Administration of the Rumelia province during the reign of Sultan Ahmet (An analysis of the Kavanin-i Ali Osman Der Hulâsa-i mezâmin-i defter-i divan)

An important work written in the field of Ottoman Organizational History, Kavânîn-i Âl-i Osmân der Hulâsa-i Mezâmîn-i Defter-i Dîvân, was penned during the reign of Ahmed I (1603-1617). The work, written by Grand Vizier Kuyucu Murad Pasha to the treasurer of the period, Ayn Ali Efendi, consists of seven chapters and a conclusion. The number of provinces and districts in the Ottoman Empire in 1609, when the work was written, the amounts of timar and zeamet, and their laws are described at length. The work, which summarized the timar-zeamet values of the provinces and districts in tables, served as an informative handbook that could be used by the civil administrators of the period. Ayn Ali Efendi wrote works on the Ottoman land system and finance, and was an author who participated in the wars of his time, experiencing the events firsthand and recounting them. The purpose of this study was to examine copies of the original work made after 1609, the year in which it was written, namely the 1762 copy by Veliyüddin Efendi, the 1856 copy by the Istanbul Research Institute, and the 1927 copy by the Library of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. During the period when the work was written, it was added to the renewed sanjak laws and the laws pertaining to the sanjaks of the Rumeli province. On this occasion, the laws of the sanjaks of the Rumeli province, which was the largest province of the Ottoman Empire, the incomes of the provincial and sanjak beys, and the values of timars and zeamets were evaluated from a military and financial perspective. Keywords: Rumelia, timar system, finance, statute