Talk by Nilay Ozok

Kurdish emirates came under Ottoman rule in the sixteenth century within the context of the Ottoman-Safavid imperial rivalry. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Kurdish begs maintained a degree of “autonomy” recognized by successive Ottoman sultans. This autonomy entailed various hereditary administrative and fiscal privileges granted to the Kurdish nobility most important of which was their unhindered control over land and agricultural revenues. This talk discusses the making and the eventual dissolution of the Kurdish nobility in the Ottoman realm with a specific focus on land ownership and its transformation during the Ottoman reform era of Tanzimat in the nineteenth century.

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