Ottoman Surre in the Light of MAD 1806: Foundation of Rumiyye-i Cedide and Its Political and Legal Analysis

Abstract

The cash subsidies sent to the people of Haramayn and Quds which are generally known as surre have been studied from different perspectives. In these studies, it has been assumed that after the establishment of the Ottoman rule in Egypt two big surres were maintained by the Ottomans, i.e. the old surre of the Mamluks and the surre of Ottomans from Istanbul. The reason for this assumption was that the Ottomans made formally no change concerning the surre of the Mamluks, that there were many endowments for the benefit of the people of Haramayn founded in Anatolia before and after the Ottoman conquest of the Egypt and that the Ottomans began to send regularly subsidies to Haramayn before this time. The document MAD 1806 which was prepared by the newly appointed superintendent for the endowments of Haremayn contains the total numbers of the revenues of the Haramayn Endowments in the Ottoman Empire except Egypt from 997/1589 to 998/1590 and a report attached to the document which contains a summary of a discussion triggered by sending a new surre to Haramayn. In this article, I will examine the report of Habesi Mehmed Aga by taking into account its judicial aspects and checking the sums of the revenues of the Haremayn Endowments given by Mehmed Aga. I will show that there was not a big surre from Istanbul before that time.