Ziamet was a form of

land tenure In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "tenir" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land owned by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individual ...

in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

, consisting in grant of lands or revenues by the

Ottoman Sultan The sultans of the Ottoman Empire ( tr, Osmanlı padişahları), who were all members of the Ottoman dynasty (House of Osman), ruled over the transcontinental empire from its perceived inception in 1299 to its dissolution in 1922. At its hei ...

to an individual in compensation for their services, especially military services. The ziamet system was introduced by

Osman I Osman I or Osman Ghazi ( ota, عثمان غازى, translit= ʿOsmān Ġāzī; tr, I. Osman or ''Osman Gazi''; died 1323/4), sometimes transliterated archaically as Othman, was the founder of the Ottoman Empire (first known as the Ottoman Bey ...

, who granted land tenure to his

troop A troop is a military sub-subunit, originally a small formation of cavalry, subordinate to a squadron. In many armies a troop is the equivalent element to the infantry section or platoon. Exceptions are the US Cavalry and the King's Tr ...

s. Later, this system was expanded by

Murad I Murad I ( ota, مراد اول; tr, I. Murad, Murad-ı Hüdavendigâr (nicknamed ''Hüdavendigâr'', from fa, خداوندگار, translit=Khodāvandgār, lit=the devotee of God – meaning "sovereign" in this context); 29 June 1326 – 15 Jun ...

for his

Sipahi ''Sipahi'' ( ota, سپاهی, translit=sipâhi, label=Persian, ) were professional cavalrymen deployed by the Seljuks, and later the Ottoman Empire, including the land grant-holding (''timar'') provincial '' timarli sipahi'', which constituted ...

Background

The Seljuq state, prior to the rise of the Ottoman State in the 14th century, utilized ziamets in an effort to implement provincial governors, who were also made subordinate chiefs in the military regime. In this pre-Ottoman period, timars were used with other tactics, such as building

caravansaries A caravanserai (or caravansary; ) was a roadside inn where travelers ( caravaners) could rest and recover from the day's journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information and people across the network of trade routes covering ...

, in an effort to

sedentarize In cultural anthropology, sedentism (sometimes called sedentariness; compare sedentarism) is the practice of living in one place for a long time. , the large majority of people belong to sedentary cultures. In evolutionary anthropology and a ...

nomadic A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...

groups. The Ottoman state later took on this "timar system" after conquering

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

, and it represented just one of several institutions apparent in the Ottoman Empire derived from the Seljuq state.

History

The Ottoman Empire came into disarray due to problems asserting "central government control" during the 16th and 17th centuries. They needed a way to reassert their military might. Ziamets of Ottoman cavalry were enlarged and turned over to a smaller number of owners, with a longer tenure. Thus, authority in provincial areas turned to police authority as local administrations dissolved, and ziamets were converted into

tax-farms Farming or tax-farming is a technique of financial management in which the management of a variable revenue stream is assigned by legal contract to a third party and the holder of the revenue stream receives fixed periodic rents from the contract ...

or iqta. This conversion of ziamets into tax-farms proved to be the first step to growing provincial control in the Ottoman Empire, as economic decline in the empire gave these stronger provincial

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

s the chance to assert power. The ziamet holder acted as an agent of the central Ottoman government in supervising the possession, transfer, and rental of lands within his territory, and collecting tax revenue, in return for military service. A timar was not necessarily made up of contiguous property but could consist of property scattered among different villages. A timar holder is a zaim.

Zeamet

A ''Zeamet'' was the appellative given to a land in the

timar A timar was a land grant by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, with an annual tax revenue of less than 20,000 akçes. The revenues produced from the land acted as compensation for military service ...

system during the

between the 14th and 16th centuries, that had a tax revenue with an annual value between 20,000 and 100,000

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (also spelled ''akche'', ''akcheh''; ota, آقچه; ) refers to a silver coin which was the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. The word itself evolved from the word "silver or silver money", this word is der ...

s. The revenues produced from the land acted as compensation for military services.

Notes

{{Reflist Medieval economics Land management in the Ottoman Empire Turkish words and phrases