The beggary in Ottoman İstanbul: A transformation from legitimacy to exclusion (1834-1908)

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2578917_(Table of contents)

Through providing information on Islam’s perspectives on begging and dervish groups that beg for a religious purpose, the study tries to reevaluate these groups in Istanbul beggar narratives and to analyze the relationship between the concepts of the dervish and the beggar. In addition, it examines whom the beggars consist of in Istanbul, their place in the eyes of the state and society, and the change in their positions over time. Begging, which was accepted as a guild and considered legitimate in the eyes of the state, became a problem that needed to be eliminated in the eyes of the state and society in the nineteenth century. Explaining how and why this change occurred is the main purpose of the study. In the era of modernization and industrialization, the beggars began to be seen as a potential workforce. The change in the general public understanding of morality and the concept of working changed the perspective of the state and elites towards beggars, which became a determining factor in state policies. Seeing beggars as an obstacle to the safety of the city and progress brought the definitions of the beggar and the vagrant closer together. The definition of the vagrant was added to the equation of the relationship between the dervish and the beggar. Various implementations were made by the state for the safety of the city and for helping the urban poor. In the period of Abdulhamid II, regulations and institutions were formed that were directly aimed at beggars. These practices took a new form with the synthesis of Islam and modernization.