Historicizing the Ottoman Timar System: Identities of Timar-Holders, Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries

This article aims to develop a new narrative of changes in the Ottoman timar system independent of the complaints of decline brought by advice writers like Mustafa ‘Ali. Based on the icmal defterleri , it examines the identities of timar -holders and their changes over time, a topic generally ignored in descriptions of the Ottoman military. Using data from earlier studies, it connects changes in timar -holding with changing conditions in the sultans’ reigns. It then takes a longer-term look at these changes over the half-centuries and finds the well-known complaints in the nasihatnameler to be based on a very short-term view of the system.