An Ottoman Statesman from Vizier to Treason in the 18th Century: The Life and Inheritance of Arifî Ahmed Pasha

Abstract

Confiscation was a frequently applied procedure in the Ottoman Empire. It was applied on various occasions especially in the 17th and 18th centuries when the need for cash was at its peak. In the 18th century, one of the statesmen whose properties were confiscated was the vizier Arifî Ahmed Pasha. Pasha started his career in the bureaucracy and rose to the rank of reisülküttab. Afterwards, he was promoted to vizier and became a member of the seyfiye class and served as governor in various provinces. Arifî Ahmed Pasha, who participated in the expeditions to Iran during the reign of Ahmed III (1703-1730), was assigned as serasker in the conquest of Revan. However, a few years after this appointment, he was sentenced to death on the grounds that he had committed acts of treason against the Ottoman Empire during that campaign. After his execution, his property was also confiscated.

The main sources of the present study on the life and inheritance of Arifî Ahmed Pasha are the mühimme registers and inheritance (muhallefat) registers in the Presidential Ottoman Archive. The study is in two parts. The first part contains the life story of the pasha based on the chronicles and mühimme books of the period. In the second part, Ahmed Pasha’s estate is analysed. In this section, cash and real estates, which constituted a large part of Pasha’s fortune of nearly 60 thousand guruş in total, and the weapons, books and belongings he owned are analysed. Ahmed Pasha’s movable and immovable properties are classified, followed by information on the transactions related to the inheritance.

The entry of an Ottoman statesman into the state service, his rise and his elimination through the confiscation of his inheritance upon his mistake are analysed with reference to Arifî Ahmed Pasha in the light of the above-mentioned sources of the period. In this context, this study aims to contribute to studies on the subject by depicting under what conditions, for what purpose and how the state applied the practice of confiscation, which was an autocontrol system in the bureaucracy.