What's So Charitable about Ottoman Charity?

On the concept of sadaqah and acts of charity in the Ottoman Empire

Abstract

Research into the phenomenon of Ottoman public kitchens (imaret) reveals that contrary to expectations and to the assumptions of earlier research, these institutions did not distribute food necessarily to the poor and hungry, but to a broad variety of people. Notwithstanding, they were widely considered a form of charity, first of all due to their establishment as (vakıf/waqf) (endowments), acts which entail divesting property for the sake of the public good and the benefit of the Muslim community. Also, as this article argues, charity is not only an act of giving from the strong to the weak in order to relieve hardship (sometimes characterized as altruism). It should be understood in a broader context of giving, as an act intended to benefit the giver as much (if not more than) as the recipient, and as means for establishing social ties: ties of superiority and inferiority, ties of patronage and obligation, mutual ties between family members and neighbors. Charity serves to define and strengthen the existing social order. Hence, the value accorded to charity in Muslim thought and practice derives not only from the teachings of the Qur’an and the sunna, but also from social phenomena found in human and even animal societies in general.