From the Pages of the Defter (ص 242)

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From the Pages of the Defter (ص 242)

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years of this study indicates that this mortgage/loan system was routinized, legally
sanctioned, and an important cog turning the wheels of the local economy.
This point needs to be emphasized because there is such a sizable and widespread
body of literature in which moneylending is presented matter-of-factly as the domain of the
usurious, corrupt urban elite, who unscrupulously contributed to the financial ruin of the
countryside. In this regard, it is worthwhile to recall here in full the major findings of Ronald
Jennings’ pioneering study of loans and credit in the Empire, based on 1,400 cases registered
in sharia court sijillat between 1600 and 1625 in Ottoman Kayseri, Karaman, Amasya and
Trabzon.
1. The use of credit was widespread among all elements of the urban and
rural society. 2. The supply of capital available for credit was fairly abundant
and hence not the monopoly of any small clique of money lenders. 3. Loans
and credit were very much the domain of the Muslim Turkish inhabitants ... .
4. Interest was regularly charged on credit, in accordance with the sharia
and kanun, with the consent and approval of the kadi’s court, the ulema,
and the sultan. 5. A ‘commercial’ or ‘mercantile’ mentality and profit motive
permeated all the elements of Kayseri society, not just the people of the
bazaars but the rural agas, the Ottoman military class, and the ulema as
414
well.
Amos Nadan, who has studied what he calls the informal credit market in (northern) rural
Palestine during the Mandate period, has found that urban merchant moneylenders
* Ronald C. Jennings, “Loans and Credit in early 17" Century Ottoman Judicial Records”, JESHO (Journal
of the Economic and Social History of the Orient), 16/2-3 (1973): 169.
225

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From the Pages of the Defter

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المنشئ

Susynne McElrone

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