Original scientific paper
The structure and functioning of the waqf economy in Güğercinlik, Balya, Avlonya, and Çan: a study of the kaza of Biga İn the sixteenth-century Ottoman provincial system
Aysun Acar Durukan
; Atatürk University Institute Of Turkic/Turkology Studies, Erzurum Republic of Türkiye
Abstract
The Ottoman waqf institution (pious endowment or vakif in Turkish, pl. evkaf) should be evaluated not merely as a religious and charitable foundation, but also as an institutional mechanism that regulated economic activity in the early modern period. The institutional economics approach emphasizes that economic behavior does not emerge solely from market dynamics; rather, it is shaped by the institutional frameworks that structure and constrain those dynamics. Within this perspective, waqfs functioned as semi-public entities that safeguarded property under a specific legal status, ensured the allocation of revenues to designated purposes, and secured the long-term utilization of resources. Accordingly, the waqf system in the Ottoman provinces may be understood as a pre-modern model of resource allocation and local economic regulation.
This study examines the structure, typology, and economic functioning of the waqf institution in the nahiyes of Güğercinlik, Balya, Avlonya, and Çan within the kaza of Biga during the sixteenth century. Drawing on data recorded in the tahrir registers and evkâf registers dated 1516, 1530, and 1574, the research aims to provide a comparative analysis of waqf revenue sources, their institutional continuity, and their transformation over time.
The findings indicate that the vast majority of waqfs in Güğercinlik, Balya, Avlonya, and Çan were established as zāviye- and mosque-based foundations, as well as public-benefit endowments (vakf-ı ʿāmme). Alongside these, family endowments (evlâdlık waqfs) also constituted a significant component of the regional waqf structure.
By approaching the operation of the waqf institution in rural and semi-rural contexts at a microhistorical level, this study seeks to reveal the regional characteristics of the waqf economy in the specific case of the kaza of Biga within the broader framework of the Ottoman provincial system. Although the existing scholarship on the sixteenth-century Ottoman waqf system is substantial, the majority of these studies focus primarily on urban centers or on single nahiyes and kazas in isolation. Long-term and comparative analyses encompassing all the nahiyes affiliated with the kaza of Biga remain limited in scope.
While independent studies on Lâpseki and Ezine, as well as research devoted to the publication and evaluation of tahrir registers, have provided valuable data, the waqfs in Güğercinlik, Balya, Avlonya, and Çan have not yet been subjected to a systematic analytical and comparative assessment within the framework of waqf economy. This study seeks to address this lacuna in the literature.
The principal sources of this study consist of the Tapu Tahrir Registers and the registers preserved in the Kuyûd-ı Kadîme collection of the Presidency of State Archives of the Republic of Türkiye. On the basis of these materials, waqf villages and mezras were identified, and waqf revenues were classified and analyzed comparatively across different periods and nahiyes. The findings demonstrate that in the sixteenth century the waqf institution in the aforementioned nahiyes possessed a widespread and functional structure. Waqf revenues were predominantly based on agricultural production, and a number of foundations exhibited institutional continuity across all three periods under examination. These results indicate that the waqf institution constituted a durable and integral component of the regional socio-economic structure.
Keywords
Ottoman Empire; Biga; Güğercinlik; Balya; Avlonya; Çan; Waqf Economy; Tahrir Registers
Hrčak ID:
346174
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2025.
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