Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire by Ayalon Yaron

Author:Ayalon, Yaron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2014-11-24T05:00:00+00:00

Why Give?

Religion and charity were deeply rooted in Ottoman life routine. While communal boundaries may not have been as strict as we used to think, and while religious faith was not necessarily the main determinant in one’s social status or lifestyle, it is still true that religious norms and practices characterized Ottoman urban life more than anything else. Its symbols were everywhere, from houses of worship to soup kitchens, from calls to prayer to the manner people dressed and talked. Just as religion was ubiquitous, so was charity, the ultimate incentive for which was the reward of pleasing God. Many believers gave to charity primarily to perform a religious duty, which, like all duties of the faith, entailed a reward for fulfilling and punishment for shunning it. Attributing such acts of benevolence primarily to religious sentiments makes sense, and many historians have indeed subscribed to this kind of reading, in Middle Eastern and other contexts alike.46 It is worth noting, however, that associating charitable acts primarily with one’s belief could also reflect the fact that much of our knowledge about charity is obtained through religious sources.

Central as religion was in Ottoman society’s routine, it could not account for all charitable acts. Sometimes religion was only a means to articulate and implement altruistic intentions that otherwise would have found other channels. This was evident to religious scholars, too, who acknowledged that even though the wrong intent could invalidate the act of giving, it was difficult to ascertain one’s true motivation for being charitable.47 Other factors driving people to contribute might have included political considerations, since the very act of charity, as we have seen, served a political purpose for the Ottoman state itself; it was largely via channels of charity that the Ottomans first introduced their culture, language, and religion to the people they conquered. In later centuries, the Ottomans built monumental waqfs to assert presence and authority. As we have seen in Chapter 2, many of these large state-sponsored institutions accumulated immense wealth and had access to resources ordinary people did not. As such, they offered rulers opportunities to promote certain interests in the name of Islam. Supporting people by providing them with a place to stay, food, work, and social status created dependency, loyalty, and patron-client relationships. A hierarchical network of such “political benefaction” existed, whereby loyal charity recipients served as patrons of lower-rank recipients whom they supported. The supreme patron was the sultan, who distributed alms, provided free meals daily to tens of thousands of his subjects all over the empire, and sponsored periodic public celebrations in the name of the Ottoman state. Sultans were also the founders of the greatest waqfs, many of which helped the poor through soup kitchens, education, and health care. Generosity was a vehicle for political influence and prestige that increased with the number of beneficiaries. In fact, charity was an essential trait of a ruler’s policy or a wealthy person’s social strategy. People were remembered for their beneficence, and the desire to

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