62 Islam and Modernity
(typically) military and sultanic rulers: Sultans, Mamluks and Aghas, with their
soldiery and administrative formations. Their main concern in government was
revenue and order. Peasants, craftsmen and traders produced wealth; the elites
were primarily concerned with appropriating the major part of this produc-
tion in taxes and rents. Pre-modern politics was primarily about regulating the
shares from these revenues between different factions of the elites. Occasionally,
under conditions of crisis and war when the burden of exploitation intensifi ed,
the oppressed populace would protest or even riot, which constituted another
element of politics.
An Ottoman provincial city, such as Aleppo in the eighteenth century, would
be formally governed by a Pasha/Wali appointed from Istanbul for a limited
period, usually one year. He would have had to purchase this appointment,
and would recoup his investment with profi t from the revenues of the province,
and so would the qadi and a host of other functionaries. The Pasha would
have his own military force, which would coexist with local military forces of
Janissaries, Sipahis (‘feudal’ contingents), Mamluks and sundry others, who
were not strictly under his command but who took their orders from their own
headquarters. There were also non-military groups who bore arms, such as
tribesmen and ashraf (descendants from the Prophet, organised in corporations),
as well as bandits. The appointed governor could rule effectively only through
the cooperation of local elites: landowners, merchants and ulama, who were
often interrelated in elite families, marriages and functions.^8 Many of these rich
notables were also tax-farmers, and many were involved in provisioning the city
from its rural hinterland. All the populace, including the notables, were liable to
tax, except for the offi cial and military (askari) classes, including offi cial ulama,
who were exempt. Taxes were often levied on corporate and not individual
bases: trade guilds, minority religious communities, villages and tribes were
such corporate taxpayers, with the communal chiefs apportioning the burden
between their members. The common people of peasants and tradesmen were
at the bottom of the pile and subject to oppressive exactions (McGowan 1994).
Now and again they would protest and riot. These risings, however, were spo-
radic and confi ned to particular issues, usually to do with taxes and bread prices
(manipulated by the elites for their profi t). What forms did these riots take, and
what was the part played by religious elements?
The mosque was the point of assembly and expression of grievances for most
demonstrations and protests, and the minarets the loci of public calls to action.
The crowds almost always took their grievances fi rst to prominent ulama and
attempted to enlist them as leaders and spokesmen for their demands to the
princes. Naturally, this led many observers to suppose that the ulama were the
leaders of the urban populace and their representatives before the authorities.
This view is strongly challenged by some writers on the subject, most notably for
Egypt by Gabriel Baer (1977).