The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 90)

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The Dispossession of the Peasantry (ص 90)

المحتوى

74
replaced by the central government if seen as incompetent or ineffective.* This
system of land administration and surplus appropriation was necessitated in part by
the need for a standing army dictated by the omnipresent possibility of war and the
need to provide security in conquered lands. Moreover, given the shortage of silver
in the empire, the state could only levy taxes in kind, and thus the sipahis could
only be paid similarly, which meant assigning them to different parts of the
empire.”
By the latter part of the sixteenth century, this system began to disintegrate
because of a combination of factors. First, there was the government’s need for
more revenue in part to satisfy the increasing costs of its standing army. The
increased costs were in large measure because of the rise in prices resulting from
the influx of American silver into the empire. Second, there was the increasing
pressure from merchants and others to have administrative access to land so as to
benefit from the increase in the prices of agricultural products. Third, there was
the decreased military significance of the sipahis after the introduction of firearms
to the infantry. Fourth, there was the tendency on the part of the sipahis to turn
their timars into private property given the opportunities for gain because of the
*In Palestine, ziamets were relatively few in number, and timars were
preponderant. For estimates of the number of timars and ziamets in different
regions of Palestine at different time periods, see Amnon Cohen, Palestine in the
18th Century: Patterns of Government and Administration (Jerusalem: Magnes
Press, 1973), 293-9; and Alexander Scholch, Palestine in Transformation
(Washington, DC: Institute of Palestine Studies, 1993), 176.
Halil Inalcik, “Land Problems in Turkish History,” The Muslim World 45
(1955): 221-8.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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The Dispossession of the Peasantry

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المنشئ

Riyad Mousa

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