A timar was a land grant by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, with an annual tax revenue of less than 20,000 akçes.
[1][2] In the Ottoman Empire, the timar system was one in which the projected revenue of a conquered territory was distributed in the form of temporary land grants among the Sipahis (cavalrymen) and other members of the military class including Janissaries and other servants of the sultan.
[4] Timars could be small, when they would be granted by governors, or large, which then required a certificate from the Sultan, but generally the fief had an annual tax revenue value of less than 20,000 akçes.
The financial aims of the system were to relieve pressure from the Ottoman state of paying the army as well as to gain a new source of revenue for the central treasury.
[6] The expansionist aims were to increase the number of cavalry soldiers and to gradually assimilate and bring conquered countries under direct Ottoman control.
[6][7] The Ottoman state also desired to centralize the sultan’s authority by removing the feudal system and aristocratic elements from dominating the empire.
[9] The Sipahis employed agents or surrogates called Kethüda, Vekil, or voyvoda to collect revenues and exercise the delegated powers.
The process went as follows: 1) appoint administrator (emin – accompanied by clerk (katip) and regional judge kadı) collected available documentation about land and building ownership and local taxes 2) information is written down and codified in a narrative called (Kanunname) that mediated and resolved contradictions especially between those two non-Islamic legal traditions – local and imperial – upon which the Ottomans based their dominion 3) officials consult with local grandees and proceeded from village to village to inspect and evaluate land and other holdings 4) draw up results of the survey in a register prefaced by the Kanunname that listed the names of all the towns, villages and populations, what they produced and expected revenues.
[17] By the time Mehmed II (r. 1451–1481) reigned over the Ottoman Empire the number of candidates eligible for Timar grants had fallen substantially.
This growing demand also forced the Ottoman sultans to engage in further wars of conquest in neighbouring countries thus creating Timars through new surveys.
[19] The exact duties of the arpalik holders were never precisely defined by the Ottoman government, which caused frequent tensions between the Porte and the provinces.
Sipahis were responsible for their own expenses, including provision during the campaigns, their equipment, providing auxiliary men (cebelu) and valets (gulam).
The long and costly wars which the Ottoman Sultans waged against the Habsburgs and Iranians had demanded the formation of a modern standing and professional army.
[24] By the early decades of the seventeenth century, much of the Timar revenue was brought into the central treasury as substitute money (bedel) for exemption from military service.
Once under direct control the vacant land would be turned into Tax Farms (muqata'ah) in order to ensure greater cash revenue for the central government.