Abstract:

It is widely argued that the Ottoman waqf institutions lacked the flexibility to revise the rent incomes from the real estates they owned when there was a price increase in the rental market. This inflexibility, which was originated from the waqf system’s rigid legal and administrative structures, became the reason for the waqf institutions to lose a significant part of their incomes. This study, however, claims that the Ottoman waqf institutions greatly benefited from the icareteyn, or double-rent system, which allowed the administrators of the waqfs to re-evaluate the rents of the urban real estates in the face of inflation. This study argues that the double-rent system remained as the most effective way of leasing method in the Ottoman waqf real estate market until the middle of the nineteenth century. It helped the waqfs, particularly those deprived of financial means to restore and/or reconstruct their real estates, to finance their maintenance without spending from their budgets. Based on a variety of primary sources including court records, endowment deeds, waqf temessük registers, court records of the Imperial Pious Foundations Inspectorship (Evkâf-ı Hümâyûn Müfettişliği), and waqf account registers, this study aims to highlight some of the theories on the icareteyn system and how it provided advantages for both parties who signed the contract. Examples will be drawn from the cases in Istanbul in the early modern period. 

Keywords: