Ayâns in the Ottoman Cyprus in the Second Half of the 18th Century

Year 2008, , 567 - 590, 01.08.2008

Nuri Çevikel

https://doi.org/10.37879/belleten.2008.567

Abstract

A process of fluctuation was experienced at the expense of the Muslim - non-Muslim reayah living in the Province of Cyprus exclusively in 1750­1800 A.D. In this period, along with the natural calamities like earthquakes, plagues, droughts and the likes, appeared other factors to play a decisive role in the case. One of the most important of them was a progression of "decentralization". It first appeared in the late sixteenth century as a result of inner and outer political, social and economic conditions, developed in the following century and widely spread all over the Ottoman Empire by the second half of the eighteenth century. Consequently, the proccss led the Ottoman central governments to lose or share its authority in provinces with newly emerged local powers called "ayans". To study the repercussions of the process, main subject of this writing, will obviously help someone to understand satisfactorily the history of Cyprus under the Ottoman rule, and grasp the whole picture of the conversions like that "process of decentralization". By this study one can also see determining to what extent and how those changings were tested in provinces is inevitable for clarifying the essence of the transitions which influenced the whole empire.

Keywords

Ottoman, Cyprus, Ayâns, 18th Century