Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
109: The Tanzeemat of the Ottoman Empire - Part 5
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
The tanzeemat sought to replace indirect tax collection with a centralized, direct tax collection system. By the Tax Act of 1840, taxes were no longer collected by the tax farmers but by professional tax collectors appointed from Istanbul and made responsible to the treasury department. Extensive surveys of land, property, farm animals, rental income and salaries were undertaken to determine the tax basis for each. The property surveys were supplemented with an accurate census so that recruitment to the army and jizya from non-Muslim males of military age could be assessed fairly. Documentation of each item was thorough. A documentation fee was initiated on all documents and became a major source of revenue.
In addition to direct taxation, every able-bodied man between the ages of 16 and 60 was required to work on roads, bridges and public works for four days a week. Merchants and artisans in the cities were assessed a profits tax. Goods moving from one city to another were subject to a road tax and those consumed locally were taxed at the point of origin. Exports were taxed at the point of loading and imports at the point of off-loading. The Capitulatory Powers, however, resisted attempts to increase tariffs on certain imported goods, so that foreigners continued to enjoy unfair advantages in trade and commerce.
The reforms increased the tax revenues. But the increasing burdens of defense, centralized bureaucracy and foreign debt more than offset the increased revenue so that the budget deficit of the empire continued to increase. There were not enough trained tax collectors and the few available men were spread thin over large territories. The local fiefs and landlords took advantage of the relative inexperience of the new bureaucrats so that after an initial increase, tax revenues started to decline again. Consequently, the empire reinstated the tax farms and tried auctioning them off to the highest bidder. This only increased the burden on the farmers because the fiefs were interested in recovering their investment and enriching themselves, at the expense of the farmers, as rapidly as possible. The period of an auctioned tax farm was therefore increased to five years, with the stipulation that the tax collector was to help the farmers with seeds and crop cultivation. This was only partially successful; the farmers remained at the mercy of the local fiefs.
To increase the efficiency of administration and to assist in tax collection, the empire was divided into seven provinces or banats of approximately equal population and tax revenue. Districts within each province were divided into sanjaks. Each sanjak was administered by a muhassil whose authority and responsibility were clearly defined. Each sanjak was further divided into kazas. Such a division would correspond to the modern-day division of provinces, districts and counties.
To increase the participation of people in local self-government, each sanjak and kaza had an elected advisory council, consisting of Muslims and non-Muslims as well as the local kadi, police chief and tax collector. At the village level, a council of elders represented each millet. The representation was indirect. Only the local notables had any chance of getting elected; the poor had very little representation.
Since there were not enough bureaucrats to administer the tanzeemat, the role of the army in the administration was therefore increased. The provinces were put under the direct control of the field marshals or the mushirs. The mushirs functioned with the help of local notables who assisted with tax collection in cooperation with the appointed tax collectors and scribes. The powers of the sanjak councils were increased. They could ask for information from the mushirs, send complaints to the grand vizier, review court decisions, discuss local problems and offer solutions. In addition, some public funds were channeled to the provincial councils and they were given the responsibility for repairing and maintaining roads, bridges and canals.
Funding dried up after the Crimean War of 1853-1856 and the Councils lost their effectiveness. As a result, in 1864, the powers of the provincial governors were increased. Each governor was made responsible for all administrative, judicial, fiscal, social and security issues. He supervised the tax collectors, gathered information and provided oversight for education. Tax collection was centralized. All revenues were shipped to Istanbul from where specific amounts were returned to each district for administrative expenses. Departments of taxation, accounting, documentation, administration, education and public affairs were set up to assist the governors. The directors of these departments were appointed from Istanbul and were responsible directly to the center. An elected council of six members, three Muslims and three non-Muslims, was assigned to each department. Increased local representation protected the people from undue taxation, fostered local initiative and improved education, roads, transportation and the security of the people.
Even the Sultan was not untouched by the tanzeemat. The Sultans curtailed the growth of their expenses and their expenses as a percentage of the overall budget decreased. They made themselves more accessible to the public, traveled abroad on diplomatic missions and went for Friday prayers at the Aya Sophia Mosque in an open carriage.
The tanzeemat transformed Istanbul into one of the finest cosmopolitan cities on the Eurasian landmass by 1865. In 1858, following a detailed study, a municipal commission was set up for the European section of the city. In 1864, the municipal administration was extended to the whole city. The city was divided into 14 districts, each district managed by a council of 8 to 12 members. The municipal administration had responsibility for buildings, sanitation, marketplace, communication, lighting, building codes, layout, public facilities, commercial and tourist places, public health, orphanage and police functions. A budget was prepared for each district and accountability was assigned. These reforms came at the expense of the guilds and of the entrenched millet hierarchies. Despite the interference of European powers who were always ready to support the non-Muslim millets, the reforms were highly successful. In 1870, the same system of administration was extended to the other cities in the empire.
The tanzeemat brought in increasing secularization to the judicial process. The old judicial system was based on Hanafi Fiqh in which each religious group was given the privilege of maintaining its own millet courts. The tanzeemat sought to restrict the jurisdiction of the Shariah courts to civil disputes between Muslims and of millet courts to civil disputes among members of that millet, while creating mixed tribunals consisting of Muslims and non-Muslims when a dispute involved members of different religious groups. A uniform commercial code, along the lines of the French Commercial Code, was decreed. It established mixed tribunals consisting of Muslim and non-Muslim Ottomans and included representatives of European merchants. Court procedures were borrowed from the French and Italian penal systems.
By a decree of the Sultan, the life and property of all subjects was guaranteed. As confidence in the secular judicial processes increased, so did private and foreign investment in the empire. In 1856, the secular court system was expanded to the provincial and local levels. A court of appeals was set up to provide oversight of the lower courts. The promulgation of a uniform commercial code enabled the Ottomans to renegotiate certain provisions of the Capitulatory Agreements signed with France, Britain, Austria-Hungary and Russia and for the first time, foreign citizens were brought under the Ottoman judicial system.
Communications and industry benefited from the tanzeemat. The major cities were connected by a telegraph system making it possible for a centralized bureaucracy to maintain efficient control over the provinces. Improvements in the roads and the introduction of steam ship service between the principal ports speeded up postal deliveries. Railroads were opened up for foreign investment and over 3,000 miles of railroads were completed by 1876. New production facilities for the manufacture of army gear, including guns, ammunition, clothes and headgear were started with state capital. Ottoman as well as foreign capital was invested in cloth manufacture, mining, oil extraction, rug manufacture and silk production.
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
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