Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.22586/ss.24.1.15
Ottoman Sultanic Legislation in the Sanjaks of Požega and Začasna in the 16th Century
Dino Mujadžević
orcid.org/0000-0001-5039-9433
Sažetak
The corpus of Ottoman sultanic legislation encompasses regulations issued by Ottoman rulers as a supplement to religious law with the aim of codifying administrative, fiscal, financial, and criminal matters within the Ottoman Empire. Such regulations, known in historiography as "kanuni" (qānūn) and "kanun-name" (qānūn-nāme), were promulgated at both the imperial level and regionally, for a single sanjak or a broader area. Regulations tailored to individual sanjaks aimed to adapt Ottoman principles and governance rules to the local context in regions incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. Consequently, these legal monuments serve as an excellent source of information on administrative, fiscal, and other practices encountered by Ottoman authorities, which they were compelled or desired to incorporate into their legal system. They also shed light on the adaptability and pragmatism of the Ottoman administrative-legal system, especially during its classical phase in the 15th and 16th centuries. Notably, these legal sources paid considerable attention to the collection of revenues for maintaining the timar system and other expenses of the Ottoman order.
Ottoman sultanic legislation in the classical period reached its zenith across the entire Empire with the kanun-names that emerged during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Lawgiver (1520-1566). In the 16th century, particularly in its later part, kanun-names dedicated to local – predominantly fiscal – regulations pertaining to the Požega sanjak were produced, along with smaller legal texts for the Začasna sanjak. This work will analyze the available Ottoman kanuns and kanun-names for these sanjaks from the 16th century, which are regularly preserved as introductory appendices to detailed fiscal-cadastral registers, known as "mufaṣṣal defteri". We have extensive kanun-names for the Požega sanjak from 1540, 1545, and 1579, while shorter kanuns are available for the Začasna sanjak from 1565 and 1584. These regulations reveal a multitude of details about the evolution of the tax system in the Sava-Drava Interamnium under Ottoman rule. Primarily, they testify that Ottoman administration approached the Sava-Drava Interamnium with due consideration of the local situation. Some local tax traditions were adopted. Nevertheless, the long-term goal of Ottoman authorities was to maximize revenues to support as many military and administrative personnel as possible. In the early years of Ottoman rule, the population of the Požega sanjak decreased due to its proximity to the Habsburg territory, resulting in devastation. Ottoman authorities ensured an influx of both Muslim and non-Muslim settlers through mild taxation and favorable conditions – particularly non-Muslims not only from south of the Sava (where former border areas lost their status) but also those who had fled from Habsburg territory. Over the decades following Ottoman conquest, as population and taxes increased, and the borderlands shifted further west, the tax system of the Požega sanjak gradually approximated the common Ottoman tax practices already implemented in neighboring sanjaks to the south and east of present-day Slavonia. This transition culminated in the kanun-name of 1579, the last known Ottoman legal code for the Požega sanjak. A distinctive feature of the kanun for the Začasna sanjak is its provisions concerning the population with Vlach status, which holds central importance in that region.
Ključne riječi
Ottoman Empire; sanjak of Požega; sanjak of Začasna; kanuns; kanun-names; 16th century
Hrčak ID:
323175
URI
Datum izdavanja:
8.12.2024.
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