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In The Arab Lands Under Ottoman Rule, 1516-1800, Jane Hathaway describes Albert Houranis understanding of provincial notables

(ayan) as the intermediary third of a tripartite, and established via a process of Arabization. Conversely, the articles of Gabriel Piterberg, Ehud Toledano and Jane Hathaway emphasize the key point of localization as leading to the rise of the provincial elite. However, all writings alike describe the provincial elite as somewhat interdependent on the central administration, while making large strides in decentralizing governmental power. In The Arab Lands Under Ottoman Rule, 1516-1800, Jane Hathaway describes Albert Houranis understanding of provincial notables (ayan) as one of three groups of potential notables in 17th century Ottoman Arab society, along with the ulema (Islamic scholars) and the commanders of local troops. As the natural leaders of provincial Arab society, Hourani depicts the ayan as mediators between the Ottoman governmental administration and the rest of the population. While the government did not play a role in the formation of the ayan, the two entities were mutually supporting, while distinctly separate as well. Another point Hourani emphasizes is that the ayan establishment in the provinces advanced via Arabization through cultivating cultural influence in non-Arab areas, instead of localization (i.e. advancing in a particular location). So called civilian notables that were native to a specific Arab province often developed ties to the Ottoman government of that province of members of his entourage, with some notables having connections to the imperial government in Istanbul as well. Patron-client ties of an ayan led household linked members of the Ottoman government to those of the ayan. The ayan household was a collection of patron-client bonds that branched out from the ayan member who founded it. The founding ayan secured a source of wealth and used this wealth to collect clients or followers, who all gathered in one central location known as the household headquarters. A key development that allowed the ayan household to amass a

large amount of capital was the life-tenure tax farm or malikane. The malikane was a reform on the imperial treasury, and was crucial because it allowed wealthy administrators to bid on packages of urban and rural taxes throughout the Ottoman provinces. In this process that began exclusively among the administrative elite, but soon grew to include the provincial elite as well, allowed the purchaser to submit a bid based on purported revenue expected to be collected in the fiscal year. Any amount that the purchaser collected in addition to the bid he placed he kept for himself as profit. The malikanes dramatically improved the ayans wealth and influence but also bound them to Istanbul and the imperial government. Since Hourani stressed the importance of Arabization over localization, historians who study his works portray Ottoman Arab society as a tripartite system, in which one branch is the Ottoman administration, the second the troops accompanying the governor, and the third the governors bureaucracy (i.e. personnel working for the governor and carrying out his orders). This implicit tripartite divide shows a very distinct segregation between the Ottoman administration and the so called natives. This Turkish government administration was foreign, occupying and imperialist to the native Arabs. Not only were the natives (meaning ordinary people) Arabs, but the notables were also Arabic-speaking natives, or Arabized residents. While these notables served the purpose of bridging the gaps between the Turkish government and the natives there was a clear distinction between the notables, the administration and the natives. It was this distinction that allowed the notables to separate themselves enough from the administration, while still remaining interdependent, to gain heightened power during the mid 17th and early 18th centuries. In The Formation of an Ottoman Egyptian Elite in the 18th Century, Gabriel Piterberg describes how a barrier was built between the elite and surrounding society, the necessity of such a barrier in the recruitment system of a successful, thriving elite, and an evident dichotomy that

existed between the recruitment styles employed by the Ottoman Egyptians. An imperative aspect of Piterbergs article revolved around a so-called two-fold barrier, differentiating the elite as those who were recruited as free Muslims and those who were recruited as slaves (following the Mamluk system). The seeming paradox in this two-fold barrier is that those recruited as free Muslims became the common soldiers, while those who were recruited by this pseudo-Mamluk system as slaves generally became the highest ranking officials and senior officers. Piterberg attributes the rise of the provincial elite to the coincidental rise of the Ottoman Egyptian elite, or misirli. While a system of checks and balances was imposed on provincial governors by the central administration as a means of restraining the power of these governors, this system gave rise to the local ayan as a major constituent in the provincial administration. Despite the attempt with this system to centralize the government, the subsequent establishment of the ayan in the local government did quite the opposite. Soon after, tax duties were localized and investments were being made. Through these investments and the use of military slavery to increase their military power, the local elite greatly increased their capacity for obtaining surplus, thereby strengthening their provincial power and further differentiating themselves from the central government. In The Emergence of Ottoman Local Elites (1700-1900): A Framework for Research, by Ehud Toledano, we are introduced to the perspective that the Ottoman elites were produced dually by a process of localization and Ottomanization. Ottomanization is used to refer to the gradual political, economic, social and cultural integration of provincial notables into the Ottoman elite, which allowed the local elite to foster. Toledano stresses four main stepping stones in the process of localization. The first point mentioned is the rise of the household, or kapi, as a major military, political, economic and social unit in the provincial Ottoman setting.

These kapi can be directly paralleled to the ayan households mentioned in the works of Albert Hourani. The second point was the recruitment of non-elites into the elite households (kapis) as retainers, i.e. a fee or payment. The next step mentioned was the growing confinement of district province governors in addition to lower level officers and bureaucrats serving in one limited area. Finally, Toledano discussed the related emergence of the provincial elite, known as ayans, as a complex network of interrelations between the military administrative elite and the local population. With this duality of localization and Ottomanization, the Ottomans installed their own administration and applied their own laws and regulations as a means of integrating the province into the imperial system. This process of Ottoman inclusion really opened the way for local elites to be integrated into the governing elite. It was not long before the local elite enjoyed hegemony in the society. In Jane Hathways article, The Military Household in Ottoman Egypt, we see many parallels to both the Piterberg and Toledano articles. We see a method of recruitment similar to that of Mamluk sultanate with some slight differences (referred to as pseudo-Mamlukism in the Piterberg article), in which individuals were recruited as slaves and trained within the households of the elite (similar to the households of the sultanate). Hathaway also discusses how the imperial households faced rivalry . . . from lesser households, once again parallel to the remarks of both Piterberg and Toledano.

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