Trépanier|23For the visitors coming and going, they made feasts, they cooked foods, and at
the time when they established a soup kitchen, Sultan Murad himself brought
religious scholars and fuqarâɆ from Edirne and came to this soup kitchen and
for a few days made feasts and distributed [coins]. On the first day they cooked
food, he gave food to the fuqarâɆwith his own blessed hand.If we approach such scenes from the angle of reciprocity, what these rulers
seek in return for their food gifts is obviously not other food gifts but rather a
recognition of their fitness to rule and of their legitimacy. The image of a ruler
personally involved in distributing food is common as a literary motif (a short,
standardized anecdote in which the conventions of storytelling supersede his-
torical accuracy). Since literary motifs frequently appear in the sources I used,
we need to keep in mind that scenes depicting food-giving rulers might not be
historically accurate in the sense that this particular ruler distributed food in
this particular way at this particular time and place. Still, their frequency and a
number of stylistic hints strongly suggest that, at least at a metaphorical level, a
good ruler’s persona was widely assumed to entail the ability and, to some extent,
the responsibility to distribute food. In that sense, the literary motif of the food-
distributing ruler remains quite meaningful.
When we look at another segment of the population, the urban commoners,
the most interesting observation derives from the collective character of their
food giving. None of them appears as an individual benefactor, but a number of
scenes depict them as groups offering food. These scenes depict various groups of
craftsmen and city folk, including of course the followers of those that Ibn Bat-
tutah calls the Akhîs:
The Akhî among them is a man who assembles the people of his trade and oth-
ers from among the unmarried and free youth. He is their leader. And this or-
ganization is [called] futuwwah as well. He builds a zâwiyah [lodge] and puts
in it the carpets and lamps and the necessary implements. His followers work
in daytime to earn their wages, and they bring them to him after the afternoon
prayer [to buy] what they need. With this, they buy fruits and foods and other
things that are consumed in the zâwiyah. If on that day a traveler arrives in the
city, they host him among themselves and have a feast for him, and he remains
among them until he departs. And if none arrives, they gather their food and
eat and sing and dance. They go back to their work in the morning and return
after the afternoon prayer to their leader with what they gathered.That ordinary urban folk appear as givers, rather than recipients, suggests that
they enjoyed a high enough level of material comfort to have the ability to give,
or more accurately, that they were perceived so. On the other hand, since they
needed to get together in order to give at a meaningful level, their ability to give
appears to have been limited in the first place. Beyond a shared place in the social