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The Ottoman Fiscal Calendar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Richard B. Rose
Richard B. Rose*
Affiliation:
Incarnate Word College
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Extract

One of the daunting aspects of studying the Middle East is the confluence of several, often unrelated, languages, each with its own alphabet. Having gained some control over these, the student then comes up against a jumble of calendars. While many of these complications are lessened when focusing on a particular region or period of time, the cosmopolitan nature of the Ottoman Empire evolved a dense fabric of interwoven languages (Persian, Turkish, and Arabic) and of calendars, which were not only in use alongside each other, but were blended to create new subspecies! Handbooks and concordances have existed for a long time to enable the scholar to translate solar, lunar, agricultural, and urban time reckonings into modern calendars. We are most familiar with the standard Gregorian/Hijra guides, as Europeans were once deeply involved in concordances of Old Style (Julian) and New Style (Gregorian) conversion tables.

The Ottoman fiscal calendar is one of the more peculiar challenges which must be attended to, in order to control adequately the immense store of documents from the last centuries of the Turkish Empire. This calendar was employed particularly in the State’s fiscal and trade sectors; hereafter it is identified by the code SM, for sene-i-maliye, the fiscal year. It is a solar calendar, first put into use in AD 1676, and adopted by more areas of trade and administration until it becanle the official standard calendar of the empire in AD 1839. The supremacy of SM usage then lasted until AD 1917, when it was first modified to accord with Gregorian NS reckoning over Julian OS. Finally, SM usage was discontinued entirely in December of AD 1925, and replaced by the “Western” Gregorian calendar.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of Middle East Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , December 1991 , pp. 157 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America 1991

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References

1 Grumel, V., La chronologie (Paris 1958)Google Scholar, or the earlier Aus orientalischen Chroniken by Wirth, A. (Frankfurt 1894)Google Scholar. Also helpful is Bickerman, E. J., Chronology of the Ancient World, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, N.Y. 1980).Google Scholar

2 It is the Bulletin’s normal practice to write dates as, e.g., A.D. 1676, but we put SM, AD, and so on, here in boldface for emphasis and clarity, as Dr. Rose has indicated in his MS. ED.

3 Grumel, Chronologie, 180; and Bond, John J., Handy-Book of Rules and Tables for Verifying Dates with the Christian Era (George Bell, London 1875) 228–229.Google Scholar

4 The relationship between the Gregorian and Julian calendars is explained crisply in Bond, Handy-Book, 8–19, partly repeated on pp. 46–47. This is explained less clearly in Parise, Frank, ed., The Book of Calendars (Facts on File, New York 1982) 294–297.Google Scholar

5 For Europe, see Grumel, , Chronologie, 255Google Scholar, and Poole, Reginald “The Beginning of the Year in the Middle Ages,” Proceedings of the British Academy 10 (1921) 1–25Google Scholar (particularly pp. 4–6).

6 On the siviş system, see Unat, Hicrî Tarihleri, p. viii (1943 ed.) or p. xiii (1959 ed.).

7 The story is told succinctly by Deny, J., “L’Adoption du Calendrier Grégorien en Turquie,” Revue du Monde Musulman 43 (1921) 51Google Scholar. Also Massignon, Louis, “Calendriers Financiers,” Annuaire du Monde Musulman (Paris 1923) 8–10Google Scholar. A lively account is provided by Col. Tancock, O. K., “Dates on Turkish Stamps and Postmarks,” The London Philatelist 39 (1928/29) 290–292Google Scholar, based on Mayr, Joachim “Probleme der islamische Zeitrechnung,” Mitteilungen zur osmanischen Geschichte 2 (1923–1926)Google Scholar. The information collected by Moens, J.-B. for his journal Le Timbre Fiscal, 233 (1894) 3–4Google Scholar, came from G. Lacoine, the sous-directeur of the Imperial Observatory in Istanbul at the time. According to Lacoine, the decision to suppress the sivig adjustment was made back in SM 1256 (AD 1840–41), thirty years earlier than the other versions would have it.

8 Deny, J., “L’Adoption…,” 46–53Google Scholar

9 An example of the uncertainty involved is the overprint applied on postage stamps to commemorate the Sultan’s visit to Macedonia in AD 1911. The Imperial Palace often used the solar reckoning, but in this instance the stamps were overprinted with the date 1329, in Arabic numerals. The fiscal year corresponding to AD 1911 is SM 1327, and 1329 is the AH date. Evidently, the Sultan’s court considered this ceremonial visit to the province an opportunity to exhibit the symbolic authority of the Sultan as caliph and ruler of a Muslim state.

10 Grumel, Chronologie, 246–268, and Lietzmann, Hans, Zeitrechnung der römischen Kaiserzeit (de Gruyter, Leipzig 1934) 102–104Google Scholar, give only annual concordances, with starting times in days. For complete conversion tables, see Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P., The Muslim, and Christian Calendars, 2nd ed. (Rex Collings, London 1977)Google Scholar. This lacks sufficient detail to take into account Hijra leap years, however.