148 • 9 FIREARMS, SLAVES, AND EMPIRES(sipahis), armed with lances or bows and arrows, and the foot soldiers (no¬
tably the janissaries), who were trained to use firearms. Although the
sipahis played the lead role in the early conquests, it was the well-armed,
disciplined janissary corps that enabled the sixteenth-century Ottomans to
defeat the Safavids, Mamluks, and Habsburgs. The janissaries, whose ori¬
gins are shrouded in legend, were by far the most numerous and impor¬
tant product of the devshirme system. Their training and discipline were
extremely strict. Confined to barracks except during campaigns, the janis¬
saries were forbidden to marry or to own land, so that their whole loyalty
could be focused on the sultan and his state. The sipahis, on the other
hand, received estates, called timars, which they were entitled to exploit
only as long as they reported for duty and outfitted a specified number of
horse soldiers whenever the sultan needed them. As armies made greater
use of siege cannons and field artillery during the sixteenth century, the
sipahis declined in power relative to the janissaries, whose cohesion was re¬
inforced by their belonging to a Sufi brotherhood called the Bektashis.
The janissaries and other foot soldiers had to get their food, clothing, and
shelter from the government, and by the sixteenth century they also received
salaries, plus accession money each time a new sultan took power. The
Ottoman Empire needed a well-run treasury to meet these demands. This
function was performed by the scribal branch, which took in the revenues
and paid salaries and other government obligations. Tax collection was not
usually done by salaried officials, as in our system; rather, it was farmed out
to Ottomans known as multezims. A multezim (tax farmer) was entitled to
collect all the taxes that he could from a given area of land (or block of
houses or shops in a bazaar) on the condition that a fixed amount or speci¬
fied percentage of his take be remitted to the treasury. The multezim pock¬
eted the rest. On the same principle, many officials were authorized to
collect fees, called bakhshish (a word that has come to mean "bribe" or
"handout" in the modern Middle East), for services rendered, not from the
state treasury, but rather from the public. As long as the Ottoman govern¬
ment was strong, this delegation of the right to collect taxes or fees ensured
that officials would carry out their duties efficiently.
Later on, as the state needed more money than it could collect from the
multezims, clerks had to buy their posts in the scribal branch and then re¬
coup their investment by levying exorbitant taxes and fees on the public.
Thus the system came to exploit and oppress Ottoman subjects.
The cultural branch of the ruling class was what you know as the ulama.
These Muslim scholars, primarily Sunni, administered justice, managed
waqfs (Islamic endowments) to support schools and hospitals, educated