Petik and Sanos
They played a crucial role in the silk trade in Aleppo during the late 16th and first half of the 17th centuries, operating an extensive commercial network that reached the Dutch Republic and the Indian subcontinent and were important patrons of the Armenian community.
Researchers disagree about the circumstances under which the brothers acquired their great fortune, and with it exclusive power in the city, but they agree that their activity was a remarkable positive period in the history of the Armenian community of Aleppo.
[e][13] Both brothers are also mentioned under the byname Karagözoğlu[19] (Ottomanist Alexander de Groot believed, and along with him Aleppo historians Hussein El-Mudarris and Olivier Salmon, that the family name was Karagöz[f][21][22]).
[27] According to the Middle Eastern historian Bruce Masters, they "were among the Julfa Armenians who settled in Aleppo during the first half of the seventeenth century".
From about 1590 to 1632, their mercantile firm was preferred by Venetian, Spanish, French, English and Dutch merchants when conducting their silk trade in Aleppo.
The sources of his income were so diverse that his ledgers contained up to twenty-four items at a time, among which were "customs [duties], the inspection of markets, the police superintendency, the khans, the public bath houses" and other income-generative offices purchased from the government.
[39] As the main contact agent for all merchants in Aleppo, Khwaja Petik began to play a pivotal role in the city's trade with Europe.
[22] Using his social position, Khwaja Petik maintained close contacts with the Sublime Porte and the Sultan's palace in Constantinople.
[42] Petik and Sanos, along with the Syrian Jew Musa ibn Ishaq,[k] are the most important emin-i gümrüks of Aleppo during the period of Armenian-Jewish dominance of this office (until the year 1660).
[2][14][47] As Hagop Barsoumian describes, after working in Syria, Petik was appointed chief customs officer of Erzurum by Murad IV.
Also, according to him, during this service of Petik, two brothers rescued from slavery more than a thousand Armenians taken prisoner as booty by what Barsoumian describes as a "Tartar army", who fought on the side of the Ottomans in the war against the Persians in 1638.
This large-scale restoration confirms the exclusive power of Petik and Sanos, since the construction and expansion of Christian churches contravened the Ottoman building regulations.
[51][52] Aleppo historian Kamil al-Ghazzi [ar] cited a local historical anecdote, according to which Murad IV, who passed through Aleppo, urgently personally granted permission to the Julfans to expand and renovate the churches: This prayer space was expanded in 1639[m] by Bedros al-Ajami, also known as Khoja Bedik, who received permission from the Sultan Murad Khan after inviting him to a meal, which was served in fancy and expensive Chinese plates, china rarely found outside his house.
"[16] To the church of the Forty Martyrs were presented Armenian Gospels dated 1615 written by Wardan Lekhatzi[n] from Lviv and illuminated by Israel of Amit for Khwaja Sanos.
[55] Some authors, such as El-Mudarris & Salmon and de Groot, directly connect the execution of Petik on complaints against him from four consuls — Venetian, English, French and Dutch.
The year of Petik's execution is given by various authors as being 1627 (Masters; Semerdjian),[28][59] 1632 (Sanjian; Kévonian; Sebouh Aslanian [de]),[58][2][11] 1634 (Acharian),[11] or sometime after 1639 (Barsoumian).
Simeon of Poland, who visited Aleppo in 1617, wrote: This Petik was a known and famous man, for he traveled like a pasha, accompanied by thirty or forty special guards, as well as Janissaries and sipahis.
This lies in the fact that no matter how many sons a person has, he still spends all his [wealth] on the construction of churches and decorations of [their] walls, silver crosses, cups and other necessary things.
And in this new Isfahan Julfa, where they were forced to move after the king destroyed the ancient Armenian Julfa, which was located on the border with Turkey on the Araks River, out of ten churches, one was completely built and maintained by Chogia Abedik with his own money, and in another [church] he contributed most of the funds, although [its construction] is attributed to the names of other [people].
In the wars that took place in Armenia and Georgia, when [the lives] of many thousands of Christians were turned upside down, and they became slaves, out of the love of God, at his own expense, he redeemed [from slavery] and freed more than four thousand people, diligently looking for them even in distant lands, [he returned] sons to fathers, wives to husbands, and relatives to relatives so that they would not be lost.
According to Karnetsi, Khwaja Sanos "managed to secure the Sultan an income of 100,000 kurush, in addition to the amounts he gave to the pashas and the needy", and, in addition, he did as "many good deeds" as "only God knows; for example, he arranged the liberation of 1,000 slaves.”[47] The English priest of the Levant Company, William Biddulph, who visited Aleppo in 1600, and the Portuguese-Jewish traveler Pedro Teixeira, who visited the city five years later, noted the extreme poverty of the local Christians in comparison with the wealth of the Jewish community; but both were surprised by the wealth and influence of the Julfa Armenians in the city.
In terms of sheer numbers, the [Armenian] community but a fraction of the Christian population in the city, yet in the early seventeenth century it exercised an extraordinary amount of power.
