The Ottoman centre versus provincial power-holders: an analysis of the historiography

Abstract

The seventeenth century ushered in a period of crisis for the Ottoman state. Plagued by a series of debilitating rebellions in Anatolia, Egypt, Baghdad and Mount Lebanon, war on its European and Eastern frontiers, and fiscal troubles brought about by the twin evils of inflation and war, the Ottoman central government found itself under increasing pressure to change the ways in which it administered its provinces. The Koprulu vizieral dynasty instituted a series of measures to stave off further erosion of imperial control in the provinces in the second half of the seventeenth century. By the first half of the eighteenth century, the government had reorganised its provincial administrative structure and attempted to regularise tax-farming practices to allow it more access to the taxable income of its subjects. The prosperity brought about by the expansion of regional economies and trade with Europe in western Anatolia, Syria, Egypt and Iraq during the first half of the eighteenth century allowed for the development of a modus vivendi between local elites in the provinces and the Ottoman government. However, by the second half of the century the relatively trouble-free relations between the centre and the provincial elite began to fray. Saddled with problems of mobilisation for a disastrous war against Russia, and unable to easily muster the loyalty and support of its provincial power-holders, the government found itself fighting a number of rebellions by semi-autonomous provincial power-holders in the Balkans and the Middle East.