Download PDF | (Princeton Legacy Library) Stanford Jay Shaw - The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 1517–1798-Princeton University Press (2016).
488 Pages
PREFACE
The object of this study is to examine in detail the system of administration maintained by the Ottoman rulers of Egypt from the time of their conquest of that country in 1517 until it was occupied in 1798 by a French expedition led by Napoleon Bonaparte. Wherever possible, an effort has been made to indicate the basic objectives of Ottoman rule in Egypt and the extent to which they were fulfilled in practice.
Most of the materials used for this work were consulted in the Ottoman archives of Cairo from September, 1955 through July, 1956 and in the Ottoman archives of Istanbul from August, 1956 through July, 1957, as well as in numerous public and private libraries in Egypt, Turkey, France and England. While the available archival materials concerning Ottoman Egypt are extensive, they are not yet complete. There is much more information concerning the revenues of the Ottoman Treasury in Egypt and the administration connected with them than there is concerning the expenditures of the Treasury and the organization through which they were made and which they reflected.
However, an effort has been made to give as balanced a picture as possible of these two basic divisions of Ottoman administration and finance in Egypt. In addition, limitations of time and space and the absence of parallel monographs have prevented an extension of this study to include a comparison of the administration of Ottoman Egypt with that of the Maml0k Empire which ruled in Egypt before the Ottoman conquest and with parallel administrative organization and practice elsewhere in the Ottoman’ Empire, except where such comparisons were needed to explain conditions and institutions in Ottoman Egypt which could not otherwise be adequately understood.
Summary tables have been included in the text to demonstrate the development of the major elements of the revenues and expenditures of the Imperial Treasury of Egypt from 1004/1595-6, the first year for which such figures are now available in sufficient detail, to 1212/1797-8, the last full year before the French occupation of Egypt. The annual figures from which these summary tables have been prepared are given in full in the Appendix together with references to the archival registers from which they were taken.
Administrative papers continue to be uncovered, classified, and made available in the archives of both Egypt and Turkey, and so it is to be expected that new materials will appear which will supplement, confirm, modify, or contradict the information and conclusions which have been presented here. However, this study is based on a complete consultation of all the materials now available, and it is hoped that it will provide a basis for subsequent studies of more limited scope into those aspects of the administration of Ottoman Egypt concerning which more detailed information will become available.
I would like to express my gratitude to the many scholars whose generous sharing of their time and knowledge has made it possible for me to pursue the research which has culminated in this study. In particular, I would like to thank Professor H. A. R. Gibb, of Harvard University, for inspiring me to undertake the subject of this research, for suggesting the lines of inquiry which should be pursued, and for his constant encouragement; el-H&jj Muhammed Muhammed Tauffq, of Cairo, Egypt, who devoted long hours to assisting me to learn to read and understand the Siydagat script in which the bulk of the Ottoman administrative records were written; and Professor L. V. Thomas, of Princeton University, who has been of invaluable assistance in the task of reducing to order the numerous materials which have been gathered during the course of research.
In addition, I would like to thank Professor Paul Wittek and Proffessor Bernard Lewis, of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; Professor Georges Vajda, of the Institut Nationale de Recherche Scientifique, Paris; Professor Gaston Wiet, of the College de France, Paris; Professor Mustafa Ziadeh, of the University of Cairo; Dr. Salah ud-Din el-Munajjid and Ragad ‘Abd ul-Mutallab of the Institute of Arabic Manuscripts of the Arab League, Cairo; Fu’4d Sayyid, Director of the Manuscript collection of the Egyptian National Library, Cairo; Latif Nahla, of the School of Oriental Studies, American University at Cairo; Professor Fuad Kuprtilti of Istanbul, Turkey; Professor Omer Lutfi Barkan, Director of the Institute of Turkish Economic History, University of Istanbul; Dr. Lutfi Giger and Halfl Sahilicioglu, his associates at the University of Istanbul; ‘Azz Berker, Director of Libraries, Ministry of Education, Ankara; and Professor Ismail Hakki Uzungargili of the Turkish Historical Society, Ankara.
I would like to reserve especial thanks to the directors and staffs of the archives and libraries in which I studied during the course of research for this study: Muhammed Sidgq?, Director-General of the Egyptian State Archives; ‘Abd ul-‘Aziz ul-Sirbinf, Assistant Director of the Egyptian State Archives; Seyh Omar el-Wajdi, Chief of the Turkish section of the Egypt State Archives; Ibrahim el-Muelh?t, Chief of the European section of the Egyptian State Archives; Ahmed Huseyn, Director of the Egyptian National Library; Professor Halfl Demircioglu, formerly Director of the Prime Minister's Archives in Istanbul; Mithat Sertoglu, Assistant Director of the Prime Minister's Archives in Istanbul; Haluk Sehsuvaroglu, Director of the Top Kapi Saray Museum in Istanbul; Muzaffer Gdkmen, Director of the Bayezid General Library in Istanbul; and the directors and staffs of the Istanbul University, Suleymaniyye, Millet and Municipal Libraries in Istanbul; The Library of the Turkish Historical Society and of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ankara; the Bibliotheque Nationale, Archives de la Guerre, and Bibliotheque de l'Institut de France in Paris; the British Museum and Public Record Office in London; the BodleianLibrary in Oxford; the Firestone Library at Princeton and the Harry Elkins Widener Library at Harvard.
It remains for me to express my gratitude to the Ford Foundation, whose grants enabled me to pursue this research without diversion by other obligations, and to the Department of Oriental Studies, Princeton University, and its Chairman, Professor T. Cuyler Young, whose financial and moral support have enabled me to bring the research to fruition in this work.
Stanford J. Shaw
Cambridge, Massachusetts October, 1961
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
In order to resolve the problems of transliteration raised by the study of an administrative system established in an Arabic-speaking country but carried out in its written form almost exclusively in the Turkish language, and concerning which both Turkish and Arabic sources have been consulted, the following rules have been adapted for the transliteration system used in this study:
(1) All administrative and financial terms, personal and proper names, and other words used in the Turkish-language administrative records are transliterated as if they were Turkish no matter how they were pronounced or used by the Arabic-speaking population of Egypt, since this is a study of the administration and its usage rather than of the popular concept of it. (2) When used frequently in the administrative records, the Arabic plurals of certain terms have been adapted in this study when required in the plural sense without any additional English-language plural endings. The plurals most frequently used in this way are Mug&ta‘at, the plural of Mug&ta‘a, and Evgaf, the plural of Vagf. When the plural was not normally used in the administrative records, plural use in this study has been obtained by adding to the singular the appropriate English-language plural endings, as v4lis, Veztirs, etc.
(3) The titles and authors of non~archival sources which are cited are transliterated according to the language in which they are written. Asa result, certain letters are transliterated differently according to whether the language of the work being cited is Arabic or Turkish.
(4) In the case of the Turkish-language adaptation of Arabic words, modern Turkish acceptance of certain Arabic pronunciations of common Arabic words rather than the usual Turkish pronunciation has been accepted, as QAdit and Darbhfne, rather than Q427 and Zarbhane.
(5) The Arabic definite article is represented by ul or el, according to position, unless it proceeds a sun letter, in which case the 1 is assimilated to the sun letter. The first letter of the definite article also has been modified in the transliteration according to the Arabic grammatical rules for the state of construction with the following word.
(6) Personal and proper names normally used in the English language have been left in their English form for the convenience of the reader, rather than being subjected to the normal rules of transliteration.
INTRODUCTION
THE POLITICAL STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF OTTOMAN EGYPT (1517-1798)
On Thursday, the twenty-second day of January, 1517, Sultan Selim I, ninth ruler of the Ottoman dynasty, led his army into Cairo in culmination of a lightning campaign which,-within three months from his departure from Istanbul, destroyed the armies and conquered the realm of the Mamlfik Empire which had ruled the Arab east for more than three centuries, and he established in its place an Ottoman suzerainty which was to survive in Egypt until the advent of World War I.
The chief aim of Ottoman administration in Egypt was to secure the exploitation of its wealth and the diversion of a maximum portion of the resulting revenues to the Porte or to its objectives and obligations in Egypt and in the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medfna. To achieve this end, the tasks of the administration were assigned in positions held by a form of tenure called Mug&ta‘a (plural Mug&ta‘at), which were superimposed over the principal sources of wealth in Egypt, and whose holders were required to stimulate and supervise the exploitation of wealth and to deliver to the Ottoman Treasury in Egypt its share of the proceeds.
The most important Mug&ta‘a in Ottoman Egypt was the province of Egypt itself, which was given to a V&1i, or governor, who was the chief representative of Ottoman dominion in Egypt and the superviser of its exploitation for the benefit of the Porte. This governor held the title of P&s&, by which he was for the most part known to the people whom he ruled in Egypt, and he was appointed out of a corps of Vezirs whose members filled similar high positions throughout the Ottoman Empire. The Vélis of Egypt were appointed by the Porte for terms of one year, and their appointments were seldom renewed more than once or twice before they were replaced and sent to new positions elsewhere in the Empire.
To enforce Ottoman rule in Egypt and to provide men to administer the Mug&ta‘a&t and carry out the functions of government, provision was made for the maintenance of a number of military and non-military corps, whose members were given specific duties and obligations and in return wages and other revenues and concessions which made them both garrison and dominant caste in Egypt. The principal administrative and political positions in Ottoman Egypt were filled by officers of these corps who were removed from them and promoted to the rank of Sanj&q Bey, or simply Bey, a rank given in normal Ottoman administrative usage to the provincial or district feudatory leaders. These men provided the leadership and authority needed for the operation of all branches of the government and, together with the men of the corps, were the chief limitations on the independent power and activities of the Vals.
The financial administration of Ottoman Egypt was centralized in and administered by an Imperial Treasury (Hazfne-i ‘Amire ), directed by the Defterd&r, or Chief Treasurer, and the Riznfmeji, his principal executive officer. It was the duty of the Treasury to supervise the distribution of the sources of wealth in Egypt to the holders of the Mug&ta'at, to administer the collection of the revenues due from them, and to distribute these revenues according to the wishes of the Porte. Its expenditures were arranged to provide for the fulfillment of imperial obligations in Egypt and the Holy Cities and for the purchase and shipment of supplies and commodities produced in Egypt and desired for the use of the Porte, and they were limited to an amount which would leave an annual surplus of revenues over expenditures which could be sent to the Porte as the IrsGliyye-1 Hazine, or "Remittance" sent from the V&li to the Porte as payment for his Mug&ta‘'a over Egypt.
The functions, duties, and restrictions imposed on the V&lf, the corps, the Beys, and the officers of the Treasury culminated in the Div&n, which was the principal executive and legislative council of Ottoman Egypt and the principal forum for the determination of policy and the reconciliation of divergent views. The Vali, as the principal representative of the Sultan in Egypt, alone had the right to convoke and dissolve the Divan, to receive and communicate to it orders sent from the Porte, and to issue the decrees necessary to carry out those orders. However, the concurrence of a majority of its members was essential before he could act, and the Div&n had the right and duty to dismiss from their positions any of its members, including the Val‘, if they were found to be acting against the laws and interests of the Sultan.
This official hierarchy of government was a hierarchy of function, imposed by the Ottomans and led by the VAli, and so for convenience we will refer to it as the Ottoman hierarchy of government in Egypt. It was paralleled by a hierarchy of power, formed by the Maml0k slaves and freed men who composed the military corps of Egypt, and led by the Beys and military officers who occupied the highest ranks of those corps. This hierarchy will be referred to as the MamlQk hierarchy.
Most of the members of the MamlQk hierarchy came to Egypt as slaves purchased from Georgia, the Caucasus, and elsewhere to perform in the service of its leaders. As they grew in stature and knowledge, many of these slaves were able to rise through the various positions and ranks in the hierarchy according to their accomplishments and good fortune and the favor of their masters. The leading positions in the Maml0k hierarchy were occupied by slaves who had risen to be free men, who held the rank of Emir, and who provided the principal source from which the Beys of the Ottoman hierarchy were appointed. Their immediate subordinates, called Kagifs, were the freed slaves of the Enfrs and the principal contenders to succeed them in that rank. At the same time, these K&gifs occupied lesser positions and performed less important administrative functions in the Ottoman hierarchy. These officers, their slaves and followers, and other subordinates held the bulk of the Mug&ta‘&t established under the supervision of the Treasury of Egypt, and were obliged to fulfill in return the administrative and financial obligations which were attached to them. Thus the self-perpetuated and self-governing Mamlfk hierarchy provided the main source from which the positions in the Ottoman hierarchy of government were filled and its functions carried out.
In sum, power in the Ottoman hierarchy was shared by the V&lis, representing the Sultan, and by the officers and men of the MamlQk hierarchy, the locally-based military class. To the members of each group were allocated administrative, financial, and military power to a degree sufficient for them to carry out the functions assigned to them, to check violations, excess, or neglect on the part of others, and to defend their position and authority against encroachments which might upset the balance between them. The history of Ottoman Egypt is a story of repeated conflicts amongst the members of the MamlQk hierarchy and between them and the representatives of the Porte in Egypt, conflicts whose object was control of the Ottoman hierarchy of government, its Mug&ta‘&t, and the wealth which they produced or to which they opened access. These conflicts and their manifestation in the political and administrative development of Ottoman Egypt produced three distinct stages in its history,
(a) a stage when Ottoman control was relatively complete, the balance of power was maintained, and Ottoman objectives in Egypt were completely fulfilled,
(b) a stage of transition, when Ottoman power lessened, the balance of power in Egypt fluctuated from one side to another, and Ottoman objectives were only partially fulfilled, and (c) the final stage, when the Mamifk hierarchy and its interests attained complete supremacy, and the Porte was compelled to seek new means to achieve its ends in Egypt.
The first stage lasted throughout the first century of Ottoman rule in Egypt. At the start, executive and military powers were concentrated in the hands of the VAlf. Sultan Selfm left as his first governor Hayr Bey, previously MamlQk governor of Aleppo, who had betrayed his masters to the Ottomans in the latters' victorious march across Syria. During the next five years, H&yr Bey strove to enlist in his service the survivors of the MamlQk army who agreed to profess loyalty to the Ottoman Sultan, and these supporters served not only to fill the principal adminstrative posts in the new Ottoman administration and to supplement the military activities of the Ottoman forces against the resistance of Mamlik and Arab bands, but also to support the governor in his efforts to suppress tendencies toward independence and revolt on the part of the Ottoman officers and troops. After the death of Hfyr Bey in 928/1522, his second successor as governor, Akmed Paga, was able to use his autocratic position to unite these tendencies with the remnants of Mami0k resistance, raise a general revolt against Ottoman rule and establish himself as independent Sultan of Egypt in 930/1524. The Ottomans were able to quell this revolt only with a new army of conquest led by the Grand Vezir Ibrahim Paga, who remained in Cairo for over a year and who issued a series of decrees intended to establish a separation and balance of powers of the V&lf and the MamlQk hierarchy, and the pattern thus re-established prevailed for the rest of the century.
During the remainder of the 10/16th century, the system of administration through Mug&ta'&t was carried out principally through Emins, or salaried agents of the Porte, who were required to deliver the full proceeds of their endeavors to the Imperial Treasury, which in turn was able to expend them in full for the objectives desired by the Porte. The Valis were the active heads of the government and, directing and acting through the Emnfns and the military corps, defeated the last of the MamlQk bands which nad escaped the conquering armies of Sultan Selfm and had continued their resistance in Upper Egypt, as well as the Arab tribes which had taken advantage of the collapse of the MamlQk administration to occupy large portions of the cultivated areas of the Nile valley from which they previously had been barred. Now these areas were included under the direct control of Ottoman governors, and their lands were restored to cultivation and parcelled out in Mug&ta'&t to assure their proper exploitation. Egypt also was the center of manpower and supply for Ottoman activities elsewhere in the East. Its troops were the principal source of the armies which conquered and occupied Yemen, southern Arabia, and Abyssinia and which fought the Frankish fleets for possession and control of the eastern seas, and its Emirs led the process of organization which followed these conquests.
In the 11/17th century, however, Ottoman power fell from the peak which was reached in the previous century, and the Maml0Qk hierarchy in Egypt was able to take advantage of the consequent weakening of the financial and military power available to the Egyptian Va&lis to upset the balance of power between them which had been established less than a century before and to secure predominant authority in the Ottoman hierarchy of government in Egypt. The Mug&ta‘a&t fell to Emirs, Maml(ks, and others as Multezims, or "Tax Farmers", who were required to deliver to the Treasury only a fixed portion of their proceeds and who could keep the balance as personal profit. At the same time, they were able to force the Treasury to divert more and more of its expenditures to their benefit in the form of wages and other payments and to shift to the Irs&liyye-1 Hazine funds of the Porte an increasing portion of the burden of its obligations in Egypt and the Holy Cities.
The Valis were able to resist this shift in power principally by exploiting divisions which arose within the MamlQk hierarchy as its control became an increasingly attractive prize. As the wealth of Egypt fell more and more into its grasp, the Emirs and their followers engaged in bitter and prolonged conflicts to attain supremacy. Each of the chief Emfrs sought power and prestige by developing as support a personal Mamltk house, a miniature MamlQk hierarchy composed of officers, followers, slaves, and others. The strength of each house depended on its resources of manpower and the revenues and prestige which its members could secure from amongst the positions, Mug&ta'&t, wages, and other sources of revenues available in the Ottoman hierarchy, and so the struggles were for these.
It was through the manipulation of the conflicting Mam1Qk houses and factions that the V&lfs, representing the Porte, were able to retain some authority during the 11/17th century, offering the positions and revenues at their command to those Emirs who promised the greatest concessions in return for this support. However, when a single house or faction prevailed, the power of the V8li fell in direct relation to that of the defeated factions within the Maml0Qk hierarchy.
During most of the 11/17th century, the MamlQk houses largely paralleled the military corps, with each corps representing the aspirations and sharing the benefits of the triumphs of a single MamlQk house.
After 1082/1671, the transition from Ottoman to MamlQk control of the Ottoman hierarchy of government was virtually complete. The V4lts still tried to benefit from Mam1Qk divisions, but they became little more than pawns in the hands of the leaders of the MamlQk hierarchy and Ottoman ambassadors to the Divfn of the MamlQks. While the Valis continued to preside over the Dfvan held in the Citadel, which the leaders of the predominant MamlQk houses attended in their capacity as Beys, its deliberations and decisions could only confirm the decisions which they previously had made in their own Maml0k Divan. The members of the MamlQk hierarchy now gained complete control of the Mug&ta‘ta system and diverted to their own profit almost all of its proceeds as well as the expenditures made by the Treasury, while imperial needs and obligations came to consume almost the entire Irs8liyye-1 Bazine, leaving little or nothing for shipment to the Porte. However, the divisions within the Maml0k hierarchy continued and enabled the Porte to develop new alternative means to maintain its financial position in Egypt long after it lost political and administrative control.
After 1082/1671, these MamlQk divisions were of two kinds. At first, the focus in the struggle for power shifted from the military corps to comprehensive political factions built around the two greatest MamlQk houses of the time, the ZQ ul-Fig&riyye and the Qagimiyye, each incorporating various other MamlQk houses and their leaders. Thereafter, the corps, rather than participating as units in the struggles as they had in the previous century, reflected them and were divided within themselves according to the factions to which their members adhered. Finally in 1126/1714 the Qagimiyye emerged completely victorious, and those of the defeated faction who could be found were slaughtered or sent into exile. However, the victorious party soon dissolved into its constituent elements as each of its leading Emirs tried to secure for his own house the fruits of the triumph and control of the faction as a whole. The victory of the QAgimiyye thus marked the end of the great heterogeneous factions and during the next century power was sought and attained by the individual MamiQk houses.
For two decades after the fall of the Fig&riyye and triumph of the Qa&simiyye, the MamlQk factions remained equally balanced in strength, and none was able to retain power for more than a few months. But finally in 1157/1744, power was seized by a Mamlfk house led by Ibrahim Ketbod&, who rose to power with the assistance of a Vali determined to end the misrule of the previous MamlQk leaders, and who was the first of the Seyb ul-Beleds, the MamlQk rulers who dominated the political history of Egypt during the last half of the 12/18th century. The leaders of the other Mamlfk houses fled or were banished elsewhere in the Empire, and their followers flocked to the banner of the ruling house, which came to include in its ranks almost all the Mamlfiks who remained in Cairo and its environs.
Absolute supremacy in the Maml0k hierarchy meant absolute authority in the administration of government, and Ibrahim Kethod& used this authority to restore order and security to the land. As a result, cultivation, industry, and trade increased in prosperity, and their revenues reached new heights.The $eyh ul-Beled was able to divert much of the wealth of Egypt to the members of his own MamlQk house, but he was careful to do it through the assignment to them of established Mug&ta'a&t and other revenues in the Ottoman hierarchy of government, rather than by diverting for their benefit the revenues customarily intended for the Porte. For that reason, the Porte remained content for the moment to leave the VAlés in impotence under the dominion of a Sey ul-Beled whose rule was achieving the basic objectives of Ottoman administration in Egypt, although an increasing portion of the burden of these objectives was gradually being shifted to the Irs&liyye-i Hazine of the Porte.
In 1168/1754, however, his opponents were able to secure his murder, and Egypt fell into a period of political and administrative anarchy,with conflicting houses of equal strength struggling for power and diverting more and more of the revenues of the Treasury for their own profit. One of these houses was that formed out of the remnants of the shattered house of Ibrahim Ketpod& by one of his Mamlfks, named Jinn ‘Alf ("*a1¢ the Demon"), who subsequently came to be known as ‘Al? Bey ul-Kebfr, or ‘ali Bey "The Great". In 1177/1763 he achieved power for the first time, determined to exact vengeance from all those who had secured the murder of his master. This included the Emirs of most of the leading parties of the time, so his threat united them against him, and he was forced to flee to Syria after a few months in power.
However, the political and administrative disorder which had reigned in Egypt since the fall of Ibra&him Ketyod& led the Porte to desire the restoration of a strong and stable regime such as that which he had maintained. And ‘Alf Bey's friends in the imperial court were able to convince those in authority that he was the one who could best re-establish order and secure the Ottoman interest in Egypt. As a result, men and money were supplied to him by the Ottoman governor of Gaza and, with this assistance, ‘Alf Bey was able to regain power in 1181/1767.
So that he could eliminate the conflicting Mamlfk houses whose rivalries had upset the Ottoman administration in Egypt, ‘Ali Bey was given the authority to banish all his rivals and to seize for his own house all the properties and positions which were, as a result, left vacant. In return for this assistance, he promised to restore the Imperial Treasury's revenues from the Mug&fa'&t, the annual shipment of Irs@&liyye-i Hazine funds to the Porte, and the Treasury expenditures to fulfill imperial obligations in Egypt and the Holy Cities. At the same time, he consented to pay directly to the Porte a large sum called Hulv&n, or payment in return for the Mug&ta‘&t and other possessions taken from his defeated rivals.
However, after 1183/1769 *A1Z Bey used the absolute power which had been given to him to establish himself as an independent ruler in Egypt and
to ignore all ties and obligations to the Porte. During the next four years, he diverted all the available resources at his command to strengthen his own power and army and to build the agricultural and commercial wealth of the country. Coins were struck in the name of ‘AlZ Bey and emissaries were sent to the principal European powers in order to open new and profitable trade relations with them and to secure financial and military assistance from them against a common enemy. At the head of his army, he placed his most trusted MamlQk, Mukammed Bey ‘Abf ul-Zahab, who led a series of successful expeditions against the Arab tribes which for over a century had exercised virtual autonomy in large areas of Egypt and into the Ottoman possessions in southern Arabia and Syria.
However, once again the Porte was able to exploit for its om advantage the divisive tendencies within the MamlQk hierarchy, the ambitions of its leaders to secure personal power and supremacy. To ‘Abd ul-Zahab the temptations of power were offered in return for the destruction of his master's rule and, as a result, in 1187/1773 he returned from his Syrian campaign to drive ‘Alf Bey into exile and to assume for himself the position of Seyh ul-Beled. But as the result of its experlence with the revolt of ‘Alf Bey, the Porte was no longer willing to give of its own accord the financial basis needed for the Sey ul-Beled to eliminate his rivals, and so Egypt again began to suffer from constant struggles amongst the restored MamlQk houses.
Thus the Porte had failed in two approaches to securing its financial objectives from the MugSta'a system of administration in an Egypt held in the power of an independent MamlQk hierarchy. Its attempt to exploit divisions in the MamlQk hierarchy to secure the desired financial concessions had not overcome its fundamental inability to secure the required payments for the Treasury from the Multezims or to prevent them from diverting to their own profit the revenues which did reach the Treasury. Its attempt to control these Multezims by supporting the rise of one of the Maml(k leaders to absolute supremacy failed due to the unending scope of their ambitions and the inability of the Porte to control them.
For when they did achieve such power, they used it to Strengthen and restore the Mug&ta‘a system and Treasury revenues, but for their own benefit and not that of the Porte. While many of its obligations in Egypt were fulfilled by the MamlQk Seyh ul-Beleds in order to preserve the sources of their own revenues, the payments ard shipments intended to fulfill its obligations in the Holy Cities and carry out its purchases in Egypt were ended, and the Irs&liyye-i Hazine was not sent. Thus whether the Mug&ta‘a system was administered by mediation amongst conflicting MamlQk factions of relatively equal strength or by working through Maml(k tyrants of unchallenged strength, it did not secure the fulfillment of the fundamental financial objectives of Ottoman rule in Egypt.
For that reason, an entirely new means, combining those previously attempted, was adopted in the years which followed the fall of ‘Alf Bey in order to secure the objectives of the Porte in Egypt. The backing of the Porte was now given to those of the Maml(k leaders who promised to send to the Porte the largest Hulv&n payments in return for permission to seize the possessions of their defeated rivals.
These Hulvan revenues were collected and dispatched to the Porte by a special Mub&gir, or agent, sent especially for this purpose, entirely outside the scope of the Treasury and its Mug&ta‘a system, the entire benefits of which were left to the victors in the struggle for power. Whatever surplus which did remain for the Irs&liyye-i Hazine was applied to the fulfillment of imperial obligations in Egypt and the Holy Cities, while the cash revenue which it was originally established to provide for the Porte was now provided by the Hulv&n payments. Thus the struggles within the Mamlfik hierarchy were still used by the Porte for its own benefit, but not to make the Mug&ta‘a system operate as it was originally intended to, rather to replace it by more direct means to achieve the Ottoman ends in Egypt.
After 1193/1779, Egypt fell under the absolute control of a MamlQk house led by Mur&d Bey and Ibrahim Bey, who were recognized by the Porte so long as they continued to dispatch its Hulv&n revenues. It was only when they began to use their power to divert these revenues also to their own profit that a full military expedition was sent from Istanbul in 1200/1786 under the leadership of the Grand Admiral of the Ottoman fleet, Gazi Hasan Pasa.
However, the principal aim of this expedition was not to restore the Mug&ta‘a system so that it would produce the Irs&liyye-i Hazine for the Porte. Rather it was to assure that the absolute Entrs who ruled Egypt in fact would fulfill the Hulv&n obligations to which they were subjected in return for Ottoman recognition of their rule. Soon after the expeditionary force returned to the Porte, Mur&d Bey and Ibrahim Bey were able to regain control of Cairo and establish the ‘same absolute and independent rule which they previously had exercised. While they used this position to divert to their own profit the entire revenues of the Treasury and the Mug&ta‘a system, the Porte continued to recognize their rule so long as they continued to dispatch the Hulvan payments to it, and this situation remained unchanged until the arrival of the French expeditionary force in 1213/1798.
Thus in the end the Porte found that the best means to secure for itself a share of the wealth of a country in which it lacked the authority and power necessary to enforce its administrative system was to secure it from the possessions of those who because of political impotence or death could no longer resist its claims, rather than from the revenues of those currently in power, who could successfully resist any financial impositions made on them.
That in sum is the manner in which the system of finance and administration in Ottoman Egypt developed in the three centuries between the conquest by Sultan Selim in 1517 and that by Napoleon in 1798. It is the purpose of this study to examine in detail that structure, its development, and its operation in practice.
Since the Ottoman administration was organized to exploit the wealth of Egypt, it will be examined according to the means by which that goal was accomplished, that is, first a study of the sources of wealth and the Treasury revenues from them (Part I), then the organization of Treasury expenditures for purposes in Egypt, the Holy Cities, and the Porte (Part II) and of the surplus established from the Mug&ta‘a system to provide the Irs@liyye-1 Hazine revenues of the Porte, as well as the means by which this system was successfully replaced after it became inadequate to achieve the ultimate aims of the Porte in Egypt (Part III). Finally, we will examine the role of the Vali and of his personal revenues and expenditures in the financial process (Part IV), and the central organization of the financial system in the Imperial Treasury of Egypt (Part Ws
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