The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It - Course Information

158 ~ THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE WORLD AROUND IT ~
feeling of ‘political decline’ on the part of the people most seriously affected. 128
Obviously the ‘secular drift’ of money was eastwards, as it had been as far back
as the Roman period. Thus even in the inflationary years around 1600/1008–9,
much of the American bullion with which European merchants paid for their purchases
did not stay within the Empire’s borders for very long. As we have seen,
Indian merchants had built up a major trade diaspora in Iran with extensions into
Ottoman territory. They marketed indigo, Indian textiles, spices and drugs, and
perhaps some Iranian silks as well. However, there were not many goods on the
Ottoman market to interest purchasers back home. Thus Indian traders found
themselves exporting silver in large quantities, and this influx of precious metal
into the subcontinent accounted for the heaviness and high silver content of
Mughul coins. This state of affairs began to worry members of the Ottoman elite
in the early eighteenth century, when the official historian Naima suggested that
merchants be required to purchase goods in exchange for the wares they brought
into the Empire, singling out the Indians as major exporters of bullion. 129 But it
was only at the end of the eighteenth century, when the Ottoman Empire once
more found itself in the middle of war and crisis, that Selim III seriously
attempted to forbid the importation of foreign fabrics.
European traders were not affected in any major way by this concern to prevent
the outflow of silver. While in late Safavid Iran, when the silk trade had
ceased to be profitable, European merchants did engage in a massive exportation
of bullion, in the Ottoman lands this was not the case before the French financial
speculations of the later eighteenth century. 130 Quite to the contrary, the Ottoman
trade balance with European countries long continued to be positive, so that
French and English merchants needed rather to import silver. By contrast, even
during the sixteenth century, the Ottoman authorities had been extremely concerned
about the outflow not only of silver, but even of copper to Iran. For here
the question of bullion preservation was linked to the intention of denying metals
to a potential opponent. 131 However, the purchase of raw silk from Iran by Bursa
manufacturers, to say nothing of the importation of luxury goods, could most
easily be balanced by the export of iron, copper and silver coin, so that smuggling
must have been widespread.
When the Ottoman administration regulated trade, a concern to preserve the
existing social order and discourage competition with the courtly, military and
administrative elites thus combined with the desire to keep bullion in the country.
Foodstuffs and raw materials that might benefit a potential enemy were not be
exported, in any event, these goods might be needed by Ottoman soldiers, sailors
or craftsmen. 132 We have encountered such policies with respect to copper and
angora wool, but they were of even greater significance in the case of basic
necessities such as wheat, cotton or leather. Taken together, all these considerations
should have made the Ottoman elite extremely wary, if not outright hostile,
with respect to foreign trade, at least in so far as it was not conducted in the service
of the sultan himself.