Figure 1: Mughal Pilgrims in the Indian Ocean from Safi ibn Vali’s Anis al-Hujjaj

Introduction

In the year 1670 in the Ottoman city of Jerusalem a woman named Amina daughter of Muhammad ibn Omar Nablusi was paid one gold coin as part of a yearly stipend payment for people in the holy city of Jerusalem. However, Amina’s stipend payment also noted that she was associated as part of a dervish lodge dedicated to Indian sufis from Multan, a prominent city in Mughal India. We do not know whether Amina was herself from Multan or if she was born in Ottoman Palestine and simply descended from a diaspora South Asian Muslim community in the region, as hinted at through the connection to Nablus in her name. Nevertheless, her name as connected to the Indian pilgrims from Multan in this Ottoman stipend register hints to the deep connection across the Islamic world between Ottoman Jerusalem and the Mughal Empire. 

Imperial Stipends in Jerusalem

The core of my academic research is on the Ottoman pilgrimage to Mecca and Ottoman sovereignty in the cities of Mecca and Medina. Through that research I have come to rely upon Ottoman stipend records, known as the sürre, for the holy cities. These documents provide an intimate view of Ottoman financial ties of charity and patronage in Islam’s holiest spaces, naming thousands of individuals who annually received payments from the Ottoman state via the hajj pilgrimage caravan. Through these records, which I am working through for my current book project entitled A Season for Empire: The Hajj in the Early Modern World, we are able to map the vast diverse networks of pilgrims who resided in these sacred spaces sponsored by the Ottoman state. 

Figure 2: Ottoman Painting of Al-Aqsa Mosque

However, there is one other city included in the sürre registers from the early modern period beside Mecca and Medina, the third holiest city in Islam, Jerusalem. In any given year in the early modern era, the sürre will include dozens of separate registers listing the names of stipend recipients in Mecca and Medina and usually one sole register for those pilgrims and foreign residents in Jerusalem. While relatively minor in comparison to the Ottoman stipend payments for pilgrims in the Hijaz, the Jerusalem register provides a unique window into the diverse and global networks sponsored by the Ottoman state in Jerusalem. One community stands out in these records, the early modern Indian diaspora community in Jerusalem. 

Mughals in the Ottoman World

While it is not surprising to find Mughal Muslims and South Asians in Ottoman lands, the detailed sponsorship of this community by the Ottoman state in Jerusalem provides a more substantial view. Throughout travel accounts and stray anecdotes here and there, one can glimpse references to the many places which South Asians found themselves within the broader Ottoman world. For instance, in the seventeenth century, the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi references the presence of Indian merchants at a regional market fair in Doyran near modern day Strumica in Macedonia. Noting that “during the cherry season, 100,000 people gather in this plain. They come from…Hind and Sind…in short from all the seven climes.” While the reference to merchants from India (Hind) may simply be a literary note to describe the diversity of people there, references to Indians of the Ottoman world can be found throughout his travel account. In Tanta in Egypt, Evliya mentions that “day after day a sea of men throng to this happy valley – from India, Yemen, Ethiopia, Persia, and Aden,” essentially referencing Tanta’s global connections through the Red Sea and broader Indian Ocean world. While describing his hometown of Istanbul, Evliya makes note of the Parsi community, noting them as “fire-worshipping Hindus” and then notes that nearby in the Kağıthane neighborhood there was an Indian Kalendar dervish lodge. In one of Evliya’s more fantastical tales, about a girl who gave birth to an elephant, the legend begins with an elephant transported through a small village in Anatolia on its way to Istanbul as part of “a delegation from the sultan of India.” 

Figure 3: Early 19^th Century Ottoman Map of Palestine

Documenting Mughal Men and Women in Jerusalem

Beyond occasional references to traveling merchants and sufis from Mughal India in the early modern era, Evliya Çelebi also makes specific mention of the Zawiya al-Hindiya (The Indian dervish lodge) in Jerusalem, noted as the “abode of Indians” in the old city of Jerusalem. However, unlike Evliya’s other references to Mughal subjects in Ottoman spaces, the sürre registers can help support Evliya’s reference to the presence of this community. This is important, given that Evliya’s claims are often considered unreliable as his travel narrative mixes both fact and fiction throughout. 

The sürre registers designated for Jerusalem in 1670, the same era when Evliya visited the city, point to a clearly defined Indian Muslim diaspora community in the city. From this register we get the names of the members of this community, occasionally a reference to the city they hail from, and their stipend payment amount from the Ottoman state. While many foreigners, usually scholars in residence, are listed in the general category for stipend payments in the register, entitled in the document as “Mücavirin (Foreign Residents) in Jerusalem,” the Indian community is given its own separate category in Jerusalem. The section in the register confirms yearly payments made to nine people who work at the Zawiya-i Hunud (The Dervish lodge of the Indians). Each of the nine were allotted one gold coin as a stipend and included two women named Shamsah and Afifah. The next section in the register includes a list of names to be paid a stipend who were associated the “Zawiya-i Hunud Multani” [The Dervish lodge of the Indians from Multan]. The fifteen names associated with the Multani dervish lodge also received one gold coin as a stipend from the Ottoman state and included seven stipend payments to South Asian women. This section is followed up by another collection of 15 individuals noted as the “Indians of the Zawiya of Herod’s Gate” – the known modern location of the Indian Hospice in Jerusalem. Similarly, South Asian women are highly represented in the records in which five of the stipend recipients are women, including three sisters named as Afifah, Amina, and Arifa. 

 Figure 4: Modern image of the Indian Hospice in Jerusalem

While women form an important part of the Indian community in Ottoman Jerusalem, directly receiving a significant portion of stipend funds for the Indian dervish lodges, the Ottoman sürre goes further by providing direct funds designated for “Indian women who are of Indian Muslims and those from Multan.” In this section, 12 individuals are listed each receiving 20 gold coins each from the Ottoman state. While five of the entries are listed as men, presumably as legal guardians, the remaining seven entries are designated funds for individual women – where all we know about them are their names - Fatima, Saliha, Ayesha, Fakhra, and others - Indian women in the Ottoman world who left few traces in other surviving archival and narrative material but can be found in the stipend registers. 

 Figure 5: Section from the Jerusalem sürre of 1670

Conclusion

The Ottoman stipend records for Jerusalem provide a tantalizing window into Ottoman Jerusalem’s diverse Muslim community and evidence for the mobility of Muslim women in the early modern era. Perhaps pointing to the significance to the Indian Muslim community in early modern Jerusalem, the Jerusalem sürre only specifically names one other community paid stipends outside of its general lists of names, payments for the Rumi community (Ottoman). Beyond representing the physical connection between Mughal subjects and Ottoman spaces as shown in these stipend lists, they also point to the Ottoman sponsorship and charity designated for these ‘foreign’ Muslims which can be understood as an Ottoman attempt to project its power and influence beyond its borders. A similar phenomenon, though on a larger scale, which I explore in my working book project examining foreign resident communities early modern Ottoman-controlled Mecca and Medina.