“When grocers, porters and other riff-raff become soldiers:” Janissary

Transcription

Kocaeli Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi (17) 2009 / 1: 175 - 194
“When grocers, porters and other riff-raff become
soldiers:”
Janissary
Artisans
and
Laborers
in
the
Nineteenth Century Istanbul and Edirne
Mehmet Mert Sunar*
Abstract: This article examines the existing literature on the abolition of the
Janissary Corps. It tries to answer to the question “why the majority of modern
Ottoman historians uncritically chose to accept the official viewpoint on
janissaries?” Rather than portraying the nineteenth century Janissary Corps as “a
corrupted institution” of the Classical Age, this article focuses on the social and
political functions of janissaries within the early nineteenth century Ottoman polity.
It argues that only by examining the social and political roles of janissaries, we can
provide an alternative to the official view on the abolition of the Janissary Corps.
Keywords: Janissaries, Late Ottoman History, Economic and Social Life in 19th
Century Istanbul and Edirne.
Introduction
Within two days following the destruction of the janissaries on 15 June 1826, the
Grand Vizier Mehmed Selim Pasha oversaw brief interrogations of nearly two
hundred janissaries in his pavilion located near to Sultan Ahmed mosque. After each
interrogation, his men dragged the suspect to the nearby cellar under the mosque and
there executioners routinely practiced their craft. After this grim process, the dead
bodies of the janissaries were put to public exhibition in the Sultan Ahmed square
(Yılmazer, 2000: 611). This public exhibition intended to convey a clear message:
The Janissary Corps had become a corrupt institution, unable to perform its basic
functions as an effective army. Janissaries were responsible for defeats at the hands
of the enemies of Islam. Notwithstanding their ineffectiveness, they also became a
body of lawless rogues terrorizing law-abiding subjects and the state. Thus, the
abolition of the corps was a crucial service both to the Ottoman society and the state
and anyone sympathizing with their cause or criticizing their abolition was likely to
meet similar punishment.
*
Yrd.Doç.Dr. Mehmet Mert Sunar, Kocaeli Üniversitesi, İİBF, İktisat Bölümü öğretim üyesidir.
176 Mehmet Mert Sunar
The majority of the twentieth century Ottoman historians have been too eager to
accept the image of janissaries as conveyed in this message. They have uncritically
adapted the official viewpoint that janissaries were a “parasitic” group that had no
links with the rest of Ottoman society. Although some have paid lip service to the
close links between esnaf † and janissaries, the majority of contemporary Ottoman
historians chose to regard janissaries as “parasites” living on the state treasury and
ordinary people.
In this paper, I will argue that even though the Janissary Corps was established as
a professional army at the outset, starting from the late sixteenth century it
eventually evolved into an urban militia whose members were primarily engaged in
crafts and trades. As janissaries merged with the various elements of urban society
by establishing organic relations with esnaf in major Ottoman cities, they became
one of the possible avenues for various groups within urban society to defend their
interests and autonomy against the ruling elite. As such, they were the major
obstacles to the central authority implementing its agenda of reforms in the
nineteenth century, i.e., centralization in political structure, efficient tax collection,
and uniformity within Ottoman society.
The first part of this paper provides a critique of the existing literature on the
janissaries. I try to explore why the majority of contemporary Ottoman historians
since the 1940s have tended to reproduce the official views on the early nineteenth
century janissaries. I will argue that the persistence of the official image is closely
linked to specific uses of history by modern historians in different contexts. The
second part is an attempt to situate janissaries within the early nineteenth century
Ottoman urban structures by looking at the links among esnaf, guilds, and
janissaries.
1. Modern Historiography on the Abolition of the Janissary Corps
İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı was the first Ottoman historian who devoted a monograph
to the Kapıkulu Ocakları, or the Ottoman standing army (Uzunçarşılı, 1943). In his
detailed study, Uzunçarşılı composed a survey of the kapıkulu troops from its
origins to the Vak’a-i Hayriyye (the abolition of the janissaries in 1826). Briefly
mentioning various units within the kapıkulu troops, he gave his main emphasis to
the Janissary Corps, which he considered as one of the main agents in the political
life of the Ottoman Empire. As a latent follower of vakanüvis (official court
chronicler) tradition, his work was a skillful and exhaustive compilation of
Esnaf is a broad term, referring a variety of small businesses from peddlers, shopkeepers to artisans
and unskilled laborers such as porters and boatmen.
†
“When grocers, porters and other riff-raff become soldiers:” … 177
information from Ottoman chronicles and archival documents on janissaries. The
logical consequence of this method was the repetition of the official view on the
Janissary Corps in Uzunçarşılı’s work. Uzunçarşılı presented the janissaries of the
early nineteenth century as a degenerate group which continuously terrorized the
Ottoman state and society. As they were responsible for the military failures and
political turmoil within the Ottoman Empire, it was necessary to abolish their corps
in order to revitalize the state and to carry out necessary reforms. It should be
pointed out that Uzunçarşılı did not merely copy the relevant information from
Ottoman chronicles and official documents, but he consciously presented them
within an explanatory framework in his narrative. Although he did not consciously
follow any theoretical model in his studies, his works were a part of the grand
project of the 1940s, which aimed at studying the origins of Turkish modernization
(Tanzimat I, 1940). Guided by this research agenda, Ottoman historians of the time
regarded the Ottoman reforms of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries as
the roots of the modern Turkish State. Since it was mainly janissaries who opposed
these reform attempts, they became the main villains accused for delaying Turkish
modernization by the historians of the early Republican Era. These historians argued
that the janissaries of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries were
composed of the “riff-raff” or the criminal elements of Ottoman society, thus their
actions targeted and harmed not only the central authority but also the people. This
argument, which was directly transferred from Ottoman primary sources,
deliberately downplayed the close relations between janissaries and urban
populations in the Ottoman Empire. Starting from the seventeenth century, the
amalgamation of janissaries and certain urban groups reached to a degree which was
impossible to dismiss.
H. A. R. Gibb and H. Bowen were the first modern historians who drew our
attention to the relationship between janissaries and artisans in their study on the
eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire (Gibb and Bowen, 1950). In their study, Gibb
and Bowen pointed out that the guilds were not merely a tool to control society in
the hands of ruling elite. They argued that artisans could resort to various
alternatives from passive resistance to armed uprisings to protect their interests
against the ruling elite. The close links between artisans and the Janissary Corps
played a key role in this process. Drawing upon European travel accounts and
Jabarti’s history, Gibb and Bowen asserted that in major Arab cities such as
Damascus and Aleppo nearly all the members of the guilds were janissaries or from
janissary origin (Gibb and Bowen, 1950: 278-280). Even though these
generalizations are difficult to prove with the evidence that Gibb and Bowen
presented, they draw our attention to a historical process, which was visible enough
for the contemporary observers. Although Gibb and Bowen’s narrative distanced
itself from the concept of oriental despotism by drawing our attention to possible
avenues of resistance to the government, it portrayed Ottoman society as an
unchanging entity, which would start to change only with the impact of the West as
the title of his book openly suggested. By articulating the idea of unchanging
traditional society, Gibb and Bowen paved the way for the next generation historians
to elaborate on modernization theories for the Ottoman case.
The leading names of the next generation historians, such as Bernard Lewis and
Niyazi Berkes, were deeply influenced by modernization theories of the 1950s. In
the eyes of Lewis and Berkes, the Ottoman Empire of the early modern period was
characterized with a static society and political structure (Lewis, 1961; Berkes,
1964). They argued that the political and social structures of the Ottoman State
remained unchanged since the late medieval era. Both Lewis and Berkes resorted to
the essentialization of Ottoman society in order to explain its ‘failure’ to produce
successful social and economic modernization. By characterizing the seventeenth
and the eighteenth centuries as a period of decline in traditional order, both
historians considered the nineteenth century reforms as the first serious attempts
toward emancipation from ‘backwardness’ and ‘ignorance.’ Their narratives praised
reforming elite and focused on the personalities and motives of the reforming sultans
and bureaucrats without paying any attention to the rest of the population. Lewis, for
example, offered a simplistic approach to the problem of transformation in Ottoman
society by depicting it as a struggle between reactionary forces and reformers. Lewis
saw the Janissary Corps as a corrupt military institution that cooperated with other
reactionary forces – the ulema and the ignorant populace of Istanbul- to preserve the
status quo. His portrayal of the political situation after the rebellion of 1807 reveals
his assumptions on Ottoman polity and society:
The reforming Sultan was deposed, his new-style army disbanded, his reformist
ministers dead or hiding. In their place the Chief Mufti and the janissaries ruled the
city- two forces most bitterly opposed to social and military change (Lewis, 1961:
73).
By presenting the janissaries and the ulema as the reactionary forces which
possessed curious powers to prevent any form of change in Ottoman society for two
hundred years, Lewis also prepared his readers for their deserved destiny, once the
complete and radical change started in the nineteenth century under the reign of
Mahmud II. Parallel to the Ottoman official view of the early nineteenth century,
Lewis regarded the janissaries as “the terror of the Sultans and their law abiding
subjects.” (Lewis, 1961: 79) In this context, Lewis regarded the janissaries as a
status group without any connection to the rest of the society and he presented them
as one of the forces preventing change and modernity, which the ruling elite
helplessly were trying to implement within the traditional order.
Another major contributor to modernization theory, Niyazi Berkes, emphasized
the wider social bases of the conservative groups, although sharing Lewis’ basic
assumptions on Turkish modernization. Throughout his narrative of Turkish
secularization, Berkes kept drawing a dichotomy between conservatives vs.
reformists as these two engaged with each other in a constant struggle. He presented
Turkish modernization as a linear process towards the Enlightenment ideals of
progress and secularization. Berkes’ typical ex post facto approach-seeing the
Ottoman modernization as a precursor of Turkish modernization, secularization and
Westernization- easily condemned any opposition to the reforms under the label of
reactionary or conservative.
Unlike Lewis, Berkes did not disregard the social bases of the janissaries or their
connections with artisans. Relying on Cevdet Pasha’s Tarih, he noted that the
Janissary corps became an instrument through which “impoverished esnaf (artisans,
petty tradesmen, and men of odd jobs) could live parasitically off the government
treasury” (Berkes, 1964: 52). He argued that many of the rebellions in the eighteenth
and the nineteenth centuries were carried out by impoverished artisans through their
janissary connections. Yet as an advocate of secularization and the Westernization
process, he was openly hostile to these popular groups that cooperated with the ulema for the preservation of their ‘parasitical’ status (Berkes, 1964: 61-62). He failed
to question the causes that led to their impoverishment and merging with the
janissaries and the guilds. Within his conceptual framework, his sympathies
apparently lied with state-centered conclusions. Oftentimes his usage of language
also betrayed these sympathies as he kept describing artisans and lower classes with
pejorative words like ‘parasitical,’ ‘men of odd jobs,” or “reactionaries.”
Howard Reed’s unpublished Ph.D. dissertation distinguishes itself as the only
monograph on the abolition of the Janissary Corps (Reed, 1951). His erudite use of
primary sources as a consequence of his competence in Ottoman Turkish and the
major European languages produced a detailed account of the political events from
the accession of Mahmud II to the destruction of the janissaries. Although it is not a
‘meta-narrative’ of Turkish modernization like that of Lewis and Berkes, Reed’s
study regarded the destruction of the janissaries as a watershed in the teleological
process that led to the founding of the Turkish Republic (Reed, 1951: 357). Similar
to Berkes and Lewis, Reed considered the destruction of the janissaries as a key
event for the defeat of the traditional order. In Reed’s narrative, Mahmud II was the
main agent of the reform program who was occasionally assisted by open-minded
bureaucrats. Reed tried to show that Mahmud II’s main goal was the reorganization
of the Janissary corps. He believed that the Sultan only resorted to a more radical
solution when he met with strong resistance by the janissaries. Along with his
references to the Janissary-guild connections, his detailed study also raised several
issues on the complex relations among different military units, the ruling elite and
the ulema in the capital.
In two articles published in the 1970’s, Robert Olson emphasized the role of the
esnaf in the rebellions of 1730 and 1740 (Olson, 1974; Olson, 1977). Following
Serif Mardin’s model of center-periphery relations in Ottoman politics, Olson
argued that the ‘realignment’ of the esnaf was a decisive factor in the political
turmoil of 1730-31. For Olson, the strict categorization of the military elite and the
ulema in the center and the urban dwellers and nomad society of Anatolia on the
periphery was incompatible with the realities of Ottoman politics. The esnaf, who
supported the 1730 rebellion against the harsh fiscal policies of Ibrahim Pasha and
Sultan Ahmed III, opposed the uprising of 1731 as a result of the economic
guarantees that were given by the new Sultan, Mahmud I. Olson further argued that
the janissaries, whose leadership represented the interests of the center, started to
gravitate “toward the periphery in opposition to the center” (Olson, 1974). Olson
was aware that it was difficult to place the janissaries into Mardin’s ‘centerperiphery’ model because of the merging of the janissaries with the esnaf. Yet he
insisted on applying this model and treats the esnaf and the janissaries as completely
separate entities. He simply contradicted himself when he argued that in the
uprising of 1731, the esnaf “not only supported the Sultan, but they opposed the
janissaries and the masses who were rebelling” (Olson, 1974). Considering his
emphasis on the Janissary-esnaf link, it should have been clear to Olson that it was
quite impossible to differentiate between janissaries and esnaf in the eighteenth
century Istanbul.
In his second article, in which he dealt with the rebellion of 1740, Olson kept his
strict division between janissaries and artisans. By arguing that majority of the
artisans were Jews and Christians in Istanbul, he made a dubious statement that is
quite impossible to prove with his available data (Olson, 1977). Olson’s article
showed that the rebellion of 1740, which started in a market place with attacks on
shops, was easily quelled by the interference of janissaries. The exile of the
immigrant population to Anatolia as well as measures taken to prevent future
immigration to Istanbul may well indicate that the main actors in the uprising of
1740 were probably the desperate and famine stricken immigrants. The quick
reaction of the janissaries to the rebellion may also be result of the attacks against
shops and the esnaf to whom they had close connections. Despite his
generalizations, which cannot be backed by reliable evidence, Olson’s major
contribution was to draw our attention the role of the esnaf in Ottoman politics. His
articles clearly show that rather than being passive bystanders, the artisans of
Istanbul took part as actors on the political stage and they tried to resist oppressive
fiscal policies on the part of the ruling elite.
A different approach to the janissary-esnaf relations came from Cemal Kafadar
who focused on the process of “commertialization” of janissaries (Kafadar: 1981).
Kafadar considered the Janissary Corps as a military institution that “was not only
merely degenerating but also giving way to the formation of a social group.”
Accordingly, he traced infiltration of newly urbanized migrants, who engaged in
petty trades or were actively seeking for jobs, to the Janissary corps as a result of the
breakdown of the traditional order. Kafadar called this process as the
“commercialization” of janissaries and traces it back to the end of the sixteenth
century. Kafadar considered the janissaries as a social group with specific demands
and interests in Ottoman politics. These demands and interests were directly related
to their economic pursuits and social bases. Kafadar maintained that the janissaryartisan links were limited to a small group, which he called “lumpenesnaf,” i.e.,
petty tradesmen such as porters, fruit peddlers and boatmen (Kafadar, 1981: 80-91;
Kafadar, 1994: 474). Whereas the main support of the janissaries came from these
groups, the guild esnaf kept their distance from by usually remaining neutral in the
Janissary instigated revolts. The only cases that the guild esnaf chose to join these
revolts were when their economic interests in danger (Kafadar, 1981: 113).
Although the category of lumpen esnaf can be useful to look at the earlier stages
of janissary infringement upon crafts and trades in Ottoman urban centers, it is
inadequate to explain janissary involvement in commercial activities for later
periods. The relations between janissaries and esnaf became a complex phenomenon
from the seventeenth century onwards when janissary started to engage in a wide
variety of crafts and trades in Istanbul as well as to become members of the guilds.
Moreover, even for the earlier stages of the janissary involvement in commercial
activities, we need more detailed evidence supporting Kafadar’s argument on the
tensions between janissaries and guild members. A study by Eunjeong Yi on the
seventeenth century Istanbul guilds showed that janissary presence among the
tradesmen and the guilds was strikingly high. Depending on the Istanbul court
records, Yi showed that 18 out 37 guilds which collectively appealed in Istanbul
courts in the 1660s had members who carried military titles (Yi, 2004: 132-133). At
least for the sixteenth century, Yi confirmed Kafadar’s argument that there were
problems between janissary tradesmen and Istanbul guilds. For Kafadar, the reason
behind the tensions between janissaries and the Istanbul guilds was the violation of
the established market rules by janissary tradesmen. For that reason the guilds
resisted to the membership of janissaries. While accepting these arguments, Yi also
added that janissary tradesmen also kept their distance from the guilds, since they
did not want to share tax obligations and duties imposed upon guild members.
According to Yi, during the seventeenth century the intermingling of Istanbul
tradesmen and janissaries came to such an extent that it was not possible to
differentiate these two groups in marketplaces. After a period of tension and
assimilation, janissary craftsmen and tradesmen became an integral part of the guild
structure. Yi pointed out that there were no more complaints about intrusion of
janissaries into the guilds in the court records in the seventeenth century. (Yi, 2004:
137-139) Yi’s study showed that Kafadar’s emphasis on the cleavage between the
janissaries and the guild member esnaf should be carefully treated. It is reasonable to
assume that the infiltration of janissaries to the guilds was accompanied by conflicts
and disputes. Yet once janissaries became regular members of the guilds, the
division between janissary esnaf and the guild member esnaf probably became less
problematic. On the other hand, it should be noted that Kafadar’s treatment of the
janissaries as a social group with economic and political interest within the Ottoman
polity was a very important contribution.
Along the same lines with Kafadar, Donald Quataert also emphasized the social
and economic functions of janissaries during the eighteenth and the early nineteenth
centuries (Quataert, 1993). According to Quataert; “the janissaries began to enhance
their economic and political interest only after 1740; it then accelerated very rapidly
near the end of the 18th century and in the early 19th century.” Yet he did not provide
any explanation why he regarded the 1740 as a turning point in the use of Janissary
influence in Ottoman economy and politics. He also argued that the janissaries
represented the Muslim lower-working class strata, mainly unskilled and semiskilled urban workers such as day laborers, boatmen, porters and fruit-peddlers
(Quataert, 1993). This view was very similar to Kafadar’s description of the
janissary affiliated ‘lumpenesnaf,’ majority of whom were new immigrants from
countryside engaging in petty trades in order to survive in Istanbul. At the same time, there was a striking difference between the overall conceptual framework of
Quataert and Kafadar’s. Quataert’s sympathies lied with popular classes and
laborers. In Kafadar’s study, there was a strange amalgamation of a ‘state-centered’
view and an interest in the revolutionary masses.
Quataert tended to see the janissaries as an organized labor force representing the
interests of workers. It is quite interesting to compare two different interpretations of
a same set of data by Kafadar and Quataert. As Quataert put it:
When a construction of a building began, a Janissary labor foreman (irgat basi) arrived and
drew the insignia of the battalion at the site, indicating it to be under that particular group's
authority. The foreman negotiated the wage rates with the property owner, collected the
payroll each week and distributed it to the workers (Quataert, 1993).
Whereas Kafadar interpreted the same event as:
The haraç-collecting gangs would simply leave an axe with the emblem of their mess in a
construction site or in a ship, which entered the harbor, signifying that the construction site
could not continue or that the ship could not unload its goods unless the soldiers received their
tribute (Kafadar, 1981:113)
For Quataert, the elimination of the janissaries represented a turning point in
Ottoman state policy in favor of the integration with European capitalism. (Quataert
and Keyder, 1992). Quataert also raised questions about the effects of the so-called
‘Auspicious Event’ on guilds, small artisans and laborers. Unlike Kafadar who
suggested a clear cut division between the guilds and the janissary esnaf, Quataert
was able to see the close connections between the guilds and the Janissary Corps. He
argued that once the central administration eliminated the janissaries there was no
organized group left to protect the guild privileges. Although Quataert shares the
assumption that the janissaries remained ‘largely lower working class in
composition,’ unskilled and semi-skilled urban workers such as porters and boatmen
who were affiliated with the Janissary Corps, he suggested that there was a mutual
alliance between the janissaries and the guilds against encroachments of the state.
Quataert seemed to favor the explanation that janissaries were instruments of popular sovereignty and protected urban populations against the arbitrary power of the
dynasty and its functionaries.
The most recent treatments of the abolition of the Janissary Corps represent a
drastic return to the Ottoman official discourse on janissaries in the twenty first
century. It is not surprising that these works came from Turkish historians who
internalized statist and highly romanticized Ottomanist approaches in their works
(Arslan, 2002; Arslan, 2005; Beyhan, 1999). Siding with the Ottoman state and its
ruling elite, both Arslan and Beyhan chose to reproduce the biases of their primary
sources. Like the functionaries of the Ottoman state, they consider any attempt to
challenge the authority of the Ottoman state (or the ruling elite) as illegitimate.
Within this framework, the attempts of janissaries to share political power with the
ruling elite during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was related to the
decline of the Janissary Corps’ discipline. These historians chose to put the blame
for the troubles of the empire in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century on
janissaries and other centrifugal forces. Parallel to their political beliefs on the
priority of a strong central state, they show no sympathy to the possibility of a
divergent path which would limit the central authority’s power. Thus, the abolition
of the Janissary Corps still continues to represent an ‘Auspicious Event’ for these
historians. For example, Mehmet Ali Beyhan’s article on the abolition of janissaries
repeats the official view which he chose to take uncritically from his sources. Beyhan’s chain of reasoning perfectly goes hand in hand with the arguments presented
in the primary sources. He presents janissaries as a “riff-raff,” who terrorized the
Ottoman state and people (Beyhan, 1999). He argues that the Janissary Corps
became an institution threatening the Ottoman state and society. He does not
question whether or not the interests of state and society should be the same, let
alone the diversity of interests within these two structures. He uncritically repeats
the argument that the subjects of the empire were alienated from janissaries because
of their lawless acts and oppression. Beyhan asks no questions about the function of
this argument at that time, i.e. demonizing janissaries and detaching them from
society.
The majority of the twentieth century historians chose to reconstruct the history
of janissaries along the lines provided by the official Ottoman view. This uncritical
acceptance is only explainable by different social and political uses of history at
certain temporalities. Several exceptions that attempted to present a relatively
different view, on the other hand, failed to provide a detailed account on janissaries.
The role of janissaries in Ottoman history cannot be understood without dealing with
important issues such as everyday life and social formation in urban centers. Rather
than looking at the events of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in
abstract and general terms as state formation or emergence of a modern bureaucratic
state, there is a need to focus on the struggles and tensions among real historical
agencies at a particular conjuncture. As one of the major actors in the early part of
the ‘long nineteenth century’ (1789-1918), janissaries took part in a struggle to
shape Ottoman political and social life. Underlining their agency in Ottoman
political and social life is an important task which will significantly contribute a
deeper understanding of the period. Janissaries were major actors in a process which
promoted an increasing base of popular participation in the political, economic and
social life of the late Ottoman Empire. Wrapped in the rhetoric of “custom,”
janissary opposition to central authority not only defended privileges and interests of
various urban groups, but also made further claims to have a voice in the
government. Contrary to essentialized assumptions on Ottoman political system as a
static and unchanging ‘Oriental despotism,’ the evolution of the Janissary Corps
offers a good case study for illuminating the process of social and political change
which the Ottoman polity experienced in early modern period.
2. Janissaries and Artisans in the Early Nineteenth Century Istanbul and Edirne
“From now on, all Muslims will be in unity and regard each other as brothers. There will not
be any division among them…
All ex-janissaries will be regarded same as common people and liable to show obedience
to vüzera, mir-i miran, hükkam, mütesellims, voyvoda and other officials who are appointed
in accordance to the şer’iat and sultanic orders. Everybody will behave properly and engage
in his own business whether it is agriculture, trade, or crafts…” (Uzunçarşılı, 1943, 670).
“Umum ahali Yeniçeri olduğundan umuma karşı hareket caíz değildir” (Lütfi, 1873,
154).
Historians traced back Janissary involvement in trades and crafts in urban centers
as early as the late sixteenth century (Ergin, 1922; Altınay, 1935; Uzunçarşılı, 1943;
Kafadar, 1991; İnalcık, 2002; Yi, 2004). They argue that with the depreciation of
janissaries’ daily pay many of the janissaries sought to enter crafts and trades in
order to protect their standards of living. At the end of the sixteenth century the
authorities had great difficulty in mobilizing these esnaf janissaries. It is also
interesting to note that this process coincides with large-scale immigration of
peasants to cities in the face of crisis in the late sixteenth century. Contemporary
observers such as Mustafa Áli pointed settlement of thousands of formerly peasants
in cities as craftsmen and shopkeepers (El-Haj, 1991: 17).
In the dearth of any detailed study on the subject, it is difficult to speculate about
the nature of this process and the involvement of janissaries in crafts and trades from
the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. For the aims of present study, it is
sufficient to note that the process of Janissary involvement in crafts and trades urban
can be traced back as early as the late sixteenth century. The second part of this
paper concentrates on the abolition of the Janissary Corps and its composition in
Istanbul and Edirne in the early nineteenth century. It would not be possible
reconstruct the details of the transformations taking place in the composition of the
Corps and its involvement in urban activities from the late sixteenth to the early
nineteenth centuries in such a short paper. Yet if we consider that the time period in
question is more than two centuries, one can expect considerable variations and
complexities in the process.
The abolition of the janissaries and their involvement in crafts and trades can only
be understood by looking at the nature of social formation in urban centers. In the
early nineteenth century, Janissary involvement in crafts and trades became one of
the prevalent characteristics of urban life in many of the Ottoman cities. As a result
of the transformations from the late sixteenth century onward the janissaries put
down roots in urban economy and society in major urban centers such as Istanbul,
Edirne, and Damascus. By using the privileges of their military status, they became
one of the substantial forces in urban centers that the Ottoman State was compelled
to come to terms with. In this regard, the abolition of the janissaries by Ottoman
State can be seen as an attempt to eliminate a social force rather than merely
modernization of the army.
One of the ways to analyze the janissaries as a social force is to ask the question
who really they were? Except at the most superficial level, we do not have any
detailed account about the identities of janissaries. For the thousands of janissaries,
who actively took part in economic and political life of the Empire, we have only
bits and pieces of information which was generally provided by official documents
and Ottoman chronicles. Even though it is impossible to have detailed evidence on
identities of janissaries in a given time, we can nonetheless gather enough
information to form a picture of a certain portion of janissaries. This is a very
essential and basic job that Ottoman historians have not attempted so far. Even
beyond having an idea about the composition of the Janissary Corps, we need to turn
our attention exclusively to aspects of daily life that individual janissaries
experienced on a conscious level. We can easily speak about janissaries at a certain
level of generality, but what really challenging in terms of our sources is to explore
possible avenues for reconstructing the janissary experience as a way of knowing the
past.
The second part of this study represents an effort to get a snapshot of the
janissaries on the eve of their abolition in 1826. The aim is specifically to form a
profile of the janissaries in Edirne and Istanbul. A specific imperial register
concerning the exiles in the years between 1826 and 1833 as well as various
imperial decrees dated to 1826 were used to provide necessary data in this study.
The imperial register lists exiled janissaries along with other convicts ranging from
prostitutes to troublesome ílmiye members. It contains information on the names
and the titles of janissaries as well as their original places of settlement and the
places of their exile. Luckily enough, the register sometimes gives the names of
janissaries’ original hometowns. The imperial decrees include reports from
provincial governors, which often contain the names of exiled or executed
janissaries in their administrative districts. Our set of data consists of 490 janissaries
who were seen as liable for punishment by the central government. Although some
sources claimed that nearly twenty thousand janissaries lost their lives during the
abolition of the Janissary Corps, a more reasonable estimation was given by Esad
Efendi who duly noted that nearly five to six thousand janissaries perished during
the abolition of janissaries. Considering this estimation, it should be accepted that
the set of data used in this study is comparatively small. Still, even such a small
figure should give us some idea about the identity of the janissaries who were
targeted by the central authority.
There are also some problems concerning the nature of evidence which we had to
work with. One of the problems concerning the data in the exile register and the
imperial decrees emerges when there was no information on the occupation of the
janissary in question. In this case is it feasible to assume that particular janissary had
no link with crafts or trades? Yet, several entries show that janissaries without
artisan or small shopkeeper title might also be engaged in crafts and trades (BOA,
A.DVN.KLB, 929-A, 20). Another problem is related to question of how to
categorize the janissaries whose paternal names indicate that their fathers were
artisans and small shopkeepers. Even though these entries are not necessarily
indication of their occupations, they probably point to close link among artisans,
shopkeepers and janissaries.
As mentioned earlier our data consist of 490 janissaries who were punished
following the abolition of Janissary Corps. 221 of those were from the city of Edirne
and 50 from Istanbul while the remaining 219 were from various urban centers such
as Saraybosna, Kayseri, Antep. The distribution of these figures directly contradicts
the argument that there was no resistance to the abolition of janissaries outside
Istanbul (Beyhan, 1999, 269). This view is directly taken from the early nineteenth
century Ottoman historians such as Esad Efendi and Şirvanlı Fatih Efendi who came
from the higher echelons of the ulema. Since this group gained considerable benefits
from their cooperation with Mahmud II in the abolition of janissaries, it was natural
that their works provided a certain image of janissaries, which justified their
destruction by the ruling elite. Moreover, both Esad Efendi and Şirvanlı Fatih Efendi
described the abolition as a smooth process which all elements of Ottoman society
were gratefully willing to accept.
Perhaps the most questionable part of the prevailing assumptions on janissaries is
the argument that janissaries had no links or relations with the rest of Ottoman
society. The utmost form of this hypothesis is the one that portrays janissaries as
parasites living on the state treasury and common people. There is little doubt that
some janissaries built up protection rackets aimed at milking the retailers and
merchants. When we consider the administrative functions of janissaries in the market place, it can be argued that janissaries used this status to appropriate certain
portion of tax resources for their benefit in the process of decentralization that the
Ottoman State underwent in the course of the seventeenth and the eighteenth
centuries. From this perspective, one can argue that they did not necessarily live on
ordinary people but tap some of the resources which were supposed to be directed to
the state and the ruling elite.
The next step of analysis is to turn our attention to the link between
artisans/shopkeepers and janissaries. As I mentioned before, the exile register and
the imperial decrees usually indicate the titles of convicts along with their names.
From these titles, it is often possible to understand if a given janissary had an
occupation as an artisan or a shopkeeper. As we see in Table I., 130 out of 271
janissaries in Edirne and Istanbul, carry an artisan or shopkeeper title.
Table 1 The distribution of exiled or executed janissaries with esnaf title
in the exile
Istanbul
Edirne
Other
Total
register of 1826-1834
Number of janissaries exiled/
executed
50
221
219
490
Number of janissaries
with esnaf title
37
130
167
334
Source: BOA, A.DVN.KLB, 929-A
This means that nearly half of the exiled janissaries from Edirne involved in
trades and crafts. When we consider the problem with the titles, it is safe to assume
that this percentage must be taken as minimum. Some of the janissaries without esnaf titles might have been engaged in crafts and trades. The distribution of the
figures between Edirne and Istanbul shows that 103 out of 221 janissaries carry an
esnaf title in Edirne whereas this figure is 27 out of 50 janissaries having esnaf titles
in Istanbul. Our figures for other Ottoman cities also show a similar trend. 167 out
of 219 janissaries, who were exiled or executed in major urban centers such as Antep, Kayseri, and Tokat, carried esnaf titles.
Another question that can be asked in connection to our data is the distribution of
janissaries with esnaf title along different occupations. What were the characteristics
of janissary affiliated esnaf? Were they unskilled or skilled laborers? Were they
running shops or were they small-time shopkeepers and peddlers? Our set of data
indicates that nearly all the janissaries with esnaf titles were skilled craftsmen and
small shopkeepers. Among them were carpenters, bakers, greengrocers, pastry shop
owners, coffeehouse owners, tinsmiths, locksmiths, shoemakers, tanners and
masons. Only exception is the existence of several peddlers in the exile register. It
should be noted that this does not necessarily mean that there were no unskilled
laborers and peddlers among the janissaries but our findings demonstrate an
overwhelming majority of skilled artisans and shopkeepers.
The presence of several guild wardens who were persecuted for their membership
in the Janissary Corps indicates that janissaries occupied important positions in the
guilds of Edirne. The wardens of pastry makers, blacksmiths, leather tailors, roundcake makers, and bakers in Edirne were punished following the abolition of the
Janissary Corps (BOA, A.DVN.KLB, 929-A). Similar evidence is available for
Istanbul, where nine guild wardens were sent to exile with the accusation of
janissary-affiliation nearly three years after the abolition of janissaries. This time
wardens of locksmiths, turban makers, greengrocers, felt sellers, woolen cloth
sellers, barbers and catgut makers became the targets of the central administration.
In the wake of military failures in Ottoman-Russian War of 1829, these wardens
were apparently criticizing Mahmud II’s policies and questioning his decision to
abolish the Janissary Corps. This evidence confirms Eunjeong Yi’s findings that
janissaries became an integral part of guilds during the seventeenth century. It is
reasonable to assume that janissary presence in guilds must have increased the
negotiation power of guilds against external powers, such as central administration,
other guilds and non-affiliated esnaf. Like guilds in other Ottoman urban centers, the
guilds of Istanbul and Edirne existed in a system of privileges and obligations which
were always open to negotiation. In distribution of economic benefits and resources,
guilds tried to keep and expand their privileges against rivals, such as tradesmen and
artisans trying to function outside the guild structures, other guilds claiming priority
on access to raw materials, and the central administration forcing certain regulations
and price control.
One striking point about janissaries in Istanbul is the places of their origin. Some
of these janissaries carry titles indicating their hometowns in Anatolia such as
Mehmed of Kayseri, Mustafa of Nevşehir, etc. Almost all these titles of origin in the
exile register and the imperial decrees point that the overwhelming majority of these
persons were from Anatolia. We do not observe the same trend in the janissaries in
Edirne. One should ask the question what was the significance of having a title
indicating one’s hometown. It can be argued that the place of origin constituted a
major element in identity formation of these immigrants. The group solidarity
among the recent immigrants is still an observable behavior in today’s Istanbul.
These people not only tend to share same districts of the city for settlement, but also
tend to specialize same trades and crafts. It has been argued that immigrants to
Istanbul came from a very limited number of regions in the Empire in the early
nineteenth century. Kırlı argues that the typical characteristic of chain migration,
necessity to have someone to rely upon at the point of destination, plays major factor
in this trend. He also points the close relation between janissaries and immigrants in
Istanbul. Drawing on an example in Cabi Tarihi, he argues that “each janissary mess
was largely composed of those who migrated from the same province” (Kırlı, 2000:
126-127). Yet, it is impossible to prove or disprove these arguments with our present
state of knowledge.
In order to suppress any opposition to the abolition of the Janissary Corps, the
central administration resorted to use of violence in different parts of the Empire.
The government’s violence was most visible in Istanbul and Edirne which were
major janissary centers. In Edirne where janissaries were deeply rooted in the guild
structures as well as in urban society, the central administration seemed to make
careful calculations about people’s reactions to the abolition. After realizing that the
janissary power in Edirne could not be easily eliminated without coercive methods,
the government initiated a series of executions and exiles, nearly six months after
the abolition of the Janissary Corps (BOA, HAT, 17402, 17 Cemaziyye’l-evvel
1242/17 December 1826). The governor Esad Pasha was especially worried about
the guild of tanners, which had a close ties with janissaries. He ordered the
stationing of more than hundred sekban troops in the tanneries of Edirne (BOA,
HAT, 17321, 17 Cemaziyyelevvel 1242/17 December 1826).
Contemporary Ottoman historians estimate that nearly twenty thousand people
were expelled and sent to their home provinces during the abolition of the janissaries
(Akşin, 1990: 104-105). When they mentioned about these deportations, the
language of these contemporary historians is as insensible as the language of the
official documents. One can get no idea whatsoever about the implications of the
government’s decision on individuals and their experiences. Nonetheless, we can
still retrieve individual cases from primary sources to have a better understanding of
the exile policy. In June 1827, for example, nearly one year after the abolition of the
Janissary Corps, authorities of Istanbul arrested a certain Mehmed from Nevşehir, a
greengrocer and ex-janissary. It appeared that Mehmed had been exiled to his
hometown during the abolition as being one of troublemakers among the janissaries.
After spending a short period of time in his hometown, Mehmed managed to get
necessary documents through his connections with a local judge to return to Istanbul
and resumed his previous occupation (BOA, A.DVN.KLB, 929-A, 21). We have
similar accounts telling us about the limitations of government policies in different
regions of the empire (Douwes, 2000: 109-110).
Still, the government closely monitored the public’s reaction to the abolition and
people had to pay special attention for not using janissary titles, terms and symbols
which had deeply penetrated to the daily usage and culture. During the central
administration’s paranoia over anything related to the janissaries, it was possible, for
example, for a coffeehouse owner in İzmit, who was disobedient enough not to fully
destroy a janissary regiment insignia from his coffeehouse, to undergo long
interrogations and be executed in front of his coffeehouse (BOA, HAT 17335, 3
Zi’l-kade 1242/28 June 1827; HAT, 17496, Undated). Another ex-janissary
coffeehouse owner from Edirne, a certain Turnacı İbrahim, who was reported to be
openly criticizing the abolition of the Janissary Corps in his coffeehouse met with a
similar fate. The governor of Edirne ordered Turnacı İbrahim’s execution by
hanging in front of his coffeehouse. The executioners duly placed a placard on his
body informing the public about his crimes, the normal practice with the public
executions of the day. The patterns shown in these examples are repeated by
different reports from Ayintab, İzmit, and Saraybosna (BOA, HAT, 19334, 11 Zi’lkade 1241/29 June 1826; HAT, 17496 A/B, n.d.; HAT, 17399, 3 Receb 1242/31
January 1827; HAT, 17452-B, 28 Şaban 1242/27 March 1827; HAT, 17402-G, 23
Şevval 142/20 May 1827). These individual examples of resistance against the
central authority’s decision to abolish the Janissary Corps contradict the ideal
picture drawn by the official discourse. The necessity to rebuild experiences and
identities of real historical agents becomes more obvious when we regard the
dominance of such idealized pictures in Ottoman studies. Most often historians tend
to simplify ‘agency’ into an abstract totality by speaking about state, central
administration, or janissaries without identifying real agents and their experiences.
For thousands of janissaries who took part in the everyday life of the eighteenth and
early nineteenth century Istanbul and Edirne, our sources only provide bits and
pieces of information. In the absence of contemporary accounts left by janissaries, it
is difficult, for example, to explore the consciousness of the groups which formed
janissaries. On the other hand, in order to provide alternatives to the official views
on janissaries, there is a dire necessity to explore the experiences of subaltern groups
such as immigrants, small artisans, and day laborers.
In their attempt to delineate Ottoman reform and modernization, majority of the
twentieth century historians turned a blind eye to the difficulties inherent in the daily
practice of nameless individuals. One can label the actions of janissaries as
“reactionary” and “parasitical” only by disregarding realities of everydayness for
ordinary people such as immigrants in major urban centers. Like official reports and
bureaucrats, modern historians have been also insensitive to the lives of these
individual which were marked by insecurity and a continuous quest for securing the
minimum standards of living in big cities.
This paper has attempted to give an evaluation of the existing scholarship on the
abolition of the Janissary Corps. It tried to explain the prevalence of official views in
the twentieth century Ottoman history writing. It also tried to show possible avenues
for understanding the role of janissaries in Ottoman history. The history of the
Janissary Corps cannot be treated apart from social formation and everyday life in
urban centers of the Ottoman Empire. Concentrating on individual agents and their
daily lives does not necessarily mean that historians should abandon their efforts to
underline the effects of general structures and processes in historical events. In
contrast this will provide better opportunities to understand implications of these
totalities. One of the most noticeable shortcomings of the existing literature on the
Ottoman Empire is the essentialist approaches to Ottoman society and politics. In
the case of janissaries, many of these essentialized views draw from the official
interpretation of Ottoman history. Thus, a better understanding of the abolition of
the Janissary Corps can only be possible by overcoming the conventional
explanations proposed in official historiography.
After all, whatever the
contemporary historians and official reports wrote about the Ottoman public’s
willingness to accept Vak’a-i Hayriyye outside Istanbul, poems written by janissary
poets to ridicule Istanbul was still circulating among people in Erzurum during the
Russian invasion of 1829. (Puskin, 1974: 81-82).
“Hamal, Bakkal ve Çakkal Makulesi Asker Olduğunda:” 19. Yüzyıl İstanbul ve
Edirne’sinde Esnaf Yeniçeriler
Özet: Bu çalışma Vak’a-i Hayriyye olarak da bilinen yeniçeriliğin kaldırılması konusunda mevcut literatürün bir değerlendirmesini yapmaktadır. Yeniçeriliğin kaldırılması hakkındaki resmi görüşün neden çoğu modern tarihçi tarafından sorgulanmadan kabul edildiği sorusuna cevap aramaktadır. Bu çalışmada Yeniçeri Ocağı’na Osmanlı’nın
Klasik Dönemi’nin bozulmaya uğramış bir kurumu olarak bakmaktansa, ocağın Osmanlı
siyasası içindeki toplumsal ve siyasi işlevleri üzerinde yoğunlaşılacaktır. Çalışmanın
temel argümanı yeniçeriliğin kaldırılması konusuna alternatif bir yaklaşımın ancak
ocağın bu toplumsal ve siyasi rolünün anlaşılması ile mümkün olabileceğidir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Yeniçeriler, Geç Dönem Osmanlı Tarihi, On Dokuzuncu Yüzyıl İstanbul ve Edirne’sinde Sosyal ve İktisadi Hayat.
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Clothing Laws, State, and Society in the Ottoman Empire, 1720-1829
Author(s): Donald Quataert
Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Aug., 1997), pp. 403-425
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Donald Quataert
CLOTHING LAWS, STATE, AND SOCIETY IN
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 1720-1829
In 1826, Sultan Mahmud II orchestrated the slaughter of 6,000-7,000janissaries
and,
in order to incinerate any janissary remnants that had taken refuge there, burned the
Belgrade Forest outside Istanbul.' During his reign (1808-39), the sultan attacked
many of the other bases of the ancien regime, such as the timar system, the lifetime
tax farms, and the political autonomy of provincial notables. He also centralized the
pious foundations, brought them under a special ministry, and expropriated their
revenues. Such stories of Sultan Mahmud's dramatic and violent policies, as well as
their 18th-century origins and their 19th-century legacies, are familiar ones in Ottoman and Middle Eastern history. It is a commonplace that Sultan Mahmud aimed to
dismantle the power of the military and religious classes in favor of a new bureaucracy of administrators and scribes. And it is also known that his efforts had a major
impact on the subsequent evolution of the Tanzimat reform programs during the later
19th century.2
This article retells these renowned histories of transformation, elite formation, centralization, and state building in a new way, through the prism of regulations on the
attire that the state required its servants and subjects to wear. No less than bureaucratic reform, fiscal centralization, and military action, clothing regulations centered
on an 1829 law were powerful royal tools in Sultan Mahmud's effort to control and
reshape state and society. The 1829 law specified the clothing and headgear to be
worn by the varying ranks of civil and religious officials. It sought to replace ancient
community and occupational signs of differentiation by dress with a homogenizing
status marker-the fez that placed the state at the center of Ottoman life as the sole
remaining arbiter of identity.3 The law, in short, was a quite radical measure in its attempt to eliminate clothing distinctions that long had separated the official from the
subject classes and the various Ottoman religious communities from one another.4
Focusing on clothing legislation not only narrates the familiar story of state modernization in a novel way. It also illuminates the less-well-known popular resistance
that the sultan's policies encountered. The familiar part concerns Mahmud II's attack
on elite rivals: many of the targeted institutions and groups had been elite cornerstones of an administration that had undergone substantial transformation in the 18th
century. This old order consisted of Istanbul-based officials and provincial notables
Donald Quataertis Professor in the Departmentof History, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, N.Y. 13902-6000, USA.
(? 1997 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/97 $7.50 + .10
404
Donald Quataert
who together enjoyed formidable political, fiscal, economic, and social privilege. The
neglected aspect concerns the Ottoman popular classes and their role in political
life, for Mahmud's clothing laws sought to demolish not only the elite but also the
popular sources of opposition to the consolidation of his personal power. Notable
among the latter were urban workers and their guilds, whose political and social
influence, in alliance with the janissaries, was greater in the 18th century than it had
been since perhaps the dawn of Ottoman rule, back in the 13th and 14th centuries.5
So when Mahmud eradicated the janissaries in 1826, he immediately moved against
Ottoman workers and their associations, exiling thousands of migrant porters and day
laborers ethnic Turks and Kurds to their provincial places of origin.
For more than two millennia, rulers and governments across the globe promulgated
clothing laws in order to modulate gender, communal, political, and social relations
within and among their administrative, military, and subject classes.6 For example,
the history of the Roman republic and empire is studded with such laws, including
one that forbade the toga for Roman citizens sentenced to banishment, thus removing the mark that distinguished them from the barbarians.7 In what became Western
and Central Europe, there is a continuous tradition of governmental sartorial vigilance from Charlemagne until the late 18th century.8 There was a "blizzard" of
clothing regulations in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, attempting "to reserve
certain distinctive things for the nobility."' In 13th-century Burgundy, for example,
the points on the shoes of commoners could reach only six inches, but the prince's
could be 24 inches. 1 During the 14th and 15th centuries, such regulation "multiplied
each year" in the areas of modern-day France, England, Spain, and the Low Countries. "I If the trains of their gowns were too long, Venetian women of the early 15th
century could lose their souls through papal excommunication.'2 In colonial Virginia
and Massachusetts as well as in many European countries, the torrent of laws in the
late 16th century became "a positive flood" in the following century.'3
In 18th-century Europe, contemporaries said, "money rules ... [and] comfortable
artisans and rich merchants rise above their estate."'4 In Paris (and elsewhere in Europe and in the American colonies), an emerging bourgeoisie offered its final challenge to the aristocracy for economic and political power. The emerging classes of
ranging from clothEurope and America adopted increasingly luxurious lifestyles
ing to horse harnesses to express their new wealth and their social aspirations. In
this accelerating world of fashion, the aristocracy, pressed to affirm its social dominance, had become entrapped in fashion wars that the bourgeoisie could best afford.
For a time, in places such as France, monarchies propped up their embattled aristocratic allies with clothing laws, limiting the use of furs and other luxury items and
demanding severe and plain dress of the bourgeoisie. '
The significance of clothing legislation is not always self-evident. On the one
hand, the laws frequently may reflect actual changes in fashion. On the other hand,
the relationship of laws (clothing and otherwise) to behavior often is more complicated. Promulgation or reiteration of a law may not always mean an increase in
violations. Other factors besides sartorial threats to stability triggered clothing-law
enactments.
Clothing Laws in the Ottoman Empire
405
At the broadest level, European historians have understood the clothing laws as
"instruments of political, social, and economic regulation."'6 Others have emphasized the economic or moral concerns of premodern governments, or a combination
of the desire to restrain extravagance on the one hand and uphold morality on the
other.'7 One historian of European clothing laws has argued that clothing laws actually were not seeking to prevent extravagance and preserve morality although
the laws themselves avowed these goals. In fact, they were nothing less than a "concerted attempt to impose a visible hierarchy on shifting, flexible, and overlapping
social groups."'8 By about 1400, in this argument, status based on birth had given
way to more acquirable and visible markers, such as houses, furnishings, and apparel,
increasing the need for regulation of these material social signifiers.'9 The interpretive differences among these scholars seems mainly a matter of emphasis rather than
substance, because there is a general agreement that the goal of the regulations was
to ensure that "distinctions in rank should continue to be visible in dress."20
Aristocratic dress openly performed a sociopolitical function-self-affirmation for some and
subordination for the others-freezing everyone in their places by signaling the place of
everyone.2
1
By the end of the 18th century, however, clothing laws were a spent force in
Western Europe, although they remained on the books in places such as France, the
American colonies, and the German lands until as late as the 1780s.22 Their disappearance is tied to the mounting abundance of consumer goods that made it possible for the "middling" ranks to obtain the goods and thus blur the status markers
of the elites. In response, elites adopted negative strategies of discretion and understatement. They abandoned the consumption of the elaborate and excessive that the
bourgeoisie could better afford and pursued the more difficult to acquire refinement
of taste and discrimination. Turning from an aesthetic of opulence to one of austerity
and subtlety, they embraced the luxury of leisure time to absorb the mounting intricacies of taste, grace, and fashion.23
In the Ottoman world, similarly, there were deep roots to the tradition of clothing
laws extending to the beginning of the empire that Sultan Mahmud was drawing
upon. Ottoman clothing laws, moreover, gave a particular emphasis to head coverings that, until 1829, endured as the most characteristic manner of officially designating honor and rank. For example, turbans played a key role in mid- 18th-century
the sword-girding at the
rituals surrounding the Ottoman coronation ceremonies
EyUp mosque in Istanbul. In the procession, two horsemen each carried turbans of
the monarch, tilting them to the right and to the left to receive the homage of the
accompanying janissaries.24 The centrality of headgear already was evident in the
early 14th century, when a son of Sultan Orhan (1324-62) designated a particular
headgear for himself, while some colors of headgear were reserved for the Ottoman
court, and other colors belonged to the Greeks and the Franks. Sultan Bayezid I
(1389-1402) introduced changes in the late 14th century, and Sultan Fatih Mehmed
the Conqueror (1451-81) made yet others.25 Sultan Yavuz Selim (1512-20) adopted
new headgear for himself because, he allegedly said, the sovereign could not dress
in the same manner as others who came into his court.26
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Donald Quataert
As in many other areas of Ottoman life, Sultan Suleyman the Lawgiver (1520-66)
codified
more rigorously than ever specifying both headgear and dress-the regulations concerning the attire of the Ottoman civil and military hierarchy. He wore
a kind of turban unique to himself, while viziers and other important officials wore
types particular to their rank. The ulema wore special headgear, while imperial guards
and janissary officers had their own. Rank-and-file janissaries wore another form of
head covering, while the "ordinary classes" bore yet other types, such as a simple
turban. An early- 18th-century source reported that essentially the same dress regulations promulgated by the Lawgiver in the late 16th century remained on the books
to his own day.27
This lack of change in the clothing laws may be significant. Historians of European clothing laws have noticed a strong correlation between fashion changes and
the permeability of the social structure. If they are right, then the many attire changes
recorded in the era between the founding of the empire and the reign of Sultan
Suleyman indicate a real social mobility.28 Subsequently, there is a relative absence,
in the sources consulted, of clothing legislation between the late 16th century and the
early decades of the 18th century. Although this may indicate social rigidity, the absence of laws might be only apparent, and the subject awaits further research. More
certainly, as will be seen later, the volume of legislation is considerable from about
1720 until the end of Sultan Mahmud II's reign, suggesting a period of social opening.
The regulations for official dress clearly were complex. In an important early study
of the Ottoman administrative apparatus, J. von Hammer raised the subject of clothing laws for officials, emphasizing that he offered only an "overview" of these regulations. But this overview went on for some thirteen closely packed pages, outlining
the attire prescribed for the various ranks and levels.29
The Ottoman state expected clothing laws to fulfill a host of functions; thus, their
complexity is hardly astonishing. Although Ottoman rulers, in common with their
contemporaries in many regions of the world, used clothing laws for a host of economic, social, moral, and political purposes, this study emphasizes their political dimensions. Hence, the focus is on their nature as regulations to maintain discipline
and the most state control possible over functionaries and subjects. Clothing marked
ranks within the official hierarchies, acknowledging and rewarding service to the
the precise
ruler. One glance at the robes informed all-rivals and allies alike-of
rank and place of an official. Clothing laws also reflected the expanding power of
the state. It is no coincidence that they received a definitive form in the reign of
Suleyman the Lawgiver, when the state regularized and deepened its control over its
own servants as well as its rural and urban subjects. Sultan Suleyman's clothing regulations marked this growing penetration of the state into society just as surely as
did his Kanun-l reaya, a legal code that dictated behavior in many arenas of his subjects' lives, ranging from the level of workers' wages, to the use of gold and silver
serving vessels, to the amount of gluten in flour, and fat in butter.30Clothing laws no
less than wage, price, weights, measures, and criminal regulations all were means of
disciplining behavior.3'
Although clothing regulations originated in state requirements for control, they
were not simply instruments of social discipline from above imposed on those below.
Rather, the laws were instruments of negotiation, used by both the state and its elites,
407
as well as by the various (occupational and religious) communal groups. The laws
usefully demarcated community boundaries for the subject classes, immediately identifying insiders and outsiders. Clothing and headgear helped give status and a sense
of identity to members of the specific religious, ethnic, and occupational communities in Ottoman society. Therefore, communities of Ottoman subjects-that is, the
prompted the state to promulgate or enforce
subordinate groups in society-often
vestimentary regulations because, for them, clothing laws delineated, maintained, and
reinforced gender, religious, and social distinctions.
Those with power in gender, communal, or political relations, however, especially
benefitted from the laws. In controlling the public dress (and behavior) of their own
(and all) women, men had the power of the state behind them. In the arena of communal relations, regulated street attire daily sought to affirm the superiority of Muslims in Ottoman society. And headgear and clothing visibly reinforced the claims
to privilege by members of the Ottoman political hierarchy vis-'a-vis the subject
classes.
CLOTHING
LEGISLATION,
1720-1808
The following section does not detail all of the known 18th-century legislation. Instead, it offers samples ranging across the period, from the 1720s, 1750s, and 1790s.2
Further, it presents examples of clothing legislation that respectively address gender,
religious, and social distinctions.
During most of the long 18th century (1683-1808), the state was under extreme
military pressure and, in the second half of the period, suffered fiscal crises as well.
These were the days of military defeats, territorial withdrawals, and economic contraction (after ca. 1763). In such precarious political and economic circumstances,
the clothing laws sought to assure Ottoman subjects and elites that the world was
still an orderly place in which all retained their respective political and social positions. They worked to reinforce the existing social markers, stressing control of men
over women, Muslims over non-Muslims, and elites over subject classes.33
The first example dates from the 1720s, when clothing laws were promulgated in
the aftermath of the landmark 1699 Treatv of Karlowitz. For some subjects, this formal relinquishing of once-Muslim lands called into question the very raison d'etre of
the Ottoman state. The post-Karlowitz era was a precarious one for the Ottoman
state, one of shaky legitimacy. More particularly, the regulations appeared in the context of a disappointingly unsuccessful war, waged between 1723 and 1727, against
a supposedly moribund Iran led by the collapsing Safavid dynasty. And finally, these
over
restrictive laws coincide with the so-called Tulip Period (1718-30)-presided
era of social
by the grand vizier, the highest official outside the royal family-an
openness and experimentation, when leisure time and pleasure began defining the
meaning and purpose of public space.34 In sum, the laws appeared in a context of
shifting social (and moral?) values, combined with the instability of a frustrating
war that followed close on the heels of epochal defeat.
In describing the Tulip Period, M. Zilfi has insightfully noted that the "Ottoman
theatre of power and piety. . . was yielding to a theatre of leisure and consumption."35 Remarkably like the nobles summoned to the court at Versailles, the Ottoman
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Donald Quataert
aristocrats at Saadabad, the imperial pleasure complex of Sultan Ahmet III (170330), vied with one another for prestige and power, using luxurious display and conspicuous consumption as their weapons.36 The building of palaces, endless rounds of
festivals, and extraordinary displays denote an intense competition over consumpstatus derived not
tion within the court and among the notables for social position
from military derring-do or bureaucratic skills but, rather, from the sophistication of
one's consumption, whether of tulips or parties.
I believe that it is appropriate to consider that the shift to a theatre of leisure and
consumption applies not merely to the Tulip Period but to the entire 18th century. As
in Europe, Asia, and America, new groups in the Ottoman Empire were challenging
the economic, social, and political power of the royal families and aristocracy.37 In
this Ottoman transformation, the new social groups emerged from outside and within
the state apparatus, thanks to quickening foreign trade and an increasing circulation
of goods. While many prospered from the European trade, the commercial links to
the Indian-Iranian East also were important. Because of Ottoman particularities, most
of the new 18th-century merchants dealing with the West and some of those trading
with Iran came from the Greek and Armenian communities, the so-called Ottoman
minorities.This Ottoman merchant group also owed much to the "ravenous patterns of consumption" seen at the Istanbul court.39 For a long time, the Ottoman court had served
as a comparatively vast market for goods and services, necessities and luxuries alike.
Lavish spectacles were common, such as the fifty-day fete for Sultan Murat III's
(1574-95) son, on the occasion of his circumcision. Other examples include the
prolonged wedding feasts of the daughter of Sultan Ibrahim (1640-48) and the succession extravaganza of Sultan Mehmet IV (1648-87).4? Subsequently abandoned
(allegedly because they were too expensive), they were resumed with a vengeance
during the early-18th-century Tulip Period-take, for example, the sixteen-day circumcision festival, celebrated in 1720 "with the greatest pomp ever," for the sons of
Sultan Ahmet 111.41Supplying such opulence required merchants, some of whom profited mightily, and the rise of the 18th-century Ottoman merchant group certainly was
given a powerful additional impetus by the splendors of the Tulip Period court.42
But it seems unlikely that the consumption competitions in Ottoman Istanbul during the Tulip Period are a salvo (as they were in contemporary Europe) in the notables' wars against the rise of the merchant group an aristocratic use of luxurious
consumption to defend against the increasing wealth of the merchants. A rising
bourgeoisie does not seem to have been present in sufficient numbers to explain the
events of the Tulip Period.
Rather, the Tulip Period competitors emerged from within the state apparatus, and
it is there that we must look in order to understand the consumption competition of
the age. A transfer of power away from the sultan to others in his court already
had occurred during the late 16th century, and another shift began at the mid-point
of the 17th century. Political power now shifted away not only from the sultan but
also from his court to bureaucrats. As this happened, the state less frequently imposed its will by sheer force or command. Instead, in a pattern that acquired increasing momentum during the 18th century, it adopted other stratagems to exercise
influence. Among those who emerged in positions of political prominence in the
409
18th century were Istanbul officials who owned lifetime tax farms (malikane's) in
the provinces. As early as 1694, the Istanbul regime inaugurated a fiscal system that
exerted control over the provinces in a new way in Ottoman history, so indirect and
subtle that, until recently, it was overlooked by analysts of the period.43 In the new
system, central bureaucrats who also were holders (malikaneci's) of lifetime tax
farms sublet some of them to provincial notables (ayans). This practice created ties
of common financial interest that bound the local magnates to the capital and also
made them prey to its political will. They expressed loyalty to the state by copying
artistic and architectural forms from Istanbul and decorating their provincial palaces
with murals portraying the imperial skyline.44
In Istanbul, at the Saadabad pleasure complex, the Grand Vizier Ibrahim used the
luxuries and new forms of consumption legitimation of the Tulip Period to discipline and control potential rivals such as these emergent malikaneci's. He was taking
the lead in stimulating and trying to direct patterns of consumption to enhance his
own prestige and power and to set himself above rivals within official circles and at
the court.
Passage of restrictive clothing laws during the 1720s in the middle of this fabulous display of consumption
shows the conflicting currents in Ottoman society
at the time. Three similar decrees, focusing mainly on gender concerns, date from
the late 1720s, when, according to a respected authority on the history of Ottoman
clothing, the first laws against immodest public display were promulgated.45 Some
"good-for-nothing" women, the decrees stated, had adopted various innovations in
their clothing, imitating Christians in the deliberate effort to lead the public astray
on Istanbul's streets. Moreover, women allegedly were nearly bankrupting their husbands in order to buy these fashions and, in the process, were hurting the artisans
and second-hand-clothes buyers who provided or resold the old styles. To resolve
these problems, the decree specified the precise widths and measurements of the
items used for the outer coats and headgear. Additionally, the 1727 regulation in this
series of three decrees forbade non-elite men and women from wearing ermine fur.46
In focusing on a combination of moral and economic issues and appealing to
forces that opposed the new displays at court and the broader social changes that
they were generating, the laws (unsuccessfully) sought to relegitimize a government
shaken by failed foreign wars.47 They also represented the elites' attempts to regulate the spread of the new consumption beyond the groups surrounding the grand
vizier and the Ottoman court. Consumption competition within elite circles and as a
legitimation device among privileged persons was one thing, but its percolation
downward to others bore risks. The hazards were hardly imaginary. In 1730, a popular revolt the so-called Patrona Halil rebellion toppled the sultan and destroyed
the voluptuary grand vizier and the pleasure palaces around Saadabad.
Even though the grand vizier was dead and the palaces smashed, the genies of political, economic, and social change were out of the bottle, and clothing laws could
not put them back in again. Elite Muslims, through their control of the malikane
holdings, remained powerful for the rest of the century. Moreover, because many of
their holdings were based on trade, they benefitted from the expanding international
commerce-with
Europe and with India-Iran that characterized the 18th century.48
Hence, two groups were benefitting from the mounting trade: the almost exclusively
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Muslim elite group within the government and the predominantly (but not solely) nonMuslim and foreign merchant groups outside. The ongoing commercialization of the
two groups acted as a powerful solvent on Ottoman social markers that the clothing
laws continuously tried to neutralize for the rest of the century.
The clothing laws of Sultan Osman III (1754-57) and Mustafa III (1757-74)
illustrate their continuing use as disciplinary tools. Both began their reigns in times
characterized by peace abroad but also by the internal weakness of a political, sultanic center that reigned only through careful negotiation and compromise with other
power groups. The brief reign of Sultan Osman III, who ascended the throne when
he was nearly 56, was noteworthy for little else than his extraordinary concern about
the sartorial displays of his subjects. In his few years on the throne, this sultan vigilantly prowled the streets of Istanbul in disguise, haranguing men and women for
their clothing improprieties. In the same breath, he condemned women for clothing
that was too tight and men for using gold thread on their horses and saddlecloths in
a manner inappropriate to their rank.49 His successor, Sultan Mustafa III, began his
reign with a similar outburst of activity on the sartorial front. A son of Ahmet III,
Sultan Mustafa reportedly was allowed the throne because the "Great believed him
weak, and that he would easily submit to be governed by their directions."50 The
powerful Grand Vizier Ragip Pasha caused "his Master inhumanly to renew the
Clothing laws."'51 The sultan sent out criers to announce the regulations, aimed at preserving the existing attire of Greek, Armenian, and Jewish subjects in the capital city
while also reregulating the furs that each Muslim could wear, as well as the height of
women's headdresses. Several unfortunate violators were immediately executed. These
included a Christian beggar who, a famous story goes, pitiably was wearing a pair
of used yellow slippers (the color was reserved for Muslims) that he had just received
from a charitable Muslim.52 The point seems clear: the Sultan's justice would be utterly merciless, no matter what the mitigating circumstances, in upholding the proper
order of things. The laws of sultans Osman III and Mustafa III can be readily understood as disciplinary actions needed in the changing times of fiscal crisis and
ongoing commercialization of the economy. More specifically, it also seems clear that
each sultan, lacking military and other direct means, used the clothing laws in an appeal for support when his hold on the throne was most precarious-at the moment
of accession.53
Clothing legislation from the era of Sultan Selim III (1789-1807) reflects the
long-term changes that were occurring as well as the immediate crises in the social,
economic, and political order. More disastrous wars and rebellions, notably in the
Egyptian and Serb lands, had led to further territorial losses. Ruinous policies and
extortionate taxation to finance those wars had inflicted serious harm on the economy.54 Sharp inflation and currency devaluations, for example, had reduced the silver
content of the main silver coinage by one-half.55 In Selim III's era, there must have
been a glaring discrepancy between the prosperity displayed by the malikane holders
and international merchants and the more general impoverishment that stalked Ottoman streets.
At a time when his domestic power was very weak and the legitimation gained
from foreign ventures nearly nonexistent, Sultan Selim III endeavored to maintain
social discipline by demanding modest dress. Soon after ascending the throne, the
411
sultan disapprovingly noted that his aristocrats (hanedan) and statesmen were displaying themselves publicly in the latest fashion while their retinues strutted around
in similarly elaborate dress as a means of announcing their attachment to these great
men. Because many officials did not have the requisite incomes, the decree stated, corruption and bribery increased. Further, he condemned the behavior of those tradesmen
and workers (esnaf) and other common people (halk) who, seeking to emulate their
superiors, had adopted these aristocratic fashions. And so, the sultan formally demanded restoration of the sartorial status quo ante.56 In this way, the state imposed
control obliquely, showing itself to be the upholder of public morality and justice. It
sought legitimacy with a general public that daily was living with personal impoverishment. While many officials really were living in luxury and ostentatiously displaying their wealth, the sultan's pronouncement aligned the state with the Istanbul
street and demanded frugal, modest public behavior.
In Selim III's reign, clothing laws occasionally had an emphasis that, in several
respects, seems different from earlier times. In the past, the laws primarily expressed
a concern for morality, social discipline, and order, stressing extravagance and waste
on the personal level-including
the matter of wives bankrupting their husbands.57
As just seen, these themes are repeated in Selim III's laws: for example, the notion
that personal extravagance beyond one's means leads to corruption and bribery. But
Selim's pronouncements sometimes shift away from disciplinary issues to economic
ones, focusing on profligates who were buying foreign goods and harming the
domestic production of goods and the treasury. While such economic concerns can
be found in earlier Ottoman periods, they seem to appear much more frequently in
the reign of Selim.58
I [said Sultan Selim III] always wear Istanbul-madeand Ankara-madecloth. But my statesmen wear Indian-made and Iran-madecloth. If they would wear the cloths of our country,
local goods would be in demand.59
Clothing laws took on economic dimensions as the sultan directly appealed for support among Ottoman artisans who made the goods that the monarch himself claimed
to wear. The Ottoman artisanal guilds at this time were in disarray; they probably
had suffered more than any other group from the new taxes imposed to finance the
failed wars of the late 18th century. In his bid for artisans' support, the sultan was
addressing a politically potent group, thanks to its ties to the janissaries.60 Thus, the
clothing laws' appeal to the economic concerns of artisans also reached out to the
janissaries, whose political support and military arms he still needed against foreign
enemies.61
Sultan Selim III's clothing laws differed from those of this predecessors in a second way. They did not merely seek to maintain legitimacy but more particularly to
(re)concentrate political power around the person of the sultan. His just-quoted statements about the fashionable hanedan and the statesmen, and about those wearing
Indian and Iranian cloth, are notable in this regard, for he was directly criticizing
ranking members of his own government and contrasting their improper behavior with
his own correct demeanor. He pointed out their public over-indulgence and distinguished their disloyal consumption of foreign textiles from his own sartorial support
of local producers.
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Donald Quataert
In sum, the sultan was appealing for broad popular support in his struggles with
elite rivals. Even though they defeated the monarch, costing him both throne and
life, it seems important to note the role of clothing laws in this rehearsal for the
more successful centralization reforms of the 19th century.
THE
CLOTHING
REVOLUTION
OF SULTAN
MAHMUD
II
From the perspective of internal peace, foreign wars, and fiscal stability, the reign of
Sultan Mahmud II was marked by a series of disasters that probably surpassed the
dismal record of Selim III. A weakened sultanate signed the Document of Alliance
with an emboldened group of provincial notables, a milestone in the emergence of
their autonomy. Somewhat later, only Great Power intervention prevented Mohammad Ali Pasha of Egypt from seizing or overthrowing the Ottoman Empire (his
goals are still debated), at about the time that Greek rebels were gaining their own independent state, offering a powerful attraction to more than 2 million Ottoman Greeks
who remained under the sultan's authority. And devaluation of the currency accelerated, the silver content of the piaster falling by a full 85 percent.62
In this setting, Sultan Mahmud II employed drastic changes in attire to help create
a strong monarchy with a new legitimation. He began by officially adopting the fez
for the military, a process that took place in a number of steps after 1826. According to one standard account, the sultan was seeking headgear for his new army-the
Victorious Muslim Soldiers (Asakir-i Mansure-i Muhammadiye)-that would be unconnected to the janissaries. He found success in 1827, when his naval commander
and men came to court wearing the fez, which they had embraced while serving in
the western Mediterranean. The approving sultan modified this headgear for his new
army, ordering the men to wrap a cloth around their fezes (igri bir sarnk).63
With suitable headgear in place for his navy and army, Mahmud II in 1829 issued
the new regulations for his civil and religious officials that were the key element in
his drive to reconstitute the state on a new basis. To distinguish civil from army personnel, he ordered his bureaucrats to wear a plain fez, expecting that the populace
at large also would adopt the new headgear.64
This 1829 regulation, whose drama actually matches that of the destruction of the
janissaries, pushed aside a centuries-old Ottoman tradition in which headgear had
provided the crucial and central marker of identity, status, and rank. In this landmark
legislation, the sultan publicly worried that the symbolic value of clothing had been
undercut: widespread imitation of official costumes, he feared, deprived civil servants
(seyfiye) and religious classes (ilmiye) of their grandeur. To guard against this, and,
he added, to prevent squandering and extravagance among officials, he carefully prescribed in painstaking detail the clothing (and sometimes the riding attire) for each
rank. Altogether, he singled out for attention at least seventeen different groups of
civil and religious officials and noted the clothing and headgear that each henceforth
would wear.65
At first glance, these stipulations of attire for officials of particular ranks and positions appear very similar in form and content to sultanic clothing prescriptions of
earlier centuries. A revolutionary notion, however, was embedded in the apparently
familiar invocation to differentiation by dress, for the decree also specified that each
413
civil official at every single rank (except for a handful at the very top) was to wear
exactly the same headgear, the fez.66 Thus, all fez-wearing officials, be they kaymakams or clerks, would appear the same.
The law in general sought to reorder a regulatory process that had broken down
and escaped state control. The state's use of clothing regulations to differentiate and
reward as a means of enticing support and service and to demarcate among the many
social and economic groups had foundered in the extraordinary messiness and confusion of the 18th century, when so many different groups had clamored for social
and political position and when the sultan was merely one of many centers of power.
With the 1829 law and its fez provision, Sultan Mahmud attempted to sweep the floor
clean and reset the rules for differentiation. He began again at ground zero and sought
to reimpose the sultanic state's monopoly over this vital social, political, cultural,
and religious sign. The law erased the confused markers of dying elites-the
timar
and lifetime tax-farm holders, the provincial notability, the pious foundation administrators, and the janissary corps-and set up new ones for the emerging central state
bureaucratic cadres that he was creating. But he did not repeat the old practice of
distinguishing each group. When he placed the identical fez on all officials and allowed only a very select few, such as the grand vizier, to wear headgear with a distinguishing feature, he laid claim to a new kind of sultanic control. Before him, all
officials appeared equal. And to reinforce his monopoly over status making, he began creating medals and decorations that only he could award as a means of establishing rank and hierarchy.67
There is an additional, remarkable aspect to this headgear legislation. It was a leveling device that symbolically restructured the Ottoman state on a completely new
that was no longer religious in its distinctions but nonreligious in its
footing-one
uniformity. For centuries, the empire had been a multireligious entity based on Muslim supremacy; its military and bureaucratic personnel had been drawn (essentially)
from the ranks of a Muslim populace that enjoyed a position of general social superiority over non-Muslims. The 1829 law removed the visible distinctions between
(most) non-Muslims and Muslims and facilitated the formation of a new elite without the distinctive markings that had long set one community apart from the other.
Wearing the fez, all civil officials would not only appear equal before the sultan;
they would also look the same to one another. This outward sameness of a religiously undifferentiated bureaucracy betokened the effort of this ruler of a Muslim
state to remake that state. In using clothing laws to erode distinctions based on religion and create a new base for this regime, Mahmud II offered non-Muslims and
Muslims a common subjecthood/citizenry.68 More specifically, his action came at
the very moment when the success of the rebel Greeks was so gravely challenging
his hold on non-Muslim Ottomans. At this crucial moment, he renegotiated Ottoman
identity, stripping it of its religious component. In this manner, the law anticipated
by a full decade the Tanzimat (1839-76) commitment to the formal equality of all
before the law and the entry of non-Muslims into the military and bureaucracy on
the same legal basis as Muslims.69
Some Ottoman subjects responded positively and quickly to the law. The new headgear found a ready acceptance among Muslims and non-Muslims seeking careers
in the new Ottoman civil bureaucracy. There it became the standard, as countless
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Donald Quataert
surviving photographs (Figures 1 and 2) of Ottoman ministers, officials, and gradumilitary, and agricultural-make
ating classes of the various state schools-medical,
it seems, the more prosperous ones in larger urclear.70 Many non-Muslims-mainly,
the fez as a means of escaping discrimination and "adopted
ban centers-embraced
the new official dress with alacrity.'"7'Freed now from state-imposed clothing laws
premised on religious differentiation, non-Muslims more publicly expressed their
wealth through their clothing.72 Thus, non-Muslim merchants
not only aspired to appear like their Muslim countrymen but also sought to enter into private
competition with the highest government officials in differentiatingthemselves from ordinary
people of all faiths.73
In contrast to this eager acceptance by the upper and upper-middling strata of
Muslims and non-Muslims, Ottoman workers rejected the new headgear.
The tradesmen/artisans(kalabalik esnaf kitlesi), who were extremely conservative, totally
fanatical and tied to Janissary traditionalism, persisted in not wearing the simple fez, one
without a turban.On this, he [the sultan] abolished the turbanwrappings on the fezes of the
army and gave permission to the esnaf class to wind on their fezes things [fabric wrappings]
like vemeni, (enber, abani, and yazma didbent. After this, wearing the fez spread among the
people as it should have.74
This narrator may have been partly right in attributing artisans' opposition to the plain
fez to conservatism and religious fanaticism.75 Here, I am postulating that the Muslim popular classes were insisting on a difference between themselves and the official
class for religious reasons, because the official class now could and did include nonMuslims, who wore fezes that disguised their religious affiliation. After all, Mahmud's
law had been against not only the Muslim elites who contested his power. By eroding
the visible distinctions of attire among the religious communities, it also undermined
the particular and superior social place of Muslims in general. Hence, it was an issue
of popular concern. Demanding distinctive headgear, workers rejected the path toward
religious undifferentiation that the sultan was proposing.
There is a second, different hypothesis to explain rejection of the plain fez. Here
I am conjecturing that the action was an expression of a distinctive workers' culture
among both Muslims and non-Muslims. This interpretation fits into a broader picture
of state-worker interaction before and after promulgation of the law. In their actions,
the workers were spurning Mahmud II's economic policies, which reversed the protectionism of his predecessors, most recently displayed in Sultan Selim III's appeal
to artisanal groups and their janissary allies. The janissaries' massacre reduced the political power of workers, and Sultan Mahmud began to dismantle Ottoman protectionism, replacing it with a laissez-faire economy that subsequently evolved at the expense
of the once-privileged and protected guilds. In 1831, for example, he attacked the
monopolistic privileges of guilds and threatened many workers' livelihoods.76 Then,
in 1838, he signed the Anglo-Turkish Convention, an important step on the road to
a free-trade economy that sided with merchants involved in international trade (who
by this time were mainly non-Muslim or foreign). In this interpretation, the plain fez
worn by the Muslim and non-Muslim bureaucrats and by the non-Muslim merchants
represented support for the laissez-faire economic policies of the sultan (Figure 3).
415
FIGURE 1.
Court functionaries at the Topkapi palace, at ceremony opening the Treasury. Carney E. S.
Gavin et al., ed., "Imperial Self-Portrait: The Ottoman Empire as Revealed in the Sultan
Abdul Hamid II's PhotographicAlbums,"Journal of TurkishStudies, special issue (1988), 98.
Printed with permission of the publisher.
FIGURE 2.
Students at the ImperialMedical School, ca. 1890. Personal collection, from the Sultan Abdul
Hamid II albums.
416
Donald Quataert
FIGURE 3.
Aintab, 1898, leaders (presumably Armenians) of the esnafs of cloth makers. Raymond H.
Kevorkian and Paul B. Paboudjian, Les Arminiens dans l'Empire Ottoman a la Veille du
Ginocide (Paris, 1992), 32 1. Note how some of these prosperousesnaf leaders wore the plain
fez as a measure of their identification with the upper and official classes while others sided
with the workers. Printed with permission of the authors.
Without their armedjanissary allies, the workers nonetheless resisted Mahmud.In
the provinces as well as in Istanbul, popular resistance erupted in the face of Mahmud's policies in general and the fez legislation in particular.7 In "the first three
months after the destruction of the Janizzaries, [the lower classes] burned 6,000
houses in Istanbul."Months after passage of the 1829 clothing law, workersof Istanbul who had been dragooned into the Ottomanarmy defending Edimnethrew off "the
obnoxious fez." One soldier asked, "How can you expect them to fight ... with this
thingon theirheads."78
Sultan Mahmudhad intended to extend adoption of a standardfez from his civil
servants to the subject classes and all of Ottoman society. But in the late 1820s and
1830s, he had few means available. The state was particularlyvulnerable. The new
Greek state was about to receive formal recognition, MohammadAli was knocking
on the door of Istanbul, and the sultan had not yet found effective military replace-
417
At~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OF.M.*.
..O
_
Bw
K~~~~~
-.
FIGURE 4.
--- --<,
---
Istanbul street vendor of glassware. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Istanbul: A Glimpse into the Past
(Istanbul, 1987), 79. Printed with permission of the author.
ments for the vanishedjanissary battalions. In this environment,artisanaland popular resistance to the clothing legislation was successful, and the sultan backed down.
By wearing fezes wrappedin a wide variety of fabrics, workersaimed to differentiate themselves from the Ottomanofficial classes, internationalmerchants,and other
laissez-faire advocates who had so quickly adopted the plain fez.79 They spurnedthe
path of emulationand pursuedthatof identity solidarity.And as photographsof Ottoman workers make clear (Figures 4 and 5), many continued to do so for the remainder of the 19th century.These photographsalso seem to show that the headgear for
Muslims and non-Muslims was the same; their headgear identified them as workers
418
Donald Quataert
_
"~~~~O
i:
i 1Z
-r_
!!
_M ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~illtl
l
_
s\
iV
;S *. ..
_*
FIUE6
s
iehr meschu
a~~~~~~~~~~~
...
| s_~~~~~~~~~~~AL
wokr
(peual
al
reinChitas.Rymn
.Kv
kiaan1alBaodin e Amnesdn'mieOtoa aVil uGnc
(Prs, 92,16
rne
ihpriso
fteatos
Clothing Laws in the OttomanEmpire 419
FIGURE 7.
Istanbul,coffeehouse, ca. 1897. EkmeleddinIhsanoglu,Istanbul:A Glimpse into the Past (Istanbul, 1987), 73. The decorated war veterans presumably are Muslims. Printed with permission
of the author.
ratherthan members of a particularreligious group80(compare Figures 3 and 6 with
4, 5, and 7).
CONCLUSION
This examination of Ottomanclothing laws illustrates:the many ways they mirrored
broaderissues such as wars and political instability; their importantrole as a tool in
the regime's negotiations with the various contending parties, both within the state
and the larger society; the limits on state influence over society; and the forces shaping the subsequent evolution of Ottoman society.
Historically,clothing laws in Europe,America, and the OttomanEmpirehad served
to create or maintain differences among the social ranks (or, to put it more accurately, to give the impression that the state was trying to do so). As economic and
social change renderedmaintenance of these laws difficult in Europe and America,
they were abandonedoutright, and by about 1800 governments there had given up
the business of seeking to dictate attire. Rather than surrenderthe sartorial field to
the competing social classes, the Ottomanstate in 1829 sought to dominate Ottoman
society by creating a uniform, state-centereddress code. In so doing the government
turned clothing laws on their head. For perhaps the first time, a state sought to use
420
Donald Quataert
clothing laws to promote homogeneity, uniformity in dress instead of distinctiveness.
In at least this respect, the 1829 law stands out as unique in the annals of European,
American, and Ottoman clothing laws.
After passage of the 1829 law, Ottoman society was demarcated in a new way as
the state sought to sweep away the confusion of the past century and resume control
over differentiation. On the one hand, the state penetrated more deeply into society
by eliminating the visible symbols distinguishing the official and nonofficial strata. In
its effort to become the ultimate arbiter of status, it created totally new categories
of dress, distinction, and identification. Competing forms of demarcation by religion,
ethnicity, or occupation thus became more indistinct than ever before. Through the
law, the state sought to take control of a reshaping of Ottoman society that had been
taking place since the 18th century, as non-Muslims dressed like Muslims and subordinate Muslims dressed like their social superiors. As the state intended, upper- and
middle-strata Muslims and non-Muslims superficially, sartorially, came to resemble
one another in an unprecedented manner. On the other hand, Ottoman workers repudiated the spirit and letter of the new law and perpetuated their own distinctiveness in pursuit of their own economic goals and identity. Taking their identity from
the workplace, they rejected the state's alternative. The state thus failed to control
fully the demarcation process. Status markers that resembled signs separating class
from class emerged to compete with those originating from the state.
The evolution of a post-1829 Ottoman society in which workers developed or retained a sense of community among themselves should not be overstated. Other factors continued to weaken the bonds developing among workers as a result of shared
work experiences and common opposition to state policies and merchant interests.
For example, the foreign origins of many 19th-century enterprises (such as railroads,
utilities, and the Public Debt Administration) meant that hiring policies favored the
recruiting of non-Muslim over Muslim workers. State policies of divide and conquer
also corroded workers' sense of common identity. To illustrate the impact of state
policies, recall the Turkish and Kurdish porters who were exiled after the janissary
massacre in 1826. As has been detailed elsewhere, Sultan Mahmud immediately replaced these banished workers with Armenians from eastern Anatolian villages. In
turn, these Armenian laborers were eliminated from the Istanbul workplace in the
1890s, massacred by angry mobs from the lower classes of the capital. Sultan Abdul
Hamid II then replaced these dead porters with Kurds, drawn from the same eastern
regions.8' In their actions, both sultans were exploiting existing divisions among persons of shared economic status. Their ability to do so obviously meant that religious
and ethnic differences sometimes overrode the bonds of worker solidarity.
The example of the porters also illustrates a fundamental confusion in state efforts
to redefine Ottoman subjecthood and citizenry. On the one hand, Mahmud's policies
and those of his successors demonstrate the move toward a new common identity,
with a more powerful state (sometimes led by a strong monarch) demanding the
allegiance of uniformly dressed servants and subjects. In this vision, all derived a
common identity from their relationship to the state. On the other, the state continued-both in Mahmud's reign and later-to play one group off against the other.
These actions exacerbated rather than submerged differences and worked against the
formation of a state-centered identity.
Clothing Laws in the OttomanEmpire
421
The confusion in state policies mirroredthat in the Ottoman streets and public
spaces of the 19th century. By the 1850s, the area of the Grand Champs du Mort/
Tepeba~iin Istanbulhad become perhapsits preeminentplace of public display. One
observer, the FrenchflaineurTheophile Gautier,describes the fancy carriages (sometimes from America) that carriedrich, non-Muslim Pera families in an area that also
had become the haunt of fashionable Europeans and Muslim gentlemen (Celebis).
These fops and dandies not only followed Europeanfashion but were ahead of it.82
Gautier'sdescription has several points of interest. First, the public spaces of Istanbul long dominated by the Muslim elites-such as the Sweet Waters of Europewere being overtaken by spaces in which non-Muslims and Europeans prevailed.
Second, it offers additional evidence that the state's 1829 policy of redemarcation
was only partially succeeding. On the one hand, the fez, frock coat, and pantaloons
had become the standardgarb of the official and aspiring classes, both Muslim and
non-Muslim. But wealthy non-Muslims were distinguishing themselves from their
Muslim counterpartsthroughextravaganceand the up-to-the-minutefashionabilityof
their attire.Third,the 1829 effort to set a code of (state-centered)modest, simple attire
had foundered.Unlike 19th-centuryEuropeand America, where simplicity and refinement of manner overcame magnificence and became the elite code of fashion and
behavior, sumptuousnessenduredas the standardin the Ottomanlands. Fourth,Muslims (the (elebi gentlemen) were using non-Muslims as their models. To add to this
confusion, as already noted, many artisans and workersrefused to emulate their official and merchantsuperiorsand created or maintainedtheir own distinctive markers.
The state was mired between legitimacies. Long-standing religious distinctions
were embroiled in emerging class differentiations that clashed with immature notions of a common subjecthood/citizenry.The Ottoman Empire had no face.
NOTES
Author's note: An earlier version of this paper was presented to the conference on "Istanbul: The
Making of a City," held at the University of Texas at Austin in March 1995. I am indebted to the following for their assistance in preparing this version: Howard Brown, Cengiz Kirli, Walter Denny, Brendan McConville, Jean Quataert, Ariel Salzmann, and the four anonymous readers for IJMES.
'The estimate of the dead is from Ed. Engelhardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat (Paris, 1882), 11, n. 1.
2For the standard accounts of this process, see Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey
(London, 1961); Stanford Jay Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern
Turkey (Cambridge, 1977), II. See Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal,
1964), 92, for a somewhat different view of Sultan Mahmud's reforms. Also, Murat ;izakqa, "Cash Waqfs
of Bursa, 1555-1823," Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient (August, 1995), 349.
3For the text of the law, dated 6 *evval 1244, see Ahmet Litfi, Latfi Tarihi (Istanbul, 1291 A.H.), II,
269-73. See also his remarks on p. 148.
4All of the laws discussed here concern behavior in the public sphere only. For an enlightening comparison of clothing changes in Japan and the Ottoman Empire and the differences between enforcement
of behavior in the public and private spheres, see Selhuk Esenbel, "The Anguish of Civilized Behavior:
The Use of Western Cultural Forms in the Everyday Lives of the Meijii Japanese and the Ottoman Turks
during the Nineteenth Century," Japan Review 5 (1994): 145-85.
5This argument is sketched out briefly in my "Janissaries, Artisans and the Question of Ottoman
Decline, 1730-1826," Workers, Peasants and Economic Change in the Ottoman Empire, 1730-1914,
ed. Donald Quataert (Istanbul, 1993), 197-203, and sources therein.
422
Donald Quataert
The connection between guilds and the ahi organizations is still not well understood. For some
interesting insights into this period, see Ahmet Karamustafa, God's Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in
the Islamic Later Middle Period, 1200-1550 (Salt Lake City, 1994).
6For an excellent introduction to consumption issues in general, including clothing laws, see the various contributions in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. John Brewer and Roy Porter (London,
1993). See also Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450-1680, I (New Haven, 1988).
7Michael Batterberry and Ariane Batterberry, Fashion: The Mirror of History (New York, 1982), 4950; Max von Boehn, Modes and Manners, trans. from the German (New York, 1932), 1:168-71.
8For details of the regulations, see Brewer and Porter, Consumption; Von Boehn, Modes and Manners;
Batterberry and Batterberry, Fashion; and sources cited later, esp. in n. 16. Also see Liselotte Constanze
Eisenbart, Kleiderordnungen der deutschen Stadte zwischen 1350 und 1700 (Gottingen, 1962).
9Von Boehn, Modes and Manners, 1:251-52.
?0Batterberry and Batterberry, Fashion, 88.
1'William Davenport, The Book of Costume (New York, 1948), 1:190. Also, Blanche Payne, History
of Costume: From the Ancient Egyptians to the Twentieth Century (New York, 1965), 183, 195-96, 200.
'2Jacqueline Herald, Renaissance Dress in Italy 1400-1500 (London, 1981), 41.
13Von Boehn, Modes and Manners, III: 170.
14Philippe Perrot, Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: A History of Clothing in the Nineteenth Century, trans.
from the French (Princeton, 1994), 18.
15See for example, Cissie Fairchilds, "The Production and Marketing of Populuxe Goods in EighteenthCentury Paris," in Consumption, 228-48; Chandra Mukerji, From Graven Images: Patterns of Modern
Materialism (New York, 1983), 186 ff; and Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and J. H. Plumb, The Birth of
a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth Century England (Bloomington, 1982), 38-48.
16Perrot, Fashioning the Bourgeoisie, 15.
17Herald, Renaissance Dress in Italy, 39; Frances Elizabeth Baldwin, Sumptuary Legislation and Personal Regulation in England (Baltimore, 1926), 131, 266; Wilfred Mark Webb, The Heritage of Dress
(London, 1912), 260; Von Boehn, Modes and Manners, II: 133.
18Claire Sponsler, "Narrating the Social Order: Medieval Clothing Laws," Clio (Spring 1992), 280.
She prefers the term "clothing laws" to "sumptuary laws" because the purpose of the latter is to curb
excess. In this article, I have followed her usage.
'9Ibid., 266.
20Von Boehn, Modes and Manners, 1:251; also ibid., 11:192.
2'Perrot, Fashioning the Bourgeoisie, 10. He discusses the advantages of clothing legislation for the
aristocracy but does not deal with its utility for other social groups.
22Von Boehn, Modes and Manners, IV:249. In England, although James I repealed clothing legislation in 1604, a 1745 measure prohibited the Scots from wearing the tartan; Webb, Heritage of Dress, 261.
23Karin Calvert, "The Function of Fashion in Eighteenth-Century America," in Of Consuming Interests: The Style of Life in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Cary Carson, Ronald Hoffman, and Peter J. Albert
(Charlottesville and London, 1994), 259-61. See also Richard L. Bushman, The Refinement of America:
Persons, Houses, Cities (New York, 1992).
24Baron Francois de Tott, Memoirs of Baron de Tott, English ed. (London, 1785), 1:119-20, reporting
on the accession ceremonies of Sultan Mustafa III (1757-74). I have not determined when this practice
first became part of the procession ceremonies.
25Joseph von Hammer, Das osmanischen Reichs: Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung (Vienna, 1815),
1:436-49.
26J. de Hammer, Histoire de lempire ottoman, trans. of his 1834 Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches
(Paris, 1835-43), IV: 142-43.
27Hammer, Histoire, V:24-25. Specifically, the "ordinary classes wore either a pershani, dulbent or a
shemle, one carelessly wrapped around the head."
I must note that elsewhere in his history, Hammer makes an error on the issue of tobacco consumption,
a subject that I currently am researching. He correctly states that the Kanun-i reaya included a section on
the payment of taxes called resm-i duhdn, but he erroneously describes this tax to be one on the use of
smoking tobacco ("le droit sur l'usage du tabac 'a fumer"), VI:271, n. 6. Rather, the duhan resmi mentioned by Hammer is a tax on land use. For example, see, inter alia, Ahmed Akgunduz, Osmanli Kanunnameleri (Istanbul, 1990), 11:158, from the era of Bayezid 11 (1481-1512); ibid. (Istanbul, 1991), 111:106,
423
418, 466, 494, for examples from Selim 1 (1512-20); and ibid. (Istanbul, 1992), IV:316, from the era of
the Lawgiver.
Hammer himself points out elsewhere in his history (VIII:90) that tobacco was introduced in the Ottoman lands only about 1605.
28Perrot, Fashioning the Bourgeoisie, 16. The firmness and rigor that Sultan Suleyman employed in
establishing and codifying dress might suggest an end to this mobility; this conclusion could be in error,
and the point needs further exploration.
29Hammer, Das osmanischen Reichs, 436-49.
30Hammer, Histoire, VI:275-79.
3'There is a wide body of literature linking the early modern state to social discipline-for
example,
in the workplace and in schools. For a general overview of the research, see R. Po-Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe, 1550-1750 (London and New York, 1989).
321 have found perhaps twenty examples of legislation concerning these gender, religious, and social
distinctions. Madeline Zilfi seems to have found others; see her "Stories from the Mahalle: Urban
Encounters in Eighteenth Century Istanbul" (unpublished paper, 1 March 1995), presented to the 12-25
March 1995 conference, "Istanbul: The Making of a City," University of Texas at Austin. For yet other
examples, see Fatma Muge Gbqek, Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire: Ottoman Westernization
and Social Change (New York, 1996).
33See Zilfi, "Stories from the Mahalle"; idem., "Women and Society in the Tulip Era," in Women,
Family and Divorce Laws in Islamic Society, ed. A. Sonbol (Syracuse, 1995).
34Zilfi, "Stories from the Mahalle."
35Zilfi, "Women and Society." Here and in "Stories from the Mahalle," Zilfi offers important observations about the shift to leisure that characterizes the Tulip Period.
36Berkes, Secularism in Turkey, 30-45; Ahmet Refik Altinay, Lale Devri (Ankara, 1973); Zilfi, "Women
and Society."
37Carson et al., Of Consuming Interests; and Bushman, Refinement of America.
38For a discussion of Muslim domination of mercantile activities in earlier centuries, and the broader
issue of Muslim and non-Muslim participation in trade, see Halil Inalcik with Donald Quataert, ed.,
An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914 (Cambridge, 1994)-for
example,
pp. 188 ff, 474 ff, 695 ff, 837 ff, and sources therein.
39The quotation, from Porter and Brewer, Consumption, refers to European courts.
40Metin And, A History of Theatre and Popular Entertainment in Turkey (Ankara, 1963-64), 17-18;
Midhat Sertoglu, "Istanbul, 1520'den Cumhuriyete kadar," in Isldm Ansiklopedesi 5, II (Istanbul, 1967),
1214/19.
41Quote from And, History of Theatre, 18; also, see Hammer, Histoire, XIV:4 1-46, 62-65; and Suraiya
Faroqhi, Kultur und Alltag im Osmanischen Reich (Munich, 1995), 187 ff.
42A more precise understanding of the role that satisfaction of court needs played in forming the 18thcentury Ottoman bourgeoisie requires investigation.
43For the pathbreaking analysis of this phenomenon, see Ariel Salzmann, "Measures of Empire: Tax
Farmers and the Ottoman Ancien Regime, 1695-1807" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1995). See Hammer, Histoire, XII:347-49, for a 1693 use of clothing laws as a tool in elite power struggles in Istanbul.
44Faroqhi, Kultur und Alltag, and sources therein.
45Resad Ekrem Kocu, Turk Giyim, Kusam ve suslenme sozliigii (Ankara, 1967), 86. He dates the law
at June 1725. Ahmed Refik, Onikinci asr-i hicrtde Istanbul Havati (1689-1785) (Istanbul, 1988, rprnt.),
86-88, says June 1726/*evval 1138. Hammer, Histoire, XIV:181-82, says September 1727/Muharrem
1140. The law cited in Hammer, Histoire, XI:347-49, dated 1693 and cited earlier, can be seen as one
regulating modesty.
46Hammer, Histoire, XIV:181-82.
47See Zilfi, "Stories from the Mahalle," for a discussion of the enlarged public sphere being created
as a result.
48Elena Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna in the Eighteenth Century (1700-1820) (Athens,
1992), shows steady trade increases in late-18th-century Izmir; Inalcik with Quataert, Economic and Social History, 736, Table 111:2, shows impressive increases of total trade in Salonica. The rising revenues
of mukataas based on trade are amply documented by Mehmet Genc; for example, his "Osmanli Ekonomisi ve Savas," Yapit 49, 4 (1984): 86-93.
424
Donald Quataert
49Hammer, Histoire, XV:284. Also, Zilfi "Stories from the Mahalle," and idem, "Women and Society."
50De Tott, Memoirs, 1 15.
5'Ibid.,
124-26.
52Sertoglu, "Istanbul," in IsldmAnsiklopedesi, 1214/22; and *em'ddni-zade Findiklili Suleyman Efendi,
$em'ddni-zdde Findikilih Sideyman Efendi Tarihi. Miir'i't-Tev~drih, modern Turkish rendition by Munir Aktepe (Istanbul, 1967), II.A: 12. See *em'dani-zdde, Sem'ddn[-zdde, II.A:36, 69-70, for additional regulations of Sultan Mustafa III. Also, de Tott, Memoirs, 124-26. And, finally, see Zilfi, "Stories from the
Mahalle," for a fine analysis of the beggar story.
53How well the clothing laws helped Sultan Osman is unclear, because he died of natural causes less
than three years later, just short of his fifty-ninth birthday. Sultan Mustafa, for his part, reigned for sixteen
years and died of natural causes just as his empire suffered catastrophic military defeats, rivaling those
at the end of the 17th century. The 1774 Treaty of KuqUk Kaynarca registered the consequent territorial
losses, de-Ottomanized the Black Sea, and opened the way for the destruction of the Crimean Tatars as
well as mounting Russian interference in Ottoman internal affairs.
54Inalcik with Quataert, Economic and Social History, 639 ff, where Bruce McGowan summarizes his
own work and that of Mehmet Genq for the 18th century.
55 evket Pamuk, "Appendix: Money in the Ottoman Empire, 1326-1914," in ibid., 970.
56Enver Ziya Karal, Selim Ili'un Hat-ti Huinavunlari-Nizami Cedit, 1789-1807 (Ankara, 1946), 100102, does not date the decree. For other regulations of Selim III, respectively concerning women and the
Ottoman minorities, see ibid., 102-3, 136-37; Ahmed Refik, Oniiuflncii asr-i hicri'de Istanbul Hayati
(1786-1882),
(Istanbul, 1988, rprnt.), 4; and Basbakanlik Osmanli Arsivi (hereafter BOA) Hat-ti Hrmayun (hereafter HH) 54918. Also Stanford Jay Shaw, Between Old and New: The Ottoman Empire under
Sultan Selim III, 1789-1807 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 33-34, 76-78, 175.
57Refik, Onikinci, 86-88.
58This was hardly the first reference to the drain on the treasury; there is a long history of fear of state
bankruptcy as a motive for controlling consumption. See, for example, the fine quotation from the chronicler Mustafa Naima (ca. 1665-1716) in Halil Inalcik, "The Ottoman Cotton Market and India: The Role
of Labor Cost in Market Competition," trans. Douglas Howard, in The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, ed. Halil Inalcik (Bloomington, 1993), 27273. My thanks to Elizabeth B. Frierson for calling this quote to my attention. See also, for example,
$em'dant-zdde, II.A:69-70, for a 1764-75/1178 regulation.
59Karal, Selim III, 102, 136. Notably, as the quotation shows, the competitive assault was not coming
from European makers but, rather, from the East.
60See Quataert, Workers, Peasants and Economic Change, 141-57, 197-203.
611 am leaving aside, for further investigation, the question of the precise nature of the janissaryworker relationship.
62Pamuk, "Appendix," in Economic and Social History, 970.
63Koqu, Turk Givim, 113-14. In the name of the new military unit, Victorious Muslim Soldiers, the
sultan appealed for the loyalty of his Muslim subjects, while his 1829 law threatened to jeopardize their
status.
For some of the regulations concerning military attire changes, see BOA HH 17584, 17614, 17647,
17890, 18446, 18671.
64Koqu, TUrk Givim, 114.
65LUtfi, Latfi Tarihi, II, 269-73, 148.
661t is widely known that the ilmiye were permitted to continue to wear turbans and robes and that,
more generally, the religious hierarchies were left outside the clothing-regulation process. The implications of this policy have been analyzed by Berkes, Secularism in Turkey, and others.
67This practice was vastly expanded by Sultan Abdul Mecid. My thanks to Walter Denny for his helpful remarks on this matter. See also BOA HH 17594.
68Later, Mahmud allegedly said: "I distinguish among my subjects, Muslims in the mosque, Christians in the church and Jews in the synagogue, but there is no difference among them in any other way."
Quoted in Avigdor Levy, The Jews in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton, 1994), 103, 145, n. 358, for a discussion of the dating of the statement.
69The story of the Tanzimat reforms is well known, as is the lack of non-Muslim participation in the
19th-century Ottoman military and the under-representation of non-Muslims in the civil bureaucracy. On
425
the latter subject, see the excellent article by Carter V. Findley, "The Acid Test of Ottomanism: The
Acceptance of Non-Muslims in the Late Ottoman Bureaucracy," in Jews and Christians in the Ottoman
Empire, ed. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (New York, 1982), 1:339-68.
70See, i.a., photographs published in Mahmud Kemal Inal, Son Sadriazmlar, 3 vols., 4th printing
(Istanbul, 1969); Carter V. Findley, Ottoman Civil Officialdom: A Social History (Princeton, 1989), for
example, 198, 214, 238; Carney E. S. Gavin, Imperial Self-Portrait: The Ottoman Empire as Revealed in
the Sultan Abdul Hamid Irs Photographic Albums (Cambridge, Mass., 1988); Louis Vaczek and Gail
Buckland, Travelers in Ancient Lands (Boston and New York, 1981).
71Berkes, Secularism in Turkev, 125.
72Enver Ziya Karal, Osmanli Tarihi, V, Nizam-i Cedit ve Tanzimat Devirleri (1789-1856)
(Ankara,
1961), 158.
73Berkes, Secularism in Turkey, 125-26. This is a part of the quotation cited earlier on the "alacrity".
74Koqu, Turk Giyim, 114.
75Koqu, Turk Givim. Despite his own statement, the tale recounted by Koqu also credits the desire for
social differentiation from the official classes as a motive for the popular opposition. Berkes, Secularism
in Turkey, 124, offers a religious explanation: "Shoes, pants, coats, shirts did not encounter resistance.
The only clear
The real difficulty arose over the question of headgear. It is difficult to explain why....
explanation appears to be religious."
76Donald Quataert, "The Social History of Labor in the Ottoman Empire, 1800-1914," in The Social
History of Labor in the Middle East, ed. Ellis Jay Goldberg (Boulder, Colo., 1996), 23, 35, n. 7. The 1831
measure removed esnaf masters' right to gain monopolistic access to work sites through the issuance of
new gedik certificates; the action may have helped the rank and file in their struggle with the masters.
770mer Demirel, II. Mahmud doneminde Sivas'ta esnaf teskilati ve uretim-tkketim iliskileri (Ankara,
1989), 57, n. 81, and sources therein document popular resistance to the fez in the Anatolian city of Sivas.
This information, randomly collected, suggests the presence of resistance in other regions, as well.
78Adolphus Slade, Records of Travels in Turkey, Greece, etc., new ed. (London, 1854), 194. For other
examples of opposition to the fez, see ibid., 139-41, 379. Slade, a contemporary, vociferously opposed
Mahmud's programs. The entire subject of popular resistance to Mahmud's anti-janissary actions and to
his overall policies needs further study.
79Kocu, Turk Givim, 115-16. Obviously, other factors in addition to opposing state policies also help
to explain distinctive worker dress. For an illustrated list of various headgear in the 18th and 19th centuries, see Sebahaddin Doras and Serafeddin Kocaman, OsmanlilarAlbkmd, ikinci kitap (Istanbul, 1983),
129-31.
80The black-and-white photographs are not always clear, but those available do not suggest any difference between Christian and Muslim workers. For photographs of Armenian workers, see Raymond H.
Kevorkian and Paul B. Paboudjian, Les Arme'niens dans l'Empire Ottoman a la Veille du Ge'nocide (Paris,
1992). For photographs of Ottoman workers in general, see, for example, Sedad Hakki Eldem, Istanbul
Anilari (Istanbul, 1979); Bahattin Oztuncay, James Robertson: Pioneer of Photography in the Ottoman
Empire (Istanbul, 1992); Carney E. S. Gavin, The Image of the East (Chicago, 1982); Ekmeleddin
Ihsanoglu, Istanbul: A Glimpse into the Past (Istanbul, 1987).
For a discussion of emulation as the cause of changing fashion, see, for example, the articles in
Brewer and Porter, Consumption.
Whether workers' headgear became more or less homogeneous later in the 19th century is not clear.
81Donald Quataert, Social Disintegration and Popular Resistance in the Ottoman Empire (New York,
1983); idem, "Labor Politics and Policies in the Ottoman Empire: Porters and the Sublime Porte, 18261896," in Humanist and Scholar: Essays in Honor of Andreas Tietze, ed. Heath W. Lowry and Donald
Quataert (Istanbul, 1993), 59-69; idem, "The Employment Policies of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, 1881-1909," in Workers, Peasants and Economic Change, 137-40.
82Theophile Gautier, Constantinople (Paris, 1856), 170, 90-91. On spectatorship, see Judith R. Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (Chicago, 1992),
15-24.

“When grocers, porters and other riff-raff become soldiers:” Janissary

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