The Ottoman Monetary Crisis of 1585 Revisited

The Ottoman Monetary Crisis of 1585 Revisited
Author(s): Baki Tezcan

Source: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 52, No. 3 (2009), pp.
460-504
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Journal of theEconomic and
BRILLSocial History of the Orient 52 (2009) 460-504
brill.nl/jesh
The Ottoman Monetary Crisis of 1585 Revisited

Baki Tezcan*
Abstract
In 1585-8,
44%.
silver currency, the akge, was officially devalued by 100% against

its silver content was reduced by
and
ducat
foreign silver currencies, and
gold
as a consequence
of
and debasement
scholars have interpreted this devaluation
the Ottoman
theVenetian
Some
the silver influx from the Americas,
others have
whereas
to face in
itswar
financing
that the unification of a number
study suggests
referred to the difficulties
that the
effort against the Safavids in Persia. This

zones in an
of distinct regional monetary
state had
Ottoman
must
interregional imperial economy by the second half of the sixteenth century
as an
to the monetary
crisis
of
that
factor
contributed
1585.
important
be regarded
lamonnaie
1585-88,I'akge,
d'argent ottomane, fut devaluee officiellement de 100% par
et le pourcentage
d'ar
rapport au ducat d'or venitien et lesmonnaies
d'argent etrangeres,
et cette
cette
en
devaluation
Certains
chercheurs
fut
reduit
de
44%.
interpretent
gent
En
comme etant la consequence

depreciation
disque d'autres attribuent les problemes
contre
les Safavides
de zones monetaires
dans
interregionale
Empire,
contribution
regionales qui differaient

la seconde moitie du XVT
ayant contribue
important
Keywords
Ottoman
d'Iran. Cette
de
de
a la crise monetaire
devaluation,
debasement,
tan
l'influx d'argent venant des Ameriques,
au financement
des guerres
l'etat ottoman
suggere que l'unification d'un bon nombre

entre elles en une seule economie
imperiale
siecle doit etre regardee comme un facteur
de 1585.
economic
integration, monetarization
of the enigmas of earlymodern Ottoman history has been the debase

ment of themain Ottoman silver currency, the akge, around 1585. Almost
425 years after the event neither the exact date of the debasement nor the
One
dynamics
Although
*) Baki
that brought it about can be established with any precision.

most scholars acknowledge
the existence of a relationship
Tezcan,
Assistant
History, and Religious

ucdavis.edu.
Professor
Studies
? Koninklijke BrillNV, Leiden,
of History,
Program,
and Religious
Studies,
of California, Davis,
University
2009
DOI:
Department
USA,
of
btezcan@
10.1163/156852009X458223

The Ottoman
MonetaryCrisisof1585 RevisitedAG1
between the influx of Spanish silver from theAmericas into theOttoman
an abundance of silver should
Empire and the debasement, the reason why
a debasement of the silver currency is not quite clear.
about
such
bring
to Bernard Lewis, "[t]he Ottoman
rulers, accustomed to crises
According
or
to
meet a crisis
were
unable
of shortage,
understand
quite
resulting from
an excess of silver," and thus took the same measures that theywould have
taken if they faced a shortage, hence the debasement.1
Halil Inalcik asserts that the devaluation and debasement were "a conse
quence of the flood ofAmerican silver."The relationship he creates between

the two events is based on the theory of a general price increase caused by
the influx of American silver followed by a devaluation and debasement
which was
sets of data,
inspired by Earl Hamilton's work.2 Using multiple
Omer Lutfi Barkan demonstrates that theOttoman economy experienced
was very similar to the
a
changes in the Euro
general price increase which
to
in
rise
the
Barkan,
pean economy. According
prices and the devaluation
of the akce were parallel developments thatwere brought about by "inter
in precious metals, changes in trade patterns, the
national movements
tremendous expenditures of the Ottoman
government for various wars
undertaken at the time, and a great population increase which took place
inmost of Europe, as well as in the remainder of theMediterranean world,
during the sixteenth century."3

?evket Pamuk has recently revised Barkan's price indices and found an
error in his calculations for the years 1555 and 1573, the
only years in the
sixteenth century prior to the devaluation forwhich Barkan had price data.
After Pamuk's correction, the price increases between 1489 and 1573
expressed in grams of silverwere reduced to 31% from 60%. After this
1) Bernard
Islamica
2) Halil
Lewis,
9 (1958):
"Some
Reflections
on
the Decline
of the Ottoman
Empire."
Studia
119-20.
"Notes
on a
and
Study of the Turkish Economy
during the Establishment
Tr.
Howard
translation
of
"Osmanh
[revised
Empire."
Douglas
Impa
kurulus ve inkisafi devrinde Turkiye'nin
iktisadi vaziyeti iizerinde bir tetkik
Inalcik,
Rise of the Ottoman

ratorlugunun
munasebetiyle."Belleten 15 (1951): 629-90]. In TheMiddle East and theBalkans underthe
on
Inalcik (Bloomington:
Indiana Uni
Empire: Essays
Economy and Society, Halil
Turkish
Earl
"American
Treasure
and
Studies,
241,
Hamilton,
1993):
243-4;
J.
versity
A Study in the
Andalusian
1503-1660:
Prices,
Journal
Spanish Price Revolution."
of
Ottoman
1 (1928):
and Business History
1-35
"The Price Revolution
of the Sixteenth Century: A Turning Point in
the Economic
of
the
Near
East."
Tr.
Justin McCarthy
History
[abridged translation with
revisions of "XVI. asnn ikinci
yansinda Turkiye'de
fiyat hareketleri." Belleten 34 (1970):
Economic
3) Omer
L. Barkan,
Middle East StudiesG (1975): 13.

557-607]. International
Journalof

462 B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504

correction, the debasement and devaluation appear to have preceded the
rise in prices, rather than followed them.4 Actually, prices of barley, rye,
and wheat taken from inheritance records in Edirne by Barkan in another
some fluctuations in-between, the prices of
study also indicate that, despite
1543 and 1582 are almost identical, which suggests that the sharp infla
tion actually started in themid 1580s, in other words around the time of
the devaluation.5
These findings support Niels Steensgaard s argument that the increase in

not before. Both
prices should have started after the devaluation and
of
the
that
the
debasement
Pamuk
and
currency has to
suggest
Steensgaard
to
the treasury.
terms
of the scarcity of funds available
be explained in
More specifically, Pamuk states that "[w]ith the outbreak of another war
with Iran in 1578, the treasury began to experience shortages of silver for
wars of the late
payments to the soldiers."6 It is definitely true that the long
sixteenth century created a burden on theOttoman treasury.The extent of

this burden, however, seems to be somewhat exaggerated.
to the balance sheet of the imperial treasury for the fiscal year
According
four
1582-3,
years after the outbreak of theOttoman-Safavid war, Ottoman
III
finances actually seemed to be doing well. Despite the fact thatMurad
more
was
revenues coming from Egypt, which
appropriated all of the
than 520,000 gold ducats, or 31,200,000
akces, for his personal treasury,
akces.7 This surplus was
the central treasury had a surplus of 2,071,212
4)
Uni
of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge
also
See
Hareketleri":
569.
Pamuk,
122; compare Barkan, "Fiyat
?evket
versity Press, 2000):
International Journal of
in the Ottoman
"The Price Revolution
Empire Reconsidered."
?evket Pamuk, A Monetary
Middle
East
Studies
33
History
(2001):
69-89;
?evket
Pamuk,
"Prices
in the Ottoman
Empire,
Middle East Studies?>G(2004): 451-68; ?evketPamuk,

1469-1914."International
Journalof
ve
Yilhk Fiyatlar ve Ucretler, 1469-1998
Diger Kentlerde 500
tistik Enstitusu, 2000).
5) Omer L.
ait tereke defterleri
Barkan, "Edirne Askeri Kassami'na
Istanbul
(Ankara: Devlet
(1545-1659)."
Ista
Belgeler
3.5-6 (1966): 87, 155, 447.

6) Niels
The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: The East India
Steensgaard,
Press,
Trade (Chicago: The University of Chicago
theDecline
and
of the Caravan
Companies
1974): 79; Pamuk,AMonetaryHistory oftheOttomanEmpire: 125, 132, 137.
7) The
donem
(Tanzimat
by Baki (Jakir, "Geleneksel
ve
Kurumlar
In
Osmank
biitce gelirleri."
Butgeler, eds M. Gene
oncesi) Osmanh
Maliyesi:
Bankasi Arsiv ve Arastirma Merkezi,
2006): vol.
and E. Ozvar. 2 vols. (Istanbul: Osmanh
to (fakir's
error, the deficit according
1: 171, is misleading.
First, there is a calculation
not include the treasury's
akces. Second,
numbers should have been 8,841,285
(Jakir did
akces from tefdviit, an income item that is constituted by the difference
profit of 4,912,497
of exchange rates in receiving and expending funds in currencies other than the akce. While
deficit of 12,830,005
akces noted

The Ottoman
MonetaryCrisisof1585 Revisited463
a total of 38,207 soldiers,
including auxiliary
more than in 1574.
troops and cadets, received regular salaries?9,000
Moreover,
10,000,000 akces were sent to Ozdemiroglu Osman Pasha in
achieved at a time when
Shirvan for the payment of his troops, numbering at least another 4,000.8
Thus as late as 1583, in themidst of the Safavid wars, while the number of
people who received salaries from the treasury had increased by almost
50% in the previous ten years, the Ottoman central treasurywas able to
deal with the situation, despite the fact thatmore than 11% of the reve
totaled 279,649,967
akces, were transferred to the personal
were
thus not available to cover expenditures.
treasury of the sultan and
nues, which
It is therefore justified to ask why the Ottoman government devalued

the akce by 100% and debased its silver content by 44% almost immedi
ately afterwards, if the financial picture was this rosy. Following the lead of
Halil Sahillioglu,91 argue that theOttoman government responded to the
dictate ofmarket forces,which had already practically debased the akce as
a result of the unification of theOttoman currency zones. As will be shown,
the treasury counted most gold ducats for 59 akces when

it received them as income, for
instance, itvalued them at 60 akces when it spent them; on this practice and its later evolu
"Tefavut." Osmanh Ara?ttrmalan
I Journal of Ottoman Studies 24
tion, see Baki Tezcan,
The 6,000,000
akce credit the treasury received from the sultan is also not
its repayment is noted among the
among the income items although
expendi
tures. If one were to revise the total income
it rises to 279,649,967
akces,
accordingly,
a
"III. Murad
donemine
ait 1582
akces; Halil Sahillioglu,
producing
surplus of 2,071,212
333-44.
(2004):
included
ve Biitceler, eds
In Osmanh
tarihli biitce?ceviriyazi."
Kurumlar
(hicri 990)
Maliyesi
and E. Ozvar. 2 vols. (Istanbul: Osmanh
Bankasi Arsiv ve Arastirma Merkezi,
2006):
vol. 2: 33, 46. The surplus of 36,165,890
akces for the same year that is shown in Pamuk,
A Monetary History
carried over to
133, is the amount of money
of the Ottoman Empire:
83
M.
Gene
the next fiscal year, which

includes funds worth 34,094,678
akces that were carried over
from the previous year; the difference between them, 2,071,212
to the
akces, is equivalent
actual surplus.
8)The
soldiers
figuresfor 1583 [and 1574] are: 16,905 [13,599] janissaries,8,346 [5,957] cavalry
(altt boluk), 3,736
[2,124]
auxiliary
troops
(cebeciydn, tobciydn, arabaciyan-i
fob),
and 9,220 [7,495]cadets (acemiydn),

making a totalof38,207 [29,175] souls.Since 16,905
akces, 10,000,000 would be enough to pay the yearly sala
janissaries received 39,008,019
ries of another 4,000
Pashas
soldiers were
janissaries. Yet since most probably Osman
recruited to become janissaries after a few years of service, their pay scale should have been
lower, so he may have had more than 4,000 troops; for 1583 figures see Sahillioglu,
"1582
83 tarihlibiitce":45; for 1574 figures,seeKoci Bey,Kogi BeyRisalesi,ed.Ali Kemali Aksiit

(Istanbul: Vakit, 1939): 27-8.
9) Halil
"Kurulustan
Sahillioglu,
XVTI.
dir deneme."
(Istanbul Universitesi,
Ph.D.
dissertation
asnn
sonlanna
kadar Osmanh
para
1958).

tarihi uzerinde
464
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
the different currency market zones of the Ottoman Empire operated

on different
ratios. The debasement of the akce was closely
gold?silver
related to the unification of these zones and the consequent disappearance
ratiosmoved closer
of arbitrage opportunities as the different gold?silver
to each other.
lands
The first section of the study focuses on the former Mamluk
ratio in the Levant and Egypt
and demonstrates that the gold?silver
was different from the one in the central lands of the Ottoman Empire
in the early sixteenth century. Yet by the mid-sixteenth century this

ratio had come much closer to the one prevalent in Istanbul. The second
section concentrates on the former Safavid lands of theOttoman Empire

and argues that a Persian devaluation in themid-sixteenth century changed
silver more valuable
ratio in these lands, making
the gold?silver
an
Ottoman
silver currency, the sahi, that
in terms of gold and creating
was overvalued
in terms of its silver content. As the connections between
the sahi zone and the Levant

under the Ottomans,
Levant as well.
increased as a result of their unification

issues related to the sahi affected the
the monetary
In the third section, I will point out that the arrival of Spanish silver
from theAmericas intensified the expansion of the sahi's use in the empire
tomint overvalued silver coinage which liter
by providing ample supplies
a
in the gold?sil
ally invaded theOttoman domains, threatening change
ver ratio at the center. Consequently, the value of silver increased above the
level that could support the weight and fineness of the akce. In the last
section Iwill argue that these results proved to be disadvantageous for the
Ottoman center as theOttoman
treasury had a vested interest in keeping
more expensive in relation to silver in the capital. Thus in 1585 the
gold
administration not only acknowledged a situation created by
Ottoman
market forces but also made an effort to intervene by trying to increase the
value of gold against silver.Yet the effortof the administration failed, and
in 1600 theOttoman center finally revalued silver in relation to gold.
I
a new region, the Ottoman administra
the Ottomans
conquered
to unify its dominions under a
not
at
endeavor
did
least
tion,
initially,
to
the local traditions of the areas
follow
single law; theymostly continued
matters relating to
that were brought under Ottoman
sovereignty in
When

The Ottoman
or just a
policy,10
matter of necessity in the relative absence of efficient central political
tools of enforcement, is open to debate. Different regional currencies were
among the local practices that theOttoman administration continued to
taxation and land laws.Whether
this was
a conscious
allow in its eastern and southern provinces. Thus the empire was divided
into a number of currency zones inwhich coins of differentweights con
stituted themajor denomination in daily use. As will be shown later in this
zones as
study, the Ottoman center benefited from the existence of these
as
was
was in the
in
it
them
than
comparatively cheaper
capital.
gold
long
limits of these zones were probably dictated by the geographical

units rather than by political boundaries. For
its
instance, despite
political unity, the Safavid Empire included two dis
tinct currency zones. Similarly, although both greater Syria and theHejaz
had been part of theMamluk Empire, the two regions had slightlydifferent
units of silver currency.11Thus, as the political inheritor of different eco
nomic zones, theOttoman Empire consisted of different currency zones.
Although the akce reigned supreme in the central lands of the empire,
that is to say in the Balkans and inwestern as well as central Anatolia,12 the
The
limits of the economic
eastern and southern lands thatwere

conquered in the sixteenth century
used quite a number of different currencies. As will be discussed below, the
exchange values of these currencies among themselves seem to have been
ratios. Thus rather than the silver

determined by the regional gold?silver
content of the coins in question, their
varying values against theVenetian
ducat, or the Ottoman
sultani^ seem to have been the decisive factor in
10) See Halil
of Conquest."
Studia Islamica 2 (1954):
103-29.
Inalcik, "Ottoman Methods
Stephen Album, A Checklist of Islamic Coins, second ed. (Santa Rosa: Stephen Album,
and Mecca,
for instance, are valued
in an
1998): 126. The silver coins of Aleppo
differently
"The Role of
inventory of the Ottoman
imperial treasury from 1518; Halil
Sahillioglu,
n)
International
in Ottoman
and Metal Movements
1300
Monetary
Monetary
History,
1750." Tr. liter Turan and Rhoads Murphey
[translation of "Osmanh para tarihinde diinya
hareketlerinin
Issue (1978):
para ve maden
yeri (1300-1750)."
Geli?me Dergisi
Special
In
in the Later Medieval
Precious
Metals
and
1-38].
Early Modern Worlds, ed. J. F. Richards
(Durham: Carolina Academic

Press, 1983): 297, Table 4a.
12) I
use of the akce inAnatolia
would
and the Balkans by the
suggest that the widespread
of the sixteenth century must have been the result of a
beginning
long process of economic
a certain
if studied, may shed further
which,
integration and
degree of monetarization,
on the various debasements
II.
under
Mehmed
light
13) In the
ducat and the Ottoman
period under study the two gold coins, the Venetian
terms to
sultani, were identical in weight and fineness. Since I use a number of Ottoman

466
the establishment
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504

of their exchange values
among
themselves
in their
respective regions.
In the formerMamluk
lands of Egypt and greater Syria, for instance,

the standard coin in circulation was heavier than the akce. Among a sam
ple of 67 extant coins struck during the reign of Selim I (r. 1512-20) right
after the conquest of theMamluk Empire in Jidda (1), Damascus
(23),
Aleppo (33),Hudayda (1), and Egypt (9)?if one excludesfourcoins the

were
or lower than 0.73 g., which was the stand
weights ofwhich
equal to
ard weight of the akce at the time?the average weight of the remaining 63
coins is 0.89 g.14

cannot be relied on to
cur
Although these weights
judge the standard
as
coins
of
the
the
have
been
rencyweight
may
region,
clipped, they do
was
area
that
the
standard
silver
of
the
heavier
than the
currency
suggest
akce. This is supported by archival evidence to the effect that the silver
coins struck inAleppo were worth 2 akces in 1518 and were called pare or
para (piece), most probably after the ??/Xhalf), or qita (piece), theArabic
terms used to denote the standard Mamluk
silver coin introduced by the
ruler al-Mu'ayyad (r. 1412-21), themuayyadi, which the Europe
as
ans called maidinP This difference in the silver standard of the
region,
Mamluk
well as the name given to the local coins by the Ottomans,

suggests that
local currency in the area was modeled on the one used in
the Ottoman
times.
Mamluk
cur
At the time the Ottomans
conquered the Levant and Egypt, the
to have been in disarray.
rency situation in theMamluk
Empire seems
were of the same stand
Although it is asserted that theMamluk gold coins
ard as theVenetian ducats and theOttoman sultanis, the archival and liter
ary evidence suggests otherwise. The weight of theMamluk

gold ashrafi
seems to have varied from one Mamluk
sultans reign to the next, and from
was also reflected in the exchange

to Syria. This difference in
Egypt
weight
value of the ashrafi,which at times fell below that of theVenetian ducat.16
I
in circulation,
prefer the ducat
in order to prevent further confusion
of
the
region
gold
term.
another Ottoman
14)
Sultan Yavuz Selim ?ah bin Bayazid Han Donemi
Ciineyt Olcer,
denote
dard
the different silver currencies

coin
to denote
by
introducing
Osmanli
(Istanbul:Yenilik, 1989): 182-6.
the stan
yet
Sikkeleri
15)On
Sul
the origins of the designation
nisf, see Paul Balog, The Coinage of theMamluk
tans
American Numismatic
The
387.
York:
and
47,
1964):
(New
Society,
Syria
ofEgypt
16)
"Osmanli
Ottoman Empire:
95; Sahillioglu,
Pamuk, A Monetary History
para
of the
ve
Tahlilleri.
Hukuki
Kanunnameleri
Osmanli
tarihi": 96, n. 9; Ahmed Akgiinduz,
ed.,

The Ottoman
MonetaryCrisisof1585 Revisited 467
was less than the Otto
gold coin
Although theweight of theMamluk
was
more than theOtto
man one, that of the standardMamluk
silver coin
man akce,
in
late
fifteenth
the
around
1.4-1.5
century, and ca.
g.
weighing
1.1 g. in the early sixteenth century, if one were to rely on theweight of
extant coins.When Selim I conquered the area, the gold coins struck in his
were the most
name followed the standard of the
ghawri ashrafls, which
recent and the least valuable in terms of silver currency.Yet the silver coins
struck in the name of Selim I by the firstOttoman governor of Egypt seem
to have lowered standards even more, and probably continued the trend of
debasement visible since the late fifteenth century.17

Around
1522, new silver coins were struck that were decreed to be
to the value of two and a half of the former coins, meaning
equivalent
those that had been struck by the firstOttoman governor. Twenty-five of
the new silver coins were
to be worth
one
gold ducat. Although there

seems to have been quite a bit of opposition to this policy, the Ottoman
administrative code (kanunname) of Egypt, dated to 1524-5, sanctioned it.
to this code, out of a 100 dirhems (307.2
According
g.) mix of silver and
was
were
to
to be struck. Thus
contain
which
84%
silver,250 paras
copper,
was
to
each para
supposed
weigh 1.23 g. and contain 1.03 g. of silver.Not
the
average weight of a sample of 4 silver coins struck inEgypt
surprisingly,
in the name of Siileyman I (r. 1520-66)
is thus 1.22 g. Moreover,
25 of these paras were to equal the value of a gold coin struck in accord
ance with the standards of Istanbul, and the future
to be struck
gold coins
in Egypt were to follow that standard, that is ca. 3.55 g. of pure
gold for
a sultani.18
no conclusive evidence, what seems to have

Although there is
happened
in 1522, and was indeed sanctioned in 1524-5, was a restoration of the
9 vols.
Arastirmalan
vol. 3: 260, 272;
Vakfi,
(Istanbul: Osmanh
1990-6):
Sahillioglu,
"Ottoman Monetary History":
Osmanh
biit
"1524-1525
297, Table 4a; Halil Sahillioglu,
cesi." Istanbul Universitesi Iktisat Fakiiltesi Mecmuasi
41 (1982-3):
434, 437-8.
17)Norman
D. Nicol,
Raafet El-Nabarawy,
and Jere L. Bacharach,
eds, Catalog
of the
Islamic Coins, Glass Weights, Dies
in the Egyptian National
and Medals
Cairo
Library,
"Osmanh
Publications,
(Malibu, CA: Undena
1982): 95, 98; Sahillioglu,
para tarihi":
96-7,
n. 9, 11; Olcer,
Osmanh
Sikkeleri:
159; Stanford J. Shaw, The Financial
istrative
and Admin
and Development
(Princeton: Princeton
Organization
ofOttoman Egypt, 1517-1798
65.
Press,
1962):
University
18)
"Osmanh
Sultan Suleyman
para tarihi": 97, n. 11; ibrahim Artuk, Kanuni
Sahillioglu,
Adma Basilan Sikkeler (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu,
Osmanh
1972): 64-65; Akgundiiz,
Kanunndmeleri;
vol. 6:
139.

468
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
standards, as the administrative code refers to the exchange rate

of 25 paras to the ducat as the "old law (kanun-i kadim)"19 Unfortunately,
we do not know the exact
silver
weight and fineness of the lastMamluk
Mamluk
coins, but Eliyahu Ashtor, relying on the account of a contemporary Euro

pean traveler, suggests that 25 made a ducat in 1507, and that the gold?
silver ratio accompanying this exchange ratewas 1:8.5, which signifies a
a silver
sharp increase in the value of silver against gold hence implying
scarcity, as, according to Ashtor, the ratio in 1497 had been 1:11.1. The
in 1522 and sanctioned in
ratio instituted by the Ottomans
gold?silver
1524-5 was
1:7.25.20 Thus either theOttomans had further increased the

value of silver against gold, or this increase had already taken place between
1507 and 1517, the date of the Ottoman conquest. Actually, Balog sug
al
silver coins struck during the reign ofQansawh
gests that theMamluk
(1501-16) "were drastically reduced to a mere 1 gram." If this last

ratio at
reduction had not changed the value of the ducat, the gold?silver
the time theOttomans conquered Egypt might have been around 1:7.14,
It is beyond
which is quite close to the one instituted by the Ottomans.
Ghawri
administration sanctioned a gold?

doubt, however, that the Ottoman
was
from
the one prevalent in Istanbul,
ratio
that
silver
quite different
which was 1:11.3 at the time.21
ratios point toward the existence of great

varying gold?silver
from the large discrepancy between
which
resulted
arbitrage opportunities
the value of gold in Istanbul and Egypt. In Istanbul a gold ducat was worth
55 akces, each containing 0.73 g. of silver,which would make a littlemore
than 40 g. of silver,while in Egypt the same gold coin could be obtained
These
less than 26 g. of silver.Thus 26 g. of silver coinage exchanged with

was worth 40 g. of silver in Istanbul. Apparently, silverwas
in
Egypt
gold
much more valuable in Egypt than in Istanbul, or gold was much cheaper,
which suggests that silverwould have moved south to Egypt while gold
would have headed north to Istanbul. The latter part of this equation is
with
19)
Akgiindiiz,
20)
Osmanh
Kanunnameleri:
Eliyahu Ashtor, Les metauxprecieux
vol. 6: 124.
et la balance
despayements
du proche-orient
a la basse
epoque (Paris:SEVPEN, 1971): 49. The gold?silver ratiomay be calculatedbymultiply
content of the silver currency with its exchange rate against the gold currency,
ing the silver
= 7.25.
and then dividing the result by the weight of the gold currency: (1.03 x 25): 3.55
21)
Sultans: 43. At that time 420 akces were struck from
The Coinage of theMamluk
Balog,
100 dirhems (307.2 g.) of pure silver, so an akce contained 0.73 g. of silver. 55 akces made
"Osmanh
a ducat. Thus (0.73 x 55): 3.55 = 11.3; Sahillioglu, "1524-1525":
434; Sahillioglu,
64.
tarihi'>:
42,
para

The Ottoman
verified by the fact that Egypt sent its tribute to the Ottoman
capital in
a
gold coins, point thatwill be revisited below.
It is also interesting to note thatwhile the Egyptian para contained only
1.03 g. of silver, itwas valued at 2 akces in relation to theOttoman akce,
which was supposed to contain 0.73 g. of silver at that time.22 Intrinsically,
the para should have been worth 1.4 akces, or 1.5 akces at themost. Thus
the Egyptian para was definitely overvalued in terms of its silver content.
This only makes sense when the exchange value of the para and the akce
against the gold ducat is taken into consideration. Using the gold ducat as
a measure
towhich 25 paras equaled 55 akces, one would expect
according
the para to be worth 2.2 akces (55/25). This is significantly closer to the
official exchange rate of 2 akces to the para. The respective values of the
para and the akce against the ducat must therefore have been decisive for
a comparison of
establishing their exchange values against each other?not
their silver contents.
The available evidence thus suggests that Egypt and the Levant which
para zone, on the one hand, and Anatolia and
constituted the Ottoman
the akce reigned supreme, on the other, had different

ratios in the early sixteenth century.
these two
gold?silver
Although
are
to
was
new.
not
close
each
this
difference
For
other,
instance,
regions
for the Middle Ages, the ratio of gold to silver is
to have
suggested
been 1:14 in theMuslim Middle East while itwas 1:18 in Byzantium.23
What
this meant in practice was that one could get a unit of gold in
the Balkans, where
exchange for 14 units of silver in Cairo, go to Constantinople,

exchange
that unit of gold for 18 units of silver, bring the silver to Cairo, convert it
to gold again, and
keep an extra 4 units of silver as a 28.6% profit created
by arbitrage opportunities. This same sort of opportunity apparently also

existed in the early sixteenth century, as the gold?silver
ratios in Cairo
and Istanbul were 1:7.25 and 1:11.3, respectively.
occur when two market zones function rela
Arbitrage opportunities
tively independently from each other; due to less developed market rela
tions zones are either not well informed about each other's
respective
22) For
see
the value of the para in terms of the akce in
Osmanli Kanun
Egypt,
Akgiinduz,
area that date from
6; 111. Three financial regulations from the Adana
ca. 1526, 1536, and 1547
rate of the para as 2 akces as well;
give the exchange
Akgunduz,
Osmanli Kanunndmeleri:
vol. 5: 608, 613, vol. 7: 191.
23) K. N.
"The Economic
and Monetary
Problem of European
Trade with
Chaudhuri,
Asia during the Seventeenth and
The Journal
Eighteenth Centuries."
ofEuropean Economic
ndmeleri'. vol.
History4 (1975): 343.

470
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
conditions, or they are not engaged in a sufficient number of transactions

to have an influence on each other. If, on the other hand, these two zones
to each other, the movement of
had been economically well-connected
silver to the place where itwas more valuable in terms of gold would even
ratios in both regions, bringing them to the
tually alter the gold?silver
same level, atwhich point
no
arbitrage profitswould
longer be possible. It
seems that such a
development did indeed take place with regard to the
Levant and the central lands of the Ottoman

of the sixteenth century.
Andrea Berengo, whose
Empire during the firsthalf
letters from Aleppo written in 1555-6 have

to establish the
been published, provides
weight and the
rate of the para
states
this
He
that
6 maidins, or
period.
exchange
during
a
a
were
Venetian
worth
silver
of
almost pure
currency
paras,
mocenigo,
some data
silver that weighed 6.52 g. To be more precise, Berengo notes that

47 mocenigos were exchanged for 300 maidins in terms of theirweight,
which suggests that each para contained 1.02 g. of silver. This silver con
tent is quite close to the prescribed silver content of the para, 1.03 g. Yet
the exchange value he assigns to the ducat is 40 paras,24which iswell above
the prescribed rate of 25 paras in the administrative code of Egypt.

At 40 paras a ducat with each para containing 1.03 g. of silver, a ducat
was worth 41.2 g. of silver in the Levant in 1555, which gives a gold?
silver ratio of 1:11.6. However, in Istanbul, the ducat was worth 60 akces
around the same time.With each akce containing 0.73 g. of silver, this
ratio of 1:12.34.
would make 43.8 g. of silver and indicate a gold?silver
ratio
Thus, in the thirty years between 1525 and 1555, the gold?silver
came much closer to the one in the
in
Levant
the
prevalent
apparently
central lands of theOttoman Empire, most probably as a result of increas
out the differences which had
ing commercial connections that evened
created the arbitrage profits in the first place. Moreover, the exchange rate
of the akce against the para changed to reflect the new value of the ducat
in paras. Whereas
the para was valued at 2 akces in 1525 when 25 paras
a
made
ducat, later rates suggest that 1.5 akces were counted as the equiv
alent of one para, which makes sense since now 40 paras and 60 akces
in terms of the value of the ducat.25
equaled each other
24)
UgoTucci,
ed., Lettresdun marchandvenitienAndreaBerengo,
1553-1556(Paris:
SEVPEN,
1957): 95, 354, 355, 359.
25)Walther
Hinz,
1991): 13,42-3.
Islamische Wahrungen
umgerechnet
in Gold
(Wiesbaden:
Otto Harrassowitz,

The Ottoman
Even at the new rate of the para against the ducat, silverwas slightly
more valuable in the Levant than itwas in the central lands of the empire
as one needed 2.6 g. less silver to get a ducat inAleppo than one would in
Istanbul. Yet in the 1550s, Egypt was experiencing a silver drainage to an
unknown destination, where silver must have been even more valuable
than itwas in the para zone. As is evident from an imperial order sent to
the governor of Egypt in 1552, among the solutions offeredwas an increase
of the copper content of the para. Although no action was taken at the
time, around 1565 a debasement did take place in Egypt the exact ratio of
which is open to debate. An Arabic source suggests that itwas around
yet depending on slightly different interpretations of the text, it

have
been as much as 16.5%.26
might
next few years theOttoman akce went
Interestingly enough, within the
a similar debasement. Sometime around 1566, the number of
through
akces to be struck from 100 dirhems of silver increased from 420 to 450,
8.7%,
to 0.68
decreasing the silver content of the akce from 0.73 g.
g.27Yet nei
ther in the Levant, nor in the central lands of the empire did an official
devaluation against the ducat take place, which suggests that the govern
ment was trying tomake silvermore valuable in relation to
was
gold. Silver
most probably moving to an unidentified destination where itwas more
than in theOttoman domains, as is suggested by the correspond

ence between the
capital and Egypt in 1552, and the government was try
ing to keep it in the imperial zone by increasing itsvalue against gold.
In short, the available evidence suggests that the Ottoman
central
administration aimed to keep its currency zones separate by trying to
valuable
restore
pre-conquest
rates,
as was
the
case
in
Egypt
in
1522-5.
Moreover,
the correspondence of 1552 between the Ottoman

center and
Egypt
the
that
Ottoman
administrators
their
domains as differ
implies
perceived
ent currency zones; otherwise a debasement limited to
Egypt would not
have been considered. Yet the evidence also suggests thatwhile
Egypt and
26)
Sahillioglu, "Osmanli para tarihi": 85-7, 98 (n. 18); compare Pamuk, A Monetary History
the
Ottoman Empire: 96 (n. 18); Muhammad
Ibn Abi al-Surur, Al-Minah
of
al-rahmaniyya
al-dawlat
ed.
Dar al-Bashair,
172,
(Damascus:
1995):
Layla
ft
al-uthmaniyya,
al-Sabbagh
ca.
however, supports Sahillioglu's
argument and suggests that the para was debased
by
8.7%. For different interpretations of the relevant statement in this text, see Baki Tezcan,
A Reassessment
of the Deposition
of the Ottoman
Sultan Osman
"Searching for Osman:
II (1618-1622)."
Ph.D. dissertation
314-5, n. 44.
(Princeton University, 2001):
27) The exact
is not known, but itwas in effect
date of this debasement
by 1572; Sahillioglu,
"Osmanli para tarihi": 64, 74 (n. 7).

472 B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504

the Levant had been an independent currency zone inwhich a different
ratio operated at the time of the Ottoman conquest, by the
gold?silver
of the sixteenth century this area had become far better integrated
into themarkets of the central Ottoman
lands as indicated by the change
in its gold?silver
ratio, which came quite close to the one prevalent in
Istanbul. Thus it seems justified to claim that the forces of themarket oper
ated against the will of the administration by bringing the different cur
rency zones closer to each other, a point to be discussed further below.
one
ca. 1565 and the Ottoman
Finally, the Egyptian debasement of
middle
around the same time, which were not accompanied by a devaluation of

the coinage in terms of the official value of the ducat, imply that a new
currency zone inwhich silverwas relativelymore scarce and valuable in

terms of gold was in close contact with the rest of the empire. According
to the correspondence between Cairo and Istanbul in 1552, silver was
to stop thismovement
moving toward this unidentified area, and theway
was a debasement of the coinage. In the next section, Iwill argue that this
area was
Persia.
II
Another currency zone in theOttoman Empire can be characterized as the

realm of the sahi, originally a Persian silver currency that continued to
struck their own sahis
circulate in Safavid Persia even after theOttomans
western Safavid lands during the reign of
following the conquest of the
sahi in terms of the akce
Suleyman I. The market value of the Ottoman
and the para has a lot to do with the Persian shahi?* which was introduced
in the early sixteenth century.
by the Safavid ruler Shah Ismail
The Safavid coinage went through a number of debasements during
in the second half
the sixteenth century, but only those that happened
on the Ottoman
an
of the sixteenth century seem to have had
impact
1501, at the outset of the reign of Shah Ismail, the Safavid

50 dinar piece called shahi weighed 9.4 g.29According to Stephen Album,
in 1518 the weight of the shahi was reduced to 7.88 g. Around
1530, it
akce. Around
28) In order to
the Persian from the Ottoman
coin, the former will be referred
distinguish
to hereafter as shahi, the latter as sahi.
29)H. L. Rabino
and Seals of the Shdhs of Iran, 1500-1941
di Borgomale,
Coins, Medals
"Search
II (following p. 8); see Tezcan,
Table
and
Austin
Sons,
1945):
(Hertford: Stephen
315-6
(n. 46), for a discussion on the accuracy of this weight.
ing for Osman":

The Ottoman Monetary
Crisis of1585
Revisited
473
g. Some ten years later, the shahi weighed

the shahi was debased once again to 4.67 g.30
was
further reduced to 6.22
5.25 g. Around
1547,
if
conclusions are correct, between 1501 and 1550, the
Album's
Thus,
Safavid shahi lost half of its silver content. The Ottoman akce, however,
did not go through any debasements between 1491 and the reign of
Selim II (1566-74). Consequently, one could claim that the Safavid debase
ments of the firsthalf of the sixteenth century did not have an impact on
theOttoman akce.
This picture, however, changes in the second half of the sixteenth cen
tury. Berengo, our Venetian merchant inAleppo, provides some valuable
information regarding a Persian debasement in his letters of 1555. That

year no silk arrived from Persia since the Safavid shah himself had bought
500 loads of it for export to India. Yet the shah paid themerchants half the
price "because he has made themoney the half ofwhat theywere worth in
are called saie [shahi]

spite of the protests of the people, i.e. his coins
they
are worth here 18 soldi a piece, and he has made two out of one and
given
them out as good coin."31 In a subsequent letter,Berengo states that the
new shahi that the shah had struckwas worth half the value of the old one,
i.e. 9 soldi. At this time, 18 soldi were worth approximately 0.11 gold
ducats. Thus one would expect the former Persian shahi to be worth
4.5 paras, and the new one 2.25 paras at 40 paras, or maidins, per ducat.
same values.32
Berengo cites the very
Berengo is not the only source which suggests that the Safavids under
took a major debasement before theOttoman one. Fernand Braudel states
30)
Album,
on Rabino
A Checklist
59-61, relying
of Islamic Coins: 126-7; Hinz, Islamische Wahrungen:
di Borgomale,
and Seals of the Shahs of Iran, 1500-1941:
Coins, Medals
28, 30,
coins
the
denomination
of
these
he
does
that
the
shahi
lost a
yet
agree
regards
differently,
lot of its silver content during the reign of Tahmasp.
I took Albums western Safavid stan
here. The Safavids also had an eastern standard in the provinces of

and Gurgan, while the province ofMazandaran
had its own standard; see Album,
A Checklist of Islamic Coins: 126, n. 138.
31)
Quoted
by Steensgaard, The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: 419; this
is dated November
letter
3, 1555.
particular
32)
venitien Andrea
92 (letter #86, dated
Tucci, Lettres d'un marchand
Berengo, 1553-1556:
dard
into consideration
Khorasan
November 15, 1555), 101 (#93,November 17), 113 (#100,November 17), 126 (#109,
18); see also letters #87, 88, 91, 96, pp. 93, 95, 98, 106. 20 soldi made a lira,
in 1533 a Venetian
ducat was valued at 7 lire and 18 soldi; in 1562, its value is
gold
recorded as 8 lire;W. A. Shaw, The History of Currency, 1252 to 1894, third ed. (New York:
November
and
G.
P. Putnam's
Sons
and Clement Wilson,
1896):
317.
Ifwe
take 8 lire as the value of the
ducat in 1555 aswell,we would arriveat (18: [8x 20] =) 0.1125.

474
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
of themid 1580s "followed a similar deval

which had devalued the currency by 50 per cent at a
stroke." Inalcik, who perhaps relied on Braudel, states that a 50% devalua
tion occurred in Persia in 1585. However, Steensgaard asserts that he did
was
not find any evidence in support of Braudel s statement,
although he
aware of the debasement that
to
refers
which
he
to,
Berengo
prefers
regard
as "a 50% devaluation in terms of money of account." Pamuk, on
simply
the other hand, believes that theremight have been a devaluation in Iran
in 1584, and suggests that, ifproven, this devaluation would have been a
that theOttoman
uation
devaluation
in Persia,...
major factor in contributing to theOttoman devaluation and debasement

of the later 1580s, yet he adds that the evidence is not clear.33
to concentrate on the 1580s to
Although twentieth-century studies tend
date the Safavid devaluation, which is probably due to Braudels wording,
the primary source of Braudels source carries us furtherback. Braudel cites
J.W. Zinkeisen,34 but the ultimate source is an Italian physician, Minadoi

(1540-1615), who, after taking his medical degree, traveled for seven years
in the Ottoman dominions. In his book on the Ottoman-Safavid wars,
which he wrote in 1587 with an account of the events of thewar through
to the end of 1586, he states:
the reuenues of this kingdome
is, that
[Safavid Persia], the common opinion
Touching
the crowne did yearely receaue into
in the dayes of Kinge Tamas
[Tahmasp (1524-76)]
of gold, which afterward he caused to
foure or Hue millions
the Chamber
of Casbin,
in
a sudden
be worth eight millions,
enhaunsing of the value of his coyne, geuing
by
most seuere Edictes, that ouer all his Empyre, for a certayne space,
commandment
by
for asmuch more
all themoney that he had receaued, should bee taken and accompted
to his souldiers and Sultans, & all other that
as itwas worth, and
made
pay
accordingly
was well followed by Amurat
the now
were in his pay.Which
example (mee-thinkes)
at
king of theTurkes [Murad III (1574-95)], who receauing theCitty ofCairo the
he put it out againe in Constantinople,
of gold [sequin] for xliii. Maidini,
that it should
lxxxv.Maidini,
and Ianissaries, withall
commanding
pay his Capigi
of that value ouer all the Citty, and countryes subiect vnto it.35
Cechino
to
be
33)FernandBraudel,TheMediterraneanand the
MediterraneanWorld in the
Age ofPhilip II,
2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row,

tr. Sian Reynolds.
1972): vol. 1: 540, vol. 2: 1195;
n. 109;
Asian
on
a
of
the
Turkish
"Notes
253,
Inalcik,
Steensgaard, The
Economy":
Study
Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: 419; Pamuk, A Monetary History of theOttoman
Empire-. 137.
34)
J.W Zinkeisen, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches
vol. 3: 802-3.
1840-63):
35) Iohn-Thomas
The History of theWarres
Minadoi,
Abraham
Hartwell
(London:
Iohn Wolfe,
1595):
inEuropa.
7 vols. (Gotha:
F. A. Perthes,
hetweene the Tvrkes and thePersians,
76.

tr.
The Ottoman
MonetaryCrisis of1585 Revisited 475
account of the Persian devaluation
thus suggests that it hap

i.e. before 1576, and not in the
Minadoi's
pened during the reign of Shah Tahmasp,

early 1580s. The information provided by Minadoi, who apparently had
not witnessed the devaluation but had heard about it, is in linewith Ber
engo's account. Since the fiscal reforms of the Ilkhanid rulerGhazan Khan
(r. 1295-1304), Persia had a regulated system ofmoney of account, accord
a toman
10,000 dinars made
ing to which
(Mongol for 10,000).
Silver coins came in different denominations with their values assigned in
to as the old shahi was
to the
Berengo refers
equivalent
ca.
of
4.6
The
dinars
information
both
50
g.
piece
provided by
Berengo
and Minadoi
increased the value of this coin to
suggests that Tahmasp
dinars.36What
100 dinars and struck smaller coins of ca. 2.3 g. that he valued at 50 dinars.
The numismatic evidence supports this hypothesis to a large extent.
Album, whose work represents the latest research on Safavid coinage,
argues that the 2.3 g. coins were worth half a shahi, i.e. 25 dinars, in the
period 1547-52, while the shahis of 50 dinars weighed ca. 4.7 g. Around
1553, the denominational value of the former shahi was increased to 80
dinars, and that of the former half shahi to 40 dinars. In 976 / 1568-9, the
values of these two coins were further increased to 100

and 50 dinars respectively, fixing the 50 dinar shahi at ca. 2.3 g., a standard
that survived well until 1596.37
Album, however, does not provide any justification for his choice of
80 and 40 dinars, which is based on the assumption that the bisti, i.e.
20 dinars, was the main denominational value in the period 1553-68.
However, Berengo's testimony from 1555 quoted above indicates that the
main unit of the Safavid currency in circulation was the shahi. Moreover,
denominational
Arthur Edwards, an English merchant who worked under the umbrella of

the Russia Company, wrote to his superiors from Shirvan on
April 26,
1566 stating that "200 shaughes is a tumen." Edwards also quotes most
prices in shahis, which confirms that the shahi of 50 dinars was themain
at the time.38 Thus ifAlbums bisti standard for
unit of denomination
1553-68 were corrected with the shahi, the Safavid debasement
36)
Walther
Minorsky,
Hinz,
"The Value
eds Mojtaba
Minovi
I. Afshar
1969): 90-5.
37)
Album,
in theMiddle
of the Toman
and
of 1553,
(Tehran:
In
Ages."
Ydd-ndme-ye Irdni-ye
of Tehran University,
Publications
A Checklist
standards within
the Ottomans.
38) E.
Delmar
discussion
of the eastern
127-8; I omit Albums
of Islamic Coins:
the Safavid Empire, which would not have had much of an influence on
Morgan
and C. H.
Coote,
eds, Early Voyages to Russia
and Persia.

2 vols.
476
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
established by numismatic evidence, would corroborate the report of Ber

reference to the reign of Shah Tahmasp as
engo from 1555 and Minadoi's
the time of the Safavid devaluation.
Unfortunately, Berengo does not provide any information about the
rate between the Persian shahi of 50 dinars and the Ottoman
exchange
akce. Yet the exchange rate he quotes for the old Persian shahi, i.e. 4.5
paras, suggests that the old Persian shahi should have been worth ca. 7
akces or 5 paras prior to its devaluation.39 Not surprisingly, the Ottoman
sahi was also valued at 7 akces and 5 paras as will be discussed below. The
new Persian shahi, then, should have been worth 3.5 akces. There is addi
tional evidence which suggests that the new Persian shahi was worth the
equivalent of 4 akces in Iran.40
The Ottomans, after their conquest of thewestern Safavid lands in the
1530s, struck coins thatwere larger than the akce and were meant to take
the place of the former Persian shahis. According to the numismatic evi
dence, these coins originally seem to have weighed 4.4 g., which is quite
close to theweight of the Persian shahi prior to itsdebasement.41 Although
there is no evidence to establish the officialweight or the exchange rate of
these initial Ottoman
sahis, these coins most probably had a value of 7
or
the Persian shahi before the debasement. Then in
like
5
akces,
paras,
(London:Hakluyt Society,1885-6): vol. 2: 387-9, 391-2. Other letterspublished in the
same volume confirm the centrality of the shahi;

39)
the former shahi
Since, according to Berengo,
were worth a
at the time was
which
ducat,
gold
should have been worth (60: 40 x 4.5
devaluation
see, for instance, pp. 394, 396.

was worth 4.5 maidins,
and 40 maidins
akces, one shahi prior to its

akces. As for the exchange value
in the absence of smaller currency, one could
worth
60
=) 6.75
in terms of the maidin, or para,

its current value might have been 5 maidins.
that
imagine
40) In a letter from Shirvan dated
August 8, 1566, Arthur Edwards
of the shahi
states that the "Dollars"
to Iran are valued at 10 shahis; Morgan

and Coote, Early
bring with them
to Russia and Persia: vol. 2: 401. Around
the same time, the large silver coins of
Voyages
talks about, were valued at 40 akces in the
that is the "Dollars" Edwards
Central Europe,
the Ottomans
one shahi. Moreover,

of
taking the value
Empire, thus 4 akces should have made
the
10 Goldmark
of 1871, Hinz
calculates
ducat as a constant that equates
the Venetian
Ottoman
value of thePersianshahi in 1566 as 66 2/3 Pf., and thatof theakce in 1564 as 16 2/3 Pf.,
the Persian shahi after its devaluation was valued at 4 akces;
supporting the argument that
Islamische Wdhrungen: viii, 43, 60.
41)
Sultan Suleyman Adina Basilan Sikkeler. 68, no. 173;
See, for instance, Artuk, Kanuni
the weight of this coin might have been more than 4.4 g. since the extant coins may have
been subject to clipping. On the other hand, there are also coins of this sort that are much
or may represent a different
have been struck after a debasement,
lighter, and which may
see Artuk, Kanuni
Sultan Suleyman Adina Basilan Sikkeler. 23, no. 61.
denomination;

Crisis of1585
Revisited
477
50 dinars in terms
1555, after the debasement of the Persian shahi?worth
half itsweight, the Ottomans had two alterna
of money of account?to
tives. If theywere to follow the Safavids, they could strike coins of half the
same value in terms ofmoney of account, for instance
weight and keep the
same
a
or
2.2 g. for 7 akces,
they could have kept the
weight and assign
value of 14 akces to it. In this case the akce would have been effectively
to half its silver value, which did indeed eventually happen at
the end of the sixteenth century.42Alternatively, they could have kept
the same weight as well as the exchange value of the coin in terms of the
devalued
akce, but effectivelydevalue the Persian money of account in the sense that
two new Persian shahis worth 100 dinars (instead of one former Persian
sahi of 7 akces. In this
shahi of 50 dinars) would be worth 1 Ottoman
case the Ottoman
silver coins would have had a tremendous advantage
in Persian markets
would
follow.
in terms of their buying power and a silver drainage
administration seems to have followed a path which at

first does not appear tomake any sense. The exchange value of the Otto
man sahi in terms of the akce was
at the same level, but its
was
kept
weight
The Ottoman
reduced, probably by some 13%, as the earliest document which specifies

theweight and the exchange rate of theOttoman sahi states that it included
3.84 g. of silver and was worth 7 akces.43 This seems to be an inappropriate
solution to the problem at hand since 7 akces, even after the last devalua
tion of ca. 1566, contained 4.78 g. of silver, which was almost
25% more
than the silver content of the sahi.
The solution may, however, not have been as inappropriate as it seems

a
at first
glance. In Persia,
gold ducat is recorded to have been worth
13 shahis in the 1560s after the debasement. As discussed above, these
shahis must have weighed around 2.3 g. Thus a gold ducat was worth
42)Not
of the 1580s, the silver content of the akce was

surprisingly, after the debasement
eventually reduced to 0.32 g. in 1600, at which weight seven of them would weigh 2.24 g.,
and 14 of them 4.48 g., which
is quite close to the
weights of the Persian shahi in its old
and new forms.
43)
states that the
"Osmanh para tarihi": 101, n. 36. Sahillioglu
of
Sahillioglu,
production
the 3.84 g. Ottoman
in
sahi coins started in
February 1566; "Ottoman Monetary
Baghdad
286. The rate of debasement
is a very
History":
suggested here
rough approximation.
we know
to
we do
that the Ottoman
sahi was supposed
weigh 3.84 g. in 1566,
were struck
the official weight of the
coins
that
I
the
earlier,
larger
by Suleyman
heaviest extant example of which from the
mint is 4.4 g.; Artuk, Kanuni
Sultan
Baghdad
Suleyman Adina Basilan Sikkeler. 23.
Although
not know

478
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
ca. 30.3 g. of silver in Persia, while itwas almost 41 g. of silver in Istanbul

at the time.44Market forceswould thus have moved silver to Persia, where
itwas more valuable in terms of gold. On the other hand, ifone could cre
ate a buffer zone around the Persian border where silverwas as valuable as
in Persia, the arbitrage profits could remain within the imperial borders.
the decision was made with such reasoning inmind, or the
Whether
center simply followed the market rationale thatwould have emerged in

to Persia than it is to Istanbul, the value
Baghdad, which ismuch closer
ratio that was much closer
of the Ottoman
sahi reflected a gold?silver
to the one current in Persia than the one in Istanbul. Although there is
no contemporary record, circumstantial evidence suggests that 8 Ottoman
sahis must have been exchanged for a ducat in the eastern provinces of the
empire in the 1560s. First of all, 8 sahis would include 30.72 g. of silver,
which is quite close to the estimated weight of silver exchanged for a ducat
in Persia. Second, the sources that cite the value of the ducat against the
sahi later in the century either quote 8 sahis for a ducat, or, after the rise in
the value of the ducat, 8 sahis for a "ducat of account."45 Thus an exchange
rate of 8 sahis per ducat in the 1560s would not have been unreasonable.
sahi against
If one takes this estimated exchange value of theOttoman
the ducat as a starting point, its value against the akce becomes under
standable. As pointed out above, although the para contained only asmuch
44) Laurence
an
in a letter from Qazvin
dated April 28, 1569,
Chapman,
English merchant,
asserts that "twelve duckets...
sixe and fiftie shawghs" i.e. 13 shahis
[make] one hundred
and Coote, Early Voyages to Russia and Persia: vol. 2: 413. The very
for a ducat; Morgan
Discov
same letter in Richard Hakluyt,
ed., The Principal Navigations
Voyages Traffiques &
vol. 3:
12 vols. (Glasgow: James MacLehose
and Sons, 1903-05):
of theEnglish Nation.
"The
in rendering 156. Hinz,
is probably a mistake
reads "... 165. shaughs," which
in theMiddle Ages": 92, relies on the latter edition of the letter, thus
Value of the Toman
eries
142,
ducats
takes these ducats to be Hungarian
his figure needs to be corrected. Moreover Hinz
in the letter. The context, which is the price of kersey
is no such qualification
there
although
ducats. For the weight of the
rather suggests that it should be Venetian
clothes inAleppo,
shahi, see above, p. 475. In the Istanbul of the late 1560s, a gold ducat was worth 60 akces
=
see
while 450 akces were struck from 307.2 g. of silver, thus (307.2: 450) x 60
40.96;
n. 27 above.
45)See for instance,

Hinz, Islamische
Wahrungen:14 (a quote from1579), 43 (from1577);
William
Barret
reports from Aleppo
in 1584
that in Baghdad
and Basra
8 sahis make
& Discoveriesofthe
ducat of account;Hakluyt, The PrincipalNavigationsVoyages
Traffiques
Levant
in late sixteenth-century
Nation:
vol. 6: 10, 12. The ducat of account
English
included 40 paras (8 sahis) which was the value of the real ducat between the 1550s and the
354, and
late 1570s; seeTucci, Lettres dun marchand venitien Andrea Berengo, 1553-1556:
the quotes
inHinz,
Islamische Wahrungen:
12-4.

The Ottoman
silver as was used for 1.4 akces
in the 1520s, itwas valued as 2 akces

because theOttoman government had determined the exchange values of
its two different silver currencies according to their respective values against
the gold ducat. When
their values changed in relation to the ducat in the
century, their exchange value against each other changed as

same
one would expect a sahi
well.
applies the
principle to the sahi,
to be worth 7.5 akces, as the ducat was worth 60 akces and most
probably
8 sahis at the time. The value of the sahi against the akce which one finds
mid-sixteenth
If one
in theOttoman records is very close to this and must therefore have been
calculated according to this principle.46 Had the center been motivated by
the intrinsic silver content of the sahi, a sahi that contained 3.84 g. silver,
which equaled 5.6 akces, would have been valued at 5.5, or at most
6 akces. The official value of 7-7.5 akces assigned to the sahi makes it clear
that the center determined the exchange rate of this regional currency in
terms of its relative value against

was also the
gold, which
principle used in
the determination of the paras value in the early sixteenth century, rather
than its intrinsic silvervalue.
The assumption of the administration must have been that the trade
with Safavid Persia had a certain monetary impact on the eastern and
southeastern provinces. A devaluation in the Safavid Empire could at best
have had an influence on those areas but not really on western Anatolia, let
alone the Balkans. The fact that previous Safavid debasements had not had
an
on theOttoman akce shows that this
impact
assumption was not neces
sarilywrong.47 The Ottoman administration thus responded to the ques
tion at hand with the experience of the past, which was an
experience
based on more limited trade zones with multiple local economies inwhich
different gold?silver
ratios could operate, creating
arbitrage profits for the
were
fewwho
inmany zones.
well-connected
The Ottoman
administration regarded its domains as separate, exclu

self-sufficientunits. The regional markets were supposed
the regional currency, and interregional trade was sup
to
be
under
posed
governmental supervision and was to be conducted with
or
goods,
gold. Giicer, for instance, shows how regulated the grain market
sive, and mainly
to operate with
46)
the government decreed the

Although
exchange value of
most
was
a payment made
its
value
it
when
of
part
probably
government accepted sahis at 7 akces each, yet counted them
used in payment; see
tarihli biitce": 32,
"1582-83
Sahillioglu,
47) See
above, pp. 472-473.
the sahi as 7 akces,
this was
to the
treasury. In 1582, the
as 7.5 akces when
were
they
44.

480
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
was.
Every administrative district was viewed as a self-contained unit, and

movement
the
of the produce between the districts was supposed to be
under governmental supervision.48 Yet this ideal systemwith regard to the
grain market apparently did not work as intended, otherwise itwould be
quite difficult to account for Sokollus own trade in grain with Venice, or
the various violations of the prohibition by less exalted people.49 As will be
shown below, thingswere changing in the currency market as well.
use of theOttoman ?ahi
Although the
might have prevented silver losses
thatwould
have accrued from international arbitrage between the Otto

and Safavid empires, it also created discrepancies within the empire.
Seven akces were supposed to contain 4.78 g. of silver,making the face
value of theOttoman
sahi, which contained 3.84 g. of silver, almost 25%
more than its silver value. Had
the southeastern provinces not been in
man
contact with the rest of the empire this

discrepancy might
not have caused a great deal of trouble. Itwould have enriched a limited
few,who were trading between Anatolia and Baghdad, for instance, but it
would not really have affected the coinage in general. After all, the use of
theOttoman
?ahi was meant to be limited to the former Safavid lands of
itwas struck, itwas not intended to be used as amethod
the empire.When
close economic
of payment in Syria or Anatolia.

economic zones had apparently
Yet by the late 1560s, the Ottoman
become much more united than the Ottoman
administration thought
is fasci
theywere, because the ?ahi had quickly invaded the Levant. What
was welcomed
use
it
is
of
the
about
the
the
of
that
?ahi
expansion
nating
by the public despite the fact that itwas an overvalued piece of silver. In
1572, its going rate inAleppo seems to have been 5 paras, which must
have been the result of its independent value against the ducat in the east
ern provinces. If a ducat was worth 40 paras in Aleppo and 8 sahis in

rate of the ?ahi would have been 5 paras a ?ahi,
Baghdad, the exchange
a sahi s silver content was worth only 3.5 paras. Appar
the
fact
that
despite
ently this is exactly what happened. The finance director of Aleppo drew
theOttoman capital's attention to the fact that the sahi was overvalued in
terms of its silver content, and that itsvalue had to be reduced to 4 paras.
48) Liitfi
ticareti
Gii^er, "XVI. yiizyil sonlannda Osmanli
Imparatoriugu dahilinde hububat
Mecmuasi
nin tabi
13 (1951-2): 79-98.
oldugu kayitlar." Istanbul Universitesi tktisat Fakultesi
49)
ticaretinin
dahilinde hububat
"XVI. yiizyil sonlannda Osmanli
Gucer,
Imparatoriugu
tabi oldugu
Dair
kayitlar": 79-81; Anonymous,

Kitab-i Miistetdb?Kitabu
Kaynaklar:
Hirzii'l-Muluk,
ed. Yasar Yiicel
"Hirzii'l-Muluk."
Mesalihil
(Ankara: TurkTarih
In Osmanli
Miislimin
Kurumu,
Devlet
Teskildtina
ve
MendfiTl-Muminin?
178.
1988):

The Ottoman
to
coins or
coming fromAnatolia, who used
bring either gold
to barter with, now brought silver, converted it to sahis in themint
goods
of Diyarbekir, and used the sahis for their purchases.50
Merchants
Since around this time 450 akces were struck from 100 dirhems of sil
ver, one may suppose that the price of silver could not have been any
inAnatolia. Most probably, itwas
higher than 450 akces per 100 dirhems
one had to pay certain fees for the
a
since
that
little
than
actually
cheaper
mint. Ifone took 100 dirhems of silver to the southern mints of the empire,
one could get 80 sahis.51 These sahis were worth at least 560 akces at
7 akces a sahi. Thus 450 akces worth of silver produced an extra 110 akces
worth of purchasing power in the Levant, which amounts to a profit of
24.4%.
After the finance director of Aleppo had explained this situation to the
center
to his request
capital in 1572, the Ottoman
responded favorably
and ordered the exchange rate of the sahi to be reduced to 4 paras. Although
at 4 paras the sahi would make 6 akces and would still be overvalued, the
to 6.7%. Yet it seems that the order was
arbitrage profitwould be reduced
of no avail. European travelers noted the value of the sahi at 4.5 paras in
1574, and at 5 paras in 1577 and 1579.52
Thus the sahi started to be used in the greater Syria area at the latest by
the early 1570s. Minting
sahis soon became quite popular in the region
and spread from themint of Baghdad to themints ofAleppo and Diyarbe
kir. By the late 1570s investors had raised their bids for the tax-farms of the
mints that struck sahis by almost 25,000 ducats.53 In 1582, the provincial
50)
Sahillioglu,
51)When
420
"Osmanli
akces were
at 4 akces per dirhem

"954-955
(1547-1548)
Fakiiltesi Mecmuasi
para tarihi": 101, n. 36.

struck from 100 dirhems
in the balance
of silver, the dirhem
mail yilina
19 (1957-8):
276. The
value
of silver at 4 akces per dirhem does not

1560s; see the imperial order cited
seem to have
of the mid
changed after the debasement
Devlet Arsivleri Osmanli
by Celil Ender, Basbakanlik
Belgeler Katalogu
a sahi included
of silver was valued
sheet of the imperial treasury; see Omer L. Barkan,

ait bir Osmanli
butcesi." Istanbul Universitesi Iktisat
(Istanbul: Turk Niimismatik
Dernegi
100 dirhems
Arsivindeki
Yayinlan,
Niimismatik
1996):
10, no.
ile ilgili
104. Since
3.84 g. of silver, with

(307.2 g) of silver, one could strike
80 sahis (307.2: 3.84 = 80) ifone were to
mint fee.
the
disregard
52) For the
"Osmanli para tarihi": 101, n. 36. With
sahis valued at
order, see Sahillioglu,
6 akces, someone could strike (80 x 6 =) 480 akces worth of sahis with 100 dirhems of silver
whichwould yieldonly450 akces ifonewere to strikeakces; thus:480-450 = 30; 30: 450 x

100 = 6.7%. For the quotes by European
travelers, see Hinz, Islamische Wdhrungen:
13, 44.
53) See the
cited by Ender, Niimismatik
documents
ile ilgili Belgeler. 5, no. 47-8;
Sahillioglu,
"Osmanli para tarihi": 102 n. 37, 259.

482 B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504

were no
to the
reported
capital that people
was exclusively
producing
longer interested in the para, and that themint
sahis since 80 sahis struck from 100 dirhems (307.2 g.) of silvermade 400
paras at 5 paras a sahi, whereas one would get far fewer paras ifone were to
administrators of Damascus
strike paras out of silver.According to the administrators, the sahi s silver

content was worth only 3.5 paras. Although the center seems to have
to this request to
adjust the coins' weights, and hence
responded favorably
not seem to have been of any avail, as the
the
does
order
values,
exchange
sahi was still valued at 5 paras in 1584.54
A currency's acceptance as a means of payment is ultimately based on
thewillingness of themarket to operate with it. It seems that the Levantine

market had reached a consensus about the value to be assigned to the sahi,
and the official orders that sought to assign a lower value to itwere disre
as it suggests that
already at the
garded. This point is extremely important
wars of theOttomans had started,
beginning of the 1570s, before the long
and before Spanish silver arrived in large quantities, there had already been
a great demand for currency; thiswas due to the operations of themarket,
and was not the result of fiscal difficulties faced by the treasury.Otherwise
itwould be quite difficult to account for the public acceptance of the sahi
at a face value thatwas far above the value of its actual silver content.
Pamuk assumes that the sahi's overvaluation resulted from a policy pur
center
sued by the government, and speculates as to why the Ottoman
a
to adopt such
policy.55 Although the government
might have chosen
a "policy" in determining the weight and
have
indeed
adopted
might
in the eastern provinces, in the Levant things do
exchange value of the sahi
not seem to have been under its control. The orders of the center to the
in 1572, and to the authorities inDamascus
in 1582, suggest that the government actually tried to intervene in order
to reduce the exchange rate of the sahi yet their endeavor turned out to be
unsuccessful. Thus one cannot assume that the overvaluation of the sahi in
financial director of Aleppo
the Levant was
the result of central policies.

the volume of commercial transactions was
increasing, and
silver currency in circulation was not sufficient to finance
this higher volume. By valuing the sahi at 5 paras instead of 3.5 paras, the
Evidently
the available
54) See
the document
cited by Ender, Numismatik

a sahi was
equivalent
Barret stated that in Baghdad
ile ilgili Belgeler. 13, no. 135. In 1584,

The
to 5 paras "as inAleppo"; Hakluyt,
& DiscoveriesoftheEnglishNation: vol. 6: 10.

Traffiques
PrincipalNavigationsVoyages
55)
Pamuk, A Monetary
History
of the Ottoman
Empire:
103.

The Ottoman
Levantine market increased the amount ofmoney in circulation by almost
43% without changing the amount of silver thatwas available. The accept
a
ance by the
public of the sahi, larger coin than either theOttoman akce
or the Levantine para, at a
higher face value than its silver content consti
tuted a way of increasing the total amount of money in circulation while
stayingwithin the limits set by the scarcity of silver to strike coins with.
This market operation would not have worked out had the public been
reluctant to participate in it. Itwere after all the people who used the sahi
in the Levant, and they could verywell have refused to accept it at such an
unrealistic value. But they did not. They actually declined to accept it at a
lower value, which would have been more realistic in terms of its silver
content.
the para in the Levant seems to have acquired a value thatwas

independent of its silver content. Just as the $5 bills in circulation today
are
equivalent to five $1 bills although they contain exactly the same
amount of paper, so the sahi was worth five paras
although its silver con
tentwas much less than that of five paras combined. That thiswas indeed
the case is also proven by the contemporary exchange rates of these two
silver coins in relation to the ducat. As late as 1579, a Venetian ducat was
valued at 40 paras, or 8 sahis inEgypt, and 42 paras inTripoli, while in the
latter city the sahi was valued at 5.5 paras, which suggests that the
going
rate of the ?ahi at ca. 5 paras was
even when one was
accepted
dealing with
Thus,
gold currency.56 These figures also indicate that in the Levant gold had
become comparatively cheaper in relation to silver, as 8 ?ahis included less
silver than 40 paras yet theywere accepted as the
a
equivalent of ducat.
One could also argue that silver had become more expensive in relation
to
gold, which may be ascribed to the Persian devaluation. The gold?
silver ratio prevalent in the Safavid Empire was
adopted in the eastern
provinces of theOttoman Empire as these areas were in close contact with
Persia. Yet as the eastern provinces came to be
integrated into the larger
to thewest, cance
the
ratio
of
Persia
moved
market,
imperial
gold?silver
out
that
in
context
could
be
realized
the
of the rela
ling
arbitrage profits
tively isolated existence of two different economic zones. Although in the
first half of the sixteenth century a similar
development had taken place
between Egypt and the Levant, on the one hand, and the central lands of
the empire, on the other, that
integration had occurred at the gold?silver
56)
Hinz,
Islamische
Wahrungen:
14.

484
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
ratio of the center. This time, however, the ratio of the periphery was per
meating the center.
Thus a local Ottoman currency,which was meant to be used exclusively

in the former Safavid lands, entered daily usage in greater Syria and Egypt;
it found acceptance at a face value thatwas more than the value of its silver
content, increasing the total amount ofmoney in circulation, perhaps, in

order to finance the increased volume of trade. Although the Ottomans
this use by permitting the production of sahis in Levantine

eco
was
the
administration
mints,
actually following the requirements of
as
nomic developments rather than initiating them,
becomes clear from
sanctioned
the unsuccessful attempt of the government to reduce the exchange value

of the sahi. However, therewas yet another development that accelerated
the process which led to the official debasement and devaluation of the
akce: the influx of Spanish silver from theAmericas.
Ill
in ever
Starting in themid 1570s Spanish silver reals entered the Levant
to the expansion of the use of the sahi
which
contributed
larger quantities,
as the main currency of payment in the area and beyond.57 Before their
arrival in such large quantities, the realswere valued at 40 akces per piastre,
or a piece of eight reals,which theOttomans called gurus.58However, after
came to be valued
they flooded the Ottoman market, the Spanish reals
in terms of theirweight. The unit with which the market operated was
90 reals,which weighed 100 dirhems.59 In 1555, 100 dirhems ofVenetian
silver coins were valued at 300 paras. A quotation from a document from
57)
Bau
The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: 78; Micheline
Steensgaard,
les Freres Hermite,
1570-1612
(Paris: A. Colin,
lant, ed., Lettres de negociants marseillais,
1953): 13, 15 (n. 11), 25, 36.
58)
Ottoman
Although
coins until
large silver
records do not differentiate between different types of

at 40
seventeenth
the early
century, it seems that the gurus valued
akces could well have been the Spanish piastre, or the Joachimsthaler of Central Europe,
hence the name
afterwhich the Spanish piastre, or the "piece of eight [reals]" was modeled,
"dollar." Sahillioglu
quotes an entry from the daily record book of the imperial treasury
to which
several guruses valued at 40, 20, and
dated to early September
1569, according
financial
282 n. 30. These three values

the treasury; "Ottoman Monetary
History":
real pieces of eight, four,
sense if one were referring to the Spanish
make
only
and two.
59)
Discoveries of theEnglish
Barret, inHakluyt, The Principal Navigations
Voyages Traffiques &
10 akces entered
would

Crisis of1585
Revisited
485
source I could find for the value of

Tripoli dated April 1582, the earliest
same
price.60
Spanish silver, suggests the
One would expect thatwith the arrival of the Spanish silver the amount
of silver available in themarket would increase, and thus the price of silver
decrease. However, not only do we have no idea about the exact
would
we are also clueless

quantity of silver that entered the Ottoman Empire,
about how much silverwas in circulation to begin with. For the influx of
silver tomake an impact on the imperial market, ithad to represent a size
able portion of the already accumulated stock. Unfortunately, we are far
from the point at which any estimates of these figures can be made, but
contemporary sources do offer a clue as towhy the price of silver actually
increased.
authorities wrote to Istanbul in 1582, no one

If, as the Damascene
to strike paras when one could get 80 sahis out of
mint
the
asking
100 dirhems of silver thatwere valued at 400 paras, then the price paid for
was
90 Spanish realswould be expected to rise toward 400 paras. That is to say,

if the foreignmerchants who brought silver to the Levant were sufficiently
informed of the silvermarket, theywould be expected to negotiate the value
of their silver in accordance with the amount of sahis that one could strike
out of 100 dirhems of silver. Thus 300 paras per 90 reals
weighing 100
dirhems, which had been the price of silver in 1555 when therewere no sahis
in the Levantine market, would not have held for
long afterApril 1582, the
date of the first lump-sum quote I could find.Not surprisingly, the following
note, most probably reflecting the situation in 1583, suggests that the old
price paid for 100 dirhems of silverwas indeed abandoned soon:
Mony
medins
waied
at
Tripolie. A duckett is 40 medins. A chekins is 42 medins. A sayd [saye?] is 4

V2. Two aspers is one medine?
90 realls of platte [i.e. silver] is a pesoe and
Barrett sould
[worth ?] 8 ducketts V2, 12 medins, now 16. Att Amand William
a rioall [a
not a rial of
single rial,
eight] of Spaigne
for 4 medins.
Mony atAllepo. A duckett is 40 medins corant. A chekins is48 medins. A saye is 5medins.
Two aspers isV2 is [sic] one medin. 90 realls of platt is a peso, and a peso iswourth 9 ducketts
or else not). A doller
10 medins
is 32 medins.61
(beinge wayght,
(being weyght)
Nation:
vol. 6:
10, 12, 13; G. Hermite's
letter from 1584
in Baulant,
Lettres de negociants
lesFreres Hermite,
60.
1570-1612:
marseillais,
60)
Tucci, Lettres dun marchand venitien Andrea
95; Baulant, Lettres de

Berengo, 1553-1556:
1570-1612:
36.
negociants marseillais, lesFreres Hermite,
61) Sir
William
With his
Foster, ed., The Travels ofJohn Sanderson in the Levant 1584-1602.
Autobiography and Selections from his Correspondence (London: Hakluyt
Society, 1931): 292.

486
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
single real is 4 paras, and the dollar, a piece of eight reals, is

32 paras, 90 realsmake ([9 ducats of account x 40] + 10 =) 370
(4x8=)
paras inAleppo, which ismore than the 360 paras that one would expect
them tomake at 4 paras per real. The only explanation for this phenome
non is that 90 reals were traded as 100 dirhems of silver,which would
While
80 sahis that are worth 400 paras. Buying 90 reals for 370 paras?
which must have been paid either in goods, or sahis, since 370 paras actu
ally included more than 100 dirhems of silver?and then converting them
make
create, at these rates, a profit of 30 paras, which is almost

8 reals. InTripoli, where no officialmint existed, no such immediate prof
as
its could be made.62 Thus the value of 90 realswas not as
high inTripoli
itwas inAleppo, where a mint struck sahis.
into sahis would
Some of the sahis produced in themint ofAleppo in 1582 found their

way toAnatolia and the Balkans. The mints inwestern Anatolia and the
Balkans did not produce ?ahis. Yet the balance sheet of the imperial treas
ury for the fiscal year of 1582-3 suggests that the ?ahi must have entered
the daily monetary transactions in the central lands of the empire as well.
this fiscal year the value of the sahis that entered the Ottoman
treasury was more than 53.5 million akces. The contributions of the
provincial treasuries ofAleppo, Damascus, Erzurum, and Baghdad, where
the sahi could be expected to circulate at this time, were a little less than
45 million akces.63 Even if one assumes that all of the contributions
During
from these provinces reached the treasury in the form of sahis, which is
quite unlikely, at least 8.5 million akces worth of ?ahismust have been paid
into the treasury from sources of income located in the central lands of the
empire.
This note, written by Sanderson

for a peso, or 90 reals, which
s
is not dated, yet the price quoted
apprentice John Hanger,
is 100 dirhems of silver, seems to be the same as the one
a French merchant, on May

G. Hermite,
1,
quoted by
de negotiants marseillais, lesFreres Hermite,
1570-1612:
erson in 1599, was
from
probably copying something
rates of the 1600s were quite different, and the piastre
of account;
39,
compare
see Baulant, Lettres

in
Aleppo;
51. Thus Hanger, who joined Sand
an earlier date because the
exchange
1583,
had replaced the ducat as a money

Lettres de negotiants marseillais, lesFreres Hermite,
1570-1612:
Barret who
Barrett must have been the same person asWilliam
in 1584; see n. 45 above.
Baulant,
132-45. Also William
was earlier noted in

Aleppo
62)
a mint was
opened
Actually,
around 1585, yet the government
para tarihi": 264 (n. 18).
63)
"1582-83
Sahillioglu,
in Tripoli
ordered
tarihli biitce":
on a local
initiative
it to be closed down;
to strike sahis sometime

see
Sahillioglu,
35, 38-9.

"Osmanli
Crisis of1585
Revisited
487
There is both archival and literary evidence to suggest that the sahi
circulated not only inAnatolia, but also in the Balkans. Selaniki, an Otto
man chronicler of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, states
that the overvalued sahi came from the borderland between theOttomans
and the Safavids and reached the farthest points of Rumelia during the
III (r. 1574-95). Selaniki is not exaggerating, as the sahi
reign ofMurad
even reached beyond Rumelia and was recorded in the
principalities of
Wallachia
and Moldavia.64
The dynamics of the expansion of the sahi beyond the zone where itwas
to circulate is of great
our
significance for
understanding of the
devaluation of theOttoman akce against the ducat and the piastre in 1585
6, aswell as itsdebasement. The actual debasement of the akce was directly
meant
related to the expansion of the sahi intoAnatolia and the Balkans. Sahilli
as the government did not take steps to
oglu argues that
adjust the exchange
rates of the various coins in circulation, "themoney

changers, counterfeit
own
matters
into
and
took
their
hands
and
ers,
guilds
clipped the corners
the exchange rate of the sahi was

7 akces, the public would be expected to clip the akces to the point at
which 7 of them would weigh the same as a ?ahi.
Moreover, as the correspondence of theOttoman authorities inAleppo
with the center in 1572 suggests,66 in the early 1570s silver had already
started to move from Anatolia to the Levant in the hands of merchants,
since itspurchasing power was stronger there. Thus the spread of the sahi
and its acceptance at an overvalued rate even in tax payments to the gov
of the undervalued
akce."65 Since
ernment
some scarcity of silver for

might well have caused
striking akces in
or
the central lands of the empire,
itmight have raised the price of silver.
In order not to lose the silver in the market to the Levantine mints that
sahis in payment, Anatolian mints might well have

increased their buying price of silver,which could only work if theywere
to produce akces at a debased
or add some copper to the silver
weight,
content of the akce.
offered overvalued
There
is evidence that debased
akces were struck inAnatolian
kan mints already in the 1570s when

64)
Mustafa
Selaniki,
Tarih-i Selaniki,
ed. M.
and Bal
the use of the sahi expanded
Ipsirli.
2 vols.
(Istanbul:
in the
Istanbul Universitesi
EdebiyatFakiiltesi
Yayinlan, 1989): vol. 1:427; Pamuk,AMonetaryHistoryoftheOttoman
Empire: 93.
65)
"Ottoman Monetary
Sahillioglu,
66) See n.
50 above.
History":
286.

488
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
Levant,67 and there are also indications that the silver brought by the Euro
pean merchants could find itsway to these mints. InMay 1583, G. Her
mite, a French merchant inAleppo, recorded the price of [90] reals as 9.25
ducats of account at themint and 9.5 in the contraband market.68 Debased
akces in their turn could increase the value of the sahi in terms of the akce,
or make the Levantine mints feel free to produce debased sahis. And there
is indeed evidence which
suggests that the counterfeit production of sahis

as
as
well
individuals,
by private
by unauthorized mints, had already started
to the sahi in literary and archival sources
the
Hence
references
by 1583.69
as an alloyed and counterfeit coin

(magsusy kem-ayar; zagal).70 Once the
debased akces made the sahiworth more than its prescribed value?which
had been an inflated one to startwith and thus created amarket fordebased
price of silver would be expected to increase further. And
indeed, Hermite notes inApril 1584 that the value of [90] reals rose fur
ther "for the increase [in the value] of the sahis that are eight akces."71
It is at this point that the Safavid wars come into the picture. In imme
diate need of cash, the treasury had to accept the overvalued sahis as pay
ment instead of expecting gold coins from the Levant, which in turn
new avenues for the expansion of the use of the sahi as suggested
opened
more impor
by the balance sheet of the imperial treasury for 1582-3. But
was on campaign, and funds from pro
a
commander
when
tantly,
general
vincial treasurieswere assigned to him for expenditures in the east, as had
been the case with Ferhad Pasha in 1583-5, tax farmersmay have felt freer
sahis?the
to use debased sahis in their payments since a commander inwar would

not have the luxury to refuse funds brought to his treasury.
Once debased sahis started to be produced and possibly found accept
ance by the treasury formilitary campaigns, the price of silver could rise
further to exceed its ceiling of 400 paras, or 10 ducats of account, which is
the equivalent of the 80 sahis that one could strike from 100 dirhems
of silver. This expectation is substantiated by the letters of French mer
chants fromAleppo in 1584 and 1585. According to these letters, the price
67)
See,
for instance,
the orders
10 (#96-7).
68)
cited by Ender, Niimismatik
Baulant,
Lettres de negociants marseillais,
Selaniki,
Tarih-i Selaniki:
lesFreres Hermite,
ile ilgili Belgeler.

1570-1612:
(#50),
51.
69)See the orders cited

by Ender,Niimismatik ile ilgiliBelgeler. 15 (#145,from 1583;
16
from
#150
1584),
(#155from1585).
70)
vol.
1: 427;
Sinan Pasha,
Telhisdt
Esad Efendi 2236, f. 70a.

maniye Kiituphanesi,
71)
lesFreres Hermite,
Baulant, Lettres de negociants marseillais,
(originally
1570-1612:

untitled),
63.
Siiley
Crisis of1585
Revisited
489
of 100 dirhems of silver in the contraband market

account and 35 paras inApril
uation of the akce.72
reached 11 ducats of
1585, fivemonths prior to the official deval
Apparently things got out of control in 1584 when the price of silver
exceeded itspossible ceiling. The rising trend in the price of silver between
1582 and 1584 was a byproduct of the sahi; had the sahi not already been
an overvalued silver coin thatwas widely
accepted in the Levant, the prof
itsofmelting Spanish reals and converting them into local currency would
not have been that
one were to strike akces from 90
high. If
Spanish reals
thatweighed 100 dirhems, one would get 450 akces, equating a Spanish
real with 5 akces, and the gurus as a piece of eight reals with 40 akces,
which was the official exchange rate. Thus one could not make a profit by
melting Spanish silver and converting it into akces and therewould not
have been an incentive for speculating on the silvermarket. Yet therewas

a great deal of
profit to be made ifone were to convert the reals into ?ahis,
as the 80 sahis that one could strike from 90 reals made 560 akces at 7
akces a sahi, or 640 akces at 8 akces a sahi.
It was
primarily this sahi-related pressure on the price of silver that

an
played
important role in the devaluation of the akce. Since silver in the
form of the sahi was overvalued in the Levant, the price of silverwould be
to rise inAnatolia if the two
expected
regions had been closely connected
as I have
suggested. Both the clipping and the debased production of the
akce indicate a move in that direction, which is yet another indication of
how quickly information traveled and arbitrage profits diminished
economic
imperial
in the
zone.
it seems that just as the use of the overvalued sahi had not
Moreover,
an
made
impact on the value of the gold ducat in the late 1570s, the
de facto debasement of the akce does not seem to have had an immediate
influence on the exchange rate of the ducat. As late as 1577, theOttoman
gold coin was quoted as being worth 60 akces.73More importantly, a con
temporary Ottoman author, writing in 1581 while working at the provin
cial finance department ofAleppo, notes that the de
facto debasement did
not have an impact on the value of the ducat in terms of the akce: "The
have divided the 'osmani [i.e. the akce] coins into three
money-changers...
the
Of
small ones they spend 60 on one florin, of the
categories.
large ones
72)
73)
Lettres de negotiants marseillais,

Islamische Wahrungen:
43.
Baulant,
Hinz,
lesFreres Hermite,
1570-1612:

60, 63, 72.
490
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
50 and 45, and of the drachms of medium grade 55."74 This observation
suggests that the old exchange rate of 60 akces to the ducat was still valid
even
though the akces in question included much less silver than pre
scribed. It seems that gold had become cheaper in relation to silver, follow
ing the developments in the eastern provinces and the Levant. Itwas this
development that the government was reacting towhen

the akce in September 1585.
itfinally devalued
IV
So far I have shown that theOttoman
central administration perceived of

as separate economic units and determined
rates
exchange
the
both
where
between
of
1525
However,
example
Egypt
accordingly.
ratio reached a level thatwas much closer to
and 1555 the gold?silver
its domains
that of the central lands of the empire, and the example of the sahi,which
was meant to be used as a
rest
regional currency but practically invaded the
of the empire in the 1570s and early 1580s, suggest that the Ottoman
domains were developing into one big imperial economic market. In this
section I argue that the rise in the value of silver in relation to gold as a
result of the spread of the sahi had an important impact on the govern
ment s decision
to intervene, because the central treasury had been the

now
greatest profiteer of arbitrage opportunities that were
disappearing.
one may consider the government s pursuit of arbitrage oppor
Although
tunities as a fiscal measure
of sorts, I interpret the primary motivation

behind it as the exploitation of economic resources for the benefit of
the dynastic institution of rule. Thus the devaluation of 1585 was insti
tuted with the interests of the imperial treasury inmind, rather than the
larger economy.
In September
1585, official exchange rateswere decreed as 110 akces for

the gold ducat and 65 akces for the gurus, or the Spanish piastre.75 These
values do not seem to have reflected the actual values of the ducat and the
at 85 and
gurus. The market value of these coins seems to have stood
74)Mustafa
'Alt'sCounsel for Sultans of 1581, ed., tr.Andreas Tietze. 2 vols.

Ali, Mustafd
vol. 1: 83,
der Wissenschaften,
1979-82):
(Vienna: Verlag der dsterreichischen Akademie
constitute a later addition to the text.
184. Ali's remarks about the 1585 devaluation
75) The rates were to be considered
two akces lower, i.e. 108 and 63 akces respectively, when
"Osmanh
the treasury received these in the form of income items; see Sahillioglu,
para
tarihi": 75 n. 12.

Crisis of1585
Revisited
491
60 akces respectively in 1584 and early 1585. Although their prices may
have risen somewhat further prior to September, the ratio of the value of
the ducat to that of the gurus in the freemarket seems to have been quite
different from the new ratio instituted by the government. The actual
in Istanbul, or 47 and
figures for 1584 and early 1585, 85 and 60 akces
as
as
in
well
available
for
33 paras
1582, around 70 and
figures
Baghdad,
50 akces in Istanbul for the ducat and the gurus respectively,76 suggest that
the gold ducat was worth around 1.4 gurus. On the other hand, the former
official exchange rates for the ducat and the gurus were 60 and 40 akces
at 1.5 gurus. In
respectively,which implies that the ducat had been valued
1585, however, the government valued the ducat around 1.7 gurus.
Berthier, a French diplomat in Istanbul, wrote on February 5, 1586, five
months after the official devaluation, that the value of the ducat had been
raised "higher than itwas [in themarket] ."77
It seems that themarket forces had made gold ducats somewhat cheaper
in relation to silver (1.4 piastre as opposed to 1.5), or silver had gained in
value against gold, developments that had been observed earlier in the
Levant and the eastern provinces as a result of the spread of the sahi. Istan
bul was thus about to join the rest of the empire in a different gold?silver
ratio. The Ottoman government aimed at reversing this trend. In order to
some overview of the role of
comprehend themotives of the government,
gold inOttoman finances in the sixteenth century is in order.
a
Although the lands that made up the Ottoman Empire had quite
number of different currencies, some ofwhich have been referred to above,
the currency used for fiscal transactions between these lands as well as
at least up to the 1570s, had been the
large-scale commercial transactions,
either
Ottoman
the
sultani, or theVenetian ducat, which were
gold coin,
more or less of the same
weight. The balance sheet of theOttoman central
treasury for the fiscal year 1582-3 suggests that the relative absence of gold
in the revenues might have been a more important issue than silver scarcity
in the decision of theOttoman administration to devalue the akce.
The Ottomans
had started to strike gold coins during the reign of
II
Mehmed
(1451-81), yet the available evidence from various inventories
76) For
74 n.
the figures from 1582, 1584, and 1585,

11, 231 n. 1; for the figures from Baghdad,
see
see
Sahillioglu,
Hakluyt,
& DiscoveriesoftheEnglishNation: vol. 6: 10.

Voyages
Traffiques
"Osmanh
para tarihi":
The Principal
Navigations
77) Cited
turned into Drops of Dew and Bankers became

by Cemal Kafadar, "When Coins
of Shadows: The Boundaries
at the End of the
of Ottoman
Economic
Imagination
Sixteenth Century." Ph.D. dissertation
65.
(McGill University,
1986):
Robbers

492
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
suggests that the share of gold in the pool of currencies in circulation was
not great before the
reign of Suleyman I.78The extant balance sheet of the
for
the fiscal year 1524-5 includes a list of currencies,
treasury
imperial
togetherwith their respective numbers in coins, inwhich payments to the

treasurywere received. According to this balance sheet, 7.9% of the total
income reached the treasury in gold specie, 47.5% of which in sultanis.79
a similar balance sheet for 1547-8 does not
Although
provide the same sort
of list, a number of entries nevertheless refer to some of the income items
thatwere received in gold coins, however without much specification as to
whether these coins were of Ottoman or foreign origin. These entries sug
gest that in 1547-8, at least 21.8% of the total income was received in gold
to the treas
coinage.80 Not surprisingly, the increase in the payments made
was
to
in
in relative
with
the
do
Arab
where
had
ury
provinces,
gold
gold
abundance.81
In 1524-5, the contribution of theArab provinces to the imperial treasury

was minimal: in all 5,268,145 akces, almost exclusively in
on
gold coinage
a total income of 141,272,658
akces. Moreover,
the comparative notes
added
to the entries, which
record the income from the same items in
the previous fiscal year 1523-4, suggest that theArab provinces were then
unable to send any surplus at all,which is probably why the treasury closed
the yearwith a deficit of almost 2,000,000 akces.82 In 1547-8, however, the
78)
1, 2, 3, 4, 4a, on pp. 293-7.

of gold coins. I established
their
provides
Sahillioglu,
respective values in akces from internal evidence gathered from pp. 437 and 442, using
some approximation
for the values of the engiirusi, a Hungarian
gold coin, and the akce-/
in
must
Venetian
their proportions
which
be
the
then
calculated
and
marcello,
Marfel,
79)
Sahillioglu,
"Ottoman
Monetary
"1524-1525":
434,
History":
Tables
the number
terms of their value in akces.

80)
I have adjusted the subtotals of the provinces
246-9.
Barkan, "954-955
(1547-1548)":
to reflect the actual total of the items; thus the total under C,
of Syria and Diyarbekir
coins worth 27,925,460
akces.
p. 246, should read: 489,922
gold
81)
a relative abundance
of gold thanks to its connections with sub-Saharan
enjoyed
Egypt
Africa; see the sources cited by Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire: 97,
also rich in gold since itwas a major center of interregional and interna
trea
to
"Osmanh para tarihi": 90, the provincial
According
Sahillioglu,
would collect its taxes in the local currency, and then convert them into gold
was
n. 23.
Aleppo
tional commerce.
sury of Aleppo
coins by distributing
local silver coins
from them in return, a practice
called
to the merchants
of the region and collecting
gold
tehdil-i hasene.
82)
Sahillioglu, "1524-1525": 437 n.; the deficit is 1,895,464 akces, p. 423. In 1523,
Pasha was appointed governor of Egypt where he is said to have declared his inde
in his own name; Ibn Abi al-Surur, Al-Minah:
139-41. Although
pendence and struck coins
his rebellion was suppressed and he was executed in Egypt, the aftermath of the crisis might
Ahmed

The Ottoman
Arab provinces and Diyarbekir made a contribution of 28,211,339
akces
in
this
worth, almost exclusively
gold coinage. Without
large contribution,
central treasurywould have been ca. 12,000,000 akces in
the Ottoman
deficit for 1547-8. One must note, however, that the tribute of Egypt is
not included anywhere in this balance sheet.83Thus one may assume that,
the addition of the tribute of Egypt, the total contribution of the
with
Arab provinces in other years would have been much higher.

Probably thanks to these contributions, which made it possible for the
treasury balances to show surpluses during the sixteenth century,
a
amount of
quite
large
gold accumulated in the treasury.The holdings of
on
11March
the imperial treasury
akces worth
1548 totaled 86,889,845
Ottoman
of specie, 58% ofwhich consisted of gold coinage.84 This 58% share of the
akce value of gold coinage in the akce value of all the currencies held in the
treasury at the end of the fiscal year seems to have been much larger than
the share of the same in the akce value of all the coins entering the treasury
to
as
during the year.85The Ottomans thus apparently tried hoard the gold
a reserve, and to pay their
with
akces.
expenditures mainly
The next extant balance sheet of the imperial treasury is from the fiscal
year 1567-8. Unfortunately, it neither includes a list of the different cur
up the income, nor an inventory of the holdings of the
treasury at the end of the fiscal year. Yet again, some of the entries indicate
that income items related to those entrieswere paid into the imperial treas
rencies making
ury in gold coinage. These entries record that in the fiscal year of 1567-8
at least 26.5% of the total income was received in
gold coinage. Not sur
prisingly, these income items in gold came exclusively from theArab prov
inces,without which the treasurywould have closed the year with a deficit
ofmore than 50,000,000 akces.86
These balance sheets underline two important points. First,without the
Arab provinces theOttoman administrative-military apparatus could not
have financed
its expenditures
in the sixteenth century. These provinces
have postponed
the dispatch of the Egyptian
affected the finances of Aleppo.
83)
Omer L. Barkan, "H. 974-975
Compare
tribute to 1525. The
(M.
1567-1568)
mali
events may
yihna
also have
ait bir Osmanh
biitcesi."IstanbulUniversitesi
Mecmuasi 19 (1957-8): 302, 307; Sahillioglu,
tktisat
Fakultesi
tarihli biitce": 38, 46.
"1582-83
84)
275.
Barkan, "954-955
(1547-1548)":
85) See n.
78-80 above.
86)
Barkan, "H. 974-975
299, 302-4. There are a number of inconsis
(M. 1567-1568)":
tencies in the
to go
the
of
I
tried
document;
figures
by the totals whenever possible.

494
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
both financed themselves and provided surplus revenues for the expendi
tures of the center elsewhere. Itwould probably not be an exaggeration to
claim that the westward and eastward expansion of the empire during
the reign of Suleyman I was financed by the center at the expense of the
Arab provinces.
finances benefited greatly from arbitrage profits.
Second, Ottoman
revenues in
a
its
Collecting
gold coins from theArab lands where
slightly
ratio was
still in effect in the second half of the six
teenth century made these revenues more valuable in Istanbul than they
were, for example, in Egypt. To give an example, let us assume that the
tribute of Egypt, 500,000 ducats, thatwas supposed to enter the personal
treasury of the sultan every year, was sent in silver currency. Up to 1585,
500,000 ducats were worth 30 million akces in Istanbul according to the
official exchange rate. The silver currency equivalent of the Egyptian trib
ute was 20 million paras, again
to the official exchange rate
according
of 40 paras a ducat. After the Egyptian debasement of 1565, at themost
was
optimistic estimate, 328 paras contained 100 dirhems of silver,which
sent
in
to
strike 450 akces. Thus had the Egyptian tribute been
necessary
paras to be melted
received 27,439,024
and converted
akces, which
ute had been sent in gold. Hence
into akces, the treasury would have

is 2,560,976 akces less than if the trib
central treasurymade a
the Ottoman
ratios in its central

profit of 9.3% by maintaining different gold?silver
lands and its southern provinces. Every 10 akces worth of revenue col
lected in silver in the Levant was worth almost 11 akces to the central
treasury. Separate currency zones, which could only operate in the absence
of full integration, and the profits of arbitrage associated with such an
economic setting,were in the interest of theOttoman center.
When
one looks at the balance
ever, it seems that theOttoman
sheet for the fiscal year of 1582-3, how

losing its arbitrage profits. The
center was
not procure much

provinces, with the exception of Egypt, could
detailed lists of the various
gold. This particular balance sheet provides very
kinds of specie, including those thatwere carried over from the previous
fiscal year, those that entered the treasury during 1582-3, and those that
were carried over to the next fiscal year. The very existence and detailed
Arab
nature of these lists are suggestive of the significance theOttoman admin

ratios. Accord
istration attached to the emerging problem of gold?silver
to
income
the
entered
of
the
total
these
15.5%
lists,
treasury in gold
ing
coins. The balance sheet also indicates thatEgypt sent a tribute of 522,228

Crisis of1585
Revisited
495
went
straight into the personal treasury of the sultan.87
gold coins, which
Once the value of this tribute is deducted from the total value of all gold
coins that entered the treasury as part of the revenues for 1582-3, the
remainder is 10,316,728 akces worth of gold coins.
The reason for the relative lack of gold coins is not that theArab prov
inces failed to support the central treasurywith their usual contributions.
seem to have sent
On the contrary, the provinces ofAleppo and Damascus
their largest contributions everwhen one compares this balance sheetwith
others.88 The contribution of the provinces of Aleppo and Damascus,

which used to send theirpayments ingold coinage in the past, is 37,087,420
akces worth, almost 27 million more than the total value of gold coins that
entered the treasury, excluding the tribute of Egypt. Apparently, the treas
uries of the finance department inAleppo and Damascus
failed to procure
seem to have used sahis, ofwhich the revenues included
Instead
they
gold.
akces worth, which is slightlymore than 20% of the total

53,546,933
revenues for 1582-3, or 23% if the
Egyptian revenue is excluded from the
total, since itwent straight into the private treasury of the sultan.
When
the revenues of the Levant were sent in sahis as opposed to duc
as
was
the case for this year, the central treasurywas losing money. For
ats,
in
and Aleppo made a con
instance,
1582-3, the provinces of Damascus
tribution of ca. 37 million akces to the central treasury,most of which
must have been in sahis. Let us suppose that all of this contribution was
sent in
as
gold coins
opposed to sahis. 37 million akces worth of sahis
equaled 5,285,714 sahis,which would make 660,714 gold coins in accord

ance with the official rates of 5 paras a sahi and 40 paras a ducat. This
much gold would make 39,642,840
akces in Istanbul. Hence the treasury
lostmore than two and a half million akces which itwould have made had
the contributions been sent in gold.
Thus in the early 1580s the sahi became the second most important cur
revenues, replacing gold coins to a great
rency after the akce inOttoman
extent, and causing a great deal of loss in arbitrage profits for theOttoman
87)
Sahillioglu,
tarihli biitce":
"1582-83
31-5,
38-46.
88)
Compare Sahillioglu, "1524-1525": 437-8; Barkan, "954-955 (1547-1548)": 247-8;
Barkan,
The
"H. 974-975
balance
(M.
tarihli biitce": 38-9.

"1582-83
302; Sahillioglu,
1567-1568)":
does not reflect the actual income but an ideal situation, yet
sheet for 1527-8
are lower than those for 1582-3; Omer L. Barkan, "H. 933-934
its
(M.
figures
mali yilina ait bir biitce
ornegi." Istanbul Universitesi Iktisat Fakiiltesi Mecmuasi
4): 294-5.

1527-1528)
15 (1953
496
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
center.Moreover, for theOttoman center more was at stake than a

simple
loss of future profits. A change in the gold?silver
ratio thatwould make
silvermore valuable against gold would have the effect of
decreasing the
value of theOttoman gold reserves in the private treasury of the sultan in
the imperial palace. Even in the most dire straits that Ottoman
finances
went
wars
in
the
the
and
the
and
1590s
1600s,
through during
Habsburg
accessions
the
four
took
that
between
and
which
1617
1623,
during
place
created an immense burden on the treasury because of the accession ben
efits paid to the soldiers, the private treasury of the sultan was still able to
cover the deficits of the central treasury.Thus the amount of
gold that had
been accumulated during the sixteenth century must have been immense.
one would be
was quite
Consequently,
justified in claiming that it
impor
tant for theOttoman center to protect the value of its
reserves.
gold
In sum, theOttoman center had several reasons not to accept the new
ratio, which had been carried by the sahi, the child of the
of
theOttoman economic zones into a big imperial market in
integration
a
economic
of
expansion, from the Safavid borders to theOttoman
period
gold?silver
capital. It is this observation rather than the fiscal difficulties which the
treasury faced in financing thewar effort,which did not really exist at this
as far as the balance sheet of 1582-3 is concerned, thatmay
point
help to
in
intervention
the
Ottoman
the
of
administration
explain
September 1585.
As noted above, the Ottoman
than themarket had done. While
administration devalued the akce more

themost recentmarket rates prior to the
devaluation were 85 akces for the ducat and 60 akces for the gurus, the
official rateswere announced at 110 and 65 akces respectively. The deci
sion was thus clearly aimed at making gold more valuable in relation to
ratio of the south and

silver, or at stopping the spread of the gold?silver
the east to the center of the empire. In that sense the assumption that
III was aiming to increase the value of his treasury is a point
Murad
well made.89
was aimed at the destruction of
importantly, the devaluation
the sahi,which the administration had come to regard as a major problem.
But more
In 1591, when Sinan Pasha reminded Murad III that he had accomplished
more than two years
a great deal since
assuming the grand vizierate little
earlier, he noted that he had succeeded in eliminating the sahi from
89) That was
see Cemal Kafadar,

"Les troubles
the interpretation of some contemporaries;
ottomane du declin." Annales:
la fin du xvie siecle et la prise de conscience
economies, societes, civilisations AG (1991): 385.
monetaires
de

Crisis of1585
Revisited
497
circulation.90 Itwas Sinan Pasha who had taken over and completed the
debasement operation started byMehmed Pasha in 1588, three years after
the devaluation.91
economic market had started to operate with
Although the Ottoman
the de facto debased akces, the government did not make extensive use of
in salary payments. Even after the devaluation of the akce
at least some
the
against
gold ducat and the gurus in September 1585,
of the soldiers of the central army continued to receive their salaries in
a
good akces for few years. As noted by Reinhold Lubenau around 1587,
rate of the gurus, which used to be 40 akces, had
although the exchange
these akces
risen by this time to 80 akces, the Janissaries received their salaries in

the old akces, 40 of which stillmade a gurus.92 Thus the devaluation of
the akce and its official debasement had not taken place at the same time.
In September 1585, the government devalued the defacto debased akce

while apparently still using the good akces in salary payments. Itwas only
in 1588 that the Ottoman
administration decided to pursue a full-scale
official debasement of the akce by replacing all of the coins in circulation

with new ones thatwere going to contain 0.38 g. of silver as against to the
former standard of 0.68 g.93
In April
1589, when the imperial cavalry troops rebelled because they

being paid in debased coinage, they asked for the execution of the
vizier Mehmed
Pasha and the finance minister Mahmud
Efendi, whom
were
they held responsible for the official debasement. While

recounting the
incident, Selaniki makes the executioner say toMahmud Efendi: "Are you
the one who struck akces from themines at [the rate of]
eight akces [per
90) Sinan
Pasha,
TelhisaP. f. 70a; for the dating of this telhis, see Suraiya

Faroqhi, "Die Vor
des
Grosswesirs
Sinan pasa an Sultan Murad
III." Ph.D. dissertation
(Uni
lagen (telhise)
versitat Hamburg,
1967): 36-7, 212, 218. One could also add that Sinan Pashas references
to his former
inDamascus
in its aftermath, as well as
grand vizierate and his governorship
that it had been almost two and a half years since he had assumed his
post for
his statement
the second time, suggest that the telhis in

question must
of 1591, before his dismissal
in
August.
91)
"The Boundaries
of Ottoman
Economic
Kafadar,
Sixteenth Century":
93-4.
92)
Hinz, Islamische Wahrungen:
93)
"Osmanli
para
Sahillioglu,
documents
cited by
Sahillioglu,
177.
have been written
Imagination
in the summer
at the End
of the
In addition
to the
46.
tarihi": 66,
233-4
224-5,
see also Ender, Niimismatik
(n. 27-34).
ile ilgili Belgeler:

18, no.
174,
498
B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
dirhem]?"94 Although it is not clear whether the akces inwhich the cavalry
troops received their salaries were the officially debased ones, the context
of this remark aswell as the timing of the incident right after the
beginning
of the debasement operation suggest that thiswas the case.95
It seems that the imperial army had a strong
leverage against the admin
istration in expecting their salaries to be paid in good coin. Yet thiswas

more difficult
given the de facto debasement of the akce since
becoming
at least the 1570s. An alternative for the
good akce would have been the
in the market. After
ducat or the gurus, but neither was used much
the expansion of the use of the sahi, the piastres that entered the country
were converted into ?ahis in order to take
advantage of the overvaluation
of the coin. As for the ducat, the southern provinces, its principal source,
now sent their
yearly contributions in overvalued sahis and probably kept
the ducats for themselves.
In 1585, by valuing the gurus at 65 akces, five akces above itsmost

recently quoted market value, the government was hoping to stop the con
version of Spanish silver into sahis by outbidding
the profits made
by minting ?ahis. As for the quite high value of the ducat at 110 akces,
25 akces more than itsmost recentmarket value, this overvaluation of the
ducat suggests that the administration was trying to reverse the trend that
made silvermore valuable than gold. At a higher exchange rate, the center
thought, the southern provinces would again send their tributes in gold
coins as opposed to overvalued ?ahis. Yet the overvaluation of the ducat led
to yet another round of
practical debasement for the akce, pushing the
rates yet further up. Although the government tried to keep the
exchange
value of gold relatively high, eventually the ducat and the gurus were val
ued at 120 and 80 akces respectively,which meant a return to the old ratio
of 1.5 guru? per ducat through a devaluation of 100% in comparison with
the pre-1585 rates of 60 and 40 akces.
94)
Tarih-i Seldnikr: vol. 1: 211. Selaniki was not present in the capital at this
see p. 209.
point;
95)
to Ali,
it was
the more
than 1,000,000
akces, which were delivered by
According
"Kartakoz, the tax-farmer of the levy on wine sales," and were initially refused by the finance
of Otto
"The Boundaries
minister Mahmud
Efendi, which caused the trouble; Kafadar,
Selaniki,
at the End of the Sixteenth Century":

77. Ali, like Selaniki,
Imagination
is based on what he had heard from
in the capital at this time and his account
second hand sources. Sahillioglu believes that these akces may well have been the product
"Osmanli para tarihi": 228.
of the official debasement;
man
Economic
was
not

Crisis of1585
Revisited
499
the debasement had finally been fully realized in 1588, however,

the rate of this debasement was not what one would have expected it to be.
If the value of both gold and large silver coins increased by 100%, one
would expect the debasement to reduce the size of the akce by half. Yet the
When
new akces contained 0.38 g., which indicates a debasement of 44% from
ratio was changed from 1:11.5 to
0.68 g. Thus the official gold?silver
1:13.1, making gold relativelymore expensive than silver.
The Ottoman central government was clearly aiming to reverse the trend
toward a unification of the Ottoman
currency zones with a gold?silver
silver relativelymore expensive than gold in the east

ern and southern provinces. Yet this effort proved unsuccessful; as the
southern provinces were reluctant to follow suit and debase their curren
ratio that had made
cies accordingly,96 the debasement operation took the empire back into the
earlier part of the sixteenth century, when separate currency zones with
ratios co-existed. Over the next ten years, during
which the defacto debasement and devaluation of the akce continued, the
situation proved impossible to sustain.
center undertook yet another debasement, which

reduced the silver content of the akce to 0.32 g., this time without an
accompanying devaluation in terms of the ducat, thus changing the gold?
silver ratio once again from 1:13.1 to 1:11. This decree, which made silver
relativelymore expensive than gold, was an acknowledgement of market
In 1600 theOttoman
realities on the part of the administration.97 Sanderson, an English mer

chant in Istanbul at the time, did not have much faith in the operation.
However, this time the debasement did prove to be successful, at least for
more than ten years to come.98 Moreover,
in 1600 another debasement
was
an official devaluation.
in
took place
Syria, and this
accompanied by
The new rate of the ducat and theweight of the para, which was decreed
at 80 paras of 0.48 g. each, suggest that both the Levant and the central
lands of the empire had finally become united in the same gold?silver
ratio, since in both areas one needed ca. 38 g. of silver to get a ducat.99
96)
"Osmanh para tarihi": 223-4.
Selaniki, Tarih-i Seldniki: vol. 1: 430; Sahillioglu,
97) Katib
vol. 1:
1286-7 AH):
Qelebi, Fezleke. 2 vols. (Istanbul: Ceride-i Havadis Matbaasi,
"Osmanh para tarihi": 225.
142-3; Sahillioglu,
98)
in the Levant 1584-1602:
Foster, The Travels ofJohn Sanderson
202; in 1610, George
an
a
see A Relation
still
120
traveler
in
for
akces
ducat
Istanbul;
Sandys,
English
quoted
of
a
1610 (London: W. Barrett, 1615): 73, 77.
Iourney begun An: Dom:
99)Muhammad
Ibn Jum'a, "Al-bashat wa al-qudat."
InWuldt
dimashqfi al- 'ahdal- uthmdni,

500 B. Tezcan /JESHO 52 (2009) 460-504

In the late seventeenth century this process of the unification of the dif
ferent zones of the empire was to take itsfinal shape. During themid-sev
enteenth century the large European silver currencies, mostly called gurus
with an accompanying
adjective, such as tarn, or kamil for the
came
to
be used as a common currency in the Ottoman
Spanish piastre,
Empire,100 which led to the creation in the late seventeenth century of an
kuru? thatwas meant to be used all over the empire. This new
was
as
imperial large silver coin
accompanied by the adoption of the para
an
was
as
as
in
well
minted in Istanbul
imperial small silver currency that
Ottoman
Egypt. Although the akce eventually disappeared, the para survived through
to the end of the Ottoman Empire and was even used
during the early
as
a
of
the
Turkish
unit
that
1/40 of
denoted
monetary
period
Republic
a kurus. The kurus survives to this
as
as
in Egypt
well
day in Turkey
to denote a penny.
(pronounced [qjirsh)
Thus itwas in the sixteenth century that the foundations of the early
modern monetary system of theMiddle East were laid through the unifi
cation of different zones of regional currencies into a unified imperial zone.
the ?ahi, the coin that played a significant role in this process,
eventually disappeared together with the differences in the gold?silver
ratios of the Ottoman provinces, the Egyptian para came to replace the
akce. The fact that para came to mean money in modern Turkish is a
reminder of themarket forces that unified a number of differentmonetary
zones in the sixteenth-centuryMiddle East.
Although
A final question Iwould like to address iswhether one can talk about a
"monetarization" of theOttoman economy parallel to all of these develop
ments. This article does not prove that a monetary economy emerged in
the Ottoman domains during the sixteenth century. After all, the emer
a
gence of a monetary economy based on the idea of production targeting
market where goods are bought and sold, and not bartered, is not some
one can
to a certain moment in the
precisely date
gradual devel
thing that
opment of the use ofmoney. Even if therewere strict criteria to determine

the existence of a monetary economy, such as the amount of money in
circulation, the velocity of circulation, and the relative value of the
non-monetary
sector, it seems doubtful whether one could gather enough
ed. S. al-Munajjid
[s.n.], 1949): 26. Yet the fineness of the new para is not indi
(Dimashq,
ratios.
there
still
have
been a discrepancy between the gold?silver
thus
cated,
might
ioo)
in the
Pamuk, "In theAbsence of Domestic Currency: Debased
European Coinage
Seventeenth-Century
Ottoman
Empire." Journal ofEconomic History
57 (1997):

345-66.

data
to test
the
"monetariness,"
or
Crisis of1585
the
Revisited
501
"market-orientedness,"
of an
econ
omy according to such criteria during the sixteenth century.

On the other hand, the evidence presented above shows that the pre
sixteenth-century Middle East consisted of different currency zones that
had differentgold?silver ratios, as had been the case for the IslamicMiddle
East and Byzantium in theMiddle Ages. The monetary developments in
the sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire, however, indicate a sharp decrease
in opportunities for arbitrage with regard to profits that could be made by
ratios that existed in differ
taking advantage of the different gold?silver
ent currency zones. I have shown that in 1525, therewere great
opportuni
ties for arbitrage between Cairo and Istanbul, but by 1555, arbitrage
as great
profitswould stillhave been possible but theywould not have been
as 30 years before. I have also shown that in the 1560s, great
arbitrage
was much more valuable in
profits could be realized since silver
Baghdad
than itwas inAleppo and in Istanbul. But Aleppo soon started to use the
sahi and forced an increase in themarket value of silver,which soon affected
Anatolia and even the Balkans, somuch so that by 1584 gold?silver
ratios
in Baghdad and Istanbul had come to be the same.
I have also argued that the devaluation of 1585 and the debasement of
ratio
1588 were both aimed at the establishment of a different gold?silver
increase the value of gold in relation to silver, and that this

would have been to the advantage of theOttoman administration, which
had a vested interest in keeping the currency zones separate from each other
because itgreatly benefited from arbitrage opportunities. But governmental
fiat was not strong enough to reverse market forces, hence the de facto
debasement of the akce in the hands of the public continued during the
1590s. Eventually, however, the Ottoman administration came to realize
that itwas futile to try to reverse the processes
brought about by market
a
in
to
was sanc
and
in
1600
for
value
silver
relation
forces,
higher
gold
that would
tioned, which proved to be more successful than the devaluation of 1585.

Both the decreasing opportunities for arbitrage
throughout the sixteenth
the
of
and
failure
the
of
century,
greatest profiteer
arbitrage, theOttoman
administration, to reverse the trend, suggest that the large Ottoman
domains were economically well connected to each other. Information
about profit opportunities traveled fast. Most

importantly, increasing
demand for a product that allowed for large profits in a certain area, in this
case the
relatively cheap silver of Anatolia with which overvalued sahis
could be struck in the east and the south, soon increased its price in the
whole imperial market, thus
destroying opportunities for arbitrage profits.

B. Tezcan IJESHO 52 (2009) 460-504
502
even
one cannot assert that theOttoman economy
Consequently,
though
of the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries was a fully-fledged
market economy, it is justified to claim that theOttoman economy of this
was much more market oriented and much more monetary than it
period
had been a century before.101
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