Jelali Revolts - Causes

Causes

• Oppressed peasants and declining timariot system. The Ottoman taxation system was based on agriculture and the major share was collected off from peasants toiling for the local feudal lords who were in turn taxed by the local government to pay the muqata'ah. When tax rates were raised for the local governors due to devaluation of the currency and enormous expenses of the state caused by newly conquered lands and military campaigns, the feudal agricultural lords illegally increased the amount of tax they demanded from the peasants. In the meanwhile, land evaluators started to demand bribes to refrain from assessing higher values for land value taxes. Consequently, many peasants started to quit being laborers for feudal lords, emigrating to larger provinces either to join governors' forces as sekbans or to become vagabonds (levends). These numerous peasants were required to pay even further taxes for disrupting the system, but still, the population increased in large cities and unemployment rate increased sharply.

During wartime the sekbans served the governors and drew regular pay. In peacetime, however, they were not paid, and they resorted to banditry. The first rebellions were, in nature, merely raids by sekbans commanded by their governors and joined by levends to extort more money from the public. They were later joined by sipahis, who had lost their land grants, levends, and Turkmen/Yörük and Kurdish nomads.

• Degenerate officials. With the decline of the devshirme governor system, and high taxes, the governors and local officials increased their unofficial tax rates and started to exploit the workforce of the peasants. In parallel to these developments, bribery increased.

• Oppressed Alevis and increasing non-Turkic influences in the royal court. When Selim I conquered Egypt, he was invested the caliphate and became the holy ruler of the Sunni world. He was resolved on putting down the Safavid ruler Shah Ismail I who he viewed as the leader of the "heretic" Shiites, and thus Selim cooperated with feudal lords in violently suppressing the Alevi population in Anatolia, at the same time started a war against Ismail. Many Alawites and those who felt close to Shah Ismail for his Turkic origins consequently joined the rebellious groups.