla terk), obtained the kadıship of Bafra-maa-Samsun as a teʾbid.Footnote 30 In the abovementioned kadıship registers, eight and six kadıships were assigned as teʾbids in the Asian and Balkan provinces, respectively.Footnote 31 The number of kadıships granted as teʾbids had been larger during the early eighteenth century,Footnote 32 but it appears that many of them were later switched to maişets, which thus greatly increased in number by the end of the century.

These developments naturally led to the erosion of kadıship posts in the town kadıship hierarchy, giving rise to discontent among the less privileged kadıs.Footnote 33 In the early eighteenth century, the government tried to revoke some maişets and teʾbids. A ferman (imperial decree) dated 1724 mentioned that many kadıships had been granted to undeserving men (na-müstahaklara) as maişets, bringing misery to town kadıs, who had to wait many years to obtain a post. Orders had been issued since 1716 to the effect that the maişet and teʾbid kadıships should either be returned to the regular kadıship hierarchy after they became vacant or attached to adjacent kazas if the revenue obtained was too small to sustain the appointees.Footnote 34 However, aged and sick kadıs were permitted to receive teʾbids or maişets with the approval of the Kazasker, the Şeyhülislam and the sultan. In 1742, only further conversions of kadıships to maişets or teʾbids were prohibited,Footnote 35 and it is doubtful that this prohibition was strictly observed, as suggested by the large number of maişets during the reign of Selim III.

The proliferation of nominal kadıships – arpalıks, maişets and teʾbids – meant that the judicial offices had come to be treated as income-generating sources that could be distributed to the ulema, especially those of privileged status.Footnote 36 Because the state increasingly saw the kadıships as units of revenue rather than judicial-administrative units, they could be divided into halves or even into twelfths. One müderris was given one-third of the maişet kadıship of Tripoliçe (in Morea), while another requested half of one-sixth of the İmroz kadıship as a maişet.Footnote 37 In such cases, it is most likely that maişet shareholders received their shares through intermediaries, without being involved in the appointment of naibs.

Naibs everywhere

As progressively more kadıships were assigned as sources of revenue for sinecurist ulema and farmed out to naibs, even town kadıs began to delegate their duties to naibs, while, in principle, mevleviyet kadıs occupied their offices themselves until the Tanzimat. By the early nineteenth century, major town kadıships – for example, Silistre, Vidin, Manastır (Bitola), Sivas, Kastamonu, Denizli, Adana and TrabzonFootnote 38 – were normally contracted out to naibs. The diminishing availability of kadıship positions compelled kuzat members to seek alternative sources of income during the waiting period, and as long as their side (or perhaps principal) jobs yielded a regular income, it would have been more profitable for them to farm out the kadıship offices and receive two incomes when they were appointed.

In fact, it was not uncommon for kuzat members to serve as court scribes or stewards (kethüda) of ulema dignitaries while out of office.Footnote 39 Although town kadıs had been repeatedly ordered to fill their posts themselves, those working for ulema dignitaries were allowed to appoint deputies. While a 1733 order made an exception for the kadıs serving under the Kazaskers and the kadıs of Istanbul,Footnote 40 an 1802 decree demanded that town kadıs, except for those among the retinues (zümre-i etbaʿ) of high-ranking ulema and in state service (hidemat-ı devlet-i aliyemde müstahdem olanlar), administer their offices themselves.Footnote 41 Most of these kuzat members probably did not work for ulema dignitaries by chance; rather, followers of the high-ranking ulema were enrolled in the kadıship hierarchy through their patrons’ intercession. The historian Cevdet Paşa stated that the ulema dignitaries had their followers appointed to kadıship positions and that the latter, because they were not judicial experts, had to administer their offices through naibs.Footnote 42 There was also an order prohibiting the appointment of “servants and ignorant and unqualified sorts” (hizmetkâr ve cehele ve na-ehil makulesi) to kadıships,Footnote 43 which suggests that such appointments were, in fact, not unknown. Tatarcık Abdullah, one of the reformist ulema during the reign of Selim III, strongly criticized the enrolment in the kadıship hierarchy of “a group of servants and subordinates in the offices of ulema” (ulema dairesinde hademe ve etbaʿ güruhu) who were allegedly incompetent and ignorant.Footnote 44

The orders commanding town kadıs to go to their posts in person also allowed “sick and aged” kadıs to send deputies.Footnote 45 This signifies the official recognition of kuzat members who were incapable of serving as judges and therefore had to be substituted for by naibs. Tatarcık Abdullah even mentioned an encroachment of people from guilds and markets (esnaf ve suk makuleleri).Footnote 46 Later, in his reform treatise written during the reign of Mahmud II, İzzet Molla argued that the kadıship ranks peopled by guild members should be annulled.Footnote 47 Their accusations were not entirely groundless; we find booksellers, public bath operators (hamamcı) and a rice seller (pirinççi) among the kuzat members.Footnote 48 We cannot be certain whether they were kadıs-turned-tradesmen or tradesmen-turned-kadıs; both patterns are probable.Footnote 49

There were also what we might call “kuzat notables” who were based in provinces where they had economic and political influence. They occasionally served as kadıs/naibs in different places or farmed out their kadıships.Footnote 50

Moreover, it seems likely that people who were never trained in law entered the kadıship hierarchy. Their ignorance became a kind of cliché, and the eighteenth-century historian Şemdanizade Fındıklılı Süleyman wrote that even people who could not write received kadıship positions.Footnote 51 A ferman of 1798 took this kind of accusation seriously and decreed that every applicant should write his name with his own hand at the time of application.Footnote 52

However, we should not presume that the late eighteenth-century kadıship hierarchy was replete with ignorant and incompetent judges. After all, the kuzat provided a pool of available competent judges. According to a ferman of 1759, naib positions should be assigned to “out-of-office kadıs (maʿzul kadılar) and müderrises who possess knowledge and virtue and are known for [their mastery of] the art of court documents (fenn-i sakk)”.Footnote 53 A similar stipulation was included in a 1795 ferman.Footnote 54 Although a detailed discussion of who became naibs is beyond the scope of this article, sources suggest that many were members of the kuzat or holders of a müderris rank.Footnote 55 As the availability of kadıship offices diminished, kuzat members sought opportunities to serve as naibs. For those with a müderris rank, being appointed naib was apparently a common means of acquiring an additional income and experience in the job before being promoted to the mevleviyet rank. Thus, the appointment of a naib meant that one office was shared by two ilmiye members.

By the early nineteenth century, deputization had become so widespread that Mehmed Emin İseviç from Bosnia stated with some exaggeration, “In all Ottoman lands, not one in a thousand among the original office holders (asıl mansıb sahibi) occupies [his office]; they are all deputized by naibs.”Footnote 56 While İseviç vehemently condemned the naibs for their ignorance and injustice,Footnote 57 the spread of deputization brought flexibility to kadıship offices, which were otherwise governed by a rigid hierarchy. Kadıships could change hands relatively freely, allowing individuals with different circumstances to share in the benefits accruing from kadıships.

The naibship contract

The iltizam of judgeships

The appointment of naibs by the original office holders involved the transfer of not only judicial authority but also the right to collect fees. In return, naibs were obligated to remit a significant part of their incomes to the office holders. This financial arrangement was key to the mechanism of deputization.

Fee revenues could be shared between the office holders and the naibs in two ways. The first, and apparently original, method was referred to as emanet (commission). The naibs would reserve for themselves a fifth (or a fourth) of the total revenue and pay the rest to the office holders.Footnote 58 The second method, prevalent by the late eighteenth century, was called iltizam, which was the term commonly used for tax farming. Office holders farmed out their judicial posts to naibs in return for the payment of a fixed sum, part of which was paid in advance.Footnote 59

In the practice of iltizam, naibs made two kinds of payments: harc-ı bab and mahiye (also called şehriye or aylık, meaning monthly payment). Whereas the latter was remitted monthly, the former was paid in advance, thus being equivalent to a down payment. This is attested to in an official document concerning the conversion of the revenues from the arpalıks of Dimetoka, Lefkoşa and Pravişte to funds for a newly created state school in 1839.Footnote 60 According to the report, the arpalık of Dimetoka yielded a harc-ı bab of 10,000 guruş once every six months and a mahiye of 2,500 guruş monthly.Footnote 61 Likewise, for those of Lefkoşa and Pravişte, the harc-ı bab was paid biannually (13,500 and 800 guruş, respectively), and the mahiye was paid monthly (2,000 and 800 guruş, respectively). These cases also reveal that the advance payment was for a period of six months.

Several examples from the late eighteenth century can be drawn from the estate inventories of naibs, kadıs and arpalık holders recorded in the registers of the Kısmet-i Askeriye court in Istanbul, which was responsible for the registration and adjudication of the inheritances of members of the askeri (ruling class). For instance, before his death in 1779, the former kadı of Medina, Bülbülî Mustafa Efendi, held the kadıship of Keşan as an arpalık, for which his naib es-Seyyid İbrahim Efendi had paid an advance of 900 guruş and a monthly instalment of 60,000 akçe (equivalent to 500 guruş).Footnote 62 The amount certainly varied according to the expected fee income, which presumably depended on the population and wealth of each kaza. In the late 1770s, the town kadıships of Köstendil and Şeyhlü (Çivril-Işıklı in western Anatolia) were farmed out for 180 guruş per month.Footnote 63 During the same period, the naib of Siroz (Serres) remitted as much as 4,000 guruş in two monthly instalments.Footnote 64 Remarkably, a remunerative office could yield more than ten times the amount that a small kaza could provide.

The iltizam system guaranteed the office holders a regular income; however, it obliged the naibs to recoup all instalments and expenditures from court fees, the amount of which was unpredictable, making their position highly precarious. From the state's point of view, the iltizam system was open to abuse. In their reform treatises written in the 1770s and 1780s, respectively, Süleyman Penah and Nihali argued against the iltizam of judicial offices and in favour of emanet.Footnote 65 In 1789, Selim III issued a ferman that prohibited the practice and ordered that the arpalık and maişet holders delegate their offices to naibs by way of emanet and give them one-fifth of the revenues. Likewise, sick or aged kadıs and those who faced serious and legitimate obstacles could award naibships on a one-fifth basis.Footnote 66 Apparently, however, the ferman had little effect, probably because the iltizam was an established practice guaranteeing the office holders’ income. In 1793, an order prohibited office holders from raising the instalments and advances above the amounts that their kazas could yield (kazaların tahammüllerinden ziyade).Footnote 67 In 1834, another order denounced the frequent replacement of naibs for the mere purpose of raising the instalments and advances and prohibited office holders from making any increase.Footnote 68 The government of Mahmud II tried to have the amounts of instalments and advances fixed and registered at the Şeyhülislam's offıce.Footnote 69 Although this signifies the state's increasing control of the judiciary, it was presumably necessitated by the great debasement of the Ottoman guruş (accompanied by inflation) during the reign of Mahmud II.Footnote 70 Notes written on the pages of tarik defteris, or personnel registers of ilmiye (tarik-i tedris) members, appear to indicate the arpalıks and the amounts of payments accruing from them.Footnote 71 The cost of naibship generally increased during the 1820s and 1830s. For example, in the early 1800s, the holders of the arpalıks of Dimetoka and Lefkoşa received a monthly instalment of 1,500 and 1,100 guruş, respectively;Footnote 72 by 1839, the instalments had been raised to 2,500 and 2,000 guruş, respectively, as mentioned earlier.

The six-month period of the harc-ı bab, as observed in the cases of Dimetoka, Lefkoşa and Pravişte in 1838, may have corresponded to the term of the naibship contract. Intervals between appointment letters (mürasele) for naibs registered in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century court registers in various towns suggest that six months was the norm for the term of the appointment, although there were significant variations.Footnote 73 When a naib's tenure was extended, he was sent a letter of renewal (ibka) at the end of the running term, presumably in exchange for another harc-ı bab. I will return to the significance of this six-month period in the following section. Here, suffice it to say that the short-term contracts made the naibs’ position precarious.

Intermediaries

Between office holders and naibs, agents played an indispensable role in the transfer of fees, as well as in the appointment procedures. Officials of the Kazaskers’ courts, called muhzır, generally acted as agents (kapıkethüdası) of kadıs and naibs. Sometime before 1775, an order was issued to prevent “riff-raff” (esafil) from intervening in “naibship matters” (umur-ı niyabet) and to prohibit anyone but the Kazasker muhzırs from acting as judges’ agents.Footnote 74 As a rule, each Kazasker employed 20 muhzırs, whose original duty was to deliver summonses to litigants and to bring them to the Kazasker's court (hence “muhzır” which meant a summoner or an usher). Muhzırs were also charged with investigating kadıs’ misconduct. Another important responsibility was to inform the kadıs of their appointments, for which they were entitled to a fee called müjde (“good news”) paid by the kadıs.Footnote 75

Presumably, the muhzırs’ intermediate role in the kadı appointment procedure and, as members of their staff, their closeness to the Kazaskers gave them leverage in judgeship matters. The estate inventories of kadıs and naibs show that muhzırs were entrusted with the financial transactions that took place between office holders and naibs. When Ebubekir Efendi, a member of the kuzat of Anadolu and holder of the Şeyhlü kadıship, died in 1779, the muhzır Ali Ağa paid his heirs three months’ instalments of the revenue of the Şeyhlü court after deducting the debt of the deceased for himself.Footnote 76 These three months were added to the term of office of the deceased. Likewise, after the Köstendil kadı Hüseyin Efendi died, a naib was appointed for four months to send instalments to the muhzır Bekir Ağa, who acted as an agent (kapıkethüdası). At the same time, Hüseyin Efendi left a huge debt to another muhzır, Ebubekir Ağa, amounting to 259,080 akçe (2,159 guruş), which was about three times the value of his property.Footnote 77 We can find many examples of naibs and kuzat members leaving debts to muhzırs. El-Hac İbrahim, a member of the Anadolu kuzat, owed 353,160 akçe (2,943 guruş), more than twice the value of his property, to the muhzır el-Hac Halil.Footnote 78 The 1781 estate inventory of the muhzır Mehmed Emin Ağa reveals that he had dealings with numerous judges simultaneously: he gave loans to 28 judges (naibs and kuzat members) and was indebted to seven judges.Footnote 79

Some narrative sources claim that muhzırs purchased kadıship offices from office holders and then sold them to naibs. In the early 1800s, es-Seyyid Mehmed Emin Behiç criticized the muhzırs’ dealings with kadıships, writing in his reform treatise that “the group of muhzırs should hereafter not be involved in the purchase and sale (ahz u iʿta) of kadı[ship]s and naib[ship]s” because “they, who were called kapıkethüdası, gave [i.e. sold] the appointment letter[s] … to sarrafs (moneylenders/financiers) in monthly instalments of five or ten guruş or in lump-sum payments of several hundred guruş, like deed[s] of tax farming (iltizam temessükü)”.Footnote 80 The sarrafs allegedly gave the letters to “those [naibs] who were ignorant and of an indeterminate sort (bir takım ceheleden ne idüği belirsiz)”.Footnote 81

Although these criticisms might have been exaggerated, it is plausible that when kadıs were appointed to kadıships, they could obtain loans from muhzırs, who would, in turn, demand their repayment from the naibs in instalments. It is thus understandable that kadıs were appointed in advance, sometimes for terms beginning several years later.Footnote 82 One may speculate that these appointees, called muvakkat,Footnote 83 could obtain credit from muhzırs or other agents in return for their appointment deeds, which provided a kind of security, well ahead of their actual terms of office. More importantly, muhzırs often undertook the appointment of naibs on behalf of office holders. Muhzırs’ involvement in the procedure had become widely accepted by the early nineteenth century. In 1827, a ferman stipulated that muhzırs be allowed to find naibs for kadıs who could not find competent naibs themselves but that they should not interfere in the naibship matters of kadıs who could.Footnote 84

In practice, the intermediaries were not always muhzırs. In his treatise written in the 1810s, İseviç wrote, with some exaggeration, that the Bosnian Cabizade Ali Efendi, who was staying in a medrese in Istanbul, and Mehmed Bey, a cavalry member who had not fought in a war for 20 years, had engaged in the trade (ticaret) of the naibships of 48 Bosnian kazas for 17 years. These offices were allegedly resold four or five times before they reached the naibs. İseviç also commented that the agents (kapıkethüdaları) purchased naibships from the original office holders (asıl mansıb sahibleri) for 50 guruş and amassed fortunes by selling them for 100 or more than 150 guruş.Footnote 85

As indicated in the above quotation from Behiç's treatise, sarrafs, who were almost exclusively non-Muslim, also intervened between office holders (or their agents) and naibs in the provinces. The estate inventory of the Keşan arpalık holder Bülbülî Mustafa Efendi shows that his naib es-Seyyid İbrahim Efendi had paid him monthly instalments in advance via the sarraf Avanes, which were refunded after Mustafa Efendi's death.Footnote 86 Likewise, the deceased naib of Siroz, İmamzade Mehmed Efendi, transferred his funds to Tıngıroğlu Kirkor, apparently an Armenian sarraf, in the form of poliçe (bill of exchange), from which the instalments were paid.Footnote 87

Indeed, sarrafs in the Ottoman Empire rose to prominence during the eighteenth century, when the state increasingly relied on them to finance the treasury.Footnote 88 With the introduction of lifetime tax farming (malikâne) in 1695, their role became particularly important because they provided tax farmers with loans for advance payments and transferred the annual tax revenue to the treasury. They also financed many high-ranking officials and local notables who needed large amounts of money to obtain official positions and manage their tax farms. Thus, it is not surprising that many kadıs and naibs were indebted to sarrafs. For example, Yorganî Mehmed Emin Efendi left a debt of 132,000 akçe (1,100 guruş) to the sarraf Çolak Mikail and a debt of 150,000 akçe (1,250 guruş) to the muhzır el-Hac Ebubekir Ağa when he died shortly after returning to Istanbul from his naibship at Modoniç (Mendenitsa) in Morea in 1780.Footnote 89 Likewise, when he died shortly before January 1796, the naib of Çağlayık (Dipotamos near Kavala) Hasan Efendi owed the sarraf Madros 378,120 akçe (3,151 guruş), which was more than twice the value of his estate.Footnote 90

As Behiç's treatise suggests, the sarrafs’ involvement in the appointment of naibs was subject to criticism. Earlier, in 1765, a conflict arose between the naib of İstanköy (Kos) Mehmed Efendi and the sarraf Avanes over the monthly instalments that the former claimed to have paid the latter.Footnote 91 The case was referred to the Şeyhülislam, who reported to the Grand Vizier that the involvement of sarrafs and other non-Muslims in naibship matters (niyabet umuru) as agents (kapıkethüdalığı namına) was canonically abominable (emr-i mekruh) and should be prohibited. He demanded that a ferman be issued to ban the practice and punish sarrafs who did not comply. Several years later, Penah also condemned sarrafs and agents for buying and selling (alub viriyorlar) judgeship offices.Footnote 92

In Mahmud II's time, a consultative assembly concluded that the sale and purchase of the appointment letters of sharia judges (müraselat-ı şerʿiye) from the sarrafs’ offices through infidels (sarraf odalarından kefere yedleriyle verilüp alınmak) was in complete violation of the principles of sharia and had to be prohibited.Footnote 93 Despite these objections, however, the sarrafs were indispensable actors in financial transactions. Documents from the early Tanzimat period suggest that naibs generally paid commissions to agents (kapukethüdası harcı) and interest to sarrafs (sarraf güzeştesi), as well as monthly instalments and harc-ı babs.Footnote 94

As shown above, the proliferation of naibships brought profits to intermediaries such as muhzırs and sarrafs, who were indispensable actors in the operation of the iltizam of judicial offices. Their intervention in the appointment of naibs and the related financial transactions also suggests that some office holders merely received payments from them without being involved in the nomination of their deputy judges, while others appointed naibs based on patron-client relationships.

Fees for tax apportionment

Among the fees collected by judges,Footnote 95 fees for the apportionment of local taxes emerged as an important source of income for judges during the eighteenth century. In the early eighteenth century, taxes called imdad-ı seferiye (wartime contributions) and imdad-ı hazeriye (peacetime contributions) were introduced to support the maintenance of provincial governors’ retinues.Footnote 96 These taxes soon came to be levied regularly and were usually collected in two (sometimes three or four) instalments a year. For the collection of these and other types of taxes, such as avarız and nüzül,Footnote 97 judges were tasked with apportioning (tevzi) the tax burden among the townspeople and villagers in consultation with the local notables; at that time they routinely charged fees to be received by themselves, also collected from the taxpayers.

Particularly for the imdad tax collection, but also independently of tax levies, the local judge and notables prepared a list of local expenditure (masarif-i vilayet), which included the local administration's costs that had been covered by the notables, such as the accommodation, travel expenses and salaries of officials or couriers. The list also included the notables’ share (ayaniye or ayan ücreti) and the fees for the judge and other court employees. The judge's fee was called harc-ı defter (register fee), harc-ı imza (signature fee) or harc-ı mahkeme (court fee). The list of local expenditures (including taxes and fees) was generally known as tevzi defteri (tax apportionment register) but also as masarif-i vilayet defteri (register of local expenditures) or salyane defteri (register of yearly taxes). The tax apportionment registers were generally prepared twice a year, on the Day of Hızır (6 May) and the Day of Kasım (9 November), but sometimes more frequently, which was a cause for complaint.Footnote 98 During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, long lists of local expenditure were prepared, and the total amounts of costs, taxes, other extraordinary levies and fees were apportioned among the towns’ neighbourhoods and adjacent villages.

Boğaç A. Ergene examined the court fees charged by the courts of Çankırı and Kastamonu (including the fees received by the judges and court personnel) for the assessment of imdad and other taxes between the late seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries and found little correlation between the fees and the tax amounts.Footnote 99 Likewise, judging by several court registers from the districts of Anatolia and the Balkans, there was no universal rule for the rate of the judges’ fees during the latter half of the eighteenth century; rather, the fees seem to have been fixed in some districts. For example, the Tokat naib Süleyman İzzi charged 3,000 and 2,500 guruş as a register fee for the apportionment of local expenditures and other levies in January and May/June 1773, respectively. The total levy amounts were 35,369 guruş and 31,629 guruş, respectively.Footnote 100 In Ankara, 1,000 guruş was routinely charged as a harc-ı defter for each apportionment of local expenditures and taxes from 1784 to 1787, with the total amount of each levy ranging from 5,324 to 18,818.5 guruş.Footnote 101

In addition to the register fee, judges often added a fee for iʿlams, or the judges’ reports to the Sublime Porte or provincial governors, to the tax apportionment registers. These reports were usually written for administrative purposes in response to an order or at the request of local inhabitants who wished to send petitions. The fee rate for iʿlams was also arbitrarily set. In May/June 1773, for example, the Tokat naib entered 2,500 guruş as an iʿlam fee in addition to 2,500 guruş as a register fee.Footnote 102 In December 1775, the Denizli judge added a fee of 150 guruş for 14 iʿlams concerning various provincial matters, 100 guruş for an iʿlam prepared on behalf of five (adjacent) districts, and 200 guruş for six iʿlams “of great importance” (cesim iʿlam).Footnote 103 Unsurprisingly, the state deemed the fees for tax apportionment and iʿlams to be a potential source of abuse. In 1783, an imperial order prohibited judges from demanding fees for iʿlams concerning important provincial affairs (umur-ı mühimme zımnında verilen iʿlamlardan harc mutalebe olunmamak).Footnote 104 However, the order was not regularly followed.

In December 1792, the government issued a ferman that categorically prohibited the inclusion in the tax apportionment registers of the signature fee, the ayans’ share or other fees from which local judges and notables would profit.Footnote 105 The same ferman ordered that tax apportionment registers be prepared only twice a year and that a copy of each register be sent to the Porte for an audit.Footnote 106 However, the prohibition of fees was unrealistic. In June 1793, for example, the Üsküb (Skopje) naib Cisri İsmail added 1,500 guruş as a harc-ı iʿlamat (fee for reports), which was the same amount as that received by his predecessor as harc-ı iʿlamat ve harc-ı imza.Footnote 107 About six months after the original order, an amendment authorized judges to receive one para per one guruş (2.5 per cent) of the amount of local expenditure (including the taxes).Footnote 108 The court registers of Ankara indicate that the new regulation was soon implemented.Footnote 109 By 1797, the judges of Kastamonu and Karahisar-ı Sahib (Afyon) had set their tax apportionment fees at the prescribed rate.Footnote 110

However, the new regulations were not observed everywhere. Although imperial orders to this effect were issued repeatedly – at least three times during the reign of Sultan Mahmud II (1815,Footnote 111 1824Footnote 112 and 1834Footnote 113) – the practice of levying fixed fees for tax apportionment continued in some localities. In April 1821, for example, the Manisa judge levied 3,000 guruş as a register fee in addition to 3,000 guruş as an iʿlam fee for preparing the list of six months’ local expenditure.Footnote 114 In Kayseri, the judge received as much as 20,000 guruş twice a year during 1836 and 1838.Footnote 115 Earlier, in November 1830, the Kayseri judge's share, indicated as “one para per one guruş”, amounted to 7,000 guruş. However, on the same occasion, the judge levied 13,000 guruş as an iʿlam fee.Footnote 116 Thus, the total also amounted to 20,000 guruş. The 2.5 per cent rate was not implemented in Kayseri until May 1839.Footnote 117

The non-observance of the orders testifies to the critical importance of the fees for tax apportionment and iʿlams for judges, particularly for naibs, who needed to recoup their payments to the office holders. These fees generated a regular income for judges, the amount of which was considerable and often fixed. For example, the abovementioned Tokat naib earned 7,950 guruş as register and iʿlam fees for the apportionments of the local expenditure and other levies in a lunar year (1186 ah/1772–73), during which he collected 3,145 guruş as fees for the division of estates,Footnote 118 another lucrative source of income.Footnote 119

It should be recalled that the period of the harc-ı bab, or down payment, which was the contract term for the naibship, was usually six months – that is, the same as the regular period for the preparation of the tax apportionment registers. In the case of Kayseri during the 1830s, the naib had to pay the arpalık holder 6,000 guruş in advance as a harc-ı bab and 2,400 guruş monthly,Footnote 120 with the six-month total cost thus amounting to 20,400 guruş. As mentioned above, the naib's biannual income from the fees accruing from tax apportionment amounted to 20,000 guruş, with which he was able to recuperate almost the entire cost of his appointment (except for fees for intermediaries). These fees, collected from the local inhabitants as part of the local taxes, constituted a significant part of judges’ revenue.

Conclusion

As we have seen, by the early nineteenth century, appointing naibs as deputy judges had almost become the norm in the Ottoman provinces, except for the mevleviyet judgeships. This development was a consequence of the congestion in the ilmiye hierarchy, on the one hand, and of the concern about the protection of the privileged status of the established ulema families, on the other. Both factors can be traced back to the late sixteenth century. The period between c. 1750 and 1839 saw the culmination of the transformation process of the ilmiye institution. Judgeships were increasingly treated as sources of revenue, as the office holders entrusted the “naibship matters” to intermediaries and received the payments from them. The intermediaries, in turn, sold the appointment letters to naibs, who collected fees and remitted the payments to the office holders. Thus, contracting out judges’ duties practically amounted to the sale of offices, as noted by contemporaries such as Penah, Behiç and İseviç. However, judicial offices were not sold as properties; only the judicial and administrative authorities and the right to collect revenues were transferred to naibs for limited periods (and were thus not inheritable).

We can see a striking parallelism between the delegation of judges’ authority to naibs and the practice of tax farming. Because the appointment of naibs involved assigning sources of state revenue to individuals, it is conceivable that this process was based on a mechanism parallel to the tax farming system, as the use of the term “iltizam” clearly indicates – all the more so because after the mid-eighteenth century, a significant proportion of their income was derived from taxes collected from local taxpayers in the name of apportionment fees rather than from fees paid by court clients. Advance payments, payments in instalments and financial transactions through sarrafs can also be observed in tax farming contracts. Because naibs were appointed by office holders and paid them fee revenues, they resembled the subcontractors who undertook the collection of taxes farmed out by the original iltizam (or malikâne) contractors. The latter, in turn, can be compared to the office holders.

A similar practice can also be found in the military-administrative institutions. During the eighteenth century, it became increasingly common for provincial governors, high-ranking officials and fortress commanders to be granted subprovince governor offices as additional sources of income, also called “arpalık”. The arpalık recipients farmed out their offices to substitute governors, called mütesellim, who were in charge of administering the sancaks and collecting the taxes due to the arpalık holders and the treasury.Footnote 121 In this way, the mütesellims acted as both administrators and tax farmers. Obviously, as Halil İnalcık notes, the practice of arpalık was basically the same in the military-administrative and ilmiye institutions.Footnote 122 Furthermore, governorships were often given in combination with tax farming rights since the late sixteenth century, and during the eighteenth century, some were combined with lifetime tax farming (malikâne), just like the offices of tax collectors-administrators (such as voyvodas and muhassıls), which were also often given as malikânes.Footnote 123 Appointments to such administrative-financial posts thus amounted to nothing less than the sale of offices, but it is important to note that they were operated through a mechanism of tax farming. Thus, during the eighteenth century, tax farming became a major instrument not only for collecting state revenue but also for allocating it to state officials. The judiciary was part of the Ottoman tax farming system. By adopting this practice of tax farming, judges and high-ranking ulema were integrated into the credit networks that connected the provinces with Istanbul as well as other provinces.

However, there was a difference between farming out judicial offices and tax farming in general. Whereas tax farming in the Ottoman Empire was adopted primarily as a means of raising state revenue, the revenue collected by naibs was not transferred directly to the state treasury but to the office holders who appointed them.Footnote 124 Although it is very likely that the arpalık and maişet recipients paid fees, and possibly bribes, to obtain the offices (as did the mevleviyet and town kadıship appointees), part of which may have been paid to the treasury,Footnote 125 the creation of arpalık and maişet offices was originally not meant to increase state revenue but to finance the ulema and their families in Istanbul.Footnote 126 The deputization of town kadıships also became common, partly because the high-ranking ulema granted their subordinates membership in the kadıship hierarchy, regardless of whether they performed actual judge duties. Overall, farming out judicial offices constituted a major economic basis for the upkeep of the ilmiye hierarchy and the domination of the privileged ulema families. Court revenues constituted the major financial resources of the ilmiye institution, and the appointment of naibs, who were often recruited from the ilmiye members, was a device for sharing out these resources between them and the elite ulema. While this naturally led to a heavier burden on local taxpayers, who had to pay both the naibs’ and office holders’ shares, the widespread practice of tax farming served to broaden the social group that had access to a share of the surplus.

Although the effect of farming out judicial offices on judges’ performance is outside the scope of this article, it may be noted that from the 1780s onwards, the state became less tolerant of the practice and repeatedly attempted to regulate the fee rates and the appointment of naibs. When the Tanzimat reforms began in 1839, the abolishment of the tax farming system was placed at the top of the agenda. This did not leave the judiciary institution unaffected. The state centralized the appointment of naibs and began to pay salaries to both naibs and kadıship office holders. The fees collected by judges were to be transferred to the provincial treasuries, while the tax apportionment fees – the most important sources of revenue – were abolished. Although the salary system for naibs was abandoned in 1841, office holders continued to receive their incomes from the state, not from the naibs, and the tax apportionment fees were not restored.Footnote 127 Thus, the naibs were separated from the office holders, ending the practice of farming out judicial offices. This also dealt a heavy blow to the power of the ilmiye institution, which lost its economic foundations.Footnote 128

Acknowledgements

The preliminary versions of this article were presented at Turkologentag 2016, the Second European Convention on Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish Studies in Hamburg on 16 September 2016 and the Shari‘a Workshop at the Middle East Institute, Columbia University, on 26 January 2018. Special thanks to Guy Burak, Himmet Taşkömür and Masayuki Ueno for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of the article. I am also grateful to the journal's anonymous reviewers for valuable suggestions.

Funding statement

This work was supported by JSPS Kakenhi Grant Numbers 26284106, 20H01322 and 20H05827.

References

1 For the Ottoman ilmiye hierarchy in general, see Uzunçarşılı, İsmail Hakkı, Osmanlı Devletinin İlmiye Teşkilâtı (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1965)Google Scholar. For the earlier development of the ilmiye, see Repp, R.C., The Müfti of Istanbul: A Study in the Development of the Ottoman Learned Hierarchy (London: Ithaca Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Atçıl, Abdurrahman, “The route to the top in the Ottoman ilmiye hierarchy of the sixteenth century”, BSOAS 72/3, 2009, 489–512CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Atçıl, Abdurrahman, Scholars and Sultans in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018)Google Scholar. For the seventeenth-century ilmiye, see Uğur, Ali, The Ottoman ʿUlemā in the Mid-17th Century: An Analysis of the Vaḳā'iʿü'l-fużalā of Meḥmed Şeyḫī Ef. (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1986), xxxvii–lxxivGoogle Scholar; İnalcık, Halil, “The rūznāmče registers of the Kadıasker of Rumeli as preserved in the Istanbul Müftülük Archives”, Turcica 20, 1988, 251–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klein, Denise, Die osmanischen Ulema des 17. Jahrhunderts: eine geschlossene Gesellschaft? (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2007)Google Scholar. For the eighteenth-century ilmiye, see Zilfi, Madeline C., “Elite circulation in the Ottoman Empire: Great mollas of the eighteenth century”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 26/3, 1983, 318–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zilfi, Madeline C., The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age (1600–1800) (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988)Google Scholar.

2 See especially Tezcan, Baki, “The Ottoman mevali as ‘lords of the law’”, Journal of Islamic Studies 20/3, 2009, 383–407CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zilfi, “Elite circulation”.

3 For the openness of the ilmiye, see Yasemin Beyazıt, Osmanlı İlmiyye Mesleğinde İstihdam (XVI.Yüzyıl) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2014), 97–105; Klein, Die osmanischen Ulema; Baki Tezcan, “The law school of Mehmed II in the last quarter of the sixteenth century: a glass ceiling for the less connected Ottoman ulema”, in Frank Castiglione, Ethan Menchinger and Veysel Şimşek (eds), Ottoman War and Peace: Studies in Honor of Virginia H. Aksan (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 237–82.

4 Zilfi, “Elite circulation”, 343, 363.

5 Yücel Özkaya, XVIII. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Kurumları ve Osmanlı Toplum Yaşantısı (Ankara: Kültür ve Türizm Bakanlığı, 1985), 211; Yavuz Aykan and Boğaç Ergene, “Shari‘a courts in the Ottoman Empire before the Tanzimat”, The Medieval History Journal 22/2, 2019, 218.

6 For the eighteenth-century judiciary institution, see İsmail Gündoğdu, “The Ottoman ulema group and state of practicing ‘kaza’ authority during the 18th century”, PhD thesis, Middle East Technical University, 2009; Levent Kuru, Osmanlı İlmiye Tevcihâtı (1693–1725) (Çanakkale: Paradigma Akademi, 2020); Levent Kuru, Kazasker Rûznâmçelerine Göre Osmanlı İlmiye Teşkilatında Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları (XVIII. Yüzyılın İlk Yarısı) (Çanakkale: Paradigma Akademi, 2022). For the judiciary during earlier centuries, see the studies of Ercan Alan, Abdurrahman Atçıl, Yasemin Beyazıt, Cihan Kılıç and Levent Kuru, among others.

7 Gilles Veinstein, “Sur les nâʾib ottomans (XVème–XVIème siècles)”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25, 2001, 247–67; Aydoğan Demir, “Osmanlı devleti'nde naiplik: Bayburt Ulu Camii'nde bir Osmanlı ferman kitabesi”, Tarih ve Toplum 132, 1994, 41–58; Betül Kayar, “Osmanlı yargı teşkilatında naib”, Yıldırım Beyazıt Hukuk Dergisi 5/1, 2020, 189–234. For the naibs’ abuses, see also Halil İnalcık, “Adâletnâmeler”, Belgeler 2/3–4, 1965, 76–7. For studies on naibs of particular localities, especially on their roles, see Nicolas Vatin, “Les nâ’ib du ḳaẓâ de Cos au XVIe–XVIIe siècle à la lumière du fonds ottoman des archives du monastère de Saint-Jean à Patmos”, Turcica 51, 2020, 319–48; Elias Kolovos, “Müvellas and naibs on the islands of Andros and Syros, sixteenth to eighteenth centuries”, Turcica 51, 2020, 349–64; Michael Ursinus, “Mustafa: a naib in action in the kaza of Cos in the first half of the eighteenth century”, Turcica 51, 2020, 365–83; Mehmet Demiryürek, “XIX. yüzyıl başlarında Kıbrıs'ta bir naib: Lefkoşa naibi Ebubekir Necib Efendi”, History Studies: International Journal of History 8/4, 2016, 57–71. The latter two deal with deputy judges of absentee kadıs.

8 İlhami Yurdakul, Osmanlı İlmiye Merkez Teşkilâtı’nda Reform (1826–1876) (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2008); İlhami Yurdakul, “III. Selim'in ilmiye ıslahatı programı ve tatbikatı”, in Seyfi Kenan (ed.), III. Selim ve Dönemi: Nizâm-ı Kādîm'den Nizâm-ı Cedîd'e (Istanbul: İslâm Araştırmaları Merkezi, 2010), 105–27; Hamiyet Sezer Feyzioğlu and Selda Kılıç, “Tanzimat arifesinde kadılık-naiplik kurumu”, Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 24/38, 2005, 31–53; Hamiyet Sezer-Feyzioğlu, Tanzimat Döneminde Kadılık Kurumu ve Şer'i Mahkemelerde Yapılan Düzenlemeler, 2nd ed. (Ankara: Hel Yayınları, 2014); Jun Akiba, “From kadı to naib: reorganization of the Ottoman sharia judiciary in the Tanzimat period”, in Colin Imber and Keiko Kiyotaki (eds), Frontiers of Ottoman Studies (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 1: 43–60; Jun Akiba, “Kadılık teşkilâtında Tanzimat’ın uygulanması: 1840 tarihli ta‘lîmnâme-i hükkâm”, Osmanlı Araştırmaları 29, 2007, 9–40.

9 Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilâtı, 255–9; Yurdakul, “III. Selim'in ilmiye ıslahatı programı”.

10 Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilâtı, especially 117–21; M. de M. D'Ohsson, Tableau général de l'Empire othoman, 2nd ed. (Paris: L'Imprimerie de Monsieur, 1791), 4/2, 573–6. See also C[avid] B[aysun], “Naip”, in İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: Millî Eğitim Basımevi, 1964), 9: 50–2.

11 The description in this section is largely based on my study of various ruznamçe registers of the Kazaskers of Rumeli and Anadolu and other primary sources, as well as secondary sources, such as Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilâtı; Gündoğdu, “The Ottoman ulema group”; Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları.

12 For the nominal daily revenue, see Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilâtı, 91; Özer Ergenç, XVI. Yızyılda Ankara ve Konya: Osmanlı Klasik Dönemi Kent Tarihçiliğine Katkı (Ankara: Ankara Enstitüsü Vakfı, 1995), 82–3, 194–5 n. 164; Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 67; Atçıl, Scholars and Sultans, 162–4. For the fees, see Halil İnalcık, “Maḥkama, 2. The Ottoman Empire, i. The earlier centuries”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1979–2002), 6: 3–5; Aykan and Ergene, “Shari‘a courts in the Ottoman Empire”, 215–8.

13 Istanbul Mufti's Office, Meşihat Archives (İstanbul Müftülüğü Meşihat Arşivi, hereafter İMMA), Defter I/14, Tarik Defteri, no. 2. In all likelihood, their professorships were nominal positions, and they did not teach in those cities.

14 Repp, Müfti of Istanbul, 47–8. Repp argues that from the late sixteenth century onwards, the elaboration of the ilmiye hierarchy resulted from “an attempt to provide jobs and honours for an ever-increasing number of those seeking both”. Repp, Müfti of Istanbul, 49.

15 Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 68, 175; Gündoğdu, “The Ottoman ulema group”, 82, 99.

16 Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 122; Gündoğdu, “The Ottoman ulema group”, 34; “Osmanlı kanunnameleri”, Millî Tettebular Mecmuası 1/3, 1331 [1915], 541. Although the standard term did not change in principle, during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, an increasing number of kadıs were appointed for considerably shorter periods (such as 12, eight or six months), and the rest of the term was carried over to the next appointment.

17 According to Kuru, during the first half of the eighteenth century, the average waiting period between kadıships in the Rumeli hierarchy was 42 months. Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 150. For the congestion of the town kadıship hierarchy, see İnalcık, “Rūznāmče registers”, 257–60; Akiba, “From kadı to naib”, 45.

18 Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilâtı, 118–19; İbnülemin Mahmud Kemal [İnal], “Arpalık”, Türk Tarih Encümeni Mecmuası 16/17(94), 1926, 276–83; Zilfi, “Elite circulation”, 353–4; Uğur, The Ottoman ʿUlemā, lxv–lxvi.

19 Atçıl, Scholars and Sultans, 137.

20 Turkish Presidency Directorate of State Archives, Ottoman Archives (hereafter BOA), A.DVNS.NŞT.d 36, Tahvil Defteri, pp. 3–44 (79 different arpalıks during 1801–10); İMMA, Defter I/13, Tarik Defteri, no. 1 (75 different arpalıks during c. 1828–36); Defter I/14, Tarik Defteri, no. 2, pp. 314–5, list of arpalıks (87 arpalıks), c. 1840. Seventy-two different arpalık kazas are mentioned in Taylesanizade's chronicle for the years 1785–89. Taylesanizâde Hâfız Abdullah Efendi, İstanbul'un Uzun Dört Yılı (1785–1789): Taylesanizâde Hâfız Abdullah Efendi Tarihi, (ed.) Feridun M. Emecen (Istanbul: Tarih ve Tabiat Vakfı, 2003), passim. It seems that the status of kadıships was not stable during the earlier period, as more than 170 kadıships became arpalıks at least once between 1693 and 1725. See Kuru, Osmanlı İlmiye Tevcihâtı, 133–210.

21 Harun Küçük argues that the purchasing power of professors’ salaries fell significantly during the seventeenth century because of inflation. See Harun Küçük, Science without Leisure: Practical Naturalism in Istanbul, 1660–1732 (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2020).

22 Yurdakul, Osmanlı İlmiye Merkez Teşkilâtı’nda, 137; D'Ohsson, Tableau général, 4/2: 491, 612. For maişets given to ulema of various ranks in the first half of the eighteenth century, see Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 95–8.

23 Kuzat Esami Defteri, Millet Library, Ali Emiri Müteferrik 69, fols. 1b–36a, 61b–75a. Earlier, during the four years from June/July 1767 to June/July 1771, 64 different kadıships in the Asian provinces were granted as maişets. See İMMA, Defter I/476, Anadolu Kazaskerliği Ruznamçesi (hereafter AKR), no. 41; I/477, AKR, no. 42; I/478, AKR, no. 43; I/479, AKR, no. 44.

24 Here sons of ulema or prominent families are those who had family names with the suffix “-zade” or were described as sons or grandsons of certain individuals. Among the maişet holders, there are also many sons of ulema or prominent families with a müderris rank (19 per cent of the total).

25 Kuzat Esami Defteri, Millet Library, Ali Emiri Müteferrik 69, fols. 62a, 66b, 67a, 69b, 71a, 71b.

26 Kuzat Esami Defteri, Millet Library, Ali Emiri Müteferrik 70, fols. 2b–42a. In a register dated 1837, there were 31 maişet kadıships in the Balkans. See Ahval-i Menasıb, Süleymaniye Library, Esad Efendi 2066; Yasemin Beyazıt, “Rumeli kadılıkları ve rütbelerine dair 1253/1837 tarihli bir yazma”, Belgeler 28/32, 2007, 11–56.

27 Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tarih-i Cevdet: Tertib-i Cedid, 2nd ed. (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Osmaniye, 1309), 1: 114. Throughout the article, translations of the sources are mine unless otherwise noted.

28 İMMA, Defter I/478, AKR, no. 43, fol. 2b, 68a. For a similar case, see İMMA, Defter I/479, AKR, no. 44, fol. 3b, 69b, Rebiülevvel 1185 (June–July 1771).

29 For teʾbid, see Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 89–95; Gündoğdu, “The Ottoman ulema group”, 64–9; Ercan Alan, “Kadıasker ruznamçelerine göre XVII. yüzyılda Rumeli'de kadılık müessesesi”, PhD thesis, Marmara University, 2015, 101–4.

30 İMMA, Defter I/478, AKR, no. 43, fols. 60a–60b, April–May 1770.

31 Kuzat Esami Defteri, Millet Library, Ali Emiri Müteferrik 69 and 70.

32 For example, 21 kadıships were granted as teʾbids during the 11 months from July/August 1732 to May/June 1733. See Nuruosmaniye Library, 5193/35, AKR, fols. 29b–48a.

33 For kadıs’ complaints, see Nuruosmaniye Library, 5193/24, AKR, fol. 1a, report of the Kazasker of Anadolu, c. 1123 (1711/12); 5193/36, AKR, fol. 2b, ferman, evasıt Cemaziyelevvel 1146 (October 1733); İsmail E. Erünsal, Osmanlı Kültür Tarihinin Bilinmeyenleri: Şahıslardan Eserlere, Kurumlardan Kimliklere, 2nd ed. (Istanbul: Timaş Yayınları, 2019), 573–4. See also İnalcık, “Rūznāmče registers”, 262; Zilfi, “Elite circulation”, 355.

34 Nuruosmaniye Library, 5193/26, AKR, fol. 1b, ferman, evail Cemaziyelevvel 1128 (April 1716); 5193/31, AKR, 4b, hatt-ı hümayun, Ramazan 1136 (May–June 1724); 5193/34, AKR, fol. 2b, Şeyhülislam's order and hatt-ı hümayun, n.d. [1143/1730–31]; Mehmed Raşid, Tarih-i Raşid (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Amire, 1282), 4: 192; Erünsal, Osmanlı Kültür Tarihinin Bilinmeyenleri, 577–8, 582–3; Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 233–4, 236–7.

35 Nuruosmaniye Library, 5193/41, AKR, fol. 3b, ferman, 11 Cemaziyelahir 1155 (12 August 1742); Erünsal, Osmanlı Kültür Tarihinin Bilinmeyenleri, 586–7; Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 248–9.

36 Another way of providing a kadı with extra income was “annexation” (ilhak), which was the granting of a kadıship in combination with another (usually smaller and adjacent) kadıship, to which the kadı appointed a naib. Some mevleviyet kadıships were accompanied by kadıships at sancak level, such as Mardin attached to the Amid kadıship and Nablus attached to the Jerusalem kadıship. For Mardin, see Yavuz Aykan, Rendre la justice à Amid: procédures, acteurs et doctrines dans le contexte ottoman du XVIIIème siècle (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 50–1. For Nablus, see Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995), 249–50. For the sixteenth-century practice, see Repp, The Müfti of Istanbul, 47; Atçıl, Scholars and Sultans, 197. For the annexation practice in the town kadıship hierarchy, see Gündoğdu, “The Ottoman ulema group”, 79–80; Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 104–5.

37 İMMA, Defter I/350, Rumeli Kazaskerliği Ruznamçesi (hereafter RKR), no. 173, fols. 1b, 1b (repeated) (c. 1802). In 1807, İmroz was shared by six individuals (1/4 + 1/4 + 1/6 + 1/6 + 1/12 + 1/12). Kuzat Esami Defteri, Millet Library, Ali Emiri Müteferrik 70, fol. 38b. See also Yurdakul, Osmanlı İlmiye Merkez Teşkilâtı’nda, 137.

38 BOA, C.DH 29/1712, report of the naib of Silistre, 19 Şevval 1239 (17 June 1824); C.DH 129/6412, report of the naib of Silistre, 10 Zilkade 1243 (24 May 1828); National Library of Bulgaria, Sijil Collection, S84, Vidin court register, pp. 18, 46, 68, 102 (December 1825–January 1827); Michael Ursinus, Regionale Reformen im Osmanischen Reich am Vorabend der Tanzimat: Reformen der rumelischen Provinzialgouverneure im Gerichtssprengel von Manastir (Bitola) zur Zeit der Herrschaft Sultan Mahmuds II. (1808–1839) (Berlin: Klaus Schwartz Verlag, 1982), 268–73; Mehmet Ali Karamanoğlu, “17 numaralı Sivas şer'iye sicili'nin transkripsiyonu (1250–1251/1835–1836)”, Master's thesis, Cumhuriyet University, 2016, 25, 146, 185, 290, 393, 495; Abdulkerim Abdulkadiroğlu, İ. Hakkı Aksoyak and Necip Fazıl Duru (eds), Kastamonu Jurnal Defteri (1252–1253/1836–1837): Metin ve Tıpkıbasım (Ankara: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü, 1998), 214–5; Sevgi Nur Sabancı, “674 numaralı (H. 1243–1248/M. 1828–1832) şer‘iye siciline göre Denizli'nin sosyal ve iktisadi yapısı”, Master's thesis, Süleyman Demirel University, 2019, 199, 231–2, 326; BOA, MŞH.ŞSC.d 72, Adana court register, no. 72, pp. 4, 33, 60, 81 (August 1828–January 1829); Abdullah Saydam, “Trabzon'un idarî yapısı ve yenileşme zarureti (1793–1851)”, OTAM 18, 2005, 300–1.

39 For example, Istanbul Mufti's Office Sharia Court Registers Archives (İstanbul Müftülüğü Şer'iyye Sicilleri Arşivi, hereafter İŞSA), Kısmet-i Askeriye, 5/426, fol. 23a, 13 Zilhicce 1191 (12 January 1778), 69a, 19 Zilhicce 1191 (18 January 1778); 5/458, fol. 43a, 9 Zilhicce 1193 (18 December 1779), 50b, 20 Zilkade 1193 (29 November 1779). See also Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tarih-i Cevdet: Tertib-i Cedid, 10: 236.

40 Nuruosmaniye Library, 5193/35, AKR, fol. 5a, ferman, 14 Zilhicce 1145 (28 May 1733); Erünsal, Osmanlı Kültür Tarihinin Bilinmeyenleri, 584; Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 244–5.

41 BOA, C.ADL 106/6366, ferman to the Kazasker of Rumeli, evahir Safer 1217 (June 1802).

42 Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tarih-i Cevdet: Tertib-i Cedid, 1: 114. See also Sezer Feyzioğlu and Kılıç, “Tanzimat arifesinde kadılık-naiplik kurumu”, 35; Sezer-Feyzioğlu, Tanzimat Döneminde Kadılık Kurumu, 35.

43 BOA, C.ADL 11/717, ferman to the Kazasker of Rumeli, evahir Ramazan 1203 (June 1789); İMMA, Defter I/333, RKR, no. 156, fol. 2a, ferman, evasıt Ramazan 1203 (June 1789). See also Yurdakul, Osmanlı İlmiye Merkez Teşkilâtı’nda, 302; Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilâtı, 256.

44 [Tatarcık Abdullah], “Sultan Selim-i Salis devrinde nizam-ı devlet hakkında mütalaât”, [part 2], Tarih-i Osmani Encümeni Mecmuası 7/41, 1916, 276.

45 See n. 43 for the ferman dated 1789. See also BOA, HAT 90/3708, ferman to the Şeyhülislam, evasıt Receb 1213 (December 1798); BOA, C.ADL 80/4815, Şeyhülislam's report to the Sultan, n.d.; İMMA, Defter I/347, RKR, no. 170, 1b–1a (repeated), ferman to the Kazasker of Rumeli, evasıt Receb 1213 (December 1798); Aziz Berker, “Teşrifatî Naim Efendi tarihi”, Tarih Vesikaları 3/14, 1944, 155; Ahmed Cevdet Paşa, Tarih-i Cevdet: Tertib-i Cedid, 4: 292.

46 Tatarcık Abdullah, “Sultan Selim-i Salis devrinde”, [part 2], 274.

47 İzzet Molla, Lâyiha-i İzzet Molla, Topkapı Sarayı Museum Library, Y.355, fol. 28b; Atatürk Kitaplığı, MC Yz K.337, fol. 58a. In the early nineteenth century, Mehmed Emin İseviç mentioned a variety of people, such as Egyptian peasants, Anatolian nomads (Anadolu Türkleri), Bosnian villagers, pashas’ servants, coffeehouse story tellers and Istanbul artisans, who blended with the kadıship hierarchy. Mehmed Emin İseviç, Ahvâl-i Bosna, Istanbul University Rare Books Library, T6647, fol. 8a–b; Ahmed S. Aličić, “Manuscript Ahval-i Bosna by Muhamed Emin Isević (early 19th century): introduction, translation from Turkish and annotations by author”, Prilozi za Orijentalnu Filologiju 50, 2000, 236.

48 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye, 5/635, 34b, 12 Cemaziyelahir 1207 (25 January 1793); 5/243, fols. 14b–15a, 1 Rebiülevvel 1177 (9 September 1763); 5/1025, fol. 36a–b, 5 Rebiülahir 1233 (12 February 1818); 5/458, fol. 77b, pirinççi İsmail Efendi's estate, 9 Safer 1194 (15 February 1780). İsmail Efendi's estates included a payment for 50 baskets of rice (elli zenbil pirinç bahası) and a gedik (capital assets) in a rice seller's store room (pirinççi mahzeni). For these kadı-cum-tradesmen, see also Zeynep Dörtok Abacı, Jun Akiba, Metin Coşgel and Boğaç Ergene, “Judiciary and wealth in the Ottoman Empire, 1689–1843”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 66/1–2, 2023, 53. İsmail E. Erünsal also found two kadı-booksellers in the estate registers and surmised that their bookstore businesses were not their primary means of livelihood. See İsmail E. Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Sahaflık ve Sahaflar (Istanbul: Timaş Yayınları, 2013), 159.

49 Kadıs resemble janissaries in this respect. For the janissary-guild intermingling, see Eunjeong Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul: Fluidity and Leverage (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 65, 133, 139; Gülay Yılmaz Diko, “Blurred boundaries between soldiers and civilians: artisan janissaries in seventeenth-century Istanbul”, in Suraiya Faroqhi (ed.), Bread from the Lion's Mouth: Artisans Struggling for a Livelihood in Ottoman Cities (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015), 175–93.

50 Typical examples are found in Ankara, Sarajevo, İbradı (a southern Anatolian town) and Ergiri (Gjirokastër). Jun Akiba, “Ankara, Sarajevo, and İbradı: rise of kuzat families in the Ottoman provinces”, paper presented in the international workshop: Transformation of Ottoman Society during the Eighteenth Century, the Toyo Bunko Library, 9 July 2017; Mustafa Kaya, “18. yüzyılda Ankara'da âyanlık mücadeleleri”, Hacettepe Üniversitesi Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi 17, 2012, 119–29; Tatjana Paić-Vukić, The World of Mustafa Muhibbi, a Kadi from Sarajevo (Istanbul: The ISIS Press, 2011); Nathalie Clayer, “Les cadis de l'apres Tanzimat: l'examples des cadis originaires d'Ergiri et Libohova”, Turcica 32, 2000, 33–58.

51 Şemdanizade Fındıklılı Süleyman Efendi, Müri’ü’t-tevarih, Beyazıt State Library 5144, fol. 343b.

52 BOA, HAT 90/3708; C.ADL 80/4815 (see n. 45).

53 Nuruosmaniye Library, 5193/47, AKR, fol. 3a–b, ferman, evahir Muharrem 1173 (September 1759); BOA, C.ADL 4/251, draft of the same ferman. See also Erünsal, Osmanlı Kültür Tarihinin Bilinmeyenleri, 590–1; Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 252–3.

54 BOA, HAT 90/3708, ferman, evahir Şevval 1209 (May 1795) cited in the ferman dated 1798. See also BOA, C.ADL 80/4815.

55 A Tokat court register includes a list of judges who served there between 1695 and 1802 and shows that 38 of the 101 naibs had a kadı title such as fahru'l-kuzat, kuzatdan or eşraf-ı kuzatdan, whereas 33 had a müderris title such as fahrü’l-müderrisin or müderrisin-i kiramdan. Assistant judges (bab naibi) serving under the mevleviyet kadıs (when the Tokat judgeship had mevleviyet status) were not included. BOA, MŞH ŞSC.d 8484, Tokat court register, no. 119, pp. 1–21.

56 İseviç, Ahvâl-i Bosna, fol. 6a. Cf. Aličić, “Manuscript Ahval-i Bosna”, 234.

57 İseviç, Ahvâl-i Bosna, fols. 6a–7b; Aličić, “Manuscript Ahval-i Bosna”, 234–5.

58 D'Ohsson, Tableau général, 4/2: 575; BOA, C.ADL 11/717; İMMA, Defter I/333, RKR, no. 156, fol. 2a; Defter I/347, RKR, no. 170, fols. 1b–1a (repeated). See notes 43 and 45 above. The term “emanet” in the context of tax collection denoted a method of collecting a tax through a salaried agent. See Linda T. Darling, Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 123.

59 D'Ohsson, Tableau general, 4/2: 575–6. For the appointment of subdistrict naibs through iltizam contracts, see İnalcık, “Adâletnâmeler”, 76; Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilatı, 117.

60 İhsan Sungu, “Mekteb-i maarif-i adliyyenin tesisi”, Tarih Vesikaları 1/3, 1941, 224.

61 According to Şevket Pamuk, in 1839, the average daily wage of a skilled worker in Istanbul was 1,148.9 akçe, or 9.57 guruş, which means that a monthly instalment of the naib of Dimetoka was equivalent to about 260 days’ wages for a skilled worker. See Şevket Pamuk (ed.), İstanbul ve Diğer Kentlerde 500 Yıllık Fiyatlar ve Ücretler, 1469–1998 (Ankara: T.C. Başbakanlık Devlet İstatistik Enstitüsü, 2000), 73.

62 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye 5/452, fol. 7b, 12 Safer 1193 (1 March 1779). In 1780, the daily wage of a skilled worker in Istanbul was estimated at 103 akçe, or 0.858 guruş. Thus, 60,000 akçe was equivalent to about 583 days’ wages for a skilled worker. See Pamuk, 500 Yıllık Fiyatlar ve Ücretler, 72.

63 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye 5/442, fol. 94a, 15 Zilhicce 1192 (4 January 1779); 5/451, fol. 93b, 7 Şevval 1193 (18 October 1779).

64 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye 5/447, fol. 2a, 1 Muharrem 1193 (19 January 1779).

65 Aziz Berker, “Mora ihtilâli tarihçesi veya Penah Ef. mecmuası, 1769”, Tarih Vesikaları 2/10, 1942, 314; Hakan T. Karateke, “The vocabulary of disorder in a late eighteenth-century Ottoman reform treatise: Nihālī's Mirror of the State”, Turcica 50, 2019, 440.

66 For the 1789 ferman, see n. 43. See also Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilatı, 119–20, 256; Yurdakul, Osmanlı İlmiye Merkez Teşkilatı’nda, 302; Taylesanizade, İstanbul'un Uzun Dört Yıl, 1: 392.

67 BOA, A.DVNS.MHM.d 199, Mühimme Defteri, p. 154, #440, imperial order to the Şeyhülislâm, evahir Şaban 1207 (April 1793). See also HAT 90/3708.

68 Takvim-i Vekayi, no. 93, 23 Şaban 1250 (25 December 1834).

69 The İlmiye Penal Code of 1838 prescribed that office holders should not take from the naibs more than the amounts of the monthly instalments and advances recorded in the Şeyhülislam's registers. Musa Çadırcı, “Tanzimat’ın ilanı sıralarında Osmanlı İmparatorluğnda kadılık kurumu ve 1838 tarihli ‘Tarîk-i ilmiyye'ye dâ’ir ceza kânunname'si’”, Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 14/25, 1981–82, 150.

70 For the debasement during the reign of Mahmud II, see Şevket Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 193–200. According to Pamuk, prices in Istanbul rose five- to sixfold from the early 1800s to the late 1830s. See Pamuk, 500 Yıllık Fiyatlar ve Ücretler, 16–17.

71 The tarik defteris are registers that listed office holders from the Şeyhülislam down to the professors of Istanbul medreses and the appointment dates. For the tarik defteris, see Madeline C. Zilfi, “The ilmiye registers and the Ottoman medrese system prior to the Tanzimat”, in Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont and Paul Dumont (eds), Collection Turcica III: Contributions à l'histoire économique et sociale de l'Empire ottoman (Leuven: Éditions Peeters, 1983), 310–11; Arzu Güldöşüren, “19. yy’ın yarısında tarîk defterlerine göre ilmiye ricâli”, Master's thesis, Marmara University, 2004. Apparently, figures written above the placenames of arpalıks in red ink indicate the amounts of the advances (upper row) and monthly payments (lower row). In one record, the word “harc” was added to the upper row, meaning the harc-ı bab. See İMMA, Defter I/13, Tarik Defteri, no. 1, p. 40. When only one figure is noted for each arpalık, it apparently indicates the amount of the monthly instalment. For example, the entry of ex-Şeyhülislam Kadızade Mehmed Tahir Efendi in one register includes the notes “2,000 Dimetoka” and “2,000 Lefkoşa”. The figure for Lefkoşa corresponds to the amount of monthly instalments specified in the abovementioned 1839 report, although the figure for Dimetoka is lower by 500 guruş. Defter-i Esami-i Ulema, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Revan 1506, fol. 15b, the entry dated 22 Şevval 1243 (7 May 1828).

72 Esami-i Ulema Defteri, Topkapı Palace Museum Archives, H.1649, fol. 12b.

73 İbrahim Yılmazçelik, XIX. Yızyılın İlk Yarısında Diyarbakır (1790–1840) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1995), 225. See also Muhiddin Tuş, Sosyal ve Ekonomik Açıdan Konya, 1756–1856 (Konya: Konya Ticaret Odası, 2001), 74–5; Mehmet Beşirli, Orta Karadeniz Kentleri Tarihi I: Tokat (1771–1853) (Tokat: Gaziosmanpaşa Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi, 2005), 108–13, Table 6.

74 İMMA, Defter I/483, AKR, no. 48, fol. 1b, ferman, evasıt Safer 1189 (April 1775); Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 254–6. This stipulation was reconfirmed by the ferman of 1798. See BOA, HAT 90/3708, C.ADL 80/4815 (see n. 45). See also Yurdakul, Osmanlı İlmiye Merkez Teşkilâtı’nda, 111. The order of 1834 referred to office holders who received and managed (ahz u rüyet) payments from naibs by way of kuzat kethüdaları. See Takvim-i Vekayi, no. 93, 1–2.

75 For Kazaskers’ muhzırs, see İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Teşkilâtı (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1948), 237; Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilâtı, 90, 155; Recep Ahıshalı, “Muhzır”, in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Ankara: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 1988–2016), 31: 85–86; Yurdakul, Osmanlı İlmiye Merkez Teşkilâtı’nda, 109–10. According to Uzunçarşılı, the chief muhzırs (muhzırbaşı) of the Kazaskers were appointed from among the palace gatekeepers (kapıcı). Muhzırs also served in ordinary courts in Istanbul and the provinces, their main duties being to summon litigants to the court and to maintain order in the court. While muhzırs were usually selected from among the local population, interestingly, the office of chief muhzır was regarded as a kind of tax farm granted to members of the standing cavalry (altı bölük halkı), the palace gatekeepers, or the janissaries, who farmed out their offices to deputies to collect fees called ihzariye. See Özkaya, XVIII. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Kurumları, 224.

76 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye 5/451, fol. 93b.

77 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye 5/442, fols. 93b–94a, 15 Zilhicce 1192 (4 January 1779). For comparison, according to a study based on estate inventories of the Istanbul Kısmet-i Askeriye court, judges’ mean and median net wealth during 1769 and 1788 amounted to 187,680 and 35,825 akçe, respectively (adjusted to 1780 prices based on Pamuk's Istanbul Consumer Price Index). See Dörtok Abacı et al., “Judiciary and wealth”, 65; Pamuk, 500 Yıllık Fiyatlar ve Ücretler, 72. Canbakal and Filiztekin estimated the “real mean wealth” for the period 1780–1800 based on the estate inventories of various towns: 189,956 akçe in Bursa, 284,116 akçe in Kayseri, 137,719 akçe in Manisa and 91,000–104,000 akçe in Antep, Trabzon, Manastır and Diyarbekir (adjusted to 1780 prices). See Hülya Canbakal and Alpay Filiztekin, “Wealth and demography in Ottoman probate inventories: a database in very long-term perspective”, Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 54/2, 2021, 94–127.

78 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye 5/442, fols. 33b–34a, 3 Şaban 1192 (27 August 1778).

79 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye 5/473, fols. 52a–53a, 25 Muharrem 1195 (21 January 1781).

80 es-Seyyid Mehmed Emin Behiç, Sevanihu'l-levayih, Topkapı Palace Museum Library, H. 370, fol. 11a. For the muhzırs’ role as intermediaries between titular kadıs and naibs in Bosnia, see also Azra Gadžo-Kasumović, “Imenovanja kadija i njihovih zamjenika i pripravnika /naiba – prema dokumentima kazaskera i njihovih muhzira”, Prilozi za Orijentalnu Filologiju 67, 2017, 169–92. I thank Takuya Momma for translation of this article.

81 Behiç, Sevanihu'l-levayih, fol. 11a.

82 Kuru, Rumeli Kazaları ve Kadıları, 122–6; Yurdakul, Osmanlı İlmiye Merkez Teşkilatı’nda, 145–6.

83 The term is also known as muvakkıt. See n. 82.

84 İMMA, Defter I/497, AKR, no. 62, fol. 4a, ferman, evail Cemaziyelahir 1243 (December 1827). See also Yurdakul, Osmanlı İlmiye Merkez Teşkilâtı’nda, 111, 304.

85 İseviç, Ahval-i Bosna, fol. 5a–5b; Aličić, “Manuscript Ahval-i Bosna”, 234. A document cited by Gadžo-Kasumović shows the involvement of a kadı in the purchase of naibships in Bosnia in 1768. See Gadžo-Kasumović, “Imenovanja kadija i njihovih zamjenika”, 181–5, 192.

86 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye 5/452, fol. 7b, 12 Safer 1193 (1 March 1779).

87 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye 5/447, fol. 1b, 1 Muharrem 1193 (19 January 1779).

88 For sarrafs, especially their role in the tax farming system, see Hagop Levon Barsoumian, “The Armenian Amira class of Istanbul”, PhD thesis, Columbia University, 1980, 89–94; Araks Şahiner, “The sarrafs of İstanbul: financiers of the empire”, Master's thesis, Boğaziçi University, 1995; Halil İnalcık, “The Ottoman state: economy and society, 1300–1600”, in Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert (eds), An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 65–6; Ariel Salzmann, Tocqueville in the Ottoman Empire: Rival Paths to the Modern State (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 111–7; Yavuz Cezar, “The role of the sarrafs in Ottoman finance and economy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries”, in Imber and Kiyotaki (eds), Frontiers of Ottoman Studies, 1: 61–76; Ali Yaycioglu, “Perdenin arkasındakiler: Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda sarraflar ve finans ağları üzerine bir deneme”, Journal of Turkish Studies 52, 2019, 375–96.

89 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye 5/473, fols. 72b–73a, selh Zilkade 1194 (27 November 1780).

90 İŞSA, Kısmet-i Askeriye 5/660, fol. 96a, 1 Receb 1210 (26 January 1796).

91 BOA, C.ADL 4/272, Şeyhülislam's report with a marginal note by the Grand Vizier, 18 Ramazan 1178 (11 March 1765). Mehmed Efendi claimed that he had paid the sarraf 960 guruş in three monthly instalments for the naibship, which the latter had obtained (alıverdiği) for him, but that he had suffered a loss of 1,200 guruş in two months because of the great expenses the office had incurred.

92 Berker, “Mora ihtilâli tarihçesi”, 315.

93 BOA, HAT 463/22679, Grand Vizier's report with the hatt-ı hümayun of Mahmud II, c. 1827. See also the ferman based on this report. İMMA, Defter I/497, AKR, no. 62, fol. 4a, ferman, evail Cemaziyelahir 1243 (December 1827); Yurdakul, Osmanlı İlmiye Merkez Teşkilâtı’nda, 303–5.

94 Akiba, “Kadılık teşkilâtında”, 27. The naib of Güzelhisar Mehmed Lutfullah Efendi, who was accused of excessive exaction in 1833, asked for a pardon by writing that the harc-ı bab, mahiye(s), commission to the agent, contract fee for the sarraf, interest and daily expenses had been exorbitant. See BOA, C.ADL 71/4288, no. 1, Mehmed Lutfullah's petition. For the fees of the kapıkethüdaları, see also Takvim-i Vekayi, no. 93, 1834, 2.

95 For the judges’ fee incomes, see Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilatı, 85. See also İnalcık, “Maḥkama”, 6: 3–5; İnalcık, “Resm”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 8: 487–8; Boğaç A. Ergene, “Cost of court usage in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ottoman Anatolia: court fees as recorded in estate inventories”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 45/1, 2002, 22–3. For estimates of the actual fee values and judges’ incomes, see Zeynep Dörtok Abacı and Boğaç Ergene, “The price of justice: revenues generated by Ottoman courts of law in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 81/1, 2022, 25–52.

96 For the imdad taxes, see Halil İnalcık, “Military and fiscal formation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600–1700”, Archivum Ottomanicum 6, 1980, 322–7; Bruce McGowan, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade, and the Struggle for Land, 1600–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 155–6; Ahmet Tabakoğlu, “İmdâdiyye”, in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 22: 221–2; Yücel Özkaya, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Âyânlık, 2nd ed. (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1994), 48–9, 52; Özkaya, XVIII. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Kurumları, 192–3.

97 For these taxes, see McGowan, Economic Life, 110. See also Darling, Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy, 87–93; İnalcık, “Military and fiscal formation”, 313–7; Suraiya Faroqhi, “Crisis and change, 1590–1699”, in İnalcık and Quataert, An Economic and Social History, 532–3.

98 For the tax apportionment registers, see Ali Açıkel ve Abdurrahman Sağırlı, “Tokat şer‘iyye sicillerine göre salyâne defterleri (1771–1840)”, Tarih Dergisi 41, 2005, 95–145; Musa Çadırcı, Tanzimat Döneminde Anadolu Kentleri'nin Sosyal ve Ekonomik Yapıları (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1991), 148–70; Yavuz Cezar, “18 ve 19. yüzyıllarda Osmanlı taşrasında oluşan yeni malî sektörün mahiyet ve büyüklüğü üzerine”, Dünü ve Bugünüyle Toplum ve Ekonomi 9, 1996, 89–143; İnalcık, “Military and fiscal formation”, 335–7; L. Sevinç Küçükoğlu, “New fiscal actors to control provincial expenditures at the end of 18th century”, Osmanlı Araştırmaları 54, 2019, 241–76; Christoph K. Neumann, “Selânik'te onsekizinci yüzyılın sonunda masarif-i vilâyet defterleri: merkezî hükûmet, taşra idaresi ve şehir yönetimi üçgeninde”, Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi 16, 1998, 69–97; Yücel Özkaya, “XVIII. yüzyılın sonlarında tevzi‘ defterlerinin kontrolü”, Selçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 1981/1, 1982, 135–55; Evgenij Radušev, “Les dépenses locales dans l'Empire ottoman au XVIIIe siècle (selon des données de registres de cadi de Ruse, Vidin et Sofia)”, Études Balkaniques, 1980/3, 74–94; Ursinus, Regionale Reformen, 66–74, 118–33; Ali Yaycioglu, Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016), 119–33.

99 Boğaç A. Ergene, Local Court, Provincial Society and Justice in the Ottoman Empire: Legal Practice and Dispute Resolution in Çankırı and Kastamonu (1652–1744) (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 78–83.

100 BOA, MŞH.ŞSC.d 8366, Tokat court register, no. 1, pp. 185, 227–6.

101 BOA, MŞH.ŞSC.d Ankara court register, no. 173, doc. 168; no. 174, doc. 200, 258; no. 176, doc. 242; no. 177, doc. 240, 338. In Rusçuk, 1,030 guruş each was levied as a court fee (harc-ı mahkeme) for the two collections of local expenditures in 1778, whereas 450 guruş each was levied for the apportionment of the avarız taxes in April 1778 and February 1779. National Library of Bulgaria, Sijil Collection, R8, Rusçuk court register, fols. 7a, 12b, 40b–42a, 52a.

102 BOA, MŞH.ŞSC.d 8366, Tokat court register, no. 1, p. 185. In Ankara, 300 guruş was routinely added as an iʿlam fee to the local expenditures between 1784 and 1788 (see n. 101).

103 Halil İbrahim Çetin, “Denizli şer‘iyye sicili (M. 1775–1778 H. 1189–1192)”, Master's thesis, Marmara University, 2006, 7–8, appendix (facsimile), fol. 4b.

104 BOA, A.DVNS.MHM.d 181, Mühimme Defteri, pp. 288–9, #825, evahir Zilhicce 1197 (November 1783). See also BOA, C.ADL 29/1737.

105 Vak‘anüvis Halil Nuri Bey, Nûrî Tarihi, (ed.) Seydi Vakkas Toprak (Ankara: Türk Tarihi Kurumu, 2015), 349–51; Kurz, Das Sicill aus Skopje, 413–6, ferman dated evail Cemaziyelevvel 1207 (December 1792). See also BOA, C.DH 238/11881, summary of the report from Adana, 3 Safer 1209 (30 August 1794).

106 Özkaya, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Âyânlık, 262–9; Özkaya, “XVIII. yüzyılın sonlarında tevzi‘ defterlerinin kontrolü”, 145.

107 Kurz, Das Sicill aus Skopje, 254–5, 484.

108 BOA, MŞH.ŞSC.d 669, Ankara court register, no. 185, doc. 240, ferman, evahir Zilkade 1207 (June–July 1793); BOA, C.DH 133/6631, draft of ferman to Cisr-i Ergene, evahir Zilkade 1207. See also Özkaya, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Âyânlık, 262.

109 BOA, MŞH.ŞSC.d 669, Ankara court register, no. 185, doc. 290, evail Muharrem 1208 (August 1793), doc. 369, 1 Receb 1208 (2 February 1794).

110 Neslihan Aral, “69/2 numaralı Kastamonu şer'iyye sicili (H. 1210–1211/M. 1795–1796): transkripsiyon ve değerlendirme”, Master's thesis, Erciyes University, 2006, 98, 150, appendix (facsimile), 79, 85; Mehmet Soysal, “557 numaralı Afyon Karahisar-ı Sâhib sancağı şer‘iyye sicili (1793–1799 M./1208–1213 H.)”, Master's thesis, Fırat University, 2005, 108, 251.

111 BOA, A.DVNS.MHM.d 236, Mühimme Defteri, pp. 81–5, #200, evasıt Cemaziyelahir 1230 (May 1815); see also Çadırıcı, Tanzimat Döneminde Anadolu Kentleri, 82–3; BOA, C.ADL 43/2612, 3356.

112 BOA, A.DVNS.MHM.d 241, Mühimme Defteri, pp. 150–1, #676, evasıt Şaban 1239 (April 1824). See also C.ADL 29/1712.

113 Takvim-i Vekayi, no. 76, 12 Ramazan 1249 (23 January 1834), p. 1.

114 M. Çağatay Uluçay, 18 ve 19. Yüzyıllarda Saruhan'da Eşkiyalık ve Halık Hareketleri (Istanbul: Berksoy Basımevi, 1955), 254–5, doc. 120.

115 BOA, MŞH.ŞSC.d 6015, Kayseri court register, no. 200, pp. 32, 86, 161, 221, 282.

116 Çadırcı, Tanzimat Döneminde Anadolu Kentleri, 159.

117 BOA, MŞH.ŞSC.d 6017, Kayseri court register, no. 202, p. 21.

118 BOA, MŞH.ŞSC.d 8366, Tokat court register, no. 1, pp. 324–191.

119 During the eighteenth century, the fee for the division of estates was regularly charged at a rate of 2.5 per cent of the gross value of the estate. After the 1798 order stipulated that the judges should charge 2.5 per cent of the net value of the estate, the new standard began to be enforced, though not ubiquitously, in the early nineteenth century. BOA, A.DVNS.MHM.d 204, Mühimme Defteri, p. 114, #238, evahir Safer 1213 (August 1798).

120 İMMA, Defter I/13, Tarik Defteri, no. 1, p. 36.

121 For the mütesellim, see Halil Inalcik [İnalcık], “Centralization and decentralization in Ottoman administration”, in Thomas Naff and Roger Owen (eds), Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977), 29–35; Yücel Özkaya, “XVIII. yüzyılda mütesellimlik müessesesi”, Ankara Üniversitesi Dil Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi 28/3–4, 1970, 369–90.

122 İnalcık, “Centralization and decentralization”, 34.

123 Pál Fodor, The Business of State: Ottoman Finance Administration and Ruling Elites in Transition (1580s–1615) (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2018), 73–124; Mehmed Genç, “Mâlikâne”, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 27: 517.

124 During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, judges in their capacity of tax farming inspectors were responsible for remitting the taxes to the treasury, and those who remitted large amounts were promoted or received other benefits. See Yuriko Matsuo, “The formation of kaza and role of kadı under the Ottoman Empire: analysis of Rumeli Kazaskerliği Ruznamesi (1550–1660)” (in Japanese), Shigaku-zasshi 108/7, 1999, 25–8; Fodor, The Business of State, 100–01. However, after the eighteenth century, inspectorships combined with judgeships do not appear in the sources.

125 Whereas the fees for arpalıks and maişets are unknown, it is known that mevleviyet kadıs gave gifts (bohça baha) to the Şeyhülislam and tips to court servants. See D'Ohsson, Tableau général, 4/2: 610–1; Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilâtı, 87. According to Uzunçarşılı, after the mid-sixteenth century, the mevleviyet appointees paid the state treasury one month's income as a fee. See Uzunçarşılı, İlmiye Teşkilâtı, 111. The court historian Naima Mustafa writes that in 1646 and 1647, the mevleviyet kadıships of Bursa and Selanik were granted to individuals who paid 10,000 guruş, although he provides no information about the recipients or the nature of these payments. Naîmâ Mustafa Efendi, Târih-i Na‘îmâ (Ravzatü’l-hüseyn fî hulâsati ahbâri'l-hâfikayn), (ed.) Mehmet İpşirli (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2007), 3: 1097, 1112. See also Dörtok Abacı and Ergene, “The price of justice”, 43.

126 In this respect, the Ottoman system of farming out judicial offices also differed from the venality (venalité) of offices in ancien régime France, where offices were sold primarily as a means of raising revenue for the Crown, especially to finance wars. Also, offices in France were sold as property and were easily inheritable. For the French venality of judicial offices, see Doyle, William, Venality: The Sale of Offices in Eighteenth-century France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mousnier, Roland, La vénalité des offices sous Henri IV et Louis XIII, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1971)Google Scholar; Blanquie, Christophe, “Fiscalité et vénalité des offices présidiaux”, Histoire, Économie et Société 23/4, 2004, 473–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

127 For the early Tanzimat reform of the judiciary institution, see Akiba, “Kadılık teşkilâtında”, in which I note the shrinking of territories, which caused a decrease in the number of sharia courts (i.e. a decrease in the ulema's revenue sources), as a reason for the elite ulema's support for the reform.

128 In this sense, the establishment of the Ministry of Evkaf (religious endowments) in 1826 was not the turning point in the relationship between the ulema and the state, as often claimed, because, as this article has shown, the economic foundations of the ilmiye hierarchy rested on fee revenues rather than on evkaf. The main purpose of the Ministry of Evkaf was to centralize the administration of evkaf and to divert the funds to the newly created army. That said, its creation undoubtedly affected certain types of ulema who depended on evkaf funds, such as mosque functionaries and provincial medrese teachers. See Barnes, John Robert, An Introduction to Religious Foundations in the Ottoman Empire (Leiden: Brill, 1986)Google Scholar, esp. 106–07; İpşirli, Mehmet, “II. Mahmud döneminde vakıfların idaresi”, in Sultan II. Mahmud ve Reformları Semineri, 28–30 Haziran 1989, Bildiriler (Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi, 1990), 49–57Google Scholar.