OSMANLI GALATASI’NDA PARA VAKIFLARI VE MÜTEVELLİ: KREDİ TAHSİSİ, AYRICALIKLAR VE KÂRLILIK
CASH WAQFS AND TRUSTEES IN OTTOMAN GALATA: CREDIT ALLOCATION, PRIVILEGES AND PROFITABILITY

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines Ottoman cash waqfs in late seventeenth-century Galata through a principal–agent lens, asking who received waqf credit and whether trustee (mütevelli) access amounted to abuse. It uses roughly 1,000 loan entries from the debt (zimem) sections of accounting records for 62 cash waqfs (1680–1690), with borrower attributes identified where possible. Transaction-level fixed-effects models (within the same waqf, year, and contract type) show strong stratification: members of the military-administrative class obtained larger loans than urban resident men such as artisans and merchants, while trustees and waqf employees borrowed the largest amounts; women consistently accessed smaller loans. A second-stage analysis links portfolio composition to waqf profitability. A higher share of lending to military borrowers is associated with lower profits, consistent with repayment frictions and limited risk pricing under largely fixed profit rates (ribh). By contrast, trustee/employee lending does not predict lower profitability. Overall, privilege shaped access, but insider borrowing did not necessarily undermine sustainability. Taken together, these results may point to a de facto alignment of incentives between the trustee’s pursuit of personal gain and the waqf’s institutional continuity.

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