Gdibor Agoston

A FLEXIBLE EMPIRE:
AUTHORITY AND ITS LIMITS
ON THE OTTOMAN FRONTIERS

Introduction

Ever since Frederick Jackson Turner introduced his "frontier thesis" of

American history in 1893, the frontier has been an inspiring theme for many
historians. In Ottoman history, Paul Wittek's "ghaza" thesis has become one of the
most enduring concepts, and has gone through many reincarnations since its first
publication in 1938. Despite criticisms of the original ghaza thesis, the notion of the
expanding Ottoman frontier still exerts a powerful influence on the general
perceptions of Ottoman history. The period from 1300 to 1700 is generally viewed
as a continuous expansion of the frontier, a process, many historians argue, which
explains the empire's social and economic structures and the predominance of its
military class.'
Mainstream historiography maintains that after the conquest of Constantinople
in 1453, the Ottoman sultans embarked upon their centralizing project, which -
during the century that followed - resulted in the establishment of the "classical"
Ottoman state, with its "peculiar" prebendal land tenure and kul-devýirme systems,
as well as centralized administration. The Ottoman government in Istanbul is said to
have attained its perfection during this period: former frontiers were integrated into
the imperial system, and the central government increased its control over the more
far-flung territories. In discussing the "classical age" students often become victims
of their sources. If one looks at the sultanic decrees sent from Istanbul to the
provinces during the mid-sixteenth century, the impression gained is one of an
Ottoman central government whose will prevailed even in the most remote frontier
areas. Further, provincial tax registers (tahrir defterleri) also suggest that the
administrative and taxation system was extremely uniform and efficient. However,
one should not forget that the systematic study of this rich material (and here we are
talking about tens of thousands of sultanic decrees and several hundred provincial
tax registers) have only started in recent years. It is symptomatic that although at the
end of the sixteenth century the empire was divided into at least thirty-two
provinces, we possess less than half a dozen monographs that are devoted to the

1Colin Heywood, "The Frontier in Ottoman History: Old Ideas and New Myths," in Frontiers
in Question: Eurasian Borderlands, 700-1700, eds. Daniel Power and Naomi Standen
(London, 1999), pp. 228-250; repr. Colin Heywood, Writing Ottoman History (Aldershot,
2002)1.
 16 Gibor Agoston

comprehensive study of a certain province. Former historical reconstructions of

Ottoman administrative practices and capabilities are based on random evidence,
often from the core provinces of the Balkans and Asia Minor, that have very little to
say about regional variations outside the core zones. The minutes of local judicial
courts, complaints of provincial authorities, and the communication between the
central and local authorities present a different picture and demonstrate the limits to
centralization. In these sources local and central government appear to have enjoyed
a relationship that was far more complex than the one-sided command-and-execute
relationship put forward by historians in the past.
In general texts, apart from the vassal or client states that in the sixteenth
century were not integrated into the empire, differences between the provinces get
only cursory attention, and only in the context of the timarlt and salyaneli provinces.
In the so-called timarh provinces agricultural revenues in the form of fiefs, the
smallest and most common of which was called timar, were assigned to cavalrymen
(sipahi), the backbone of the Ottoman provincial army, and to their military
commanders, the sancak beyis. The latter also functioned as governors of the basic
administrative-military units of the empire, called sancaks. Several sancaks
comprised a province, generally called beylerbeyilik after its governor-general, the
beylerbeyi, who was the "bey of the beys," the commander-in-chief of the provincial
forces and the highest administrative official of Ottoman provincial administration.
Ottoman provinces in Europe and Asia Minor as well as some Arab territories are
said to have belonged to the first category. The Arab territories in the Maghrib and
the Middle East, however, were rather distant from Istanbul and lay well outside the
main direction of the Ottoman advance. Thus in these areas political, military and
economic factors tended to favor a different type of administration. Accordingly, tax
revenues of these territories were not distributed as fiefs but were collected with the
help of tax farmers (miiltezim). Subsequently, the beylerbeyis deducted their own
annual income from this revenue, as well as the salaries of the sancak beyis and
other local functionaries who were subordinate to them, and also used this sum to
pay the soldiers in the province and cover the costs of defense and administration. If
a province was self-sufficient and there was a surplus, any remaining income was
sent to the sultan's treasury in Istanbul. This sum, which was submitted annually,
was called the irsaliye or hazine, while the provinces were called salyaneli
provinces after the beylerbeyi's annual salary (salyane). 2
In 1534, three of the fifteen provinces were salyaneli provinces. According to
the list of Ayn Ali, which was drawn up in 1607 but was based in many instances on
tax registers of the period between 1560 and 1580, nine of the thirty-two provinces
were of this type. Meanwhile, mid-seventeenth-century sources mention thirty-four
provinces, nine of which are placed in the category of salyaneli provinces. The

2Halil tnalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600 (London, 1973, repr.
London, 1994). See also idem, "Eyalet," Encyclopedia of Islam, CD-ROM Edition (Leiden,
1999); the best study of Ottoman provincial administration is I. Metin Kunt, The Sultan's
Servants: The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial Government, 1550-1650 (New York,
1983).
 A Flexible Empire 17

geographical distribution of the salyaneli provinces well illustrates the political and
economic pressure that led to their formation: Istanbul was unable or unwilling to
introduce the timar system in Egypt, Yemen, Habe$ (Abyssinia), Basra (southern
Iraq), Lahsa (al-Hasa, present-day Kuwait), Baghdad (northern Iraq), Trablus-i Garb
(northern parts of present-day Libya), Tunis, and Cezayir-i Garb
3 (the coastal strip of
Algeria), which all preserved some degree of local autonomy.
The main weakness of the above model is its tendency to differentiate between
the provinces on the basis of a single aspect: revenue management. This aspect was
without doubt a priority of contemporary Ottoman administration and, therefore, it
dominates our sources. While this is a useful model to describe the provinces from
one important vantage point, it fails to show the differences between the core areas
and frontier provinces. In other words, provinces falling into the same category
under the above model differed significantly from each other in terms of the control
exerted upon them by the central administration.
The limits of the central government in the hereditary sancaks established in
eastern Anatolia, mainly inhibited by nomadic Ttirkmen and Kurdish tribes, are
hardly mentioned.4 In general, Ottoman historians have paid scant attention to the
nomads, even though they amounted to almost one-fifth of the inhabitants of Asia
Minor in the sixteenth century. In the 1520s, out of the 872,610 families living in the
provinces of Anadolu, Karaman, Dulkadir, and Rum (an area approximately the size
of present-day Anatolia) 160,564 (18.4 percent) were nomads. Fifty years later,
despite Ottoman attempts at sedentarization, 220,217 families (16 percent) living in
the above provinces continued their nomadic way of life. More than half of the
nomads (116,219 families) were registered in the province of Anadolu. In the
province of Dulkadir nomadic Tuirkmens comprised 70 percent of taxpayers in 1526,
whereas their proportion was 34 percent in the 1570s. In 1580, nomads comprised

3 inalcik, The Ottoman Empire, pp.

104-107; Donald Edgar Pitcher, An HistoricalGeography
of the Ottoman Empire (Leiden, 1972), pp. 126-128; M. 1p§irli, "Eyalet (Ta*ra) Te§kilati," in
Osmanli Devleti ve Medeniyeti Tarihi, vol., 1, ed. Ekmeleddin ihsanoglu (Istanbul, 1994), pp.
221-245; llhan $ahin, "XV. ve XVI. Asirlarda Osmanli Ta§ra Te§kilatmun Ozellikleri," in XV
ve XVI Asirlan TUrk Asn Yapan Degerler, ed. Mahir Aydin (Istanbul, 1999), p. 126; Nejat
G6yijnq, "Osmanli Devletinde Ta§ra Te§kilati," in Osmanli, vol. 6, Telkilat, ed. Guler Eren
(Ankara, 1999), pp. 77-88; idem, "Provincial Organization of the Ottoman Empire in Pre-
Tanzimat Period," in The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation, vol. 3, ed. Kemal qiýek
(Ankara, 2000), p. 520. It should also be noted that not all of the above-mentioned
beylerbeyiliks were always salyaneli provinces. Many of them were governed for shorter or
longer periods according to the classical system, or at other times only certain sancaks of the
?rovince were administered as salyaneli.
The hereditary sancaks are mentioned neither by Norman Itzkowitz nor Daniel Goffman.
Although Goffman briefly mentions Ottoman flexibility on the frontiers, he remains too
general and mixes vassal states with Ottoman frontier provinces. See Norman Itzkoitz,
Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition (Chicago, 1980), pp. 47-48; Daniel Goffman, The
Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 99-105. The most
nuanced view in recent generalist literature is offered by Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire,
1300-1650 (New York, 2002), pp. 177-215, who mentions the hereditary sancaks (pp. 188-
189).
 18 Gdibor Agoston

58 percent of the population of the province of Aleppo, and 62 percent in the

province of Baghdad. 5 When scholarship deals with the hereditary sancaks, it is
suggested that the sultans' authority was maintained here through the Janissary
garrisons stationed in the important cities and major fortresses of these regions.6
Similarly, studies concerning frontier provinces in the Balkans, Hungary, and the
Arab lands that showed the limits of Ottoman administrative capabilities outside the
core zones and the continuity of pre-Ottoman institutions, are often neglected by the
literature, or if taken into account, are treated as deviations from the classical model
of Ottoman administration and taxation. 7
The present essay examines the limits of the Ottoman administrative strategies
and practices in the empire's northwestern and eastern frontiers, where in the
sixteenth century the Ottomans faced their most formidable enemies, the Habsburgs
and the Safavids. The article questions some of our received views concerning
Ottoman administrative capabilities in the frontier provinces during the so-called
"classical" period. Similarly, it argues that many of the "deviations" can be
viewed
as continuation of earlier, pre-sixteenth-century flexible administrative strategies. In
doing so, the present study de-emphasizes the often artificial difference between the
remarkable flexibility and pragmatism of the early fifteenth century on the one hand,
and the Sifleymanic "golden age" on the other, during which Ottoman centralization
is believed to have reached its perfection by successfully integrating the former
frontiers.

Limits and Compromise in Establishing New Provinces

Ottoman pragmatism and flexibility - considered one of the strengths of the

"Ottoman methods of conquest" in the fifteenth century 8 - did not disappear in the
following century. Recognizing the limits of its administrative capabilities in the
eastern frontiers, the Ottoman government accepted the formation of numerous
administrative units of special status, the so-called yurtluk (family property, family
estates) and ocaklik (family estate) sancaks. The sancak beyis of such administrative
units, usually former chieftains, administered these lands as "family property" or as

5 Rhoads Murphey, "Some Features of Nomadism in the Ottoman Empire: A Survey Based
on Tribal Census and Judicial Appeal Documentation from Archives in Istanbul and
Damascus," Journalof Turkish Studies 8 (1984), p. 192; 1lhan *ahin, "Nomads," in The Great
Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation, vol. 2, p. 361; idem, "Dulkadir eyaleti," T4rkiye Diyanet Vakfi
islam Ansiklopedisi (henceforth TDVIA) vol. 9 (Istanbul, 1994), pp. 552-553.
s Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire, 107.
7 From the latest literature, see Suraiya Faroqhi, Approaching Ottoman
History: An
Introduction to the Sources (Cambridge, 1999), p. 83, where Hungary is portrayed as a
frontier province that "cannot be regarded as typical of even southeastern Europe, let alone
other parts of the Ottoman realm."
8 Halil Inalcik, "Ottoman Methods of Conquest," Studia Islamica 2 (1954): 104-29, repr.,
idem, The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and Economy (London. 1978) 1;
Feridun Emecen, "Beylikten Sancaga: Bati Anadolu'da Ilk Osmanli Sancaklannin
Kurulu una Dair Molahazalar," Belleten 60/227 (1996): 81-91.
 A Flexible Empire 19

"family provinces." According to official Ottoman documents, the sancak beyis

received these properties from the sultan in return for their service and obedience at
the time of the Ottoman conquest. The language of the sixteenth and seventeenth-
century Ottoman legal texts concerning the yurtluk and ocaklik sancaks is somewhat
euphemistic, for it suggests that the Ottoman sultans did grant these lands (tefviz ve
temlik olunmuýtur). In fact, these yurtluk and ocaklik sancaks, which usually
comprised the traditional pasture lands of the Tuirkmen and Kurdish tribes living in
the area, were simply kept by their former owners, generally former chieftains, as a
consequence of a political deal that reflected the balance of power and mutual
interdependence in the frontier zones. While the beys of the yurtluk and ocakilk
sancaks possessed the traditional symbols of power, that is, the drum and the flag,
according to the document that they received from the sultan (temessiik), they could
be neither dismissed nor appointed to other posts. Nonetheless, tax registers were
drawn up in their sancaks, and the Ottoman land tenure system was also introduced.
During military campaigns, the beys (like other sancak beyis) had to go to war
accompanied by their troops. At such times they were placed under the command of
the governor-general of the province to which their sancak belonged. Contrary to
general practice, if they were unable to fulfill their obligations, or if they died, their
lands were received by their sons or relatives and could not be given to "outsiders."
The only exception to this was if the whole family died out. In such cases, the
sultan's government was free to decide whether to maintain the hereditary nature of
the sancak or incorporate it into the normal group of sancaks.9
Of course, changing power relations could and did alter the rules and principles
established after the Ottoman conquest, and as the frontier moved eastward the
Ottoman government tried and often managed to exert greater control. For example,
the hereditary sancak (or vilayet) of Adana was headed by the beys of the
Ramazanoglu dynasty for almost a century, after they accepted Ottoman suzerainty
in 1516. However, by 1608 Adana had become a regular Ottoman sancak.1l The
ocaklik sancaks that were established in the western half of the province of
Erzurum, which can be considered as one of the most important frontier provinces
of the empire from its founding in 1535 until the 1570s, were controlled mainly by
Pir Hdiseyn, who had sided with the Ottomans in 1515, and by his sons. They were
the descendants of the Saltukoglu Tbrkmen dynasty, which had ruled the Erzurum
region before the arrival of the Ottomans. While Istanbul made occasional attempts

9 Ilhan 5ahin, "Timar Sistemi Hakkinda Bir Risale," Tarih Dergisi 32 (1979): 909-910, 923;
Midhat Sertoglu ed., Sofyalt Ali (avul Kanunnamesi (Istanbul, 1992), 57-58; It seems that
this was true only for the ocakhks, whereas in the case of the yurtluk sancaks, a bey receiving
the territory in the form of a yurtluk could only exercise the fight to rule and to levy taxes for
his lifetime. On the other hand, the use of the term ocakhk, or of the two terms together
(yurtluk ve ocaklik), meant that the sancak was hereditary. In such cases, the title of sancak
beyi was passed on from father to son, or to the sancak beyi's legal heirs. On this distinction,
see Halil Sahillioglu, "Osmanli D6neminde Irakin Idari Taksimau," Belleten 54/211 (1990):
1233-1254.
1oYilmaz Kurt, "1572 Tarihli Adana Mufassal Tahrir Defterine G6re Adana'nin Sosyo-
Ekonomik Tarihi Uzerine Bir Ara;tirma," Belleten 54/209 (1990): 181.
 20 Gdibor Agoston

to absorb the hereditary sancaks of the province, the descendants of Pir Haseyn
were usually able to fight off such endeavors by appealing to the sultan's original
ahdname.I I
The compromise is even more obvious in the case of the hiikiimets. These were
mainly territories of Tiarkmen and Kurdish tribes, administered by their leaders as
hereditary lands again in return for their service and obedience at the time of the
Ottoman conquest. In these areas there was no introduction of the timar system and
sancak censuses were not drawn up. The relationship between the tribal chieftains
and the Ottoman government was regulated by an official document (ahdname)
comprising the privileges and obligations. Under the terms of these documents, there
were to be no Ottoman officials or soldiers on the territory of the hiikiimets. The
bevs of the hiikiimets could be neither dismissed nor appointed to other posts, but,
like the beys of the vurtluk and ocakhk sancaks, they too were obliged to go to war
2
accompanied by their troops.
Ottoman pragmatism may be observed in the provinces of Diyarbekir, Van,
$ehrizor, Aleppo, Baghdad and Mosul, where the hereditary sancaks were generally
headed by the leaders of Toirkmen, Kurdish and Arab tribes. Of these, Diyarbekir
was extremely important since it cut off the rebellious KiziIba§ tribes in northern and
southeastern Central Anatolia from their main supporters and the Ottomans' arch
enemy, Safavid Persia. Thus, it is hardly surprising that the Ottomans maintained
relative Kurdish autonomy in the province in order to win and maintain the support
of the Kurdish tribes living in the region. This autonomy is reflected in an official
list of the Ottoman provinces from 1521/22, which enumerates only nine regular
sancaks or livas and twenty-eight smaller administrative units, called cema'at-i
Kiirdan, that is, communities or assembly of the Kurds in the province of
Diyarbekir. It is noteworthy that the territory in the hands of Kurdish beys was much
larger than that of the regular livas under direct Ottoman administration. The fact
that the income of these units under Kurdish control was never mentioned indicates
that the timar system and cadastral surveys were not introduced here. Five years
later, a similar list of Ottoman provinces mentions ten regular sancaks under direct
Ottoman control in the province of Diyarbekir followed by seventeen eyalets of
special status in the province (vilayet) of Kurdistan. A document relating to these
Kurdish leaders and their autonomous territories, compiled around 1536, enumerates
most of the privileges enjoyed by the hiikemets. As long as the emirs of these
Kurdish provinces remained loyal to the House of Osman, Istanbul could not
interfere; there were no Ottoman officials and tax collectors in their provinces; the
province passed from father to son or to other relatives; if there were no legitimate
heirs, the province could not be given to "outsiders" or "foreigners" (eyaleti
haricden olanlara ve ecnebilere virilmeyiib) but only to semebody from the region
in agreement with the emirs of Kurdistan. Again, actual practices could have been
and were indeed different, and Istanbul tried to control these territories. By 1608 the
province of Diyarbekir consisted of eleven regular Ottoman sancaks, eight sancaks

Diindar Aydin, Erzurum Beylerbeviligi ve Teýkilau (Ankara, 1998), pp. 234-242.

12 Sofyah Aliiavuý, p. 19.
 A Flexible Empire 21

under Kurdish beys and five hiikiimets. However, it is clear that while the Kurdish
sancaks were still hereditary, Istanbul managed to survey them and introduced the
timar system.13
However, to control the (mostly Kurdish) tribal leaders of the areas to the east,
such as the provinces of Mihrivan/Mehrivan and Pelengan/Pelenkan, proved a
difficult task for the Ottomans. These leaders tended to support the Safavids, but
when they felt the Ottomans to be stronger they swapped sides, receiving in return
their former territories or even the lands of rival tribal leaders as ocakhk. Generally,
they only pretended to accept Ottoman rule, driving out the census-takers and tax-
collectors. They also attached the lands of adjacent sancaks to their own ocakliks,
not even sparing the Ottoman crown lands.14
Similarly, the history of the Ottoman authorities' relationship with local Druze,
Turcoman and Arab power-holders in Greater Syria is a complicated one which
involved co-optation, co-operation and sheer military force, as well as the playing
off of the rival Sunni Yamanis and the (mostly Druze) Qaysis against each other.
The most remarkable story is related to Fakhr al-Din II Ma'ni, the Druze leader of
the Shuf. From 1593/94 until his execution in 1632 Fakhr al-Din II wield
considerable power in the region, at times as the ally of Istanbul, yet other times as
the Ottomans' main opponent. Besides the Ma'nids, other local power-groups also
played some role in the region's history. For example, the Tdirkmen 'Assaf family
controlled some thirty villages and their mixed Muslim and Christian
5 population in
the northernmost nahiye of Kisrawan of the liva of Damascus.'
An even more fascinating state of affairs developed in the far northeastern
corner of the province of Erzurum. In the late fifteenth century, Georgia broke up
into various kingdoms (Imeretia, Kartli and Kakhetia). By the middle of the
sixteenth century, the two great regional powers, the Ottoman Empire and the
Safavid Empire, had swallowed up these kingdoms. Although the respective spheres
of influence of the Ottomans and Safavids were indicated in the peace treaty of
Amasya of 1555, competition between the two powers over the Georgian territories
- which was made even more complicated by the rivalry between the Georgian
princes who ran first to one power and then to the other - resulted in a series of
Ottoman-Safavid wars. The Ottoman-Safavid peace treaty of Kasr-i $irin of 1639,
which concluded a renewed bout of conflict, repeated the previous division of
Georgia: the eastern Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakhetia fell under Persian
rule, while the principalities of Guria, Imeretia and Mingrelia, lying to the northwest
of the river Kura, were received by the Ottomans. As in the Balkans in the fifteenth

13Baki Tezcan, "The Development of the Use of 'Kurdistan' as a Geographical Description

and the Incorporation of this Region into the Ottoman Empire in the 16 0hCentury," in The
Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation,vol. 3, pp. 545-548.
14 One such rebellious bey was Miri Bey, leader of the Mukri Kurds, who annexed the Meraga

and the surrounding area to his own hereditary lands. Bekir Kuituikoglu, Osmanli-IranSiyasi
MUnasebetleri (1578 1612) (Istanbul, 1993), pp. 223-245.
15 Muhammad Adnan Bakhit, The Ottoman Province of Damascus in the Sixteenth Century
(Beirut, 1982), pp. 164-181.
 22 GAbor Agoston

century, and in Hungary in the mid-sixteenth century, the Ottomans occupied the
strategically important southern territories of Georgia, and first established several
sancaks that were joined to the province of Erzurum. Istanbul also left members of
the former Georgian ruling families at the head of the Georgian sancaks that were
attached to the province of Erzurum. In some cases families whose members were
still Christians received these territories as ocakhk. Only later did they convert to
Islam, probably in order to ensure that they could keep their lands and pass them on
to their sons and grandsons. Later in 1578, the Ottomans established the new
province of (ýldir (Ahiska/Akhaltsikhe) and appointed the region's former Georgian
prince, Minuchir (who in the meantime had converted to Islam and took the name of
Mustafa) as its first bevlerbeyi. Together with his brother, who had been given the
sancak of Oltu, Minuchir was awarded a has (prebend) with an annual revenue of
900,000 akVa. With some exceptions, the new province was administered by the
Georgian princes of Samtskhe as hereditary beys until the mid-eighteenth century. In
the early seventeenth century, out of the fifteen sancaks of the province four were
ocakliks, while in the mid-seventeenth century these numbers were fourteen and
three, respectively. In the mountainous areas of Guria, Imeretia, Mingrelia Svaneti
and Abkhazeti that were more difficult to conquer, the Ottomans wisely permitted
the rule of vassal Georgian princes, who recognized the authority of the sultan by
6
paying symbolic (but often irregular) tributes. 1
During the seventeenth century the central government lost control of many
eastern provinces, which is reflected in the growing number of hereditary sancaks in
the area. According to a document compiled in 1653, eighteen of the twenty-two
sancaks in the province of Diyarbekir were ordinary sancaks controlled by Ottoman
beys, while the other four sancaks were yurfluk-ocaklik ones. Meanwhile, one of the
six sancaks in the beylerbeyilik of Aleppo, three of the fourteen sancaks in the
province of 1ildir, nine of the fourteen sancaks in the beylerbeyilik of Van, thirteen
of the nineteen sancaks in the province of $ehrizor, two of the five sancaks in the
province of Mosul, and seventeen of the twenty-five sancaks in the beylerbeyilik of
Baghdad were yurtluk-ocakhk sancaks.7 In the last third of the seventeenth century,
the beylerbeyilik of Diyarbekir comprised six hiUkUmets, five ocakliks, and just nine
ordinary sancaks. At the same time, nine of the seventeen sancaks in the
beylerbeyilik of Erzurum, fifteen of the twenty-two sancaks in the province of
(ildir, eleven of the twenty sancaks in the province of Van, four of the sixteen
sancaks in the of province Baghdad, five of the eighteen sancaks in the beylerbeyilik
of Sehrizor were ocaklik."s

16 Fahrettin Kirzioglu, Osmanhiar'm Kaykas-ellerini Fethi (1451-1590)

(Ankara 1976);
KUttiUkoglu, Osmanli-Iran Siyasi Mimnasebetleri; Feridun Emecen, "I'fldir," TDVIA, vol. 8
(Istanbul, 1993), pp. 300-1; Andres Birken, Die Provinzen des Osmanischen Reiches
(Wiesbaden, 1976), pp. 154 ff.
17*ahin, "Timar Sistemi Hakkinda Bir Risale," pp. 915-20.
18 Orhan Kliq, "XVIII Yizyilin Ilk Yansinda Osmanli Devleti'nin Eyalet
ve Sancak
Teqkilatlanmasi," in Osmanli, vol. 6, pp. 89-110. The number of sancaks often varied even
between sources of a similar date of origin. In the beylerbevilik of Baghdad at the end of the
sixteenth century the sources indicate, for example, twenty-nine sancaks, at the beginning of
 A Flexible Empire 23

Similar dynamics were at work after the conquest of Hungary in 1541.'9 While
the most strategically important central parts of the country were attached to the
empire's regular provinces and were put under the control of the newly appointed
beylerbeyi of Buda, in the eastern parts of the country two sancaks were created and
given to Friar Georgius and P6ter Petrovics, leaders of the pro-Ottoman Szapolyai
party in Hungary. Although the status of these sancaks was somewhat ambiguous at
the beginning, the fact that both Friar Georgius and P6ter Petrovics were appointed
by a berat, that is, the usual type of certificate used during appointments of regular
sancak beyis (rather than by ahdname or temessiik, which were usually given to the
beys of the hereditary sancaks in Eastern Anatolia), probably reflects the intentions
of Istanbul. Given the strategic location of P6ter Petrovics's sancak, it is hardly
surprising that it soon fell under direct Ottoman rule. In 1552, his sancak was used
to establish the second Ottoman province in Hungary with a center at Temesvdr.
Thus, in this case the same route was taken as in the provinces of Dulkadir and
Adana or in several sancaks of the beylerbeyilik of Erzurum. However, the sancak
of Friar Georgius, which lay far to the east of the principal routes of Ottoman
expansion, evolved into the Principality of Transylvania, an Ottoman vassal state
that enjoyed considerable freedom regarding domestic policies. 20

Condominium

A common feature of the frontier territories was the condominium, that is, the
joint rule of the former power elite and the Ottoman authorities. While exhibiting
significant differences over time and according to place, this sharing of authority for
a shorter or longer period extended to areas such as taxation, public administration,
and justice. As already noted, in the hiikiimets and in the provinces of the Kurdish
emirs there was no introduction of the timar system and sancak censuses were not
drawn up. The revenue of the territory went to the local power-holders and Istanbul
received no income from these areas. This was different from the territory of the
ocakliks, where part of the revenue might have been remitted to the sultan's
treasury. Arab tribal leaders were also able to keep their former territories in return
for cooperation with the Ottoman authorities. Their income often reached 200,000-
300,000 akga per annum, which roughly corresponded to the income received by

the seventeenth century nineteen sancaks, and in the middle of that century twenty sancaks,
of which twelve were ocaklik in which the sancak beyis had has.
19Following the Ottomans' withdrawal from Hungary after the battle of Mohacs in 1526,
competing factions of the Hungarian nobility elected two kings, Jdnos Szapolyai (r. 152640),
vajda of Transylvania and Ferdinand of Habsburg (r. 1526-64). With Ottoman military
assistance, Szapolyai controlled the eastern parts of the country, while Ferdinand ruled the
northern and western parts of Hungary. When the death of Szapolyai (1540) upset the military
equilibrium between the Habsburgs and Ottomans, SUleyman annexed central Hungary to his
empire (1541). Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Habsburgs had to
content themselves with northern and western Hungary, known as Royal Hungary.
20 GAbor Barta, Vajon ki6 az orszdg (Budapest, 1988), p. 100; Pdl Fodor, Magyarorszdg 9s a
tor.5k h6ditds (Budapest, 1991), pp. 107, 113.
 24 G6bor A&goston

junior sancak bevis. In some cases the sum could be several times more. An
example of this in the early seventeenth century was the bey of Karadag in the
province of Baghdad, whose income from his hiikiimet was more than 800,000 akCa
per annum. This sum was on a par with the income of a provincial governor-
general. 2 '
In many places, local legal customs with regard to land ownership and taxation
were preserved too. The first provincial tax regulations of the sancaks in eastern
Anatolia were often exact copies of the Akkoyunlu, Dulkadir or Mamluk regulations
or kanuns. The Ottomans adopted the kanun of Alaiiddevle of Dulkadir, which for
instance served as a model for the legal code of the sancak of Bozok. The
kanunname of the sancak of Diyarbekir was also a word for word copy of the legal
code of Uzun Hasan (r. 1453-78), the ruler of the Akkoyunlu Tiirkmen
confederation. The first kanunnames of many other eastern sancaks and nahiyes (e.g
Ergani, Urfa, Mardin, ýimrrik, Siverek, Erzincan, Kemah and Bayburt) were based
in part on the laws of Hasan Padishah, that is, Uzun Hasan. All of these legal codes,
as well as the special regulations that applied to the nomadic TUrkmen tribes (e.g.
the Boz-Ulus), preserved the pre-Ottoman tribal customs of the Tiirkmens, which
often contradicted the Ottoman kanuns, and retained the former rules regarding
property relations. The abrogation of some of the pre-Ottoman regulations and the
introduction of Ottoman provincial tax regulations took place only decades later.
One reason for this was to reduce the tax-burden on subjects. Still, in many places
22
double taxation survived for many generations.
The situation was somewhat different in the Hungarian provinces, yet also
reflects shared possession and compromise. Although these provinces were part of
the regular Ottoman administrative system with timars and regular cadastral
surveys, actual administrative and taxation practices were different from that of the
core zones. The military balance of power and the armed strength of the Hungarian
border fortress soldiers led to a real condominium and a joint or double Hungarian-
Ottoman taxation. In other words, the very same village had both a Turkish sipahi
and a Hungarian landlord and paid taxes to both. While this situation may be hard
for us to understand, it seemed natural for contemporaries, as seen in a letter written
by the Ottoman dizdar of the castle of Koppan to his Hungarian counterpart, Aclim
Battyany, the commander of the Hungarian forces in southern Transdanubia: "Your
village, Nagyegr6s, is in my possession in Turkey, I mean, it is in your possession in
Hungary." As a consequence of this condominium, apart from the Serbian populated
Syrmium in southern Hungary, there was hardly any major region in the country that
was not paying some kind of tax to the Hungarian side. Taxes to landlords were
collected more regularly, while state taxes and taxes for the Church could be
collected only from two-thirds of the Ottoman-held territories in the sixteenth
century and only from half of it in the seventeenth century.23

21 Sahillioglu, p. 1249.
2 Omer LIitfi Barkan, XV ve XVhnct asirlarda Osmanli Imparalorlugunda Zirai
Ekonomisinin Hukuki ve Mali Esaslan. Kanunlar(Istanbul, 1943), pp. 119-171.
23 Ferenc SzakU]y, Magyar ad6ztatds a torok h6doltsdgban (Budapest, 1981).
 A Flexible Empire 25

Apart from taxation, the Hungaro-Ottoman condominium also extended to

jurisdiction and administration. The weakest of all the former Hungarian institutions
that continued to exert some influence in Ottoman ruled territories were the noble
counties. Most of them fell apart shortly after the conquest, and the work of the few
remaining "refugee nobiliary counties" of the Ottoman-held territories was confined
to legal transactions between the members of the Hungarian nobility. Although these
counties passed regulatory decrees or statutes (sing. statutum) in any affair not
governed (or insufficiently governed) by the laws and decrees of the kingdom, their
work should not be overvalued for they did not replace Ottoman authorities. "Even
in the best of cases, Turkish jurisdiction was not squeezed out, but just squeezed
back, for
24
the Turks debated the same affairs, inasmuch as they had an interest in
them."
The work of the magisterial authorities of the Hungarian market towns in the
Ottoman-held lands was more successful than the nobiliary counties. Whereas in the
handful of Ottoman garrison towns in Hungary it was the kadt who administered
justice, in the more numerous Hungarian market towns (sing. oppidum) that had no
Ottoman garrison, the tasks of maintaining law and order, crime prevention, inquiry
and judgment remained the prerogatives of the local Hungarian authorities. The
municipal records that have survived down through the years show that many towns
in Ottoman Hungary had already obtained the right to pass justice and issue death
sentences in the decades following the Ottoman conquest. The municipal
magistrates administered the disputes of guilds and artisans as well as matters of
probate. They also imposed and collected fines. Towns in the heart of Ottoman
Hungary acquired these rights more slowly and with greater difficulty than towns
closer to Royal Hungary, but still under Ottoman rule. In this area, it is more
accurate to speak of a rather peculiar "division of labor" between the Ottoman and
Hungarian authorities. What this meant was that the tasks of maintaining law and
order, crime prevention, inquiry and in many cases judgment remained the
prerogatives of the local Hungarian authorities. From the mid-sixteenth century, it
became common for such towns under Ottoman rule to purchase the rights
associated with justice, including the right to pass and indeed administer the death
penalty, while the Ottoman authorities had to remain content with the collection of
fines.
Although the Ottomans initially rejected the idea that the Hungarian estates
might collect taxes and administer justice in Ottoman-held areas, over time the
military balance of power and, above all, the armed strength of the Hungarian border
fortress soldiers led to their introduction and day-to-day practice. Such phenomena
could also be observed for longer or shorter periods in other areas of the empire that
were never fully conquered or absorbed by the Ottomans and where the former elite
could preserve its positions and strength in arms. Many such areas existed in the
Balkans, in eastern Anatolia, and in the Arab territories.

24 Ferenc Szak6ly, Magyar intjzmjnyek a tdrok h6doltstgban (Budapest, 1997), pp. 315-329.
25 Kl6ra Hegyi, T6rbk berendezkedis Magyarorsz6gon(Budapest, 1995), pp. 131-145.
26 Gdbor Agoston

However, during times of conflict neither the Hungarian nor the Ottoman
authorities were able to maintain law and order and prevent plundering by
Hungarian and Ottoman border fortress soldiers and robbery by the free hajdus and
other semi-regular elements. A general deterioration in standards of public safety led
to the formation of organizations of self-defense among the peasant farmers. These
groupings or gatherings (sing. concursus) of peasants, called paraszt vdrmegye, that
is, "peasant county" in Hungarian or zapis in territories inhabited by Slavic
26
population, were armed insurrections of peasants led by their captains.
The operation of "village militias" serving similar functions to those of the
Hungarian "peasant counties" may be documented in other frontier zones of the
empire. The sources refer to these village militias as il-eri or il-erleri, that is, "the
bachelors of the province." Members of such groups were young men from the
villages who elected their own leaders called yigitbaýis. Their task was to ensure
public order and security in the villages and the surrounding areas. As in the case of
the Hungarian peasant counties, the authorities, who were incapable of maintaining
public order, were often in need of the assistance of the village militias. When the
regular provincial forces led by the sancak beyis and beylerbeyis proved incapable
of preventing the devastating attacks of rebels and the atrocities of brigands and
bandits, the authorities turned to the il-eri. Historians still have to elaborate on the
history of this organization and we do not know how far back its roots may be
traced. What is clear, however, is that Istanbul would have liked to have kept the
organization under its own control, and for this reason insisted that, after being
elected by village chiefs, a leader should be proposed by the kadis and then
confirmed in Istanbul, where a certificate of appointment would be issued. Future
research must determine whether this act of confirmation was simply a formality
and whether the local organs of the center were capable of controlling the operation
of these organizations of self-defense.27
In the middle of the sixteenth century, il-erleri operated both in the core
provinces and in the frontier zones. The peasant militias were employed in many of
the sancaks of the province of Anadolu and in the neighboring vilayets of Karaman
and Sivas, as well as in Rumelia and the villages of the Aegean and Black Sea coasts
that were vulnerable to enemy attack. In general, the authorities used the militias
against the robbers, brigands, rebels, insurgents and levends who were ravaging the
area, storming the villages and markets, devastating the gardens and vineyards, and
laying waste to the stables and flocks.2 8 In such cases, the self-defense units in the

26 Ferenc SzakAily, Parasztvdrmegy6k a XVII. is XVIII. szdzadban (Budapest 1969).

27 Mustafa Akdag, Tirk Halkinin Dirlik ve Diizenlik Kavgasi: Celali Isyanlart (Istanbul,
1995), pp. 210-211.
2 For example, see Istanbul, Baýbakanlik Osmanh Arýivi, MWihimme Defterleri (MD) 3, p.
76, no. 192: Against the brigands ravaging gardens and vineyards in the vicinity of Malkara
in 1559; MD 5, p. 78, no. 180: Against a bandit in the sancak of Hddavendigar; MD 3, p.
185, no. 511: Against robbers in the vicinity of Alacahisar in 1559; MD 3, p. 353, no. 1044:
In the kaza of Tekirdag against 30-40 robbers; MD 3, p. 166, no. 452: In the vicinity of
torum and Amasya against the brigands and levends; MD 5, p. 473, no. 1274: Chasing the
Albanian robbers that have escaped from the prison of Bursa; MD 5. p. 322, no. 843: In the
 A Flexible Empire 27

villages joined forces with the provincial cavalry forces of the sancak. Led by the
sancak beyis and kadis, they attacked the rebels and evildoers. During such actions,
members of the village militia might even kill the rebels. The sultan's decrees
specifically instructed the kadis to inform the militiamen that nobody would hold
them responsible for such deeds or demand blood money for the murdered brigand
or rebel. 29
The above examples prove that peasants in various parts of the empire reacted
in similar ways to the deterioration in public security, and they established their own
militias of self-defense. The very existence of these peasant organizations of self-
defense and the Ottoman authorities' attitude towards them indicate the limits of
Ottoman administration. It also shows an inevitable sense of Ottoman pragmatism
that not only tolerated such organizations of self-defense but also used them in order
to maintain law and order.

Conclusion

The Ottoman administration that was established in the frontier regions of

Hungary and eastern Anatolia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
successfully fulfilled its main tasks: retention of the conquered territories and
military support for renewed conquests. In each policy area, the pragmatism of the
Ottomans permitted just enough flexibility to ensure the rule of the sultan, as well as
the indispensable conditions of his rule, that is, the peace of his subjects and the
normal working of the economy. If this was possible with the assistance of local
institutions and in accordance with local legal customs, then the Ottoman
government usually retained these elements and made no attempts to form the
conquered territories in its own image. This flexible administrative practice, born of
a necessity that was political, military and economic, may be observed to the full in
the frontier zones of the empire, which the Ottoman government always treated
differently from the core territories.
Ottoman pragmatism also can be viewed as the continuation of pre-sixteenth
century Ottoman administrative strategies used in the Balkans and Anatolia before
the "golden age" of Ottoman centralism. This early flexibility is demonstrated,
among other things, by the fact that the new Ottoman sancaks, nahiyes and kazas
were usually given the names of the old administrative units and often covered the
same territories.30 In Anatolia, after the annexation of the Turkish principalities of
Saruhan, Karesi, Mente*e, Aydm and Germiyan, the sancaks that were established
on the territory of these principalities and the beylerbeyiliks that were established on

sancak of MenteW against the brigands; MD 5, p. 154, no. 365, and p. 189, no. 463: Against
the outlaws and nomads who plundered the horses, camels and sheep of the Muslims from the
meadows (1565). These volumes were recently published in facsimile and in Latin
transliteration by the Archives.
29 MD 3, p. 153, no. 411; p. 166, no. 452.
30 Inalcik, "Ottoman Methods," and ýahin, "XV. ve XVI. Asirlarda Osmanli Ta*ra

Te§kilatimn Ozellikleri," p. 125.

 28 GAibor Agoston

the territories of the principalities of Karaman and Dulkadir followed the borders of
the old principalities. Apart from one instance (Germiyan), the new sancaks and
beylerbeyiliks preserved in their names the memory of the old principalities. In
addition, the first Ottoman tax registers demonstrate that many territorial and
administrative terms were also borrowed from the era of the principalities. It is also
known that the ruling families of the principalities were able to keep parts of their
lands after the Ottoman conquest under Ottoman rule. 3' This can be explained only
partly by the fact that the annexed principalities belonged to the same culture as the
Ottomans, 32 for a similar ability to accommodate may also be observed in the
Balkans, where the Ottoman administrative units often followed the boundaries of
the Serbian and Bosnian ýupas or Byzantine themes. Here too, many of the Ottoman
administrative units preserved the names of the previous rulers of the territories. The
name of Konstantin Dejanovid was preserved, for instance, in the name of the
sancak of Kbstendil, and the name of the Albanian Astin family in the nahiye of
Astin in the pap's sancak.33 As we have seen, Sultan Sijleyman, the champion of
Ottoman centralism, was also forced to follow a similar policy in the eastern
frontiers with regard to certain TUrkmen, Kurdish and Arab chieftains, as well as the
Georgian princes.
It is also known that the Ottoman government in the fifteenth century was
careful to take account of local balances of power and attempted to win over local
secular and religious leaders. Ottoman sultans tried to integrate cooperative groups
and individuals belonging to the previous social elites into the privileged Ottoman
ruling class (askeri). This is borne out by the presence of Christian timar-holders
(sipahi) and privileged auxiliary units (voynuks, martaloses etc.) both in the Balkans
and on the territory of the former Empire of Trebizond. In many places the old
forms of property ownership were adopted and retained; the empire accommodated
the previous systems of agriculture and mining, and it adopted certain forms of
taxation and coinage. Similarly, the continuation of pre-Ottoman local communal
organizations, and the activity of knezes and primikiirs and other leaders of local
administration is well documented from Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece.34 Again, in the
sixteenth century the Ottoman government, the model of absolutism for many

31 Feridun Emecen, "Beylikten Sancaga," 88-91, idem, XVI Asirda Manisa

Kazast (Ankara,
1989), p. 20; ýahin, "XV. ve XVI. Asirlarda Osmanli Taýra Te4kilatinn Ozellikleri." p. 125;
H. Akin, Aydmogullan TarihiHakkinda BirAraltirma(Ankara, 1968), pp. 56-63.
32 $ahin, "XV. ve XVI. Asirlarda Osmanh Ta§ra Te§kilatinin
Ozellikleri," p. 125.
33 H. Sabanoviý, "Upravna podjela jugoslovenskih zemIja pod turskom
vladavinom do
Karlova&og mira 1699 godine," Godignjak Isioriskogdrugiva BiH IV. (1952): 171-204; Halil
inalctk, Fatih devri Uzerinde tetkikler ve vesikalar 2"' edn. (Istanbul, 1987), p. 148; Imber,
The Ottoman Empire, p. 184.
34 Halil Inalcik, "Stefan Duýandan Osmanh imparatorluguna,"
in idem, Osmanli
Imparatorluhgu: Toplum ve Ekonomi Ozerinde Arliv (CalifmalarL, incelemeler (Istanbul,
1993), pp. 67-108; Heath Lowry, Trabzon $ehnnin islamnapnast ve Tiirklelmesi 2" edn.
(Istanbul, 1998); Elena Grozdanova, B61garskata selska ob9fina prez XV-XVIII vek (Sofia,
1979); G6za Ddvid, "Administration in Ottoman Europe," in idem, Studies in Demographic
and Administrative HistorY of Ottoman Hungary (Istanbul, 1997), pp. 187-204.
 A Flexible Empire 29

contemporary observers, from Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (the famous Flemish

diplomat of Ferdinand I of Habsburg) to Niccolo Machiavelli, was forced to follow
a similarly flexible administrative practice in the frontier provinces. As
demonstrated above, in Hungary and Georgia, Istanbul attempted to win over the
members of the pre-Ottoman Christian elite; in Eastern Anatolia and in Hungary the
sultan accepted the condominium and the double taxation and jurisdiction. Although
the local representatives of the central government, Ottoman kadts and sipahis, were
present almost everywhere in the "regular provinces," that is, in territories where the
timar system was instituted, when conducting daily business during the "classical
age" the Porte had to rely on village headmen, "elders" or "notables of the province"
(a'yan-i vilayet), who were wealthier peasants generally chosen by their fellow-
villagers from within the community. In Hungary they were called b1r6s (judge), in
the Arab lands rais al-fallahin (head of the peasants) or shaykh al-qarya (elder of
the village). In sixteenth-century Syria-Palestine the ra'isal-fallahin and the leaders
of the Jewish community in Jerusalem (shaykh al-yahud), presumably all pre-
Ottoman Mamluk institutions,
35
were essential in arranging the day-to-day affairs of
the local communities.
It seems that apart from geographical constraints and limits arising from
overextension, the existence of the Habsburg and Safavid Empires constituted the
main obstacle to Ottoman central administration in its frontier zones. In other words,
the action-radiusof Ottoman centralism was greatly reduced by its rivals. The fact
that the condominium was maintained in Hungary throughout Ottoman rule was due
to the survival of the former Hungarian elite and institutions in Royal Hungary
under Habsburg rule. The Hungarian estates sought refuge on the far side of the
military border. From its base in Habsburg Hungary, with the assistance of the
Hungarian border garrisons and the support of Habsburg diplomacy, the Hungarian
elite was able to defend many of its interests in the fields of taxation, justice and
administration. In this endeavor the Hungarian nobles were more successful than the
beys of the hereditary sancaks in eastern Anatolia. While in the first half of the
sixteenth century the latter could count on the Safavids, after Sbleyman's conquests
in Azerbaijan and Iraq their support was weakened considerably.

Georgetown University

35 See, for instance, Amy Singer, Palestinian Peasants and Ottoman Officials: Rural
Administration Around Sixteenth-Century Jerusalem (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 32-39, and the
literature cited by her.
30 GAibor Agoston

Types and number of administrative units in the

province of Diyarbekir

40
35
30--
25 - 80 ceimaat
20 -17
S•!• 80 0E ocakh hiikiirwt

15 5 LMregular

10

Ca ,. ){ :
0 1

1521 1526 1608 1635 1670

 A Flexible Empire 31

Regular and ocakhk sancaks in selected eastern provinces in 1635

20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Diyarbekir Aleppo Cddir Van $ehrizor Mosul Baghdad

Regular, ocaklik, and hfikiimet sancaks in selected eastern provinces

in the 1670s

25
22
20
15
15 9[ regular
11" H[]ocakhkk
9 h9n•__•
10

0
Diyarbekir Erzmrum I1didr Van Baghdad $ehrizor
 COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Author: Ágoston, Gábor

Title: A flexible empire: authority and its limits on the Ottoman frontiers

Source: Int J Turk Stud 9 no1/2 Summ 2003 p. 15-31

ISSN: 0272-7919
Publisher: International Journal of Turkish Studies

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