Ottoman state intervention in agriculture: beginning of credit banking within the nineteenth century Ottoman Empire

Abstract

This thesis is a study on the importance of the Credit Funds for the agricultural life of the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the nineteenth century. In this context, special importance is given to the bureaucratic and financial efforts of the government and its ministries at spreading the Funds all over the empire. It is argued that the Sublime Porte while bureaucratizing the Funds and increasing and stabilizing the Funds’ capital aimed the prevention of the rise of notables. However the efforts of the government were resulted with the increase of the abuses of Funds by notables, government officials, and tax payers. The aim of this thesis is to display the contribution of the Funds to the agricultural life of the Ottoman Empire. Despite the fact that they disappeared from the agricultural scene of the empire in 1888, the Credit Funds worked for the solution of credit problems of the cultivators and the promotion of the infrastructure of many provinces.