The Ottoman Empire expanded from northwest Anatolia to large areas of the Middle East, north Africa and southeast Europe in the 250 years after 1300 CE, and continued until the early 20th century. Water management was a significant issue in the empire, not least because it covered many dryland areas. Taxation systems supporting the Empire were directly related to crop production and hence water management played a central role, although responsibility for it seems to have been devolved to local actors, leading to debates on the overall organization of the Empire. In this study, we address questions of how water was managed in the Konya Plain of Central Türkiye, which came under Ottoman rule from 1468 CE, in order to assess whether relative proximity to the Imperial centre and local conditions affected the approaches taken. We use records from Şer’i (Sharia) and Örf’i (customary) laws to evaluate the ways in which water management was regulated. There are eleven Konya şer’iyye registers dating from 1595 to 1922, and five sets of kanannume or ledgers of customary law dating to the 16th century CE. We use comparative evidence from taxation registers from the 16th and 19th centuries, as well as information obtained from remote sensing and landscape analysis. Structures for managing water such as artificial channels, wells, storage structures and watermills are commonly mentioned in the records. Only the very largest structures or systems relating to pilgrimage routes were managed directly by the state by delegation to a mirab or “watermaster”. Most features were managed locally by individuals, villages, religious foundations or artisanal guilds. Precedence was an important part of dispute resolution supervised by a judge (kadı), and allocations of water by turns (nöbet) which seem to have been already in place before the Ottoman period. There was also a specific style of management called suğlas based on local intensive irrigation with dams to store and divert water, which were more productive and taxed more highly than other irrigated land, which was in turn taxed more highly than non-irrigated land. The management of water in the Konya Plain had important similarities and differences from known practices elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. Of the former, the delegation to local controls and precedence for pre-Ottoman practices are amongst the most important, together with the use of a legal system for local dispute resolution. The extent of the suğlas and the importance of the mirab seem to be key differences with other well-studied areas. The practice of water management was highly resilient in this water-sparse region, based on local delegation that seems to support the hub-and-spoke model of how the Ottoman Empire operated.

Ottoman water-management systems in the Konya Plain, Türki̇ye

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2026年7月13日

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Meltem Uçar,
Michele Massa,
İlker Yiğit,
John Wainwright

摘要

The Ottoman Empire expanded from northwest Anatolia to large areas of the Middle East, north Africa and southeast Europe in the 250 years after 1300 CE, and continued until the early 20th century. Water management was a significant issue in the empire, not least because it covered many dryland areas. Taxation systems supporting the Empire were directly related to crop production and hence water management played a central role, although responsibility for it seems to have been devolved to local actors, leading to debates on the overall organization of the Empire. In this study, we address questions of how water was managed in the Konya Plain of Central Türkiye, which came under Ottoman rule from 1468 CE, in order to assess whether relative proximity to the Imperial centre and local conditions affected the approaches taken. We use records from Şer’i (Sharia) and Örf’i (customary) laws to evaluate the ways in which water management was regulated. There are eleven Konya şer’iyye registers dating from 1595 to 1922, and five sets of kanannume or ledgers of customary law dating to the 16th century CE. We use comparative evidence from taxation registers from the 16th and 19th centuries, as well as information obtained from remote sensing and landscape analysis. Structures for managing water such as artificial channels, wells, storage structures and watermills are commonly mentioned in the records. Only the very largest structures or systems relating to pilgrimage routes were managed directly by the state by delegation to a mirab or “watermaster”. Most features were managed locally by individuals, villages, religious foundations or artisanal guilds. Precedence was an important part of dispute resolution supervised by a judge (kadı), and allocations of water by turns (nöbet) which seem to have been already in place before the Ottoman period. There was also a specific style of management called suğlas based on local intensive irrigation with dams to store and divert water, which were more productive and taxed more highly than other irrigated land, which was in turn taxed more highly than non-irrigated land. The management of water in the Konya Plain had important similarities and differences from known practices elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. Of the former, the delegation to local controls and precedence for pre-Ottoman practices are amongst the most important, together with the use of a legal system for local dispute resolution. The extent of the suğlas and the importance of the mirab seem to be key differences with other well-studied areas. The practice of water management was highly resilient in this water-sparse region, based on local delegation that seems to support the hub-and-spoke model of how the Ottoman Empire operated.