Английская Википедия:Imaret
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:For
Imaret, sometimes also known as a darüzziyafe,Шаблон:Sfnm is one of a few names used to identify the public soup kitchens built throughout the Ottoman Empire from the 14th to the 19th centuries.Шаблон:Sfn These public kitchens were often part of a larger complex known as a külliye, which could include hospices, mosques, caravanserais and colleges. The imarets gave out food that was free of charge to specific types of people and unfortunate individuals.Шаблон:Sfn Imarets were not invented by the Ottomans but developed under them as highly structured groups of buildings.Шаблон:Sfn
Etymology
The Turkish word Шаблон:Lang comes from Arabic Шаблон:Transliteration, which signified "habitation and cultivation" or "the act of building, making habitable".[1] The shift of the word's meaning to denote a religious complex or a public kitchen appears to be unique to the Ottoman context.[2]
History
According to historian Amy Singer, the imaret is an institution that is "perhaps unique to the Ottomans in its proliferation and purpose."[1] It was found throughout the Ottoman Empire and did not exist in the same manner elsewhere.Шаблон:Sfn The distribution of food to the public masses in times of emergency was known in the Middle East before the Ottomans, but the regular distribution of food on a large scale was not. Some exceptions to this existed in certain holy cities, namely Mecca, Medina, and Hebron. In Hebron, the simat al-Khalil ("table of Abraham") was a guesthouse that provided daily food to all visitors to the city, a practice going back centuries and described by 11th-century writer Nasir Khusraw.Шаблон:Sfn Mecca and Medina also had measures in place for the regular distribution of grain since at least the Mamluk period (13th to early 16th centuries).Шаблон:Sfn These examples may have inspired later Ottoman rulers.Шаблон:Sfn
Doğan Kuban notes that in early Ottoman architecture the term imaret was employed more flexibly to denote an entire religious complex (like a külliye), typically with a zaviye at its center – a religious building that catered to Sufi brotherhoods. This term appears in the original waqf documents of these complexes.Шаблон:Sfn The Nilüfer Hatun complex in Iznik, for example, is called an "imaret" but consists of a large zaviye used for Sufi religious activities.Шаблон:Sfn In later periods, the term imaret came to denote more strictly a public kitchen. Late Ottoman sources referred to earlier imaret-zaviye buildings as mosques, regardless of what their waqf documents said (also reflecting the fact that many zaviyes had been converted to formal mosques by then).Шаблон:Sfn
The first few imarets were built in Iznik and Bursa in the 1330s.Шаблон:Sfn After the first couple of centuries, the number of imarets grew in the cities as the religious complexes founded by the sultans expanded in size. By the 1530s, there were 83 imarets in the Ottoman Empire.Шаблон:Sfn Amy Singer estimates there were around 100 imarets by the end of the beginning of the 17th century.Шаблон:Sfn
Imarets and other religious complexes served as community centres of their neighbourhoods. Many such complexes were built throughout the Ottoman Empire, but especially in the central areas of Ottoman rule such as the Balkans (known as Rumelia) and Anatolia, including the capitals cities of Bursa, Edirne, and Istanbul.Шаблон:Sfn It is estimated that by the end of the 18th century, the imarets in Istanbul were feeding up to 30,000 people a day.Шаблон:Sfn
Today, the only Ottoman imaret still serving its original charitable function is the Mihrişah Sultan Complex in the Eyüp neighbourhood of Istanbul, which dates from 1796 and was founded by Mihrişah Sultan, the mother of Sultan Selim III.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn[3]
Function
Charity
Шаблон:See also Imarets served many different types of people and came to be seen as "charitable and beneficent work".Шаблон:Sfn They were philanthropic institutions because they were established as part of voluntary beneficence, which was considered charity in Muslim law. In addition, distribution of food was seen as charitable work in and of itself. Imarets belong to a particular category of voluntary charity, known as sadaqa.Шаблон:Sfn Sadaqa as voluntary charity could take many forms, including a prayer or a blessing for the sick and disabled, or a selfless act, all contributed towards good deeds in Ottoman society.Шаблон:Sfn
Imarets established by sultans and members of the imperial household were icons of charitable donations as well as imperial power.Шаблон:Sfn Each institution was named after the founder; these places could not maintain the connection between those who provided charity and those who received it, as established in private homes. The imarets and the imperial household created connections to the Ottoman dynasty as a whole and the legitimacy of the empire.Шаблон:Sfn The public kitchen illustrated how the Ottoman Empire was able to provide benefits for different sectors of people within the empire.
Endowment
A waqf (vakıf in Turkish) is an "Islamic trust" that was instrumental in establishing imarets and other religious or charitable establishments within the Muslim world.Шаблон:Sfn The waqf was a legal mechanism that earmarked sources of revenue to endow mosques, soup kitchens, and hospitals.[4][5] This enabled the sultan and other wealthy benefactors to fund essential services to citizens.
Distribution
The importance of food in the imaret has strong implications of generosity because it demonstrates the distribution of food by wealthy people to meet the needs of neighbours, fellow families, and servants. The different types of people fed in the imarets were divided along the lines of class and profession, but there were those who came to imarets as regular recipients and travellers on the move.Шаблон:Sfn Nonetheless, imarets were strictly-run establishments that carefully evaluated and observed the movement of people and the benefits they received from eating there. Although food was distributed to different types of people, strict regulations defined who ate, what they ate, how many portions they ate, and in what order.Шаблон:Sfn
At the Haseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem, for example, employees would receive one ladle of soup and two loaves of bread, guests of the establishment would receive one ladle of soup and one loaf of bread, and the poor and the sufis would received one half ladle of soup and one loaf of bread per meal.Шаблон:Sfn People also entered and ate in shifts: employees first, guests second, and the poor last. Sufis enjoyed the privilege of being allowed to send someone to collect the food on their behalf and bring it back to them. Everyone else had to eat within the imaret.Шаблон:Sfn
The Süleymaniye complex in Istanbul has strict regulations on removing food from the imaret, but these regulations were not the same at every imaret in other places.Шаблон:Sfn At times there were strangers who came to imarets with buckets to collect food to take home, but these people were not on the approved list or recipients, which meant they could not take food away.Шаблон:Sfn Poor people who were scholars or disabled were an exception to this rule and received food that was taken to them.Шаблон:Sfn People who belonged to a low economic status ate with people of the same social class as them. In addition, because there was such a wide distribution of food to various citizens of the Ottoman Empire, sometimes there would be an inadequate amount of food remaining after the notable people were fed. In this case, at times, poor women and children would go unfed.Шаблон:Sfn
Foods
A special menu was concocted for holidays and other special days on the Ottoman calendar. These special meals were based on ceremonial staples that were enjoyed across the empire. On occasional events everyone was entitled to dishes such as "dane (mutton and rice) and zerde (rice coloured and flavoured with saffron and sweetened with honey or sugar)."Шаблон:Sfn On regular days, the food served in imarets changed seasonally. The morning meal consisted of rice soup that contained butter, chickpeas, onions, and salt. The evening meal consisted of a crushed wheat soup that was made with butter.Шаблон:Sfn
Notable examples
The first institution of this kind is said to have been founded in 1336, by Sultan Orhan I, in Iznik, Anatolia. Ever since, such imarets became an inseparable part of the urban landscape in most of the Muslim cities of the Ottoman Empire.Шаблон:Sfn
Hurrem Sultan, a wife of Suleiman I, established the Haseki Sultan Imaret in Jerusalem in the mid 16th century. It distributed around 1,000 loaves of bread daily. The recipients of bread and soup included employees, people living in the caravansarai of the imaret, the followers of a local sufi shaykh, and 400 people characterized as "poor and wretched, weak and needy."Шаблон:Sfn This imaret ended up becoming one of the largest and best known throughout the empire, serving a wide variety of people, including the ulama, the poor, pilgrims and the wealthy and prominent members of Jerusalem.Шаблон:Sfn
Another institution was the Fatih Mosque complex that was constructed in Istanbul between 1463 and 1471 by Mehmed II the Conqueror. The imaret located within this complex served a diverse group of people including dignitaries, travelers, scholars, and students from the Fatih colleges.Шаблон:Sfn The hospital staff members and the workers of the mosques and tombs were also fed in this complex. Once these people were fed, the food left over was given to the poor. Similar to other imarets, the Fatih imaret served rice soup in the morning and wheat soup in the evening.Шаблон:Sfn Travellers who stayed overnight at the hotel within the complex received honey and bread to help revitalise them after a long journey.Шаблон:Sfn The Fatih complex provided meals for over 160 high-ranking guests. They received meals such as dane and sometimes zerde as well.Шаблон:Sfn These dishes were given to the other members of the imaret only once a week. Those who were noble in rank were treated to dishes that included pumpkin jam, cinnamon and cloves. They also ate considerable portions of meat and rice.Шаблон:Sfn
References
Citations
Bibliography
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Further reading
- Barkhan, Lutfi. McCarthy, Justin. “ The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century: A Turning Point in the Economic History of the near East.” International Journal of Middles East Studies, Vol 6, No.1 (1975): 3-28.
- Barnes, Robert. 1986. An Introduction to Religious Foundations in the Ottoman Empire. Leiden: Brill.
- Griswold, William J. 1984. “A Sixteenth Century Ottoman Pious Foundation.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 27, 2: 175–198.
- Jennings. Ronald C. 1990. “Pious Foundations in the Society and Economy of Ottoman Trabzon, 1565-1640.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 33, 3: 271–336.
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Shaham, Ron. “ Christian and Jewish “Waqf” in Palestine during the Late Ottoman Period.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol 54, No. 3 (1991): 460–472.
