OTTOMAN ADMINISTRATION’S PERCEPTION OF PROFITEERING (İHTIKÂR) AND ITS PUNISHMENT
OSMANLI İDARESİ’NİN İHTİKÂRA BAKIŞI VE İHTİKÂR SUÇUNUN CEZASI

Author : Muharrem ÖZTEL
Number of pages : 397-420

Abstract

The Ottoman administration had always been keen on coping with profiteering, a practice disrupting the balance of markets via increasing the prices of the commodities subject to production and consumption. And it had always been in an uncompromising and uninterrupted struggle against it. In this process some methods came to be prominent for identifying profiteering and increasing prices due to scarcity of goods came to be the most significant indicator. The profiteering in the provinces done on any commodity had been complained to the administrative units in charge by tradesmen or ordinary consumers. Also, it became the subject of the petitions sent. When a profiteering crime had been determined, people committed this offense had been exposed to some punishments getting gradually heavier according to the extent of the crime, from injunction to exile and eventually to the conviction of the castle, and aiming to correct the actor as well as constitute a deterrent to the public. Distance of the places allotted to punishment varied as well depending on the degree of the crime. Such islands as Tenedos, Mytilene, Chios, Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus, Trabzon as well as some coastal castles such as Trebizond and Sinop were common places where the criminals were sent to face their penalties.

Keywords

Profiteering, profitering crime, exiling, conviction of the castle (kalebend)

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