On The Management of Agricultural Lands In Pre-Industrial Societies And The Advantages of Ottoman Tımar

Authors : Bahadır Emre Küçükkalay

Pages : 255-276

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Publication Date : 2025-12-29

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The Ottoman Empire applied the miri land regime, which is a mixture of private and state ownership, in addition to private and public ownership in agricultural lands, and they insisted on applying both until the beginning of the 19th century by operating these lands with the timar system. This study was written in order to argue that the Ottoman agricultural land ownership type and the timar system applied in the operation of these lands had economic, social, military and political advantages over the regimes of some pre-industrial agricultural states. The main question of the study can be formulated as what were the differences of the timar system followed in the Ottoman Empire compared to the regimes of other pre-industrial states, and what advantages did these differences provide to the Ottoman Empire. The possible expected result from the study is that the timar system has important advantages such as the continuity of political stability, efficiency in tax collection, continuity of food supply, ensuring social stability, preventing population mobility, minimizing central budget expenditures, keeping a large mass of horse warriors ready and supplying food goods that the people need. These advantages played an important role in the continuity of the state and in the stability of the Ottoman economic system in the conditions of their times.
Keywords : Miri Toprak Rejimi, Tımar System, Ottoman State, Agricultural Economy, Land Ownership

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