Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xxxv:3 (Winter, 2005), 481–500.

THE OTTOMAN PUBLIC KITCHEN

Amy Singer
Serving Up Charity: The Ottoman Public Kitchen
Ottoman public kitchens, known as ‘imaret, aqhane, darü’l-it(am, or
darü’z-ziyafe, handed out food, free of charge, to speciªc groups
and to fortunate individuals. These public kitchens were con-
structed throughout the territories of the Ottoman Empire, from
the fourteenth century into the nineteenth. Prior to the Ottoman
era, there is no indication that purpose-built public kitchens were
established on a wide scale in any Islamic society, though food dis-
tributions of various kinds were not unknown and took place on
many occasions in public venues and from the houses of individu-
als. An investigation of these kitchens reveals a nexus of patronage,
charity, and hospitality. It also introduces many of the broader
issues surrounding charity: Why do people give? What are the
implications of giving and receiving, and what meaning informs
these actions? Individual examples reveal the speciªc and quoti-
dien aspects of the public kitchens: Who decided what to give, to
whom, how much, when, and where? What kind of charity was
the soup kitchen, and what kind of “poverty” did it address? How
much food was distributed at one meal, and was it sufªcient to
constitute a minimally nourishing meal?1
In the present discussion, charity refers to a range of acts de-
noted by such terms as philanthropy, welfare, and beneªcent aid.
At its simplest level, charity is a reºection of a donor’s wishes,
inspired by spiritual, social, economic, or political motives, possi-
bly including self-interest and ambition. Attaining paradise in the
afterlife or social standing among the living, seeking economic
advantage through tax reduction or protection of property, and
Amy Singer is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv Univer-
sity. She is the author of Constructing Ottoman Beneªcence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen (Albany,
2002); co-editor, with Michael Bonner and Mine Ener, of Poverty and Charity in Middle East-
ern Contexts (Albany, 2003).
This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant #888/01).

© 2004 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary

History, Inc.

1 For general discussions of imarets, see Clément Huart, “‘Imaret,” Encyclopaedia of Islam
(Leiden, 1927), II, 475; M. Baha Tanman, “Imaretler,” Dünden Bugüne Jstanbul Ansiklopedisi
(Istanbul, 1993–1995), IV, 164–166; Singer, “Imarets,” in The Turks. III. The Ottomans (An-
kara, 2002), 657–664.
482 | A MY S I N G E R

consolidating the support of constituencies all constitute possible

motives for what may be termed charitable or beneªcent acts.
Acts of charity can also say something about the beneªciaries,
implying the presence of need, poverty, or destitution—whether
material, emotional, or spiritual in nature. Charity often requires
the presence of needy people or speciªc recipients but is not per-
force inspired by them. When charity addresses poverty, it comes
in response to a giver’s perception of both the need and the de-
servedness of the recipient. What qualiªes as need or deservedness,
however, is far from universal; it may or may not be related to ma-
terial poverty or indigence. Rather, these key concepts are shaped
by the worldview of the givers.
For Muslims, the precepts of the Qur’an and the examples
from Muhammad’s life stored up in traditions (hadith) contribute
fundamentally, but not exclusively, to the formation of their
worldview. The Qur’an commands believers repeatedly, in a sin-
gle phrase, to pray and to pay the alms tax. The other three obliga-
tions of all Muslims are faith, fasting at Ramadan, and the
pilgrimage to Mecca. In the Qur’an, the alms tax is distributed to
the poor and needy, to those who work to collect the alms tax, to
those whose hearts need to be reconciled to Islam, to debtors, in
God’s way (often for those engaged in jihad), and to travelers
(9:60, Tawba). It also supplied funds for the ransoming of slaves.
The Qur’an states more generally that people are to be good and
contribute to parents and close relatives, as well as to orphans and
the needy (2:83, Baqara).2
Two categories of charity evolved from these basic Qur’anic
injunctions. The ªrst, the obligatory alms tax (zakat), is explicitly
enjoined annually on all Muslims who possess a minimum level of
wealth and income. The second category comprises voluntary do-
nations, referred to generally as sadaqa, which are recommended
to every Muslim, even if only a prayer for the health of another
person or as little as half a date. The voluntary donations are the
chief focus of the discussion in this article—everything from vast
endowments sustaining extensive socioreligious building com-
plexes to the smallest acts of charity.3

2 All Qur’an references are quotations or paraphrases from Arthur J. Arberry (trans.), The
Koran Interpreted (London, 1955).
3 For more extensive discussions of these basic concepts, see Thomas H. Weir and Aaron
2
Zysow, Encyclopaedia of Islam (CD ROM) (Leiden, 1999) (hereinafter EI ), VIII, 708–716;
2
Zysow, EI , XI, 406–422.
T H E OT T O MA N P U B L I C K I T C H E N | 483
Distribution of food as sustenance is one of the basic acts of
human charity, along with the provision of shelter and clothing. In
many of the Qur’anic verses about beneªcence, words based on
the Arabic roots r-z-q and n-f-q are used. The ªrst refers chieºy to
God’s own beneªcence as provider of sustenance (rizq), whereas
the latter points to various human obligations (nafaqa). More spe-
ciªcally, the Qur’an says, “they give food, for the love of Him, to
the needy, the orphan, the captive: ‘We feed you only for the Face
of God; we desire no recompense from you, no thankfulness’”
(76:8–9, al-Insan).4
A story later repeated about the second Caliph ‘Umar illus-
trates that this obligation came to be seen as personal, in the eyes
of both givers and recipients, and emphasizes the expectation of
individual responsibility. One night, while in disguise, ‘Umar met
a destitute woman and her two children. Not recognizing him,
the woman cursed the Caliph for ignoring their hunger. Without
revealing himself, ‘Umar, much chastised, went away and re-
turned to her as soon as possible carrying food. He then built a
cooking ªre and prepared bread and soup for the woman and her
children with his own hands. Notably, bread and soup are pre-
sented as the most basic forms of sustenance.5
For the Ottomans, Muslim teachings and traditions were only
part of the context in which the public kitchen evolved as a wide-
spread institution, supported by the charitable investments of the
imperial family and its most prominent ofªcials. Apart from the
teachings of scholars steeped in Qur’anic interpretation and legal
treatises, the practices and texts of the Muslim mystics (suªs) were
crowded with food, whether actually served up at suª residences
to dervishes and guests, or scattered as images and metaphors in
the writings and practices of the various orders. Furthermore, the
conºuence of Turco-Mongol, Arab, and Byzantine practices that
Ottomans adopted and adapted, together with the demands placed
on the new Ottoman sultanate, contributed to a worldview that
emphasized imperial charity and gave rise to the particular form of
the imaret.6
4 On rizq and nafaqa in the Qur’an, see suras ii and ix, especially ii.3, ii. 184, ii. 195, ii. 215,
ii.219, ii. 254 (anfaku mima razaknakum), ix.53–54. For a more general discussion of rizq, see
2
C. Edmund Bosworth, “Rizk.,” EI , VIII, 567–568.
5 This story is found in the eleventh-century mirrors-for-princes text of Nizam al-Mulk,
The Book of Government (London, 1960), 143–144.
6 Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneªcence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany,
2002), 152–157. On suªs, see David Waines, Halil Inalcik, and John Burton-Page,
484 | A MY S I N G E R

Charitable food distributions in the imarets provide a means

to understanding who was deemed deserving, how need was
deªned, and what the relationship was between deservedness,
need, and poverty. A picture emerges of how givers who chose
this form of charitable endeavor understood their purpose and
their own society, and how the distribution of food was both a ve-
hicle for charitable aid and for constructing and afªrming a partic-
ular social order.

endowments Ottoman public kitchens were endowments. The

express goal of the founders was to draw closer to God and attain a
place in paradise after death. These endowments, or waqfs, were a
form of sadaqa, sustaining much voluntary charitable activity
throughout Islamic societies from a relatively early point in Islamic
history, though they became more popular from about the tenth
century. Waqfs maintained an enormous range of social and eco-
nomic institutions, supporting education, health, welfare, public
services, and public works.7
In establishing a waqf, the founders transferred to God the ti-
tle of their properties permanently for the beneªt of a speciªc in-
stitution or purpose (mosque, college, public kitchen, waterworks,
bridge, family members, or the local poor). The properties could
be large or small (an entire house or a single room, an orchard or a
single tree), and the beneªciaries either a new or an existing insti-
tution. In Ottoman practice, founders deªned the following ele-
ments in a written document (waqªyya): (1) the precise property to
be endowed; (2) the precise beneªciary of the revenues from the
property; and (3) the person who would manage the endowed
property. The waqfs ªxed their ultimate beneªciaries as “the
poor” in order to ensure that the irreversible endowment would
serve an eternal purpose, whether it originally supported the
founder’s family or a public institution. A waqf made in favor of
2
“Matbakh,” EI , VI, 810–812; Annemarie Schimmel, The Triumphal Sun: A Study in the
Works of Jalalüddin Rumi (London, 1980), 138–152; Ayla Algar, “Food in the Life of the
Tekke,” in Raymond Lifchez (ed.), Dervish Lodge: Architecture, Art, and Suªsm in Ottoman Tur-
key (Berkeley, 1992), 302.
7 Although the schools of Islamic law differ on the details of what is possible and permissible
in founding and running these endowments, the brief sketch herein is based on the Hanafi,
which predominated in the Ottoman Empire. See also John Robert Barnes, An Introduction to
Religious Foundations in the Ottoman Empire (Leiden, 1987); Rudolph Peters, et al., EI 2, XI,
59–99.
T H E OT T O MA N P U B L I C K I T C H E N | 485
family members was not inconsistent with the institution’s charita-
ble intent, since the Qur’an names close relations as those deserv-
ing of sadaqa and emphasizes the responsibility and merit of caring
for the extended family.
Public kitchens were often one unit in a waqf complex
(külliye), a group of buildings, which could include such bene-
ªciaries as mosques, colleges, hospices, hospitals, and caravansaries.
The endowed revenue-producing properties of these complexes
could encompass markets, with shops that were rented out; baths,
the income from which contributed to the waqf; extensive agri-
cultural properties, from which revenues formerly levied as taxes
were redirected to the waqf institutions; and industrial facilities,
such as mills, soap factories, and looms. These large multi-purpose
complexes had extensive (and often far-ºung) properties, requir-
ing not only a manager, but a staff as well, all of whom had to be
compensated from the endowment revenues. The beneªciaries
were not only the buildings (which had to be maintained) but also
the clients of the various institutions, whether people praying,
scholars, students, patients, weary travelers, pilgrims, or the gen-
eral poor.
So far as historians are concerned, the endowments have the
advantage of visibility and durability. The largest complexes com-
prised stone buildings, some of which have endured in their origi-
nal functions until today. These large complexes were usually
endowed by rulers or wealthy and powerful members of society
who tended to record their acts in extensive and sometimes richly
calligraphed texts. To investigate the endowments of the Ottoman
sultans, written reports and accounts registers are also available. Al-
together, these documents record much detail about the kitch-
ens—the menus, the size of portions, the identities of those
included and excluded from the distributions, and the order in
which people ate.

the food served in imarets “Whoever gives one dirham of

sadaqa in Jerusalem gains his ransom from hellªre, and whoever
gives a loaf of bread there is like one who has given [the weight of]
the earth’s mountains in gold.” The spirit of this maxim—attrib-
uted to al-Hasan al-Basri, an eighth-century preacher—may well
have inspired Hurrem Sultan, wife of Sultan Süleyman I, to en-
dow a public kitchen in mid-sixteenth-century Jerusalem. She
486 | A MY S I N G E R

charged that it prepare and distribute meals to 500 people, twice a

day, every day. Were the maxim to have been realized literally, the
earth would long ago have collapsed under the weight of the gold,
since the imaret distributed around 1,000 loaves of bread daily.
The recipients of the distributions of bread and soup included the
employees, the people living in the caravansary of the imaret, the
followers of a local suª shaykh, and 400 people characterized as
“poor and wretched, weak and needy.”8
Each morning meal comprised rice soup, made with clariªed
butter; chick peas; onions; salt; and, according to the season,
squash, yogurt, lemon, or pepper for additional ºavor. In the eve-
ning, bulgar (crushed wheat) soup was made with clariªed butter,
chickpeas, onions, salt, and cumin. Meals always included bread.
On special days, however, everyone was entitled to richer dishes:
Friday nights (the night between Thursday and Friday); the nights
of Ramadan; the nights of (Aqure, Mevlud, Regaib, and Berat; the
great sacriªce festival (kurban bayramî/(id al-akha) during the annual
hajj (pilgrimage); and the celebrations marking the end of
Ramadan (qeker bayramî/(id al-ªtr). At such times, dane (mutton and
rice) and zerde (rice sweetened with honey and saffron) replaced
the regular evening wheat soup. These two special dishes were fa-
miliar ceremonial staples, expected to be on every table, no matter
the rank of the guest. For example, they appeared on the tables of
rich and poor alike at the circumcision feast of Süleyman’s sons,
the Princes Bayezid and Cihangir, in 1539.9
Employees at the Jerusalem imaret received one ladle of soup
and two loaves of bread per meal and the guests one ladle and one
loaf. The suªs and the largest category of the poor received one-
half a ladle and one loaf each per meal. On Fridays, each person
received dane and zerde, but the poor had only one-half a piece of
meat each, whereas the others had a whole piece each. People ate
in shifts—ªrst the employees of the imaret, then the caravansary
residents, and ªnally the poor. The poor had to enter in shifts be-
cause they were too numerous—ªrst the learned poor, then ap-
2
8 Al-Hasan al-Basri (d. 728), as quoted in Weir and Zysow, “S.adak.a,” EI , VIII, 710. The
discussion of the Jerusalem imaret in this section is based on the waqªyya of the imaret, as well
as reports on it submitted to the Topkapì Palace. See Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneªcence,
39–70, for further details and references.
9 On the various festivals, see the relevant articles in EI 2. On the circumcision feast, see
Semih Tezcan, Bir Ziyafet Defteri (Istanbul, 1998), 43, 58.
T H E OT T O MA N P U B L I C K I T C H E N | 487
parently the men, and ªnally the women. As an exceptional
privilege, the suªs were allowed to send someone to collect their
food from the imaret and bring it back to their residence across the
city. Everyone else had to eat in the imaret refectory.
Strict prescriptions deªned who ate, what they ate, how
much they received, where the food was distributed and eaten,
and in what order. These conditions were stipulated in the en-
dowment and reªned in subsequent orders and reports concerning
the early operations of the imaret. Hand in hand with the image of
imperial generosity is that of a strictly run establishment, carefully
regulating the movements and beneªts of its clients.
The Hasseki Sultan imaret in Jerusalem is one example of an
Ottoman public kitchen, but Jerusalem was only a provincial
town, even if an important one. The imperial capital in Istanbul
had more numerous and extensive operations at work in the huge
imarets of the Fatih and Süleymaniye complexes. Mehmed the
Conqueror, known in Turkish as Fatih Mehmed, constructed an
enormous complex in Istanbul between 1463 and 1471, which
gave its name (“Fatih”) to an entire quarter of the city. By the
mid-sixteenth century, approximately 1,500 people were fed twice
a day at the imaret there. Among the diverse group of regular cli-
ents were visiting dignitaries, travelers, scholars and students from
the prestigious Fatih colleges, the doorkeepers and guards of these
colleges, the students of three other nearby colleges and four
nearby zaviyes or dervish lodges, 600 student candidates (softa/
suhte) and their eight proctors (emir), 56 members of the Fatih ima-
ret staff, 47 hospital staff members and 51 other functionaries of the
complex, including staffs of the mosque and tombs. After all these
people ªnished eating, what was left over was distributed to the
indigent poor. These details are recorded in a distribution list
(tevzi (name), drawn up in 952/1545 as a result of too much food
being cooked, presumably exceeding or taxing the budget of the
place. The list reiterated who exactly had the right to eat at the
Fatih imaret, as well as what and how much they ate, to ensure no
waste and to prevent abuse due to the “wrong” people being fed
or the “right” people receiving too much.10
As elsewhere, the principal dishes cooked at the Fatih imaret
were rice soup in the mornings and wheat soup at night. How-

10 A. Süheyl Ünver, Fatih Aqhânesi Tevzî (âmesi (Ankara, 1953), 3–6.

488 | A MY S I N G E R

ever, the fare at Fatih was heartier than in Jerusalem, since both
soups were made daily with meat and parsley. The soups were en-
riched with salt, onions, cumin, pepper, chick peas, squash, and
sour grape or yogurt and chard. About 3,300 loaves of bread were
baked and distributed every day. On Friday evenings, the menu
comprised dane, zerde, and zirbaç (a sweet pudding with raisins,
plums, ªgs, or almonds). The portions for the 600 student candi-
dates were cooked in separate cauldrons. During Ramadan, every-
thing was cooked for one meal only in the evenings.
Travelers who came to stay at the caravansaray of the Fatih
complex received honey and bread at the imaret immediately
upon their arrival, to revive them after their journey. The Fatih
imaret seems to have expected about 160 high-ranking guests per
day, who were to be served at tables (sofra) laid for four. They re-
ceived daily meals of dane and sometimes zerde as well, the dishes
that most others ate only once a week. At times, the guests might
be treated to meat stew with plums and fresh fruits. Visitors of an
even more exalted status, such as members of the aqraf (descen-
dants of Muhammad), had sheeps’ trotters (paça) served for break-
fast as a great delicacy, as well as a dish made of pumpkin/squash,
honey, jam, cinnamon, and cloves. They had generous portions of
meat and rice as well.
As to the order of service, the guests ate ªrst, followed by the
Fatih college scholars, students, and staffs. After them came the
students from the nearby colleges and the dervishes, and then
the 600 candidate students and their proctors, all of them eating in
the imaret. Next came the staff of the imaret and the rest of the
Fatih complex. If someone held two positions in the complex,
each one entitling him to eat, he was only to be served one por-
tion at any meal.
The last line of the document above the date reads, “[W]hen
there is sufªcient food remaining leftover from the aforemen-
tioned allocations, then a quantity may be distributed to the
poor.” The word “poor” (faqir/fuqara) in all these texts is problem-
atical; it refers to material poverty, which may have several differ-
ent causes. Sometimes the causes are distinguishable in context,
but they are often buried within a single term. A person called faqir
may be poor because incapable of working due to illness, injury,
age, inªrmity, or socioeconomic conditions. Faqir can also refer to
a dervish who has chosen material poverty to pursue a spiritual
T H E OT T O MA N P U B L I C K I T C H E N | 489
goal. It also applies to people who are poor and have a right to be
supported because they are learned or members of Muhammad’s
family. Finally, faqir refers to someone in a subordinate position,
often used rhetorically by authors for self-reference. When the
poor are named to receive the leftovers at the Fatih imaret, they
rank lower than the poor scholars, students, dervishes, and mem-
bers of Muhammad’s family, having no qualiªcations other than
indigence to earn them a more permanent place in the distribution
lists.
Daily fare at Fatih was richer than that in Jerusalem, and not
only for the high-ranking guests. The quantity of meat cooked
daily was sufªcient for each of the regular customers to receive at
least one-half a portion. Like Jerusalem, Fatih had a hierarchy. The
students at the prestigious Fatih colleges received a piece of stewed
meat, a ladle of soup, and two loaves of bread per meal; their
teachers received a double portion of soup. Allotments for the
nearby colleges did not list numbers of students, only the number
of portions per college. The student candidates, those waiting for a
post in one of the colleges, received half as much as the senior stu-
dents. Two would have to split a bowl of soup and a piece of
meat, though each received a loaf of bread (similar to the poor
of Jerusalem). Among the senior staff, the scribe and chief steward
of the waqf and the shaykh and steward of the imaret each were
entitled to double helpings of soup; the rest of the staff had single
portions.
Comparable to the Fatih imaret was that of the Süleymaniye
in Istanbul, built as part of an enormous mosque complex by Sul-
tan Süleyman, the “Lawgiver” or the “Magniªcent,” in the 1550s.
Though the number of people who came to either of these large
kitchens is difªcult to determine, the capacity of the Süleymaniye
seems to have been smaller than that of Fatih. By the sixteenth
century, Fatih’s kitchen featured a larger staff and baked 35 percent
more bread daily for distribution than the Süleymaniye. The
menus, however, were almost identical, as were the privileges
accorded to high-ranking guests; the distinctions between the
guests and regular clients like students, staff, and poor people; and
the order of service.11

11 On the Süleymaniye imaret, see Kemal Edib Kürkçüoglu, Süleymaniye Vakªyesi (Ankara,
1962).
490 | A MY S I N G E R

The Süleymaniye imaret seemed to expect approximately 200

high-ranking guests per day at tables spread with richer dishes. No
precise portions are on record, but the endowment deed notes that
orphans and children of the poor who were present in the primary
school (mekteb) on any given day should be served from the two
meals cooked for the poor in the imaret. Two children were to
split a bowl of soup, a portion of meat, and two loaves of bread.
The standard serving for the majority of staff, college students, and
scholars, though unspeciªed, was probably one serving of soup
apiece and a loaf of bread.12
The Süleymaniye imaret, like Jerusalem’s, placed a clear re-
striction on removing food from its premises. Strangers, presum-
ably not on the approved list, who came to the imaret with
buckets, could not take away food and bread. However, the poor
among the scholars, the descendants of Muhammad, and the
blind, paralyzed, and sick could.13
That the imaret of Bayezid II in Edirne seems to resemble the
large imperial imarets of Istanbul more than other provincial ima-
rets is not surprising, given its construction by a sultan in a former
capital of the empire, which continued to serve as an alternate res-
idence for him. Like those of Fatih and Süleymaniye, the imaret of
Bayezid II was part of a huge, multi-institutional complex. It had
separate courtyards for the kitchen and the bakery, the latter also
housing a candle works (candles had to be cooked). The menu
there had the customary meat cooked everyday and the special
provisions for privileged diners.14
The imarets in provincial towns that were not former capitals
were generally smaller, though a comprehensive picture for the
entire empire is lacking. Standard features reappear in almost all of
them—hot soup with bread served often twice a day and special
dishes cooked on Thursday nights and holy days. All of the kitch-
ens seem to have been alert to class distinctions among their cli-
ents. The imarets themselves, however, were not equal in wealth;
the regular fare varied accordingly. Not everywhere was meat a
part of the daily diet.
The population fed by imarets divided most obviously along
12 Ibid., 42–43.
13 Ibid., 31, 76–77.
14 Ratip Kazancîgil, Edirne Jmaretleri (Istanbul, 1991), 96–100.
T H E OT T O MA N P U B L I C K I T C H E N | 491
lines of class or profession, but it also divided into regulars and
transients. The imarets stood ready to welcome every traveler—
merchant, ofªcials on the move, and pilgrims. Niceties—such as
prompt and especially attentive service, including the offer of
honey or other reviving sweets for new arrivals—was reserved for
the more prestigious. Small details stress how important the func-
tion of host was in the imarets. In Kastamonu, for example, travel-
ers who arrived too late for the regular cooked meal received
snacks (cold but nourishing) of walnuts, honey, and cheese. The
extent of the hosting functions depended on whether the town
was on a main or secondary route, and whether it had some special
attraction. Unlike the regulars, however, travelers could expect
only the traditional three-day welcome.
Local regulars at the imarets usually included at least the staffs
and some group (whether precisely deªned or not) of indigents.
Notably, no military corps were among them; they had their own
barracks and camps. The population fed by each imaret also varied
with the character of its locale: the administrative status of the
town, the presence and size of the local student population or local
suª communities, the state of the economy, and its ªnancial
soundness. Jerusalem had far more pilgrims than Istanbul, and
many fewer religious students. In Damascus, the han (inn) of
Murad Çelebi functioned like an imaret, serving dane and zerde
twice a week during the four months when pilgrims passed
through the city on their way to and from the hajj.15
The clientele could also depend on local circumstances. Fol-
lowers of Shaykh Ahmad al-Dajjani, the suª leader in Jerusalem,
were not listed in the endowment deed but were added a few
years later to the list of diners at the Hasseki Sultan imaret. The
kadi in Konya appealed to Istanbul that the twenty-ªve poor der-
vishes who lived in the zaviye of the renowned fourteenth-
century suª Mevlana Celaluddin Rumi be fed at the nearby imaret
of Selim II, since they were overwhelmed by the smell of cooking

15 On other imarets, see J. H. Uzunçarlqîlî, “Karamanogullarì Devri Vesikalarînda Jbrahim

Bey’in Karaman Jmareti Vakªyesi,” Belleten, I (1937), 99, 101 (Larende); Muhammed A.
Simsar, The Waqªyah of ‘Ahmed Paša (Philadelphia, 1940), 100 (Dil-Hersek); Yusuf Küçükdag,
Karapînar Sultan Selim Külliyesi (Konya, 1997) (Karapînar); Yvette Sauvan, “Une Liste de
Fondations Pieuses (Waqªyya) au Temps de Selim II,” Bulletin d’études orientales, XXVIII
(1975), 243 (Aleppo).
492 | A MY S I N G E R

food wafting from it. An imperial order was issued granting the
request and increasing the imaret’s budget accordingly.16

the history of imarets Under various names, the large kitch-

ens became an integral component of the Ottoman project of set-
tlement, colonization, legitimization, and urban development.
Research on the imarets as discrete units within large waqf
complexes or as stand-alone institutions, however, is sparse. This
article marks the beginning of an extensive project on the subject,
aiming to cover the entire Ottoman Empire. There exists no com-
prehensive map of these institutions across the Ottoman Empire.17
Imarets were primarily urban institutions. Bursa, Edirne, and
Istanbul each had many imarets, probably because they served as
capitals to the empire, but also because sultans invested heavily in
their capitals. In addition, each was an important large commercial
city, located on the main routes to Anatolia and the Balkans, and
obliged to host large numbers and kinds of travelers. The less
prominent cities of the Balkans, Anatolia, and the Arab provinces,
as well as some towns and occasional villages, also had imarets that
served local indigents, staff in the greater waqf complex, and possi-
bly travelers. The menus mostly comprised bread and soup, the in-
gredients of which might vary according to local produce, climate,
and economic conditions.
Consolidation of the form and function of the imarets was
one facet in an ongoing process of canonization affecting imperial
institutions and cultural norms that culminated under Süleyman
in the sixteenth century. Along with the emergence of identiªably
Ottoman idioms of aesthetic creation and legal codiªcations
evolved the standard layout of the imaret as cooking spaces, food
storage facilities, and a refectory surrounding a courtyard. The ac-
tual shape of an imaret was not ªxed and varied with how much
money or space was available for building, and whether the con-
struction was new or renovated.18
Ottoman origin of the imaret is attested by its presence
16 Ibrahim Hakki Konyalî, Âbideleri ve Kitabeleri ile Konya Tarihi (Konya, 1964), 972–973,
977.
17 One of the initial phases of the present project includes an attempt to map the imarets
based on the writings of Evliya Çelebi, the seventeenth-century traveler. For the ªrst part of
that work, see Singer, “Evliya on ‘imarets,” in Ami Ayalon and David J. Wasserstein (eds.),
Mamluks and Ottomans: Studies in Honor of Michael Winter (London, forthcoming).
18 On sixteenth-century canons, see Gülru Necipoglu, “A Kânûn for the State, a Canon for
T H E OT T O MA N P U B L I C K I T C H E N | 493
throughout Ottoman lands—Anatolia, the Balkans, the Arab
provinces—and its absence elsewhere. Institutional features shared
among all these regions were frequently the product of an ongoing
Ottoman rule and cultural synthesis. Moreover, at least one archi-
tectural historian claims that no known earlier structures are analo-
gous to the Ottoman imarets, and none is described in numerous
books on Islamic architecture. Formal measures for emergency
food assistance to address conjunctural poverty had existed prior to
the Ottoman era in the Middle East. However, the daily distribu-
tion of cooked meals to large numbers of urban dwellers year-
round from a special building designed for that purpose appears to
have been an Ottoman innovation, at least outside the holy cities
of Mecca and Medina, and of Hebron.19
Mecca and Medina had an older endowment, dating at least
to the Mamluks, for the regular distribution of grain. The example
of Hebron is the most well-known from the pre-Ottoman period.
The table of Abraham (simat al-Khalil) is said to have originated in
his practice of hosting and feeding all travelers. According to the
eleventh-century Persian traveler Nasr-i Khusrau, anyone who
came to Hebron received one round loaf of bread, a bowl of lentils
cooked in olive oil, and raisins every day. The Mamluk sultan
Qaytbay (r. 1468–1496) restored the Hebron simat during his
reign, taking it as a model when he stipulated that wheat be sent
annually to his own college in Medina for the poor and visitors, no
matter what their status.20
In the early sixteenth century, the local chronicler Mujir al-
Din al-Hanbali (d. 1521) found that the daily fare at the simat was
still lentils and that on Thursday evening, seasoned rice (ruzz al-
mufalfal) and pomegranate seeds were served. More sumptuous
dishes were prepared for holidays. Mujir al-Din described the daily
procedure at the simat as one of the world’s wonders, rare even
among kings:
the Arts: Conceptualizing the Classical Synthesis of Ottoman Arts and Architecture,” in Gilles
Veinstein (ed.), Soliman le Magniªque et Son Temps (Paris, 1992), 195–216.
19 On Islamic and Ottoman architecture, see Robert Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture: Form,
Function, and Meaning (New York, 1994); Godfrey Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture
(Baltimore, 1971); Tanman, “Sinan Mimârîsi Jmâretler,” Mimarbaqí Koca Sinan Yaqadigi Çagi ve
Eserleri, I (1988), 333–353 (Istanbul).
20 Doris Behrens-Abouseif, “Qaytbay’s Foundation in Medina, the Madrasah, the Ribat and
the Dashîshah,” Mamluk Studies Review, II (1998), 66; Nasir-i Khusraw (ed. and tran. Charles
Schefer), Sefer Nameh (Paris, 1881), 57–58.
494 | A MY S I N G E R

[A]t the door of the kitchen a drum is struck each day after the af-
ternoon prayer, at the time of the distribution from the generous
table. The people of the town and pious sojourners eat from it; the
bread is made daily and distributed at three times: early morning,
after the midday prayer to the people of the town, and after the af-
ternoon prayer a general distribution to the people of the town and
the newcomers. And the quantity of bread baked each day is 14,000
ºat loaves, but sometimes it reaches 15,000. And as for the capacity
of its waqf, it can scarcely be determined; and no one is kept from
his generous table, neither of the rich nor of the poor.21

Evliya, the seventeenth-century Ottoman traveler, attested to the

continuing vitality of this public kitchen, recounting that “each
person had his bowl ªlled with the soup of Abraham, enough for
the subsistence of men with their families. I [Evliya] was also for-
tunately among the group of those poor. I received a plate of
wheat soup, a gift from God. I never witnessed such a tasty meal at
the table of either viziers or men of learning.” This thriving table
in Hebron may have been both a long-term inspiration for pious
rulers, as well as the speciªc inspiration for Hurrem’s imaret in
Jerusalem. Hebron and Jerusalem were called “al-Haramayn,”
the two sanctuaries, in echo of the two noble sanctuaries, al-
Haramayn al-Sharifayn, Mecca and Medina. In adding a public
kitchen to Jerusalem, Hurrem ensured that each of the four holy
cities had an institution to feed the hungry.22
The ªrst Ottoman imarets were reportedly built in Iznik and
Bursa by Orhan, the second Ottoman sultan, in the 1330s. During
the ªrst centuries, the number of imarets grew, and their capacities
expanded with the size of the complexes in which they were lo-
cated, reºecting the increased wealth and power of the sultans and
the Ottoman empire in general. By the 1530s, no fewer than
eighty-three imarets had emerged in the Ottoman realms. How-
ever, this ªgure does not include the numerous building projects
undertaken by Süleyman I and later sultans—not to mention their
mothers, consorts, daughters, and viziers—in Istanbul, Egypt, and
the Hijaz. An early seventeenth-century treatise says that the re-
nowned architect Sinan (d. 1588) built seventeen imarets. Hence,
21 Mujîr al-Dîn al-Hanbalî, Al-Uns al-Jalîl Bi-Ta’rîkh al-Quds Wa’l-Khalîl (Amman, 1973),
I, 58–59; II, 443.
22 Evliya, Seyahatnamesi (Istanbul, 1935), IX, 510.
T H E OT T O MA N P U B L I C K I T C H E N | 495
even before 1600, 100 imarets seem to have existed, and many
more were founded later, including those in the Sultan Ahmet,
Nuruosmaniyye, and Mihriqah Sultan complexes in Istanbul
alone.23
Individual imarets were impressive and signiªcant by them-
selves, but the cumulative impact of multiple imarets in a town
was enormous. Istanbul had numerous imarets, in addition to
those of Fatih and Süleymaniye. In sixteenth-century Edirne, for
example, three imperial imarets in complexes and eight other en-
dowed public kitchens fed an estimated 2,600 people daily out of a
population of about 22,000. If the residents of Edirne constituted
the chief clientele of the imarets, more than 10 percent of them ate
regularly in public kitchens. However, Edirne remained a popular
temporary residence for sultans, as well as a busy transit point on
the road to and from the Balkans. As in Istanbul, the large number
of imarets may have existed to bear some of the burden of hosting
the many travelers who came through the city.24
Evliya remarked that in all his journeys, he saw “nothing like
our enviable institution.” In the 212th chapter of his Book of
Travels, he praised the imarets of Istanbul and the Ottoman em-
pire. He cited the Qur’anic verse: “No creature is there crawling
on the earth, but its provision rests on God” (11:6, Hud). Evliya
also provides conªrmation for the assessment that the imarets were
unique to the Ottomans. Despite his penchant for exaggeration
and borrowing, he traveled to many of the places that he men-
tioned (“the territories of eighteen rulers”). His assertion that he
found no institution comparable to the imaret in his travels is tell-

23 Ömer Lutª Barkan, “Osmanlì, Jmparatorlugunhda Jmâret Sitelerinin Kuruluq ve Jqleyiq

Tarzìna âit Araqtìrmalar,” Jstanbul Üniversitesi Jktisat Fakültesi Mecmuasî, XXIII (1962/63), 242–
243; Ca‘fer Efendi, Risale-i Mi‘mariyye, in Howard Crane (ed.), An Early-Seventeenth-Century
Ottoman Treatise on Architecture (Leiden, 1987), 107/86v. The same treatise lists kitchens
(mat. bah) separately, conªrming that an imaret denoted something more than just a cooking
facility, perhaps a building of a certain minimal size or capacity, or one with the regular distri-
bution of meals on the premises. See Huart, “Imaret,” II, 475; Crane, “The Ottoman Sultan’s
Mosques: Icons of Imperial Legitimacy,” in Irene A. Bierman, Rifa(at Abou-el-Haj, and Don-
ald Preziosi (eds.), The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order (New Ro-
chelle, 1991), 174; Tanman, “Jmaretler,” IV, 166.
24 The calculations in Haim Gerber, “The Waqf Institution in Early Ottoman Edirne,”
Asian and African Studies, XVII (1983), 43–44, imply that only men ate in these imarets. How-
ever, the examples of the Hasseki Sultan, the Süleymaniye, and the Jerusalem imarets do not
conªrm this assumption.
496 | A MY S I N G E R

ing. As a man of some standing, Evliya’s experience of the imarets

was probably that of a traveler to whom particular attention was
paid, and not that of a candidate student or an indigent.25
Evliya’s inclusion of the Topkapî Palace in his list of imarets
raises another important point. Daily food distributions at Topkapî
were extensive, feeding the huge palace staff and those who
worked in the palace workshops, as well as ofªcials and those pres-
ent on business. Anyone who came to the palace had the right to a
meal there before leaving it. The daily meals at Topkapî Palace
were an outgrowth of Turcoman practices from Osman’s time and
earlier, a ritual reconªrmation of leadership and loyalty. In the
early Ottoman period, the sultan also appeared regularly during
communal meals, participation in which was an afªrmation of loy-
alty to him. This practice continued until the introduction of the
formal seclusion of the sultan at the end of Mehmed the Con-
queror’s reign in the late ªfteenth century. Even after the sultan
had disappeared from public view, however, food was distributed
daily to all who came to the palace. The symbolic effect of these
distributions grew as a result of the sultan’s own absence, signaled
to all by the huge palace kitchen chimneys on the skyline.26
Other evidence reveals that the palaces of princesses and the
homes of wealthy and powerful people distributed food daily to
the needy of their neighborhoods, in addition to feeding large
households of family, servants, and retainers. Whether these
households had formal rules about who was to receive food is un-
clear, but their kitchens are not easily classed as either “public” or
“private.” Food distributions also took place in suª lodges and in
homes at various levels on the economic scale, including those
whose owners had a right to eat at the imarets, thus making them
both beneªciaries and benefactors. Other distributions occurred
during major festivals, private family celebrations, or emergencies.
Ottoman consumption patterns need to be examined, to under-
stand more fully how paradigms of distribution deªned and mir-
rored entitlements and obligations throughout Ottoman society.27
25 Evliya (ed. Orhan Saik Gokyay), Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi. I. Kitap: Istanbul (Istanbul,
1996; orig. pub. seventeenth century), 132(a).
26 Konstantin Mihailovic (trans. Benjamin Stolz, commentary by Srat Soucek), Memoirs of a
Janissary (Ann Arbor, 1975), 31; Necipoglu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power: The Topkapi
Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), 55.
27 See examples in Robert Dankoff (trans.), Evliya Çelebi in Bitlis (Leiden, 1990), 147;
Ca‘fer Efendi, Risale-i Mi‘mariyye, 42; Cahit Uçuk, Bir Jmparatorluk Çökerken (Istanbul, 1995),
T H E OT T O MA N P U B L I C K I T C H E N | 497
The routine of urban life and administration under the Otto-
mans offered numerous occasions for and types of food distribu-
tions. Some fulªlled religious or political obligations; others were
part of the larger supply mechanisms, such as providing bread and
meat at ªxed cheap prices alongside more choice fare in the mar-
kets. Yet even the cheapest prices exceeded some people’s means.
Food distributions were common in all cities, reºecting an institu-
tionalized recognition of the social demands imposed by structural
poverty. The destitute and indigent hungry were recognized as
people whose condition had to be alleviated, if only because of the
Muslim obligations to charity and the political wisdom of reduc-
ing the number of chronically hungry persons living in any urban
area.28

the meaning of meals Not all of the people who beneªted

from food distributions were indigent or economically needy,
though all of them were deemed deserving of support. Scholars
and students qualiªed because of their devotion to the study of
Islamic subjects; merchants and travelers because of their predica-
ment as strangers; descendants of Muhammad and imperial digni-
taries because of their status; suªs because of their piety; staffs
because of their service; and the indigent because of their material
poverty. Each public kitchen had a speciªcally deªned clientele; it
did not necessarily feed everyone who arrived. The quantity of
food as well as the hierarchies at individual imarets determined
what and how much particular groups would eat. In some places,
distinguished guests received more food and choicer dishes, such
as they might eat at their own table at home. In other places, dis-
tinctions of rank were marked only by the quantity of the same
food distributed to everyone. These policies were hardly corrup-
tions of the soup kitchens’ intended function but part of the
implicit purpose to host people in a manner commensurate to
their rank, within the limits prescribed by the means of the local
endowment.
The hierarchies were also evident in the time and place in

51; and the discussion in Tülay Artan, “Aspects of the Ottoman Elite’s Food Consumption:
Looking for ‘Staples,’ ‘Luxuries,’ and ‘Delicacies,’ in a Changing Century,” in Donald
Quataert (ed.), Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550–1922. An Intro-
duction (Albany, 2000), 143.
2
28 Mübahat Kütükoglu, “Narkh,” EI , VIII, 964–965.
498 | A MY S I N G E R

which people ate. Wherever and whenever possible, dignitaries

rated more comfortable and private eating spaces, provided with
trays as they would be at home or at a feast. The less privileged ate
in the refectory (me’kel) with their peers. Given the large number
of people fed at some of the imarets, more than one seating was
necessary. Those who received the least were fed last. Even the in-
digent poor were subject to a hierarchy that decided the order in
which they ate, as noted in Jerusalem.
When the food ran out at the Süleymaniye, the indigents
went unfed; when it ran out at the Jerusalem imaret, the poor
women remained hungry. Although not speciªcally mentioned,
small children probably accompanied women, and older male
children accompanying men earlier in the serving. Hence, in Jeru-
salem, the chances of women and small children being able to ob-
tain food were the worst. However, those permitted to eat at the
imaret at all were in a better position than those who were refused
admission outright.
In their function of providing food to people who were indi-
gent or otherwise incapacitated, the imarets served as welfare
agents, sustaining the weakest among the urban population. Yet
material poverty was only one criterion for gaining a seat at the ta-
ble or a place in line at the cauldron of an Ottoman public
kitchen. Those who worked in an imaret, or in the various institu-
tions of the complex to which it belonged, received meals as part
of their remuneration. Scholars and students who ate at the imarets
were enjoying a kind of stipendiary or scholarship privilege as
members of a college within a complex (like the colleges at
Oxford and Cambridge), though the diet was, at best, modest.
Higher-ranking and more well-endowed colleges offered their
students and teachers better salaries, stipends, and meals in recog-
nition of their standing in a society that valued learning and schol-
arship and needed trained scholars to serve as judges, legal experts,
teachers, and preachers. The production and reproduction of this
learned class was the responsibility of the ruling family, and in
accepting this imperial patronage, the learned class conferred legit-
imacy on Ottoman rule.
Travelers eating at the imarets beneªted from a long-standing
tradition of hospitality that had its roots in Turkish and Arab cul-
tures, nomadic and sedentary, of Central Asia and the Middle East.
Traveling strangers were typically entitled to three days’ hospital-
T H E OT T O MA N P U B L I C K I T C H E N | 499
ity, not only at the imarets but in the guesthouses of villages and
towns, as speciªed in the Qur’an. The dignitaries who sat down to
eat at an imaret could thank their status for the meal, or any com-
bination of attributes that made them eligible. Thus did the public
kitchens serve several purposes simultaneously.29
The number of imarets and the number of diners expected in
the largest ones suggests that the distribution of food was a com-
mon occurrence, lacking the stigma often attached to eating in a
public kitchen today. For many, taking a place in the queue at an
imaret or at one of its tables was an enviable privilege. Food distri-
butions had both a physical and a symbolic impact on their recipi-
ents. The ability of the Ottomans to feed so many people—as well
as to ensure sufªcient food supplies to urban centers, the army, the
pilgrimage caravans, and the palaces—was an integral component
of their power and legitimacy.
Soup and bread were the most basic forms of nourishment in
the imarets. The quantities of the ingredients in each were pre-
cisely determined, but not the amount of water in the soup. Since
the size of the cauldrons used is uncertain (although they were
certainly huge), the total amount of soup prepared in any kitchen
cannot be easily calculated. But the very ºuidity of soup made
it an appropriate dish for a public kitchen. When pressed, the
cooks could easily increase the quantity of soup to feed more peo-
ple, though, in the process, they might diminish its nutritional
value. That the results were not always appetizing is evident, if
Mustafa‘Ali, a late-sixteenth-century historian, is to be trusted. He
described the bread in Istanbul as “a lump of dry clay,” the soup as
“dishwater,” the rice and puddings as “vomited matter,” and the
meat as “made of . . . emaciated sheep that were slaughtered after
having died.” Although the chief objective in serving soup was
not always to furnish a caloric minimum, its symbolic effect might
suffer from its presentation and ºavor.30

Conscious of God’s commands to do good and give generously,

Ottoman donors could choose from a wide spectrum of bene-

29 See Franz Rosenthal, “The Stranger in Medieval Islam,” Arabica, XLIV (1997), 35–75,
on the status of the traveler, not only as a stranger but also as someone deserving of charitable
support.
30 Andreas Tietze (ed. and trans.), Mus..t afa ‘Ali’s Counsels for Sultans (Vienna, 1979), II, 27,
144.
500 | A MY S I N G E R

ªciaries. Beneªcence in this context was not linked to economic

poverty or weakness alone; in fact, it may have had little to do
with it. Food distributions through Ottoman public kitchens also
conªrmed and preserved economic and social status and broad-
casted political power and individual piety. Indigents and hungry
people were clearly among the happy recipients, but they were
not always the main beneªciaries. They were only one group
among those labeled “poor,” the poor of all types were only one
group among those privileged to receive sustenance from food
distributions.
Charitable endeavors in the Ottoman world surely drew their
inspiration from Muslims’ obligation to do good, but Ottoman
imperial charity was only partly informed by religious notions of
merit and need. The study of imarets reveals the articulation of
Ottoman society as envisaged and preserved through imperial
food distributions. For some fortunate people, a bowl of soup
ªlled an immediate need, symbolism being only one ingredient
along with the cumin, the onions, and the salt.