Usurpation of Waqf Revenues in Late Sixteenth Century Damiette

Abstract

dinary Egyptians or popular institutions.1 While the entire period of Ottoman domination in Egypt (1517-1798) still invites much research, the sixteenth century in particular, during which the military establishment, the bureaucracy, the religious institutions, and the general populace adjusted to a change of regime, requires far more attention than it has been given. Most of the research that has been published to date centers on the politics, administration, and social life of Cairo, the province's administrative center and capital. We know little indeed about conditions in the provinces, and even less of the situation in such important provincial urban centers as Rosette or Damiette. The situation may improve in the future, however, as the National Archives of Egypt has recently made available the bulk of the extant records from the provincial sharica courts from Upper and Lower Egypt for the Ottoman period. The imbalance in our studies betw en Cairo and the provinces may finally be corrected and major revisions to our current understanding of conditions in the provinces can be expected as scholars exploit these new sources of documentation.