About the OTTOWAQF project

Ottowaqf examines the role of charitable foundations (waqf) in shaping state formation in the Ottoman Empire between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Charitable foundations were among the most widespread and economically significant institutions in Ottoman and broader Islamic societies. They controlled vast agricultural lands and extensive urban properties, which supported a wide range of educational, religious, and social services. Despite their outsized role in Ottoman economic life, their role in Ottoman state-building has remained marginal in scholarship, which emphasizes sultanic authority and state institutions as the key driver of state formation within the empire. 

Challenging this perspective, the project places foundations at the center of analysis to demonstrate how state formation developed through sustained interaction between the Ottoman state and a diverse array of social actors and institutions. Foundations were both instruments of governance and mechanisms by which provincial elites, state functionaries, junior officers and rank-and-file soldiers, religious scholars, monastic communities, and other groups preserved resources, asserted autonomy, and negotiated the terms of imperial authority. By examining these dynamics, the project reconsiders the extent to which Ottoman power can be understood through prevailing patrimonial models that privilege top-down control. 

Methodologically, the project undertakes a comprehensive, empire-wide study of foundations through the integrated analysis of endowment deeds (vakfiye) and accounting registers (muhasebe defterleri) over the long term. These sources—rarely studied together and with such broad temporal and geographic parameters—allow for a detailed reconstruction of how foundations were established, administered, audited, and contested over four centuries. Drawing on this material, the project combines large-scale quantitative analysis with focused case studies that illuminate long-term trends, regional variation, and the lived experiences as a key facet of state-society dynamics across the Balkans, Anatolia, and the Arab provinces. 

By foregrounding foundations as key social institutions, the project advances a new model of Ottoman state formation grounded in negotiation, constraint, and shared governance rather than unilateral authority. In doing so, it contributes to broader debates on early modern empire, political economy, and institutional development, and offers a comparative framework for understanding state-building processes beyond the models based upon European historical experience.