Halil Inalcik. "Servile Labor in the Ottoman Empire"

in A. Ascher, B. K. Kiraly, and T. Halasi-Kun (eds), The Mutual Effects of the Islamic and Judeo-Christian Worlds: The East European Pattern, Brooklyn College, 1979, pp. 25-43.

The long prosperity of the slave trade in Islamic lands can be attributed to conditions peculiar to Islamic culture. First of all in medieval Islam from the time of the Abbasid caliphs on slaves were employed in large numbers in the militias of Muslim rulers. Slaves were also used as labor force in the urban crafts and on the big estates belonging to the state or to large land owners. Furthermore, following the example of the palace, the upper class and even the well-to-do among the non-Muslims, had extended households with large numbers of domestic slaves.
In the Service of the State and Military Class

The ghulam or kul system, in which slaves were trained as loyal servants to be employed primarily in implementing the central power of the sultan as agents and soldiery, had an unprecedented expansion under the typically military centralist sultanates of the Mamluks of Egypt and the Ottomans in the period of the thirteenth-sixteenth centuries. With the rise of their centralist state, the Ottoman sultans were faced with a growing need for men for their kapi-kulu, palace servants and divisions of the standing army at the Porte, and, since war did not bring slaves in sufficient numbers, they had to resort to the unusual method of the devshirme, a levy of boys from among their own Christian subjects, the reaya'. In general the Ottomans did not regard the devshirme as enslavement, but rather as one of the extraordinary services imposed by the state in an emergency. The levied boys, attached to the Janissary corps, were first employed as labor in a number of public works ( construction work, transport works etc. ) in the capital and in Gallipoli before they became Janissaries. In the classical period between 1300-1600, the Sultan's kapi-kulu, recruited from the devshirme boys as well as from among prisoners of war and slaves bought for the Sultan, increased in number considerably: 15-20 thousand under Mehmed II (1451-1481), 60 thousand in 1568 and about 100 thousand in 1609. The absolute power of the ruler, we are told in contemporary Ottoman sources, rested upon his having slaves in his service in the army and the administration.

That the members of the Ottoman ruling class, the Sultan in the first place, took special care to increase their slave retinue can be related to the fact that, in the frontier society of the early Ottoman state power rested on the ability to muster as many ghazi fighters as possible from tribal companions, adventurers from outside, or slaves. It was true the use of warrior slaves was not confined to the state. The grandees also tried to maintain households and retinues as large as possible since this meant, through their patronage rights, wala, an extension of their influence and power, in-as-much as many of their slaves were destined to get important offices in the Empire later on. These patrimonial factions were not infrequently the real actors in political feuds in the Ottoman Empire. In Istanbul, capital of the Empire, at least one-fifth of the population was estimated to be kuls of the Sultan and of the grandees. In other cities kuls, though in smaller proportions, made an important part of the urban population.

The demand for warrior slaves in Ottoman society was intensified by the fact that members of the ttmar holding army in the provinces, from the beglerbegi, governor general, down to the simple sipahi, cavalryman, were required by regulation to train and to bring to the Sultan's army a certain number of cavalrymen in proportion to the amount of their timar revenue (for a sipahi, one for each 2 or 3 thousand akce, for begs, one for each 5,000 akce). These auxiliaries were in their origins mostly slaves captured during the raids in Christian lands. A beglerbegi, governor general, was required by regulation to maintain a military retinue of at least two hundred men in addition to his household slaves employed in domestic services. The begs strove to increase the number of their retinue beyond the regulation since that brought special favor from the Sultan.

However, the ruling class did not own as many domestic slaves as military. On the basis of a list of estates belonging to members of the ruling class kept in Edirne between 1545 and 1659, the following data was collected: out of 93 estates, 41 had slaves.

The total number of slaves in the estates was 140, 54 female and 86 male. 134 of them bore Muslim names, 5 were not defined, and 1 was a Christian woman. Some of these slaves appear to have been employed on farms. In conclusion, the ruling class, because of extensive use of warrior slaves and because of its own high purchasing capacity, was undoubtedly the single major group keeping the slave market alive in Ottoman empire.
In the Crafts

Concerning the slave labor employed by the crafts in the cities we have valuable evidence from the records of the estates of the deceased kept by the judges, kadis, in the Ottoman cities. The following observations are based on such records of 721 estates from the second half of the fifteenth century in Bursa.

It was an exceptional case for the rich not to have slaves either in domestic occupations or employed as labor in certain crafts. (The rich composed 15.9 of the cases studied.) Slaves formed the third most important component of the estates, in value, after cash and properties. In the estates of the silk weavers slaves frequently represented the most important part since slave labor was extensively employed in the weaving of gold brocades, velvets, or fine cottons in Bursa.

Slave labor was organized under the system of limited service contract known as mukataba in Islamic jurisprudence. Here are two examples of such a contract:

"In our presence Mahmud b. Seyyidi Ahmed, weaver of taffeta, asserted that he agreed to emancipate his slave Iskender, of Circassian origin (with the described features) upon the completion of one hundred pieces of taffeta equivalent in value to ten thousand akces, and the said slave accepted the contract."

"Khwadje Sinan had previously agreed to emancipate his slave Shirmerd son of 'Abdallah (a convert), of Slavonian origin, upon the completion of the weaving for him of ten brocades known as kemkha-i glistani. Now that he has completed the work he has become free.

Here is a case of a slave weaver who was emancipated and rewarded by his master upon his death:

"Yusuf B. 'Abdallah (a convert) previously slave of Al-Hadj Tannvermish, asserted in our presence one day before his death to the effect that he emancipated his slave Ayas b. 'Abdallah (a convert) of Russian origin, weaver of velvet; and declared in his will that Ayas be given in his possession the loom of velvet with silk and other pertinent things."

This kind of mukataba meant actually to allow the slave to exercise certain rights such as to work independently and to own his earnings so that he would be capable of ransoming himself. Another kind allowed emancipation upon work for a certain period of time without specifying the work. Example:

"Mawlana Seyyid Mehmed of Konya asserted in our presence that he agreed to set free Lutfi b. 'Abdallah (a convert) of Bosnia ( of the described features ) upon service for him for four consecutive years; and the slave accepted the terms

. Mukataba was widely practiced in the Ottoman Empire, as demonstrated by the kadi records. It is recommended by the Coran. It consisted in the master's granting his slave his freedom in return for the payment of mutually agreed upon sums of money. According to some legists it was ransom by the slave of his own person. As an interesting historical example, mention can be made of Mehmed the Conqueror's allowing the Greek prisoners of war to work at the repair of the walls of Istanbul to ransom their freedom. The person subject to mukataba is set free only when his payments are completed. Toward the end a rebate was normally accorded.

Mukataba was a contract binding both sides so that the owner could not change its conditions at the expense of the slave. Since emancipation was considered a charitable act, the owner might make modifications favorable to the slave, such as to shorten the period of service or to give up the work due. Of course at the same time the owner derived certain advantages from mukataba. It guaranteed good and profitable service for a certain period of time since, as a rule, lifetime slaves tended to run away or to be indolent. It was particularly profitable in the silk industry as this required continuously careful expert work especially in brocade and velvet weaving. Wage laborers were not really suited for this kind of work, which demanded a long period of time on the loom for the production of a single piece.

Noteworthy also is the fact that the silk industry in Bursa had developed to such a point that it exported its costly gold brocades and velvets, not only to meet the growing demand of the upper class in the empire, but also to meet orders from Italy, Poland, Russia and other European countries. There were silk weavers in Bursa having forty or more looms at one time who can rightly be considered as capitalist entrepreneurs, organizing a domestic silk industry for export with slave labor: Al-Hadj Ahmed with five looms and fifteen slaves, Hadjdjl Badr al-Din Ishak with seven looms and eight female slaves, al-Khadje Sinan with six looms and twelve male and three female slaves, were all active in the middle of the fifteenth century. Twelve of the slaves of Al-Hadj Ahmed had a value estimated at 36,000 akces, median price for a slave being 2,000 akces or 50 gold ducats, a rate equal to or below contemporary average prices of slaves in Italy or Egypt. Since slave labor was not cheap it was only in the crafts making high priced luxury goods in great quantity that slaves were employed. Our Bursa documents refer to no slaves in other crafts. In the weaving of cheap cotton goods, another Ottoman export item, peasant labor in the coun- tryside and widows and children in the towns were used through- out Anatolia as the cheapest labor available.

Finally, hiring out slaves was legal. H. Dernschwam, a German visitor to Turkey in 1555, relates the widespread practice in Istanbul of hiring out slaves: Many people made a livelihood out of hiring out their slaves for 7 or 12 akces a day as day laborers (then 60 akces equalled one gold ducat; a slave's daily expense was estimated at 1 1/2 or 2 akces ).
In Commerce

Bursa documents of the fifteenth century also tell us how the freed slaves, 'atik or ma'tuk, occupied an unusually important place in the economic life of Bursa as rich silk manufacturers and merchants engaged in distant caravan trade, in money exchange, in usury and in tax-farming. In that city in 1477, 61 out of 402 persons whose estates were recorded in the kadi registers after death ( 34 male and 27 female ) were freed slaves.

Slaves and freed slaves were often employed as commercial agents by merchants in distant trade ventures. Special guarantees under the stipulations of Islamic law of toal, patronage rights of the former master, must be emphasized in this connection. The following is an interesting instance: In 1480 Balikcizade of Bursa and Khvadje Mehmed, freed slave of Khadjadj Koci, made a partnership investing equal shares with capital in the amount of 545,000 akces ( approximately 60,000 gold ducats) for the purpose of an import-export trade with Egypt and Syria. The operation was conducted mainly through their slaves who made several trips via Antalya ( Satalia) between Bursa and Egyptian and Syrian cities. In his will Balikcizade emancipated upon his death three of his slaves whom he had used as commercial agents (in addition one eunuch and one female slave were to be emancipated with grants of money, while three female slaves with children, umm al-walad, from him were to be freed automatically at his death. Of course, as in the case of Balihkcizade most, if not all, of these slaves were employed in domestic occupations. The peculiar stipulations of Islamic law gave rise to a paternalistic type of masterslave relationship which fostered strong social ties especially where domestic slaves were involved.
In the Agricultural Sector

Here slave labor became predominant on the big estates, which were in the form of ciftliks belonging to the state, the wealthy, or powerful members of the ruling class, or in the form of awkaf, pious endowments. The main reason for this was that the re'aya, free peasants registered in the state survey books for taxation in a defined area, could not, under the law, be used in the newly established farm lands. The majority of the privately owned ciftliks and many of the state farms and trusts were formed on the uncultivated waste-lands, pastures, and uninhabited lands with servile labor. Furthermore, such ciftliks were market oriented, set up essentially for the purpose of profit. Cattle and crops were sold to nearby peasants in need or shipped to the ports for export or for provisionment of the Ottoman cities. As in the Western plantation system, maximum rentability was the main concern of the ciftlik owners or trusts; slave labor, free of any of the restrictions to be observed under the law for the re'aya was found to be the most suitable. Slaves besides were comparatively cheap and readily available during the period of Ottoman expansion. It should also be pointed out that organization of production on the ciftliks adjusted itself to labor conditions: stock raising became predominant on most of the ciftliks as it required a minimum amount of labor for the highest rate of profit. Ortakdjlik/sharecropping with equal shares between the owner and slave was a general practice on the ciftliks while if cultivated by a peasant of the re'aya-status, the owner's share could not exceed as a rule one-eighth of the produce. Lastly slaves constituted a capital investment which was easily, and most of the time profitably, convertible into cash. It should be noted that in all this members of the Ottoman ruling class were following practices long established in the Islamic world.

Under the first Ottoman Sultans servile labor appears to have been employed to form extensive cattle and sheep ranches in Bythinia. Big farms thus formed by the grandees were mostly turned into pious end