Corruption in the Ottoman Polity

Boğaç Ergene is Professor of History at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Defining Corruption in the Ottoman Empire (Oxford University Press, 2024) and Local Court, Provincial Society, and Justice in the Ottoman Empire (Brill, 2003), and co-author of Halal Food: A History (Oxford University Press, 2018; with Febe Armanios) and The Economics of Ottoman Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2016; with Metin Coşgel). Ergene also edited and co-edited two other volumes and published numerous articles in scholarly journals. Cengiz Kırlı is Professor of History at Boğaziçi University. He is the author of Yolsuzluğun İcadı: 1840 Ceza Kanunu, İktidar ve Bürokrasi (2014), and Sultan ve Kamuoyu: Osmanlı Modernleşme Sürecinde “Havadis Jurnalleri (1840-1844)” (2009). He also published articles on 19th century Ottoman history in scholarly journals.

Corruption in the Ottoman Polity is a competent volume historicising and contextualising the concept of corruption in the early modern and modern Ottoman Empire. The chapters are well structured and follow a pattern that help the reader appreciate the intricacies of dealing with a modern notion in a historical context. While a number of essays provide theoretical approaches to studying corruption as a historical phenomenon, others present case studies from the Ottoman Empire as well as from the similar polities such as the Mamluk Empire and Qing China. This is indeed a welcome contribution to the field of Ottoman studies and hopefully will inspire new historians to study corruption in the Ottoman context.

• List of TablesList of FiguresAcknowledgementsA Note on TransliterationContributorsIntroduction to the VolumeBoğaç Ergene & Cengiz KırlıPart I. Historiographical and Methodological Considerations1. Corruption in Modern Ottoman HistoriographyBoğaç Ergene2. Writing History Backwards and Forwards: Thoughts on the Notion of ‘Ottoman Corruption’Avi Rubin & Iris AgmonPart II. Corruption in the Early Modern Era3. On Bribery, Law and Confiscation: Revisiting the Case of Kira, the JewYavuz Aykan4. Between Law, Custom and Abuse: Ottoman Judges’ Collection of Fees During the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth CenturiesJun Akiba5. ‘Corruption’ and the Misuse of Waqf FundsSuraiya Faroqhi6. Valued but not Marketed: Revisiting the ‘Sale of Public Offices’ in the Ottoman EmpireYasin ArslantaşPart III. Corruption in the Tanzimat Era and Afterward7. Codification Movements and Problematisation of Corruption in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman GovernanceSafa Saraçoğlu8. Invention of Corruption: The 1840 Penal Code, Power, and BureaucracyCengiz Kırlı9. Corruption and Construction: The Stained History of the Building CouncilEda Güçlü10. ‘The Work of Inspection Cannot be Freed of Confusions and Amalgamations’: Purity, Danger and the Practice of Late Ottoman StatecraftMarc AymesPart IV. Comparative Reflections11. Reconsidering Administrative Networks of Taxation, Legal Execution and Bribery from the Mamluk to the Ottoman Period: A Comparative Historical PerspectiveToru Miura12. Ottoman Corruption: The View from Qing ChinaElif Akcetin13. Afterword: The Ottomans in European and Other ContextsJoanna InnesCombined Bibliography