Abstract
The chapter by Gürer Karagedikli and Ali Coşkun Tunçer explores the credit activities of cash waqfs (religious foundations) in the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century by relying on original waqf registers. It conceptualises cash waqfs as microcredit organisations and questions the established view that they went into decline in the nineteenth century at the face of competition with the formal credit institutions. The chapter shows that the cash waqfs and the bank branches proliferated in number across the Ottoman Empire during this period, and they showed a similar geographical distribution. This finding implies that cash waqfs complemented the activities of the modern banks by mitigating the social costs of nineteenth-century globalisation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Notes
- 1.
In this chapter, we prefer to rely on the Arabic spelling of the word ‘waqf(s)’ following the practice in the English-language literature. In modern Turkish, the word is spelled as ‘vakıf’, and contemporary English sources refer them as ‘vakouf’ or ‘vakf’. In a few places, we use the plural form in Ottoman Turkish or Arabic (i.e., evkāf and awqāf) if the word refers to a private name.
- 2.
The only known exception to this in Ottoman history was the confiscation of landed property of waqfs by Mehmed II (Gökbilgin 1952).
- 3.
Hathaway, J. 2006. Beshir Agha: Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Imperial Harem. Oxford: Oneworld Publications.
- 4.
Though not directly focusing on cash waqfs, only one study attempts to offer a systematic discussion of endowment deeds based in archives elsewhere. See Roded (1989).
- 5.
According to the 1897 administrative division, there were 31 provinces (vilâyets), 129 sub-provinces (sancaks) and 590 districts (kazâs) in the Ottoman Empire (Güran 1997: 15).
- 6.
Cash waqfs and foreign banks were not the sole providers of credit during this period. For instance, Masters (1988: 160) states that the English merchants lent to local people in Syria in the late eighteenth century charging rates around 20 per cent. Similarly, local moneychangers (sarrafs) were also infamous for providing credit at usurious rates.
- 7.
In this case, we see 70 men and women from various villages in the Görele district of the province of Trabzon pooling altogether 401 liras for the maintenance of a religious school. The capital owners seem to have chosen one representative to be registered in the deed as the founder, and another as the manager. The deed states that the cash to be lent on 15 per cent interest and the interest earned to be spent for the school’s needs (VGM 593, no. 151).
- 8.
On monte di pietà of Barcelona during the nineteenth century see Carbonell-Esteller (2012).
References
Archival Sources
Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü (VGM) nos: 583, 593, 607, 746, and 747.
Secondary Sources
Autheman, A. 2002. The Imperial Ottoman Bank. Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre.
Barnes, R.J. 1987. An Introduction to Religious Foundations in the Ottoman Empire. Leiden: E.J Brill.
Battilossi, S. 2006. The Determinants of Multinational Banking During the First Globalisation 1880–1914. European Review of Economic History 10: 361–388.
Çaǧatay, N. 1970. Ribā and Interest Concept and Banking in the Ottoman Empire. Studia Islamica 32: 53–68.
———. 1971. Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Riba-Faiz Konusu. Vakiflar Dergisi 9: 39–66.
Carbonell-Esteller, M. 2012. Montes de Piedad and Savings Banks as Microfinance Institutions on the Periphery of the Financial System of Mid-Nineteenth-Century Barcelona. Business History 54 (3): 363–380.
Cizakça, M. 1995. The Cash Waqfs of Bursa, 1555–1823. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 38 (3): 313–354.
Çizakça, M. 2000. A History of Philanthropic Foundations: The Islamic World from the Seventh Century to the Present. Istanbul: Bogazici University Press.
———. 2004. Ottoman Cash Waqfs Revisited: The Case of the Bursa 1555–1823. FSTC Paper. No. 4062.
Clay, C. 1990. The Imperial Ottoman Bank in the Later Nineteenth Century: A Multi-national ‘National Bank’. In Banks as Multinationals, ed. G. Jones, 256–258. New York: Routledge.
———. 1994. The Origins of Modern Banking in the Levant: The Branch Network of the Imperial Ottoman Bank, 1890–1914. International Journal of Middle East Studies 26 (4): 589–614.
———. 1999. Western Banking and the Ottoman Economy before 1890: A Story of Disappointed Expectations. Journal of European Economic History 28: 473–509.
Eldem, E. 1999. A History of the Ottoman Bank. Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Historical Research Centre.
Ferid, H. 1914. Osmanlı’da para ve finansal kredi, Vol. 3. Republished in 2008 by Başbakanlık Hazine Müsteşarlığı Darphane ve Damga Matbaası Genel Müdürlüğü, İstanbul.
Gerber, H. 1981. Jews and Money-Lending in the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish Quarterly Review 72 (2): 100–118.
Geyikdagi, V.N. 2011. Foreign Investment in the Ottoman Empire – International Trade and Relations 1854–1914. London/New York: I. B. Tauris.
Gökbilgin, M.T. 1952. XV. ve XVI. Yüzyıllarda Edirne ve Paşa Livası. Vakıflar- Mülkler-Mukataalar. Istanbul: Işaret Yayınları.
Güran, T. 1997. Osmanlı Devleti’nin Ilk Istatistik Yilligi 1897 (The First Statistical Yearbook of the Ottoman Empire). Vol. 5. Ankara: DIE Tarihi İstatistikler Dizisi.
Kuran, T. 2001. The Provision of Public Goods Under Islamic Law: Origins, Impact, and Limitations of the Waqf System. Law & Society Review 35 (4): 841–898.
Kurt, I. 1996. Para Vakiflari: Nazariyat ve Tatbikat. Istanbul: Ensar Nesriyat.
Mandaville, J.E. 1979. Usurious Piety: The Cash Waqf Controversy in the Ottoman Empire. International Journal of Middle East Studies 10 (3): 289–308.
Masters, B. 1988. The Origins of Western Economic Dominance in the Middle East. New York: New York University Press.
Ökçün, A.G. 1973. 1909–1930 Yılları Arasında Anonim Şirket Olarak Kurulan Bankalar. Türkiye İktisat Tarihi Semineri (8–10 Haziran 1973), Hacettepe Üniversitesi Yayım, 409–75.
Pamuk, S. 1987. The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2009. Changes in Factor Markets in the Ottoman Empire, 1500–1800. Continuity and Change 24 (1): 1–30.
Quataert, D. 1975. Dilemma of Development: The Agricultural Bank and Agricultural Reform in Ottoman Turkey, 1888–1908. International Journal of Middle East Studies 6 (2): 210–227.
Roded, R. 1989. Quantitative Analysis of Waqf Endowment Deeds: A Pilot Project. Journal of Ottoman Studies 9: 57–76.
Seyhun, A. 1992. Centralization Process of Cash Waqfs in the Ottoman Empire and Their Legal Framework. Unpublished MA Thesis. Istanbul: Bogazici University.
Singer, A. 2002. Constructing Ottoman Beneficence. An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem. New York: State University of New York Press.
Thobie, J. 1992. European Banks in the Middle East. In International Banking, ed. R. Cameron and V.I. Bovykin, 1870–1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Toprak, Z. 1985. Osmanlı Devleti’nde para ve bankacılık (Money and Banking in the Ottoman Empire). In Tanzimat’tan Cumhuriyet’e Türkiye Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkey from Tanz- imat to Republic). İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları.
Tschoegl, A.E. 2004. Financial Integration, Dis-integration and Emerging Re-integration in the Eastern Mediterranean, c.1850 to the Presen. Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments 13: 245–285.
Tunçer, A.C. 2015. Sovereign Debt and International Financial Control: The Middle East and the Balkans, 1870–1914. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tunçer, A.C., and Ş. Pamuk. 2014. Ottoman Empire: From 1830 to 1914. In South-Eastern European Monetary and Economic Statistics from the Nineteenth Century to World War II. Athens: Bank of Greece, Bulgarian National Bank, National Bank of Romania, Oesterreichische National Bank.
Yediyıldız, B. 2003. XVIII. Yüzyılda Türkiye’de Vakıf Müessesesi -Bir Sosyal Tarih İncelemesi.Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.
Yüksel, H. 2012. Vakfiye (Türk ve Osmanlı Tarihi). Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi 42: 467–469.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Karagedikli, G., Tunçer, A.C. (2018). Microcredit in the Ottoman Empire: A Review of Cash Waqfs in Transition to Modern Banking. In: Lorenzini, M., Lorandini, C., Coffman, D. (eds) Financing in Europe. Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58493-5_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58493-5_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-58492-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-58493-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)